Vladislav Zubok
During the past year, numerous pundits and politicians have proclaimed the eclipse of a ‘rules-based global order’ and a ‘return to geopolitics’. Greenland, which Trump wants to acquire from Denmark, is now seen ‘in a geopolitical light’. On television channels, experts explain the importance of the Arctic region with the help of an electronic map of the entire polar area, almost as if we were living through a remake of the Cold War classic Dr Strangelove. Commentators also refer to the geopolitics of Russia’s war in Ukraine, previously considered only as a battle between ‘freedom’ and ‘autocracy’. To paraphrase The Communist Manifesto, ‘a spectre is haunting the world – the spectre of geopolitics’.
What is geopolitics? For many in the commentariat, the concept is just a soundbite, a shorthand for inter-state conflicts about borders and territories. They do not explain why some places on the map loom large in international affairs, while others do not. Many new converts to the geopolitical lingo know little about its troubled intellectual and historical baggage.
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