Introduction to Geopolitics

Quadrennial
Defense Review Report
, 2001, p. 11). Indeed. The demise of the Soviet Union and the
identification of new challenges to US authority have initiated a rethink on where in the
world US forces are to be located. There are plans to remove 50,000 US troops from
Europe and 12,500 from South Korea (Garamone, 2004). The Pentagon has identified
“weak states” in Asia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere (which altogether is a huge
chunk of the world) as the source of future challenges requiring the continued estab-
lishment of bases in Central and Southern Europe and Central Asia, while maintaining
bases in Japan and Western Europe (
Quadrennial Defense Review Report
, 2001, p. 11).
Changes are afoot, including talks of Stryker Brigade Combat Teams, which are more
maneuverable than current brigades (Peltz 
et al
., 2003). These reorganizations suggest
that in a time of challenge to its power, the US military is preparing for a fluid and 
less precise geography of threat than in the Cold War. Also, one of the (many) new
buzzwords is “capability threat,” whereby the military does not prepare for a known
military threat (such as the Soviet Red Army) but an enemy whose identity and 
means of fighting cannot be predicted (
Quadrennial Defense Review Report
, 2001, 
p. 13). If these developments were to be interpreted through Modelski’s model, it would
appear that the US military was once organized to police an established “order,” but 
in the face of challenge the nature and location of threat has become less predictable.
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Table 2.2 US global troop deployments
United Europe
East 
Asia/ North 
Africa, 
Sub- 
Western 
Operation 
Other 
States
Pacific
South and
Saharan
Hemi-
Iraqi 
global 
Southwest
Africa
sphere Freedom
forces
Asia
(not US)
1,166,000 114,300 96,900
5,900
900
1,700
167,300
37,300
(normally)
Source: Kane (2004).

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Box 2.5 Stress on the military power of the world leader
—food for thought in the US military
The Pentagon’s reliance on volunteers from the Army Reserve for duty in
Iraq and Afghanistan risks creating a “broken force,” the reserve force’s
commander warned his superiors in a December [2004] memo, and he urged
a wider call-up of reservists to active duty.
In his memo, Lt. Gen. James Helmly stated that the Army Reserve is no
longer able to meet its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor can it
“reset and regenerate” units for future missions.
Reserve commanders spend too much time trying to accommodate troops
who don’t want to serve, leaving the force unable to meet its mission
requirements, Helmly concluded—the result of policies that were designed
for peacetime, “as opposed to a mobilized force in wartime.”
“While some have expressed surprise and indignation at being mobilized
for this war, most have not,” Helmly wrote in a December 20 [2004] memo-
randum to Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff. “They have
understood it to be inherent in their volunteer contract for service.”
In addition, offering a $1,000 monthly bonus to volunteers for active duty
risks creating a “mercenary” culture in its ranks, he wrote.
About a fifth of the Army’s 200,000 reservists are currently on active
duty. About 30,000 of those are in Iraq, where the service relies heavily on
reservists for support, military police, and civil affairs specialists.
(CNN, 2005)
A related development was the US military’s creation of Operation Blue to Green
in the summer of 2004. The new program sought
to recruit airmen and sailors leaving their service due to force reductions
into the Army, which is temporarily reducing its ranks. Plans call for the
Air Force to reduce its numbers by 16,000 and the Navy by 7,900 by the
end of 2005, officials from the two services confirmed.
(American Forces Press Service webpage, 2004)
The first story indicates stress on a vital component of the US’s military, the Army
Reserve as it is required to support operations in Iraq and other commitments,
such as the Balkans. An increase in the need for “troops on the ground” is expected
in the latter stages of Modelski’s model and is the key feature of “imperial over-
stretch.”
The second story is indicative of a movement of military resources from those
services that project a global presence to those required to fight actual conflicts
“on the ground.” Again, it is precisely this process that Modelski identified at the
end of previous cycles of world leadership, as increased challenge to the world
leader required combat (see Figure 2.3).

