Introduction to Geopolitics

Reader’s Digest
In the previous chapter we discussed NSC-68 as a defining document of the US’s
geopolitical code. NSC-68 was not America’s bedtime reading in 1950. The global
geopolitical code of the United States had to be disseminated to the public in more
appealing media. With regard to the role of the United States in one key region, “the
Middle East was not immediately available as an American interest; instead, it had to
be made ‘interesting’ ” (McAlister, 2001, p. 2). Films, museum exhibits, and television
news were all brought to bear, and still are, upon American and global audiences, to
represent America’s world leadership in ways that would justify its geopolitical code.
The assumption of the status of world leader ushered in a slew of geopolitical respon-
sibilities. The global diplomatic and political presence of the US was heightened, in
terms of its size and the accompanying drama, with the development of the Soviet
Union’s challenge to its global role and the ensuing Cold War. In the Middle East, crises
over the establishment of Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, and the compe-
tition with the Soviet Union over the establishment of “friendly regimes” to help secure
access to oil required a growing US presence in the region. How was this to be portrayed
to the American people? The first step was to create a particular “knowledge” of the
Arab world: a “knowledge” that would act as the foundation for seeing the necessity
and value of US influence in the region.
A spate of biblical and Roman “epics,” such as 
The Ten Commandments
and
Quo
Vadis
, brought visions of the “Middle East” and classical “values” to the American, and
global, public: but it was a very particular vision. The Middle East was seen as “the
Holy Land,” and specifically the themes of slavery and gender relations were empha-
sized, and reinforced in the Roman stories. McAlister’s (2001) study of these movies
shows that Hollywood superstar actors and actresses, often in ridiculous costumes, inter-
acted in a Hollywood-style romance with an obvious sub-text (Figure 4.2). The woman
was a victim of slavery; what else could the beautiful object do given the despotic,
barbaric, and cruel society she was shown to be living in? But, do not fear. She was
“liberated”—clearly a word with geopolitical overtones—from this role by the actions
of the male hero, with the American accent. After “liberation” what did the heroine 
do? Form a radical feminist alternative society? Not surprisingly, no. She willingly
entered a subservient role as the wife of the male hero—in other words after despotism
the choice is made to be dominated. “Liberation” is too much, perhaps the movie
suggests it is a role a woman is unsuitable for; she needs to be controlled or aided in
some way.
Working through a gendered logic that figured “slavery” in sexual terms—as
a problem for (white) women in relation to despotic men—the films offered
right-ordered marriage and the “freely chosen subordination” of women as the
solution. They then cast that subordination as a model for the relationship
between the United States and the decolonizing nations of the Middle East,
constructing US power as a “ ‘benevolent supremacy’ that would replace older
models of direct colonial rule”.
(McAlister, 2001, p. 40)
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The “slavery” of the movies had two geopolitical referents: the threat of Soviet expan-
sion and the yoke of Communism, on the one hand, and the historic chains of European
colonialism on the other. The films carried a message that the order imposed by the United
States’ world leadership would break these chains while preventing the imposition of
another yoke. The geopolitical code of NSC-68 sought supremacy or leadership for the
US, but the goal was benevolent, global order through the operation of free institutions.
The message of these movies is part of the cultural “knowledge” that facilitated the
actions of the United States in the Middle East. Action was deemed necessary to “save”
innocent and helpless people from despotic and barbaric circumstances. However, “liber-
ation” alone was not enough. “Protection” had to be given too, in a relationship that is
on the one hand dominant, but at the same time acceptable and moral because it is
desired by the weaker party. NSC-68’s appeal to free people everywhere is then not
only a matter of “liberation” or “salvation” from despotism, but also a justification for
geopolitical influence in societies portrayed as too weak or “young” to be able to stand
on their own two feet.
Throughout the twentieth century, the