Lessons
This is the course outline.
Lesson 1: Geopolitics - An Introduction to Historical Roots and Theories
Overview
Two important overarching ideas will be conveyed in this lesson:
- Contestation: places, regions, and territories are always contested. The very nature of their socially constructed existence is based upon political frameworks that determine who belongs (or is included) and who does not belong (or is excluded) from a particular place.
- Context: simply put, context matters. Political events occur in a particular location with specific socio-cultural, economic, linguistic, ecological, physical, geographic, and historical settings. These factors at least partially define what happens and what possibilities for peace and resolution are available within a geopolitical context.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- describe the concepts of place and scale;
- explain the concepts of structure and agency;
- describe places in the world as being unique and interconnected;
- contextualize current events as occurring within a set of interconnected scales, and as being performed by geopolitical agents;
- consider how the actions of geopolitical agents happen within structures; and
- consider the multiple forms of power that underlie geopolitics.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Geography & Politics
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading the Prologue and Chapter 1 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to Geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Whether you are new to the discipline of geography or not, most people were introduced to the field through looking at maps or elementary school exercises where you were made to memorize capital cities. While these activities are indeed fundamental to geography, the discipline expands well beyond the confines of maps and capital cities. In this course, you will be introduced to a subset of Human Geography, called Political Geography, or Geopolitics.
Our study of Geopolitics will guide us through the process of situating events within a particular context. That is, through our work in this lesson, and throughout the semester, we will try to better understand how and why things unfold in certain ways in specific places. And, while we may still be quite perplexed at the various impasses we see on the global geopolitical stage, we will, at the very least, better understand the complexity involved in some of these seemingly intractable situations.
In this first lesson, all of our activities ask you to think about your hometown and the various characteristics that make it a place you are intimately connected to - indeed, for many of us, it shapes various aspects of our identity and perspective on the world around us. So, we will begin the discussion of geography and politics by utilizing the example of State College, home of Penn State University!
Until I was in the 4th grade, my family moved around quite a bit. My father was in the US Army, so I was born in Germany, then we moved to North Carolina, then back to Germany, then to Texas, all before I started the 4th grade and he retired and we finally moved to State College, PA. So, while I can identify with being an "Army brat", I also consider State College, PA my hometown. Thus, I will use State College, PA (including University Park) as my hometown example.
Below is a screenshot of State College, PA taken from Google maps.
University Park, or Penn State, is located centrally and is the tannish-brown portion of the map. The grey portions of the map constitute the town of State College and its surrounding villages. The map below zooms in to better view downtown State College, PA and the central part of the University Park campus.
Both the size and close spatial relationship of the University are certainly of note when we think about the relationship between the University community and State College residents. Looking at the two maps above, we could gather some information about the “spatial organization of human activity” (Flint, 2016, p. 22) in State College. But, as Flint noted, “the term space is more abstract than place...(and) gives greater weight to functional issues such as the control of territory, an inventory of objects... within particular areas, or hierarchies and distances between objects” (Flint, 2016, p. 22).
But, if we are to understand State College, PA to a greater degree - if we want to understand how and why State College, PA is a unique, historied, and dynamic place - we must investigate the situated characteristics embedded within the town's social and physical geography.
Flint explains, “(t)he economic, political, and social relationships that we enjoy and suffer are mediated by different roles for different spaces” (2016, p. 22). The spaces of the University and the town, and their corresponding roles are apparent in the maps above. However, the people who occupy the spaces - as students, residents, University employees - flow through and occupy these spaces in various roles throughout the day. As such, University life (i.e., academics, sports, social events, etc.) flow into (State College) residential spaces; and local residents, in turn, go on to campus to listen to an evening community lecture, watch a sporting event, or get an ice cream cone at the PSU Berkey Creamery.
One of the reasons that State College is an interesting place to begin thinking about Geopolitics is because of the ways in which not only place and identity but also the politics of inclusion and exclusion (and the regulation of these categories) are enforced and/or contested by individuals or groups occupying “different roles” with regards to “different spaces”.
Listen to This
To give you an “embodied perspective” (Flint, 2016, p. 6) into one of the points of contention between University and local residential life, listen to the Prologue in this episode (396) of This American Life: #1 Party School [1].
As you listen to the episode, think about:
- the various spaces people occupy and are invested in (keeping, maintaining, controlling, or traversing);
- the perspective from which they occupy or utilize the various spaces;
- how the various people (stakeholders) engage with each other to moderate use of the spaces; and
- how place and identity are wrapped up in a politics of inclusion/exclusion and the regulation of space as a result of power politics.
