Has the Kremlin triumphed? In light of Putin’s neo-imperial narrative of a struggle between great powers, the Russian leadership appears to have won the war of words, at least for the time being. Since Russia’s war of aggression, along with Donald Trump’s second term in office and the latest military escalations, talk of “geopolitics” has experienced a resurgence both internationally and here at home: “Spheres of influence,” “thinking in terms of greater regions,” and the search for a “war-ready” Germany dominate the headlines and are a source of concern for many people.
But what exactly do these terms mean? Klaus Schlichte, professor of International Relations and Global Society at the University of Bremen, offers his analysis in his new book The Misery of Geopolitics: There is no coherent theory in geopolitical discourse, but at best a mixture of different approaches to power, deterrence, and militarization, enriched with plenty of opinion. Ulrich Schneckener has now joined Schlichte in a critical discussion of the book and its subject matter—the current climate of war and its media coverage—as part of the “Books” series at the Hamburg Institute for Social Research.
In his introductory remarks, Schneckener notes that talk of the “return of geopolitics” has been, at least since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, a distinctly German and primarily media-driven debate. In the U.S., Russia, or China, this discourse is standard practice in political statements, the media, and publications by state-owned think tanks for contextualizing and situating world events. Classical geopolitics should fundamentally be understood as a historical-political program rooted in imperial, colonial, and power-ideological logics, one that disguises itself as a scientific program through its geographical mapping and its ties to neorealist approaches in international relations. Critical geopolitics, on the other hand, can attempt to decipher the legitimization of state-ideological claims to power through geopolitical imagery and arguments and to address the “intellectual poverty” of the geopolitical discourse from a social-constructivist perspective. Furthermore, with regard to Russia’s war of aggression—but also to many other conflicts and wars—geopolitics is a “poor political advisor,” since its political recommendations usually boil down to appeasement or rearmament as a pair of opposing strategies. It must also be criticized that numerous phenomena today are grouped under the banner of geopolitics, and that this “geopolitical fog” obscures both state-ideological claims and the many other conflict dynamics in regional contexts.
In the ensuing discussion, Schlichte calls on scholars aiming to develop a rational theory of society, theory, and law to refrain from using the term “geopolitics”: “When people say ‘geopolitics,’ what they really mean is power politics!” Under the guise of geopolitics, states, international organizations, and any other political entity could assert their own claims in an self-empowering manner; the term should therefore serve as a marker for scholars to take a closer look. Schneckener counters that this marker, in turn, requires a concept of power that is not quite as arbitrary as the criticized concept of geopolitics and that remains analytically interesting. With regard to the role of law, both discussants endorse the idea that international law seeks to contain power and shift power struggles to other, more peaceful arenas. The establishment and expansion of international organizations and treaties under international law could be interpreted as a sign that this “organization of the world under international law” is a project that must not be abandoned and must not be supplanted by geopolitical narratives. In conclusion, Schlichte steered the discussion toward the point that geopolitics and the associated arms race consume necessary resources that are ultimately lacking for responsible policies aimed at addressing crises such as global hunger, global poverty, and public health.
