Geopolitics – A Threat to International Relations

Abstract

We live in a world where geopolitics has become a universal term used in everyday life. Looking at world maps, politicians, experts, journalists, scientists and even ordinary Georgian peasants use it
to explain the latest processes taking place in the country and in international relations, no matter how complex and multi-layered they may initially seem. Geopolitics has entered the mass consciousness of public opinion, resembling people’s views on the world order and national interests. Every new political crisis, be it domestic or international, revolution, regime change, international or regional conflict, intervention, hybrid war, or just war, business interests of transnational and multinational corporations, the establishment of oil and gas routes or fluctuations in world markets are explained through the prism of geopolitics. Citizens of the United States of America believe that America’s interests are best preserved if the country achieves its strategic goals in the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region, the South Caucasus, Africa or Asia. The United States must be an advanced country that controls the rest of the world so that its own population lives better than anyone else, and so that people from all over the world come to the United States to earn money. And all this is because the leaders of the United States are the best geopoliticians in the world. Russia lags behind the West in all spheres of life, but does everything to survive as a Power. It managed to bomb Georgian cities and villages, destroy the Georgian population in order to occupy historical Georgian regions, Russian citizens approved of Russia’s policy towards Georgia with their silence, since it all came not from hatred of Georgia, but from Geopolitics. Georgia
simply ended up where the West or the East needed to be, and proud Georgians console themselves by mocking them, like where were they when we wrote poetry!!! And, they blame it all on geopolitics! The actual occupation of Iraq, the overthrow and murder of Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, the devastation of Asian and African countries is nothing other than His Majesty GEOPOLITICS. Military operations in Syria and the country’s efforts to join the war on terror, while the media continue to publish maps of battlefields, engaging their readers in discussions about the balance of power in the region, and this was the cause of geopolitics. Dear readers, do you think Russia attacked Ukraine without love? You won’t believe it, geopolitics again! In order for mighty Russia to survive, it is necessary to include the Ukrainian geopolitical space in it. Therefore, everything with love, even mutual love!!! The influence of geostrategic scenarios developed by think tanks and politicians cannot be underestimated. In many ways, it is the geopolitical mentality that is behind today’s most dangerous crises and tensions in Ukraine, the Middle East, or the South China Sea. Geopolitics serves as a very attractive model, offering a clear and logical structure for international relations, which can be seen as a playing field where the actors are easily identified and the scenarios are understandable. Some argue that geopolitics is a legacy of empire, and of the colonial and Cold War past, when huge parts of the world were clearly divided between great rival powers. But the modern world is more complex because it is more diverse than ever before, contains a huge number of actors, and is governed by the logic of the market. Geopolitics has therefore evolved in sync with global trends, so naturally terms such as geoeconomics, geoculture, boundaries, religions, i.e. civilizations, have been coined, as if there were differences between people. At the same time, although geopolitics may seem appealingly simple in its ability to explain the complexity of international relations, very little serious effort has
been made to understand more deeply what lies behind this grand narrative. So do countries need geopolitics at all? In the Soviet Union it was banned, considering it a THE CAUCASUS AND THE WORLD - International Scientific Journal КАВКАЗ И МИР - Международный научный журнал bourgeois pseudoscience, but there was a five-year plan for economic development. In all likelihood,
due to the fact that the USSR only planned for 5-7 years and did not look beyond that, it collapsed. The same was true in Germany since May 1945. Geopolitics is a taboo term, since many understand it as a science of legitimization or even pseudoscience and ideology in the service of the aggressive and exterminating National Socialist policy. Both proponents and critics interpreted geopolitics primarily as a doctrine of the policy of great powers, according to which foreign and world policy is aimed at creating spheres of influence or even establishing world domination. In this regard, war, along with diplomacy, economics and education of the masses, was inevitably part of the worldview and ideology that met a certain political goal. The National Socialist policy pursued the goal of establishing a political “new order in Europe”, which implied the creation of a Greater German, German Reich, in which the “living space” of the “Aryan race” was to extend, first of all, to the territory of Central and Eastern Europe up to the Urals. To achieve this goal, the Slavic peoples were to be significantly reduced in number, and the Jews were to be completely exterminated. Therefore, many Germans find it strange that it was in Russia after 1991 that the word “geopolitics” entered the everyday lexicon of many experts. In principle, this is not surprising, since what was banned in Germany was started by the new Russia, but of course not with the grandiose goal that Germany had, well, at worst they will at least return the space that was under the USSR, for this the Russian “national-fascist” elite of the Kremlin occupied 20% of the territory of Georgia, but foolishly recognized them as independent states. They have fooled the world with bad propaganda that Ossetians in Georgia should be independent, but for some reason not at home. Also geopolitics, but stupid, if not for these atrocities of Moscow, then Russia would not have a better neighbor than Georgia.