The Magnificent African Cake
Likewise, to give you greater insight into the history behind the maps (Figure 1.1) featured in Flint (2016), p. 23, watch Africa: A Voyage of Discovery, Part 6 (of 8) "The Magnificent African Cake".
In order to better understand decolonization and contemporary geopolitics on the African continent, a history of colonization is critical. Thus, as you watch the sixth installment of Africa (hosted by Basil Davidson), I want you to again consider the politics of place and identity.
As you watch "The Magnificent African Cake", think about
- how the colonizers viewed Africa as a space to be carved out, conquered, occupied and exploited for its rich resources and cheap (enslaved) labor;
- how the native African population lived in a grounded place that served as the backdrop for social organization, environmental sustenance, and regional territorial cooperation or conflict; and
- how the carving up of “the magnificent African cake” by colonial powers has impacted the continent’s modern history.
BASIL DAVIDSON: The West Coast of Africa-- looking today much as it did 100 years ago. At that time, the old evils of the slave trade had become a distant, though disgraceful, memory. But they've now opened a new chapter of confrontation along these tropical shores. In past years, Europeans had come here for profitable business. Now they wanted more, much more.
Old trading posts, like this one, had long been the scene of a partnership between traders from Europe and local Africans. By the 1880s, that old partnership was being swept away in a dramatic change-- the outcome of a new European drive for overseas empire. Industrialized countries led by France and Britain had begun to invade the black continent each hoping for new sources of raw materials for its factories, new markets for its manufacturers, and new positions of advantage against its rivals.
This was called the scramble for Africa. By 1914, only two countries remained outside European possession-- Liberia in the west and Ethiopia in the east. Britain had seized the lion share of control-- Egypt and Sudan in the north, the immense wealth of South Africa, valuable colonies like Rhodesia and Kenya, and richly populated territories such as Nigeria and the Gold Coast.
France had invaded Algeria in the 1830s. Now after new wars of conquest, she added more colonies to her empire south of the Sahara including the island of Madagascar. Little Portugal carved out two vast colonies, Angola and Mozambique, while imperial Germany took the Cameroons and southwest Africa and, on the east coast, Tanganyika. The vast Congo Basin fell to King Leopold of the Belgians. Italy and Spain completed the enclosure. The fate of the continent was utterly changed.
Between the colonizing powers themselves, the carve-up was peaceful but their rivalry was intense. In 1884, a congress of the competing governments met in Berlin to settle their disputes. Germany's Iron Chancellor Bismarck was there. And active behind the scenes was the ambitious Belgian king. He spoke for them all when he said, "I am determined to get my share of this magnificent African cake." Any power that could occupy African soil could effectively claim it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now the task was to stake out frontiers in utterly uncharted land. Said the French prime minister, "we have embarked on a gigantic steeplechase into the unknown." The British prime minister, Lord Salisbury, was to say of this period, "we've been engaged in drawing lines on maps where no man's foot has ever trod. We've been giving away mountains, and rivers and lakes to each other only hindered by the small impediment that we never knew exactly where we were."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The great game was to get hold of places and positions of advantage over rivals no matter what irrational frontiers might result. One of the most absurd cases was the magnificent Gambia river. Britain had long held Bathurst, Banjul today, and was determined to keep this river route to the interior. But France, invading from the West Coast, enclosed all the territory surrounding the Gambia river in her new colony of Senegal.
So the French were naturally eager to obtain the Gambia river. They offered Britain, in exchange, the much larger and richer Ivory Coast. But the British parliament insisted on keeping the Gambia thus dividing the peoples of the region. And the result was and is a country that is 300 miles long but never more than 30 miles wide.
[SHOUTING]
What the African inhabitants might think of this colonial carve-up was never asked. The European idea, in the words of one British governor, was to seize African territory and then, as much as possible, rule the country as if there were no inhabitants.
In fact, European contempt for Africans now reached new depths and no wonder. For how otherwise and by asserting that Africans were helpless children, lazy savages, could Christian Europe justify taking their countries away from them?
The helpless children, meanwhile, sang their own version of a famous hymn, "Onward Christian soldiers into heathen lands, prayer books in your pockets, rifles in your hands. Take the happy tidings where trade can be done. Spread the peaceful gospel with the Gatling gun."
