Lane Report

Between 1890 and 1990, geopolitical theorists largely focused on conflict between countries, but the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a reorganization of geopolitical theories. Shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved, political scientist Francis Fukuyama published The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama viewed the Soviet Union collapse as a sign of future progress in political systems. Like Karl Marx, he argued that history is a process where societies evolve from one political system to another more advanced type of system. Unlike Marx, he argued that the final step in this evolutionary process was liberal democracy. To Fukuyama, the fall of the Soviet Union marked the end of war between states and resulted in the supremacy of western liberal democracies. His analysis of international geopolitics was praised by the popular press but several outspoken critics argued that Fukuyama’s thesis failed to consider the power of ethnic loyalties and religious fundamentalism as a counter-force to the spread of liberal democracy. One of his leading critics was Samuel P. Huntington, Professor of Political Science at Harvard and deputy director of the Institute of War and Peace Studies. In response to Fukuyama’s book, Huntington published an article in Foreign Affairs magazine titled “Clash of Civilizations?” In his article, Huntington agreed with Fukuyama that war would no longer be fought between nation-states, but he argued that a new type of struggle would develop. The fall of the Soviet Union left a power vacuum in Asia, resulting in the rise of extremist groups based on ethnic and religious authority. Huntington argued that this would ultimately lead to a clash of civilizations between the west and east. Link to full article and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/videos-documentaries. YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/MSV-3QhDUEo

One of the most infamous geopolitical theories developed out of Germany at the end of the 19th Century. Between 1897 and 1901, Geographer Friedrich Ratzel published a series of essays on the nature of the state and its relationship to man. Of these essays, “Lebensraum”, “Politesha Geographie”, and “Volkerkunde” would form the broad political theory known today as the Organic State Theory. At the time of publication, Ratzel was working as a lecturer at Leipzig University, where he taught several prominent students that would later create the environmental determinist philosophy within the field of geography. He is considered today as the progenitor of Social Darwinism and national socialist philosophy developed two decades after his death. According to Ratzels theory, the state is a living organism that must eat, drink, and grow in order to survive. In his first analysis on the nature of man and space, titled Völkerkunde, Ratzel organized people into groups called Völkers, which primarily consisted of cultural units similar to nationalities. Her argued that most Völkers were mixed-race and largely based on common political and cultural values. He argued that individuals that make up a Völker worked together like cells in a complex organism. In order for the Völker to survive, it needs space to grow, otherwise with will die. Link to the full article and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/videos-documentaries. YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/yz_NS3ejho4

Sir Halford Mackinder was an English geographer, academic and politician, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of both geopolitics and geostrategy. He was also a Member of Parliament for Glasgow from 1910 to 1922. After Retiring from politics, he went back to academia as a Professor of Geography at the London School of Economics. In 1904, he published an article titled “The Geographical Pivot of History” in the The Geographical Journal, the official journal of the Royal Geographical Society of England. In this article, Mackinder developed a theory to explain the importance of strategic control over resources in Eurasia. Link to full article and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/post/geopolitics-and-the-world-today YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/9jkiV6anKaw

During the same time period that Halford Mackinder was developing his geopolitical theory specifically focusing on the strategic value of the Eurasian landmass, another individual was building his own theory on the strategic importance of water. In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan was a lecturer in naval history and the president of the U.S Naval War College when he published The Influence of Sea Power upon History, a dry but extensive exposé on the history and importance of naval power as a factor in the rise of the British Empire between 1660 and 1783. Mahan’s book was hardly a page-turner but it had one very important argument … with land becoming scarce, the sea was the next frontier. His thesis was largely dependent on the value of international and maritime trade as a major factor in determining the wealth of nations. He argued that it was only natural that major European powers competed for control over maritime trade routes. Link to full article and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/videos-documentaries. YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/EmLSrX1ohG0

Not all geopolitical theories were used by western countries to rationalize foreign dominance. One in particular, the World Systems Theory, attempted to explain the reasons behind this dominance. Developed by Immanuel Wallerstein in 1974 with the publication of his paper titled “The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis”, this thesis critically evaluated the contemporary world economic system with a particular focus on the impact of US and European foreign policy in Africa. At the time, Wallerstein was a Professor of Sociology at McGill University and focused specifically on critical theory as an explanation of global political and economic relationships. He spent his early career as an expert on post-colonial African affairs, where he became interested in the writings of Raul Prebisch, from the Structuralist School, and Andre Gunder Frank from the Dependency Theory branch of structuralism. Link to full article and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/videos-documentaries. YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/O14IoFwi0pQ

During years leading up to the Second world war, transportation technology had greatly improved and international trade had become a major topic in foreign policy circles. Academics and politicians had turned their attention away from overland travel and toward oceanic transportation as an important geopolitical factor within the global power structure. One of the leading academics in this paradigm shift was Nicholas Spykman, a Sterling Professor of International Relations at Yale University. While he is considered by some scholars as a political scientist, his focus was largely geographic in nature and he became a leading academic in the field of geopolitics. He was highly critical of Mackinder’s Heartland Theory and regarded the model as short-sighted. He argued that, while strategically important, the heartland served little purpose if resources could not be transported overseas. He published his book titled “America's Strategy in World Politics” in 1942, just one year before he died of cancer. In his book, Spykman criticized Mackinder for over-emphasizing the strategic importance of the Heartland. He assumed that the Heartland would not be a potential hub of Europe largely because the vast region of central Asia was surrounded by major mountain ranges, deserts, and the Arctic Ocean to the north. These obstacles made it difficult to transport resources out of central Asia without control over the rimland. Link to full article and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/videos-documentaries. YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/neWL3bIqyrY

Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics is a field of study that has been used by political power brokers to ensure their continued dominance on the world stage. In particular, geopolitical theories from Halford Mackinder, Nicholas Spykman, Immanuel Wallerstein, Alfred Mahan, Samuel Huntington, and Friedrich Ratzel have had a profound effect on foreign policy over the past century. Strategies perpetrated by the elite are based on a handful of geopolitical theories by an exclusive group of academics; theories that were integrated into the very fabric of western governments and still impact the world today. For the full transcript and references: https://jmlane8.wixsite.com/jessemlanephd/post/geopolitics-and-the-world-today Can also be found on Odysee: https://odysee.com/@Jesse_Lane:6/Geopolitics_Today:d YouTube: https://youtu.be/YCJ-KOmDiPg