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Geopolitics
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Geopolitics is a method of political analysis, popular in Central Europe during the first half of the 20th century, that emphasized the role played by geography in international relations. Geopolitical theorists stress that natural political boundaries and access to important waterways are vital to a nation's survival. The term was first used (1916) by Rudolf Kjellen, a Swedish political scientist, and was later borrowed by Karl Haushofer, a German geographer and follower of Friedrich Ratzel. Haushofer founded (1922) the Institute of Geopolitics in Munich, from which he proceeded to publicize geopolitical ideas, including Sir Walford J. Mackinder's theory of an Eurasian “heartland” central to world domination. Haushofer's writings found favor with the Nazi leadership, and his ideas were used to justify German expansion during the Nazi era. Many expansionist justifications, including the American “manifest destiny” as well as the German Lebensraum, are based on geopolitical considerations.
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Geopolitics provides helpful insights on Europe’s history and its current politics. Topography, climate, and resources all affect relationships among states, and “doing the map” can help clarify the motives of statesmen and governments. In broader terms, geographic factors ... shape social and cultural developments, which have political consequences of their own. Geopolitics rightly understood serves as a useful corrective to the view promoted by globalization advocates, who say that technology has surmounted the constraints imposed by geography, whether understood in physical or political terms. The challenge of applying geopolitics, however, lies in finding the correct perspective. Lord Salisbury once attributed his colleagues’ fears of Russian threats to the Turkish straits and their consequences for British control of the Suez Canal to looking at the wrong size maps.
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Geopolitics - method of political analysis, popular in Central Europe during the first half of the 20th cent., that emphasized the role played by geography in international relations. Geopolitical theorists stress that natural political boundaries and access to important waterways are vital to a nation's survival. The term was first used (1916) by Rudolf Kjeflen, a Swedish political scientist
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The Centre for the Study of Geopolitics, Department of Political Science, was sanctioned by the UGC in 1987. Its tenure of three years (1987-1991) was further extended by the UGC on the recommendation of a Review Committee from April, 1991-March, 1994 and April, 1994-March, 1998. At the recommendation of a high- powered committee, the Centre for the Study of Geopolitics was up graded to the level of Department of Special Assistance (DSA) in April 1998.
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Geopolitics, as developed by the German general Karl Haushofer, became important in Germany during the period of National Socialism; it provided a pseudo-scientific rationale to justify that nation's territorial expansion. One facet of German geopolitics was the theory called Lebensraum (“living space”). According to this theory, the “living space” is defined as all the territory that a country is alleged to need in order to achieve self-sufficiency.
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A Swedish Professor of geography at Gothenburg University in 1900 was the first to use the term geopolitics (in Swedish "geopolitik") (10). Expanding on Ratzels' earlier thoughts Professor Rudolf Kjellen is usually regarded as the founder of the science of geopolitics.
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Geopolitics