Introduction to Geopolitics

Participation in geopolitics is also a matter of questioning and challenging the
“common sense” assumptions generated by the geopolitical structures in general (differ-
ence, conflict, etc.) as well as by the representations and actions of key geopolitical
agents, the US and British governments for example. Protest, dissent, questioning, are
also evident among the students I teach—disaffection with both the persistent structures
as well as specific government actions are also common viewpoints that produce their
own actions.
I am in no position to be judgmental about the geopolitical actions that others take.
The message that I want to end with is that agency is constrained and enabled by struc-
tures. You have choices within structures—knowing the structure makes for a more
informed strategy—whether that is within a family, neighborhood, business, social
movement, or state. The same awareness may be applied when interpreting current
events. The decisions made by the governments of Iran and North Korea, for example,
may be portrayed as irrational and unnecessarily aggressive by Western governments.
But it is your task to see them as agency within structural settings of global, regional,
and inter-state politics. As Robert McNamara advised in the excellent documentary 
The
Fog of War
, Lesson Number One is to empathize with your enemy. Knowing the struc-
tural context of other geopolitical agents is a means to knowing their fears, concerns,
and goals. Such knowledge of geopolitics is an avenue to empathy and understanding
that will, I hope, be a pathway to a more peaceful world.
*
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To finish, one may be more poetic in considering structures and agents:
The world is big. Some people are unable to comprehend that simple fact. They
want the world on their own terms, its peoples just like them and their friends,
its places like the manicured little patch on which they live. But this is a foolish
and blind wish. Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our 
planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our per-
mission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility
is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and
mind is not.
(Chinua Achebe, Bates College commencement 
address, May 27, 1996)
Further reading
The readings listed at the end of Chapter 1 as more detailed and sophisticated investigations
of geopolitics should be reviewed. They will provide different interpretations and topical
concentrations that will be accessible after reading this book.
Allen, B. (1996) 
Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia
,
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
A discussion of the role and meaning of rape in warfare, with a detailed case study.
Bose, S. (2003) 
Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace
, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Provides an understanding of a long running conflict that has broader regional implica-
tions.
Stump, R.W. (2005) “Religion and the Geographies of War” in Flint, C. (ed.) 
The Geography
of War and Peace
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 144–73.
Provides a framework for identifying and interpreting the role of religion in conflict.
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Abraham, D. (1986)