Introduction to Geopolitics

Activity
To keep this chapter at a reasonable length I have had to limit the analysis of US
foreign policy documents. The statements of Presidents Carter and Reagan may be
especially useful for you to investigate, or even President Theodore Roosevelt at
the beginning of the US’s rise to power.
The contemporary codes of Turkey and China would also be intriguing to explore,
given that the domestic politics of each one is fluid at a time when the country is
increasing the geographic scope of its influence.

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■
consider the actions of geopolitical agents other than countries as the
manifestations of their geopolitical codes;
■
consider how the content of geopolitical codes is influenced by the
global geopolitical structure;
■
consider how the global geopolitical structure is changed by the actions
outlined in geopolitical codes.
Further reading
Flint, C. and Falah, G.-W. (2004) “How the United States Justified its War on Terrorism:
Prime Morality and the Construction of a ‘Just War’,” 
Third World Quarterly
25,
pp. 1379–99.
A discussion of how the United States, as world leader, has different needs, and uses
different language, in justifying its geopolitical code compared to other countries.
Halliday, F. (1983) 
The Making of the Second Cold War
, London: Verso.
An excellent discussion of the actions of the United States and Soviet Union in the Third
World that provides background for the discussions of US geopolitical codes.
Klare, M.T. (1996) 
Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America’s Search for a New Foreign
Policy
, New York: Hill and Wang.
Provides background to current geopolitical pronouncements regarding “rogue states” and
the “axis of evil.”
Ranstorp, M. (1998) “Interpreting the Broader Context and Meaning of Bin Laden’s 
Fatwa
,”
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism
21, pp. 321–30.
As the title indicates, this article provides background and context for bin Laden’s initial
call for a conflict with the United States.
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G E O P O L I T I C A L   C O D E S
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In this chapter we will:
■
introduce the cultural aspect of geopolitical codes;
■
focus on the ways in which geopolitical codes are justified;
■
identify the linkage between popular culture and foreign policy;
■
introduce the concept of Orientalism;
■
discuss how popular culture helped the public interpret the content of
NSC-68;
■
discuss how Saddam Hussein used a combination of Arab nationalism
and Muslim belief to justify his 1990 invasion of Kuwait;
■
discuss how the administration of President George W. Bush
represented its War on Terrorism.
The previous chapter concentrated upon how geopolitical codes were formulated within
the structure of global geopolitics. An essential dimension of a geopolitical code is the
way that a country’s decisions and actions are justified. A convincing case for why a
country is a “threat” or not, and what should be done about it, must always be made
not only to a country’s own citizens, but also to the international community. This
chapter will explore how violent acts of geopolitics (the prosecution of wars) are
portrayed as the defense of a country’s material interests plus its values. Detailed discus-
sion of the rhetoric of Saddam Hussein’s representation of the Gulf War of 1991
illustrates how domestic support for a war was fostered. The final section of the chapter
describes President George W. Bush’s justifications for the 2003 invasion of Iraq—an
argument that was addressed equally to domestic and global audiences.
War! What is it good for . . .?
On the surface, the “Soccer War” between El Salvador and Honduras provides an illus-
tration of how petty national concerns and hatreds can explode into warfare. The value
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REPRESENTATIONS 
OF GEOPOLITICAL 
CODES
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of “national pride” was marshaled to provoke and justify a war. However, just focusing
on national differences, in this case, is a shallow and incomplete understanding, as we
shall see. In 1969, El Salvador and Honduras played two games of football (“soccer”)
in the qualifying stages for the 1970 World Cup finals (see Kapuscinski, 1992, 
pp. 157–84, for a full narrative of this conflict). The first game, in Honduras, resulted
in a one-nil victory for the home side. Back in El Salvador, eighteen-year-old Amelia
Bolanios committed suicide in light of the national shame. Her funeral was a national
event, the procession led by the president of El Salvador and his ministers. The return
match in El Salvador was played in an extremely hostile atmosphere; El Salvador 
won three-nil. The Honduran team retreated to the airport under armed guard, 
their fans were left to their own devices and two were killed as they fled to the El
Salvador–Honduras border. The border was closed in a matter of hours. The Honduran
bombing of El Salvador and military invasion followed shortly afterward. The war lasted
100 hours, 6,000 people were killed and 12,000 wounded; the destruction of villages,
homes and fields displaced approximately 50,000 people.
But are nationalist passions sparked by football matches enough to initiate the horrors
of war? Underlying the tension between El Salvador and Honduras, a tension that easily
aroused national hatred as footballs landed in goal nets, was a struggle for land and
human dignity that crossed an international border (Kapuscinski, 1992, pp. 157–84).
The land of tiny El Salvador, with a very high population density, was owned by just
14 families. In a desperate attempt to obtain land, about 300,000 El Salvadorans had
emigrated, illegally, across the border and established villages. The Honduran peasants
also wanted land reform, but, and backed by the US, the Honduran government 
avoided redistributing land owned by its own rich families and the dominant United
Fruit Company. To avoid an internal political struggle, the Honduran government pro-
posed to redistribute the land that the El Salvadorans had settled. The prospect of forced
repatriation from Honduras not only unsettled the migrants, but also rattled the govern-
ment of El Salvador who faced the prospect of a peasant revolt.
Landlessness, monopoly, human dignity, fear of popular rebellion: these mutual
“domestic” issues were intertwined across the porous Honduras–El Salvador border. The
government’s decision to go to war was made within a context of class inequality and
the inequities of land ownership. National humiliation on the football field was merely
the fuse that lit the political tinderbox. International war was deemed a more obvious
solution than altering the domestic status quo.
A more recent consideration of the role of material “needs” and ideological hype in
oiling the movement toward war was evident in