The European invasions were widely resisted. Conquest was never easy. And sometimes, as these old drawings and photographs testify, conquest led to a ruthless killing that later generations would prefer to forget.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[CALL TO PRAYER]
Resistance took many shapes. In French West Africa, a focal point was found in Muslim loyalties. Many heroes, still unforgotten, came on that scene. Some, like the Senegalese religious leader Amadou Bamba, offered the way of peace but was still sent into exile.
Others, like the fierce warrior leader Samori, fought off French attack after attack and was crushed and exiled only after years of war. Death took many-- strong or weak. With the skulls of earlier wars displayed in their capital Kumasi, the powerful Ashanti nation ruled over most of modern Ghana. Led by their kings, who had the title of Asantehene-- they'd long defended their country against Britain but now they desperately wanted a peaceful settlement.
In 1895, fearing a disastrous war with Britain, King Prempeh made a strong bid for peace from his palace here at Kumasi. He offered the British the right to establish in Ashanti a chartered company with all the concessions-- the privilege that such a company could possibly desire. But it wasn't enough for the British now wanted territorial possession as well as a privilege.
[GUNFIRE]
The Ashanti nation had already fought long hard battles against the British. But this time, in 1896, they decided to surrender.
[GUNFIRE]
In a ceremony of deliberate humiliation, the King was made to kiss the British commander's boot and then sent into exile. But it wasn't the end of the story. The British now blundered. A new British governor, Sir Frederick Hodgson, decided that he had to get possession of the sacred Golden Stool-- symbol of the Ashanti nation's soul. Arriving at the British fort here in Kumasi, he ordered the assembled chiefs to hand the stool over. Worst still, he demanded the right to sit on it-- something that no person had ever been allowed to do, not even the King himself.
[GUNFIRE]
To Hodgson's final insult, the Ashanti replied with war. This little fort at Kumasi is what the British had built, just in case, and now they sorely needed it. The few dozen British inmates of the fort were besieged for months and had to eat rats to stay alive.
Hodgson's act of folly had exacted a bitter price. Efforts to send in relief from the coast were repeatedly frustrated by Ashanti resistance until finally, the governor and his wife got away to the coast and the absurd but tragic affair could be closed. This ended the war between Britain and Ashanti and a year later, in 1901, the British quietly annexed the country which became part of the colony of the Gold Coast.
All over Africa, the new military technology of automatic guns gave easy victories to the invaders.
[AFRICAN SINGING]
Countless resistors died-- many thousands at the single Battle of Omdurman in Britain's conquest of Sudan. Meanwhile, in another part of Sudan, the French were also scoring victories. For the most part, public opinion rejoiced. For were these not a victories over an inferior species-- a kind of joke humanity?
[AFRICAN SINGING]
There were some critics but not many and their voice was ignored or silenced. What really mattered was to do down one's European rivals. If you were British-- to get the better of the French in West Africa or of the Germans in East Africa. While orphans, like little Uganda, were left on the protective doorstep of Father John Bull.
Even before 1900 there came a new source of conflict-- settlers from Europe-- French in the far north, Dutch and the British in the far south, and some Germans. Other settlers were attracted to the good farming land of the east, Tanganyika, northern and southern Rhodesia, and the British territories of Uganda and Kenya. Once again, nobody asked permission. An early French governor had laid down the golden rule. Wherever good water and fertile land are found, he said, settlers must be installed without questioning whose land it may be. The settlers, not surprisingly, agreed.
The next step in East Africa was to build a railway from the coast to the interior. The line was completed in 1901 and millions of acres of good farming land in Kenya were opened to white ownership and settlement for the buying price of next to nothing. These white strangers, oddly enough, were at first welcomed by the African inhabitants.
But the welcome didn't last for long. For they soon discovered that colonial government wanted them to give things-- above all their land and their labor. These colonial demands provoked a repeated resistance. And against that resistance, the colonial government with white settlers arriving in ever larger numbers from Britain waged a war with little mercy. And, of course, with rifles and machine guns against spears and arrows.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: It was all so cruel and we had never done them any harm. But the noise of guns scared people into hiding and their houses were burnt down.]
[DRUMS BEATING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: This beating down of a sometimes violent and desperate African protest was called pacification, or less politely, hammering. A British officer then fighting in Kenya, kept a sadly, instructive diary.
BRITISH OFFICER: "Marched into Fort Hall and the expedition comes to an end. To my mind, the people of the Embu have not been sufficiently hammered, and I should like to go back at once and have another go at them. During the first phase of our expedition against the Irani, we killed 797 niggers and during the second phase against the Embu, we killed about 250."
