GEO2047 Explaining international conflcit

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Jan 9, 2024

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GEO2047: Explain how political geography can help us understand one international conflict since 1945 Political geography is a relatively modern term when compared with the long-standing discipline of geography itself, as the original study was simply that of the earth’s physical features. The meaning today is understood as the differences in power, identity and resources between places (Agnew and Muscarà, 2012) . It is important to use a politically geographical perspective to better understand international conflicts, for example, the cold war because it recognises the importance of space and place in shaping events. The cold war was a long-standing dispute and incredible display of power between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted from the end of WWII in 1945 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Political geography helps us to gain insight into the conflict and consequential tensions between countries. An understanding of any international conflict, but particularly the Cold War requires not only a recall of the historical events that occurred but also an exploration into the influential factors that lie behind them. This essay will explore 2 political geography concepts; international borders and geopolitics, to answer the question of how useful political geography can be. The work of one of the most prominent British-American political geographers, John Agnew, will be drawn upon in this essay and a lot of the theories about political geography stem from his work, so he is crucial in understanding the relationship between political geography and international conflict. Geopolitics emphasises the role of geography in shaping power balances between nations, and what the impact of international power dynamics can be regionally and globally (Sharp, 1993). The cold war was characterised by proxy wars, which uses developing countries with smaller and unstable governments to engage in conflict indirectly and reduce the risk of a full-scale global war. As such, they offer a demonstration of the complex, multi-dimensional dynamics of geopolitics and the impact it has on global security (Black, 2013). Geopolitics can be split into two categories; classical and critical. Critical geopolitics states that the dominating nations, specifically America need an enemy, and they depict the opposing countries as dangerous and evil. David Campbell wrote that “The articulation of danger has been pivotal to America’s history” and that the boundaries of each state are “secured by a representation of danger” (1998). This is considered critical geopolitics over classical because it focuses on the analysis of cultural, social and political meanings associated with geographical spaces, rather than the material aspects such as terrain and borders. Both paths are equally useful in understanding international conflicts, and further, demonstrate why political geography as a subject is fundamental to international wars. During the Cold War, the geopolitical reasoning of America’s government dangerously simplified politics into global areas that were either ‘friendly’ or ‘hostile’ places (Dodds, 2003).. This supports Campbell’s theory about America’s need for an enemy, and could also be interpreted that geopolitics can be unreliable as it deals with human behaviours and power relations that are inherently complex and multifaceted. It has also been used in a more public-friendly manner to help society understand politics. Some believe that advocates of critical geopolitics can be down-grading the importance of traditional theory used in classical geopolitics (Kelly, 2006). The 2 nd important sub-discipline within geopolitics is the classical perspective that examines the influence of the “natural environments defined by geography and technology” (Owens, 2015). The emphasis is more heavily on the geography and topography of a landscape in creating boundaries and having a knock-on effect on a country’s stability and influence. The sub-discipline is a set of objective facts that are unable to be disputed, which doesn’t align with the new point of view within political
geography. It is now thought of as the selection and ranking of themes and issues (Agnew). This is still informative in political geography and in the understanding of international conflict as it can determine the likelihood of a country being controlled by one of the more powerful blocs, and certain countries with a greater abundance of resources and land is going to be more desirable in the fight for borderlands. This ties into Spykman’s theory that geography is the most functional factor within foreign policies, because “ministers come and go, dictators die, but mountain ranges stand unperturbed” (1992). Spykman was another very important political geographer, and his ideologies further support the need for political geography to explain international conflict. Mountain ranges serve as natural barriers that have an influence over the formation of political entities. Classical “treats geographical space as an existential pre-condition for all politics” (Bassin, 2004), but has become disengaged from the development of mainstream realist theories after the 2 nd world War and into the Cold War. The emergence of nuclear weapons undermines the relevance of physical landforms in deciding the international boundaries between nations, and the realist theories of critical geography focus more on the balance of power rather