What is geopolitics? It is the study of how important political issues and geography interact and the relations it creates between nations. The book talks about how geopolitics is centered around a group of ideas. These ideas create the framework of a geographic area. Geopolitics can be associated with the invading of a country. Geopolitics is centered on a number or beliefs and ideas, some ideas being one’s homeland or the buffer around their homeland. The book says that each idea tries to convey how a particular idea how the world is or how it should be.
One idea of geopolitics is critical geopolitics. Critical geopolitics is the idea that reject the “taken-for granted” assumptions and how we create political labels. This perspective views geopolitics as a broad practice. It presents itself around the idea that the world has been characterized on type of people and places. After September 11th, 2001, tried to bring in a new idea of the world. It was an idea that freedom was being attacked. The authors say that geopolitics are about ideas and how these ideas are a reflection based on real life events or experiences. The authors then explain that there are three different forms of geopolitics.
The first form of geopolitics is formal geopolitics. Formal geopolitics is what we refer to what we have linked with classical foundations of politics worldwide. Some think that formal politics is connected with the idea that is another form of neoclassical geopolitics. Neoclassical politics is an idea that uses terms like “the nations interest” or “national security” as if it was an individual person. The next form of geopolitics is practical geopolitics. This refers to the ideas used by politicians in the government and foreign policy. We can see this when the president gives his state of the union address each year. Each year he talks about the relationships that we have with countries and whether those are positive or negative. The final form is popular geopolitics. This is an idea based on the views or geographical ideas of a population and how they are portrayed in culture whether that is cartoons or movies.
Then there is the idea of anti-geopolitics. Anti-geopolitics is the idea that there are political ideas that are from people who do not want to be politicians or that they do not want to share power. This occurs from a form of resistance and then the gendering of politics.