BASIL DAVIDSON: There was, in fact, much more of the same thing in the sixth campaign against the Kenya Nandi, for example. British troops reported killing 1,117 people besides seizing all their livestock. In 1906, a junior British minister in London cabled this protest, "Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenseless people on such an enormous scale." The minister's name was Winston Churchill but on that occasion, his intervention had no effect.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: Life changed tremendously when our land was taken away. People would take refugee with the missionaries. The white men came and built right in front of our homes. We were driven away, into refuge.]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[ON SCREEN TEXT: At last, the Settler reaches the site of his future home, and natives begin to dig foundations and gather materials.] [ON SCREEN TEXT: The natives are excellent workers and soon the house is finished. The natives, their long day over, go to their huts and the Settlers return to their home.] [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: When they took the land the people were chased off and barbed wire was put up all around.]
[DRUMS BEATING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: By 1915, about four million acres of African farming land in Central Kenya had been given to about 1,000 British settlers. By the 1920s, about half of the able-bodied men of Kenya's two largest farming peoples, the Kikuyu and the Luo, were working as laborers for British newcomers. How was that done? The answer, once again, was something new in Kenya-- taxation. To cultivate these splendid acres, it was necessary to make Africans pay taxes in cash. Having no money economy of their own, Africans could pay tax in cash only if they went to work for a European wage. An old Masai recalls those early days.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: They wanted tax and the Masais had never paid tax before. It was called the poll tax. And we had to pay a tax for our houses, that was called the house tax. Two shillings for each house.]
[MASAI SINGING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: The Masai proved particularly good at dodging the payment of the new taxes so the colonial government thought it should send some of these apparently idol warriors to school. So as to turn them, if possible, into tax collectors among their own people. Small boys were seized for this purpose.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: The government brought soldiers to take children away. I was caught by the soldiers in my village, and then I was sent to school. I was sent to school with three other children.]
[CHILDREN SINGING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: On the other side of the continent in northern Nigeria, the colonial scene was very different. With no white settlers, life was peaceful. Things continued much as before. The British had conquered this huge region far from the sea for no real reason other than to keep it from the French. So the British were content with the supervision, which allowed them to take a backseat. Under the direction of Lord Lugard, this was called indirect rule.
This was the residence of the British official who governed the northern Nigerian province of Kano. Indirect rule meant ruling through local kings, in this case, the local emir, who after defeat accepted British overlordship on condition that nothing was done to modernize or democratize the conquered system. Indirect rule was cheap and highly effective. Local kings and princes kept the peace and law and order in their own interest as well as in that of the British. Both sides at the top had much to gain.
So kings like this one, the Emir of Katsina, were able to stay in power and even add to their personal privileges. They were able to call on their own local retainers to govern the everyday affairs of the country. In this way, the native governing class, as the doctrine said, was to remain a real living force as well as being a curious and interesting pageantry.
[AFRICAN CHANTING]
MALE: The ceremonies are the same as a thousand years ago. There were kings in northern Nigeria when Richard Lionheart set out on a crusade. Today, he and all the emirs of northern Nigeria play their part as subjects of the King of England. But their subjects still show their loyalty as in the days when Katsina was warring with her neighbors. Katsina still keeps her way of life-- still resists new influences from the world outside.
BASIL DAVIDSON: In short, no modernization of any kind and therefore big problems for the future. I talked to Nigerian professor Obaro Ikime.
OBARO IKIME: For the larger part of Nigeria, British rule did not mean anything for many years. In other words, although the centers of administration there was a change which could be seen by the people and felt by the people, in the outlying areas life went on as if the British did not exist. If you take a look at one particular area, the north, for example, the seat of the emir and the seats of the district heads may have felt the immediate impact of the British presence. But the villages were ordered and run just as before with the one important difference though-- taxation-- that the people had to pay tax to a new power.
The British built up a core of Africans, who became known as native administrators-- developed some commitment to the system. The salaries were comfortable. They had power which they used to enrich themselves at the expense of their followers and their subjects. Consequently, the British were able to succeed largely by developing a core of people who became partners with them.
MALE: British officers, headed by a resident are there in every emirate to advise and assist the Emir and his ministers in their day to day work. And each month, the resident presides at the full meeting with the emir's counsel. There may be word from Nigeria's governor in Lagos, or from the colonial office in London, or the council may discuss the repatriation of pilgrims from Mecca. The dignity of the past-- the traditions of Katsina are present in the council chamber.
BASIL DAVIDSON: Here once more, this time behind polite words, was the essence of colonial paternalism.