than pre-determined geographical factors. British geographer Halford Mackinder reintroduced the concept of geopolitics to international debates in 1904 with the ‘Heartland theory’, which theorised that the vast natural resources of Central Asia, or the ‘pivot area’ on a map, are key to global power and domination (Mackinder, 1962). It emphasises the importance of geographic positioning and the control of strategic areas. However, this theory presents a narrow and deterministic view of international politics, which views it solely as a function of geographical resources (Scott and Alcenat, 2008). It is useful in understanding international conflict, especially during the Cold War as we see the 2 global powers US and Soviet Union fight over the pivot area, but it also oversimplifies the complexities of global politics and could therefore be considered the outdated perspective on geopolitics, compared with critical. Agnew (2008) highlighted the 2 main perspectives that borders are viewed in; 1, that they are lines on a map that exist to aid important political, social and economic ideas, and 2; they are artefacts of human creations shaped by past experiences and are continually shaped today. This perspective is useful when looking at international conflicts because it establishes the barriers set not just physically in earth’s geographical topography, but the ones imposed by nations to demonstrate power and control. Over time, the interest in geography expanded from just the boundary itself to the interest in borderlands. International borders are also in place as a result of alliances and treaties between countries, which is displayed in the Cold War. After WWII, the extended presence that the Soviet Union was pushing into Eastern Europe and Germany put increased pressure on the US military presence in Europe to ‘contain’ further Soviet growth and power. During the war, the world’s divided into the capitalist West and the communist East. These are not only political barriers of opposing opinions and power struggles but were marked by heavily militarised fronts. This links to political geography because the discipline focuses on interactions and influences (Harvey, 2001), and the relationship between politics and the spatial distribution of power. The US and the Soviet Union both sought to expand their spheres of influence at the expense of millions of lives and resources from their respective bases. The strategies each bloc took were driven by geopolitical considerations and are therefore better understood by the insight into underlying causes and dynamics that political geography displays. Borders played a crucial role in shaping the many decades that unfolded during the Cold War, as they defined territorial boundaries from the 2 influential blocs involved that sought to gain ultimate control. These 2 blocs engaged in a series of proxy wars, fuelled by competition for international boundaries and alliances. This understanding of boundaries within political geography suggests to us that the Cold War was not simply a conflict between the 2, but also internal struggles for dominance against their alleging countries (Chomsky, 1992). Both the United States and the Soviet Union had the goal of being the most
influential power in the world, which control over international borders would grant. Some of the most recognisable proxy wars during the 45-year stand-off are the Korean War from 1950-1953, the Vietnam War between 1955-1975, Iraq-Iran War from 1980-88 and the Gulf War from 1990-91. These proxy wars were often characterised by the use of military and economic aid and were fought in regions far from the US and Soviet Union for the 2 power blocs to retail their spheres of influence and advance their political agendas (Lebow, 2018) https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/yn4v6q/countries_with_proxy_battles_during_cold_wa r/ This map demonstrates the extent to which the proxy wars dominated the entire globe during the Cold War. About 55 countries held a proxy war. I have included a map of the countries with proxy battles in order to better show the extent of the international conflict and how borders and boundaries play a large role in explaining the Cold War. It supports Mackinder’s theory that Central Asia is the key to global success because the majority of Central Asian countries have been involved in proxy wars during the 45- year war. Visual aids help present complex data in a clear manner, helping to support my argument and illustrate the global scale. One criticism of this visual aid is the source because it is not a typical respectable place where the map has been found. It was made by a member of the public going off historical knowledge, but I still believe its usefulness outweighs this. The visualisation of the territory is extremely helpful in understanding international conflicts. In conclusion, political geography, encompassing disciplines such as geopolitics and international borders, has played a significant role in enhancing our understanding of international conflicts, in particular the Cold War. The complexities of the events that entailed can be examined and the motives behind each super bloc are understood as to why the multitude of proxy wars took place. Halford Mackinder’s Heartland theory was created long before the Cold War began but was a crucial theory and the power struggle over Central Asia was clearly demonstrated. This theory relates to classical geopolitics, which provided valuable insight into the pre-determined geographical factors that affect
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