Geopolitics Is Entering a New World

We are living through a civilizational transformation that is changing the very conditions under which power is exercised. This transformation directly challenges geopolitics as a discipline.

A Discipline Confronted with the Transformation of Its Object

A Science of Territorial Power

Modern geopolitics thus emerged in the late nineteenth century, in a world dominated by empires, industrial expansion and competition for control of territories and resources.

Friedrich Ratzel developed a political geography attentive to the relationships between societies and the spaces they inhabit. Alfred Thayer Mahan, for his part, emphasized the decisive role of naval power. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Halford Mackinder placed the relationship between continental power and control of the vast Eurasian landmass at the heart of his analysis.

Their approaches differ, but they share a fundamental concern: to understand how geographical configurations condition the possibilities for exercising power. Territories, natural resources, lines of communication, borders and strategic positions form the principal elements of this perspective. The territorial state occupies a central position. Its power depends on its ability to control a given space, mobilize its resources, protect its access routes and, when circumstances demand, extend its influence.

The two world wars confirmed the importance of these dimensions while revealing the growing weight of industrial capacities, infrastructure and economic mobilization. Geography never acts alone. It provides the material framework within which power relations are organized.

From Bipolarity to Globalization

After 1945, the Cold War imposed a new configuration. The world was organized primarily around two strategic blocs dominated by the Soviet Union and the United States. Nuclear deterrence, military alliances and ideological competition structured international relations. Local confrontations were frequently drawn into this global rivalry. A regional conflict could become a major issue because of its place in the overall balance between the two blocs.

The disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in a period of American preponderance. Economic globalization accelerated, driven by trade liberalization, advances in transportation, computing and telecommunications. The priority given to global economic integration was accompanied by a tendency towards the standardization of norms, practices and organizational models, at times coming into tension with distinctive historical and civilizational traditions.

This profound globalization did not abolish states, but it transformed the framework within which they exercise their sovereignty. Large transnational corporations organized their production chains across several continents. Capital moves at........

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