[FRENCH MUSIC PLAYING]
In the French colonies along the coast, the scene was both the same and different. Dakar, capital of Senegal-- actually the little suburb of Rufisque, a charmingly nostalgic place. Senegal was France's oldest colony in tropical Africa and one where the French presence, like that of the British in northern Nigeria, could easily be absorbed. Generally, the French ran their colonies on much the same system as the British. But there was one important difference.
The British thought that their Africans could never become anything but Africans and certainly not British. The French idea, on the contrary, was that in the end at some distant time, all their Africans would become black Frenchman. The culture and the language of France were offered as the eventual supreme blessings. This idea was called assimilation.
Originally, this was a generous idea but colonial rule reduced it to little or nothing. Yet in four municipalities of coastal Senegal, assimilation did take effect. This picturesque island of Goree, just off the port of Dakar, was one. Here you could go to school and even become a French citizen. But you belonged to a tiny minority. By 1926, only 48,000 of Senegalese had become assimilated out of a total of one and a half million. The Senegalese historian, Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, explains.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: In practice, it just wasn't possible. There were four communes here in Senegal, but apart from these, the local system remained. The number of people was just too great for assimilation to work at ground level.]
BASIL DAVIDSON: One man from Goree island who did make it and carved out for himself a brilliant career was Blaise Diagne. Of humble origins, Diagne became the first black man to be elected to the French National Parliament in Paris. He campaigned for black rights and began to win concessions. That was in 1914.
[MILITARY MUSIC PLAYING]
During the First World War, an embattled France called for tens of thousands of African troops. As Flanders swallowed its victims, Blaise Diagne agreed to be France's recruiting sergeant and his African reputation vanished in the slaughter.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: One doesn't go to war without being forced. I was forced to go to war. I was taken from my family. I could not refuse. But how could I be happy to go to such a war? I had no experience. We were backward people. We did not understand the world.]
BASIL DAVIDSON: France had long relied on African mercenaries, even as far back as the Crimean war, but now it was different in scale and in suffering. More than 200,000 African troops, mostly conscripts, were sent to France. And at least 170,000 were thrown into the Holocaust of the trenches.
[MILITARY MUSIC PLAYING]
Thousands never came home. Others returned with an experience that survivors have still not forgotten.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: We fought the Germans and killed them. They killed us. There was death on both sides and injury on both sides. Some were blinded. And it was all pointless. Nobody achieved anything. My arm was amputated here. I was shot here through my leg. And I was shot here through my toes.]
BASIL DAVIDSON: Shoulder to shoulder-- white men and black men equal in the trenches. Were they now to become equal in the colonies? Only the monuments suggested that.
[SINGING]
[SINGING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: With the coming of peace in 1918, the victorious colonial systems looked more strongly entrenched than ever before though military rule now gave way to civilian government. This led to a far more thorough system of tax collection to pay for the government. The linchpin of the British system was the district officer.
DISTRICT OFFICER: That's where I come in. I'm the district officer in this particular area. The native authority treasurer sends his figures to me for checking against last year's figures. When it's decided what the tax is to be this year, I go up to tell the chiefs and people what they're to pay and why.
That's my wife. I spend so much time doing the rounds that if she didn't come, we wouldn't see much of each other. We take our beds and everything else as the rest houses where we spend the nights have no furniture. You know, we are very ordinary people but the pagans still find us a bit of a puzzle with our [INAUDIBLE]. That's the local chief. We ask news of the crops and the children. It's like sitting in a shop window. We come here every year and follow the same ritual but they always behave as if it is the first time. Peace is all very well but it is a battle and they love a bit of a variety.
BASIL DAVIDSON: Many colonial officials were good, practical, hardworking people devoted to their ideals. They were sure that the strong paternal arm of colonial rule must be a blessing for Africans and would have to be continued for centuries. They firmly believed that if left to themselves, Africans would simply go on living as before and that they thought would be a thoroughly bad thing. An old film tells the story as the colonial officials saw it.
[NEIGHBORLY CHATTER]
OLD MOVIE NARRATION: This simple life under the hot African sky was once a life of fear and uncertainty. British rule has brought peace. The enterprise of European officials, and settlers, and of Indian traders has opened up the country but there is still a long battle to be fought with ignorance, poverty, and disease. In these lands where there are so many changes to be made, much can be achieved by money and the initiative of the white man.
BASIL DAVIDSON: In the more favored colonies, those were the hopes of the 1920s and in some respects, they were fulfilled. There came the founding of the first modern hospitals, veterinary services, and other benefits of Western life. But all the money to pay for these good things had to come from Africans. So they now began to drive for the export of crops to yield cash.
