Meaning of Geopolitics - What it is, Definition and Concept

The term geopolitics refers to the analysis of the impacts that geography has on international politics.Geopolitics is part of the discipline that is responsible for studying foreign policy.The aim of these studies is to understand, describe or forecast the international political action based on geographical data.

We can consider geopolitics as a scientific current.This science aims to study the causal component of territories in political facts.It applies to both past events, the present and future.

In order to achieve its objective, geopolitics requires knowledge of other social sciences.The disciplines that complement the work of geopolitics are: history, political science, anthropology, sociology, international relations and political geography.

Geopolitics is a social science that analyzes the relationship between territory and politics

Geopolitics also deals with studies about the environment.To do this, it takes into account certain characteristics of a State.The most relevant are the cultural particularities, the resources it has and its economic characteristics.

The central focus of this discipline is in the relationship between politics and the geographical dimension.The geographical aspects that geopolitics take into account are the terrestrial territory and territorial waters.These aspects are historically attributed and designated in a way diplomatic.

The academic analysis conducted by geopolitics is based on the social sciences.As explained above, history, politics and geography are used.With the help of these sciences it is easier to analyze and explain the relationships that are they give at political and geographical level.

History of geopolitics

It is considered that geopolitics as a discipline arises from 1900 with a book by Rudolf Kjellen.This was a Swedish geographer who laid the foundations of geopolitics in his work on Swedish geography.Then, in 1916 he used the word geopolitics in his book on the State.

Throughout history, the concept of geopolitics has encompassed different uses, among them it has been used to refer to international relations, but it has also described political, historical and social phenomena.

Another geographer of German origin, Friedrich Ratzel, raised the principles of geopolitics referring to geographical strategies.Ratzel compared states with living organisms, and that in order to develop they have to be extended.For Ratzel, that states stay inside of its borders was synonymous with death.And for the borders they are characterized by changing and dynamic.

The contributions of these geographies on geopolitics were put into practice during the last century, especially those proposed by the German, mainly in strategies to solve military problems.Other geographers raised, for example, the importance of having a naval fleet superior to mark global dominance.

Other geopolitical theories raise the importance of controlling the largest spaces on the continents.This theory is known as the pivot area or Heartland .In Germany with Nazism great importance was given to contributions of geopolitics.They resumed Ratzel's contributions as the theory of living space to justify their territorial expansion.