No. 36 – January 2015
Author: Phil Kelly
Translator: Letizia Trinco
Language: Italian
Keywords:
Classical geopolitics
Theories of geopolitical model
Applications of geopolitics
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Abstract
Despite its usage in the media and occasionally in academic writings, the term “geopolitics” is denigrated for its past associations with disreputable and discredited theories and ideologies. Geopolitics has taken confusing and faulty connotations that have seriously diminished its legitimacy. Only recently the term has experienced more prominence, although this has come largely in the media where the label connects to alleged international disruptions harmful to international tranquility. It has not been available in a positive sense for extending the insights in its potential, yet hidden, contribution. Accordingly, the goal of this report is to convince the reader that geopolitics should deserve a higher respectability and utility within the realm of international-relations theory. Until these negative images are not corrected from classical geopolitics, the study of spatial impacts upon policy, that is geopolitics, will not see a full contribution. The aim of this paper is therefore a defense of classical geopolitics because the traditional concept offers a practical and neutral tool for students and States to enlist as an insightful guide within the milieu of foreign affairs. The geographic placement of countries can impact upon their actions. Such a reliance upon a geographic location conditioning international events has long been in evidence for millenniums, perhaps being the earliest of military and foreign-affairs models. According to this general view, the report presents theories of geopolitical model that could be applied to international happenings. The paper ends with two wider applications of geopolitics (Ukraine and North America) as a concluding test for validating the utility of classical geopolitics.