The cash crop era got into its stride. Groundnuts as here in Senegal were a crop that brought cash to farmers and to colonial purchasing companies. But the cash crop's success also brought problems.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: It's quite obvious that the monoculture of peanuts was introduced in Senegal purely for industrial reasons. The businessmen of Marseilles came with one thing in mind: to produce oil for the international market. That's what brought about the tendency to specialize. So every colony was made to specialize in what it could do best. In the Sahara region, it was the growing of groundnuts, while in other countries like Guinea it was bananas, rice and so forth. But the system was not designed by or for the local inhabitants of those lands, but simply to provide the raw materials for the factories of Marseilles, Bordeaux and Nantes.]
BASIL DAVIDSON: So long as their crops were bought, African growers could be reasonably content. But in 1929 they began the huge and long disaster of the world depression and prices collapsed. Food production for local people, already badly hit because of land taken for cash crops, became a subject of major crisis. What is true of the French empire was just as true of all the others.
Here on the Gold Coast, the big cash crop was cocoa providing the bulk of the colonies exports. The crop was grown and harvested entirely by African farmers who had to sell it to British and other foreign buying companies. These companies banded together so as to pay the farmers an artificially low price. The farmers of Ghana, then the Gold Coast, nonetheless worked so well that they became the world's biggest producers of cocoa and so of chocolate which Africans didn't eat. But the gains were far from equally shared. The Ghanaian historian-- Professor Adu Boahen.
ADU BOAHEN: There's no doubt at all that the farmers were being cheated. The prices that were being paid for the cocoa bore no relationship to the prices that they had to pay for the imported goods. We had no say in the price of our own commodities. We had no say in what we paid for what was important. This was, in fact, one of the greatest indictments against the colonial economic policies. The fact that so much emphasis was placed on a single cash crop. And we had to import rice. We had to import oil, palm oil, and so on to feed ourselves because so much emphasis and so much attention was paid to this single cash crop-- cocoa. The colonial government said just consent with obtaining raw materials to feed our factories abroad.
BASIL DAVIDSON: The raw materials were produced by the skill and enterprise of hardworking African men and women. Yet the advertisements in Europe, deeply racist by this time, presented an insultingly different picture. At the same time, African businessmen found that the trading positions they had established in earlier times were now swept away.
ADU BOAHEN: There's no doubt at all that before the colonial period Africans were playing a far more important and dominant role in the economy than during the colonial period. You have many of them running their own import/export businesses. In the 1920s and 1930s, all these African merchant princes eventually disappeared from the field because the dice were so much loaded against them under the colonial system. The banks were discriminating against them in the granting of loans. The expatriate firms and particularly the Syrian and Lebanese firms were undercutting them, and they just could not stand the challenge. And therefore many of them-- they simply ran out of business. And the children of these great merchant princes now became the employees of the great African capitalist companies like UAC, UTC, SUA, and so on.
BASIL DAVIDSON: Colonial trading companies-- British, French, Belgian, Portuguese-- monopolized wholesale business with the full backing of their colonial governments. What King Leopold had called "this magnificent African cake" was beginning to yield its riches. Often, those were painful days but they have to be recalled by anyone who wishes to understand the problems of Africa now.
The turmoil of today in the Congo, or Zaire, has its roots in the infamous Congo Free State of King Leopold. Here the emphasis was on the growing of rubber and the methods used to extract it were no better than a reign of terror. Local people were forced to collect rubber under the most cruel conditions as these old photographs show. If the rubber they collected was poor or small in quantity, men and sometimes women too could expect to lose a hand or foot in punishment.
Terrible things were done. An official British fact-finding commission reported "the daily agony of an entire people unrolled itself in all its repulsive, terrifying details." Public opinion in Europe grew horrified. Gradually, the agonies were reduced. Yet huge damage had been done-- moral as well as physical-- and was going to cast a dark and violent shadow over the future of the Congo.
Forced labor by the 1920s was practiced on a wide scale in most of the colonies. All early roads and railways were built by forced labor. Much was achieved but the cost in life and health was sometimes catastrophic. This spectacular railway in French Equatorial Africa was built by 125,000 Africans to link the coast with Brazzaville, the inland capital. Beyond doubt-- a great feat of engineering. But before a single passenger could travel on it, nearly 14,000 Africans were to die in building it. Travel in comfort came at a price.