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Let us remind ourselves that Modelski’s model is not a crystal ball. We cannot utilize
its simplification of history to predict the future. We can use it to provide perspective
upon current events. Is the idea that the US may suffer from imperial overstretch passé?
If the United States was to follow the same cyclical pattern as previous world leaders,
we would expect it to be an increasing problem.
Legacy, change, and world leadership: feedback systems in 
Modelski’s model
The final feature of the model we will discuss is its feedback system. Modelski identi-
fies two related feedback systems. The first, the developmental loop, notes that though
the world leaders come and go the legacy of their innovation remains. In other 
words, the ideas and institutions established by the world leader do not disappear entirely
from the geopolitical scene as a particular country loses its status as world leader. For
example, if the US was replaced as world leader it is likely that the idea of national
self-determination that was an ingredient of its “innovation” will still retain some role
in global geopolitics. Also, the institutions of the UN and the World Bank, as entities
managing global economics and politics are likely to remain, if perhaps in a different
form. As support for this claim, the “ideas” of free trade and freedom of movement in
international waters established by world leaders hundreds of years ago remain essential
political norms.
The second feedback system outlined by Modelski is the regulatory loop that exam-
ines the process of an emerging challenger and the establishment of a new world leader.
The logic of Modelski’s model does not allow us to make predictions. It is difficult 
to consider this model without asking who will be the next challenger, and who will 
be the next world leader. Specific answers are not provided. However, recourse to
Modelski’s model does raise some interesting historical patterns that help us interpret
the current situation.
In Modelski’s history, the next world leader has not been the challenger, but has been
one of the countries in the coalition brought together by the world leader to fight the
challenger. The case of the United States and Great Britain is a clear illustration of this
process. Great Britain’s role as world leader was challenged by Germany resulting 
in the two world wars. To challenge the might of the world leader Germany realized it
needed to form a coalition; it could not do it alone. However, given the process of
decline identified by Modelski, Great Britain could not fight off challenges to its power
alone either. It too needed to establish a coalition of forces. Crucially, it required the
industrial might of the United States to support its war effort. Germany and Great Britain,
challenger and leader, exhausted their material capacity for power in the long phase of
global war. Remote from the domestic destruction suffered by Great Britain, continental
Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan, the United States gained ideological influence in
relation to the relative and absolute increase in its material power. Both previous leader
and challengers were spent forces, but the US, the increasingly prominent member of
the world leader’s coalition, was able to assume the preeminent geopolitical position. 
If there is a lesson to be applied from Modelski’s model, it is that educated guesses
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about the next world leader should select from the coalition, the leader’s allies, and not
its challengers.
The current geopolitical situation complicates the ability to learn from Modelski’s
model, as will become clearer when we discuss the geopolitics of terrorism in 
Chapter 7. Modelski’s historic examples are from the period when geopolitical actors
were identified as competing countries. Other geopolitical actors were ignored. What 
of now? If we focus solely on countries, then China, the European Union, Japan, and
to a lesser extent Russia are wheeled out every now and then as “threats” to the US.
But, these countries are not the cause of the US’s current military mobilization. Has the
geography of challenge changed? Is the network of al-Qaeda the challenger to the US’s
world leadership? If so, what does that mean for coalition building and the process 
of succession?
Pros and cons of Modelski’s model
Modelski’s model is helpful for putting particular events into a historical perspective.
Current affairs are not singular unrelated events. Rather, they are moments in broader
processes and trends. Greater understanding of the event, its significance and implica-
tions, is achieved if you evaluate it within an understanding of world politics such as is
offered by Modelski. Moreover, events can also be thought of as “observations” or
“data.” They are the “test” of the model. In other words, do the events we see in the
news counter or support the trends we expect from Modelski’s cycle of world leader-
ship? Of course, the model must be thought of broadly and as an abstract teaching tool.
Nonetheless, too many deviations from the expected pattern of events should lead us to
challenge the model.
The model itself is far from perfect either. But that should not force us to dismiss its
value out of hand. Social scientists are well aware that the theoretical tools we work
with are imperfect. One of the most important concerns toward Modelski’s model, and
similar ones such as Wallerstein’s world-systems theory, is philosophical. First is the
logical problem of historical determinism. Just because Modelski has identified cyclical
patterns of world leadership in the past, does not allow us to predict that the demise of
the US’s world leadership role is inevitable or determined. Portugal’s sixteenth-century
history does not determine the US’s twenty-first-century future. The reason for this lies
in another philosophical concern, structural determinism. The US as world leader is a
geopolitical agent; it has some degree of freedom to choose its own actions. A drift
toward global war is not determined; it