By the 1920s the colonial railway map was complete. These lines had one central purpose-- to ensure the export of minerals and other wealth, most of all from southern Africa. European mining activity for gold, copper, zinc, diamonds transformed southern Africa thanks again to African labor acquired by the usual procedure of administrative force and taxation. Conditions were hard to bear. Some 30,000 Africans died in southern Rhodesian mines between 1904 and 1933, mostly of disease. And wages at the end of that period were lower than they'd been at the start. This labor system was called chibaro. Very old men can still remember it.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: No one used to refuse. They used to go because they had to go and work. They were forced to go to work. Every chief in the village was told by the white men to choose the people to go for chibaro]
[MINING EQUIPMENT DRILLS]
BASIL DAVIDSON: Gold mining boomed. In those years of chibaro, the southern Rhodesian mining industry produced gold worth 87 million pounds sterling at the cost of 20 dead African miners each week on average for 30 years.
[MINING EQUIPMENT DRILLS]
Just as in the bigger mines of South Africa, living conditions for miners were appalling. Safety provisions were primitive. Discipline was often brutal-- health care almost non-existent. Prison labor was used whenever available and that was often-- and child labor too.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: We went when we were still you for chibaro. A message would come that we were wanted for work. The chief chose the ones to go.]
BASIL DAVIDSON: After 1930, the whole labor system in large regions had come to depend on people having to abandon their villages and go far away to work in colonial mines or on plantations. This was called migrant labor-- a huge upheaval which soon began to destroy the old stabilities of rural Africa. An official British committee in 1935 reported that the old order of society was being completely undermined by migrant labor. The years ahead were going to confirm it.
But it was in the Portuguese colonies, especially Angola and Mozambique, that forced labor was at its worst. Here in Mozambique, and by brutal methods, African farmers were forced to grow cotton and to sell it at prices fixed by the colonial government. Prices kept so low that the farmers used to say of the cotton that they were forced to grow that cotton was the mother of poverty.
[AFRICAN SINGING]
Raw cotton was sent to textile factories in Portugal and returned in the form of shirts for Africans to buy. All the profits were Portuguese. The more the farmers learned to hate cotton, the more they were forced to grow it on pain of severe punishment.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: This was the start of a generalized oppression which caused great suffering to the people. Foremen were appointed to supervise the people and they would be forced into the fields to work. Anyone causing trouble would be beaten with whips.]
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: They arrested me and ordered me to be whipped. After three strokes I said I'd had enough. Then they sent me to jail for fifteen days.]
[AFRICAN SINGING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: The farmers in this old film had no legal means of protest but they could express their anger by singing anti-colonial songs in their own language. There seemed then no way out-- no hope ahead. And before long the same disaster struck here as elsewhere. Food crops disappeared and once prosperous areas were hit by famine.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: Famines were very common during this period because everyone was forced to grow cotton. If a man had two or three wives, they had to grow it too. So there was nobody left and no time to attend to our own fields. No one to produce our maize and other crops. The cotton caused terrible hunger.]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
BASIL DAVIDSON: In spite of African suffering, settlers arrived in growing numbers. Some were political exiles from the Portuguese dictatorship. Many were poor people hoping for a better life. Sent out to be farmers, most preferred the easier life of the towns. They opened shops and businesses and aimed at the success which had eluded them at home. This actually suited the official colonial doctrine. The Portuguese dictator, Marcelo Caetano, laid it down in plain words, "the blacks are to be organized and enclosed," he said, "in an economy directed by whites."
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH: I went to meet the governor on behalf of the people. "You - the Portuguese - are said to be good people, but you are not good here - you govern badly. You have disgraced your country in Africa. You have failed to fulfill your mission in Africa!]
BASIL DAVIDSON: Mass resistance was to develop later but already even the poorest and least educated Africans could see that colonial rule had much more to take than to give.
Whatever good may have come from colonial rule has to be measured, unfortunately, against the essential aims of each of the colonial systems. These aims were frankly stated. They were to extract wealth. We've looked at some of the ways in which wealth was extracted-- by the use of forced or cheap labor, by the seizure of land, by the incessant pressure of growing crops for export rather than crops for local food needs, and always by the deliberate treatment of Africans as inferior beings.
Whatever appearances might suggest, Africans, in fact, were no longer prepared to accept their permanently inferior status. All over the continent, the first signs of a new political dissent had already begun to appear. In the 1920s, for example, with the protest action of Harry Thuku in Kenya. At the same time with Casely Hayford and his companions in British West Africa. And perhaps above all with Herbert Macaulay, often called the father of Nigerian nationalism, but their demands were small.
OBARO IKIME: Some of these early nationalists were completely taken in by the British system. They thought it was a good thing and that we should become part of that good thing. The real pressure was for the British to become a bit more liberal.
BASIL DAVIDSON: During the 1930s, and notably with the rise to prominence of the fiery but very effective Nigerian nationalist Nnamdi Azikiwe, much stronger and more far-reaching demands began to be made. Men like Azikiwe used the press where this was possible as it was in British West Africa. They now sought a mass audience. Politics moved out of polite drawing rooms into the clamor of the streets.
ADU BOAHEN: So the resistance movement took many forms and it was not confined only to the elite as some people tend to think. But it was also evident in the rural areas and even among the ordinary farmers and the ordinary workers.
BASIL DAVIDSON: One form of mass resistance took shape in a big cocoa hold up in the Gold Coast when farmers demanded fairer prices. Once again, the press could be used to good effect.
ADU BOAHEN: But unfortunately in the 1930s, there was never any coordination between the protest of the rural folk and the farmers, and the protests being organized by the elite. And this is why the resistance movement was not very successful.
BASIL DAVIDSON: But now in 1935 came a new and savage challenge to African hopes of progress-- another colonial invasion-- fascist Italy's brutal assault on Ethiopia, then called Abyssinia.
REPORTER: No power on earth now seems able to hold up Italy's sweeping advance across Abyssinia's rain-swept mountains. Now Dessie has been captured and from there a direct road leads to Addis Ababa. So perhaps it's only a question of time as to when the victorious Italian troops will march into the capital and the emperor will have to sue for peace.
BASIL DAVIDSON: With the colonial powers sounding quite pleased about this invasion, Italy's armies pushed on against a far weaker adversary and bombed and shelled their way to success. But Africans were outraged.
ADU BOAHEN: For the first time, the blacks all over the world-- not even Africa alone-- but the blacks all over the world felt that they have been attacked. Ethiopia and Liberia were the only two countries in Africa that were able to maintain their sovereign existence during the period of this trample and occupation of the continent by the imperial powers. And Ethiopia, therefore, became the symbol of hope not only for Africa but for all the black people all over. Ethiopia was looked upon as the symbol of the revival and the regaining of the independence and sovereignty of Africa. And therefore, when this invasion took place, it meant the complete snuffing out of this last beam of hope.
BASIL DAVIDSON: Italy's troops entered Addis Ababa, the capital of a now subjected Ethiopia, and still there came no more than verbal protest from outside powers. Yet Ethiopia's defeat, painfully confirmed when her people laid down their arms, sent out a call for action to Africans everywhere.
ADU BOAHEN: Indeed for some of us, 1935 now is being considered as the more appropriate date for the beginning of the modern nationalist period of African history, rather than 1939 or even 1945. Because we believe that but for the break out of the-- outbreak of the Second World War in 1939-- probably the struggle for independence would have begun from 1935 as a result of the indignation, as a result of the anger, as a result of the emotions, as a result of the strong feelings of anti-imperialism that were aroused by the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
BASIL DAVIDSON: Those feelings were aroused above all among the few who could win a modern education at schools like this one, Achimota, in the Gold Coast where Kwame Nkrumah, future leader of the country's independence movement, had been a student. Young people began to read whatever anti-colonial newspapers they could find. Even in the midst of discouraging years, hope flourished afresh.
A new generation of educated Africans, some of them trained here at Achimota, was reaching maturity. And then came the tremendous upheavals of the Second World War surging with revolutionary force through the entire colonial world. By 1945, as we shall see in our next program, the scene was set for great dramas in a struggle for independence.
In the sixth installment of Africa: The Story of a Continent, Africa is divided into areas under colonial rule. After the 1880s, Europeans set about exploiting Africans in every conceivable way, forcing them to pay taxes, plant cash crops instead of food crops grown for survival, and work for low pay, all the while looking upon them with contempt. Host Basil Davidson documents this "passification" of Africa, giving viewers a clear look at this unfortunate period of development that is a part of the continent's harsh history. ~ Alice Day, Rovi, from NY Times Review Summary [2]
Place & Politics
This section introduces you to the ways in which geographers think about place. Flint (2016) refers us to John Agnew’s (1987) definition as a combination of three related aspects: location, locale, and sense of place.
- Location “is the role a place plays in the world, or its function.” (Flint, 2016, p. 25)
- Locale “refers to the institutions that organize activity, politics, and identity in a place. People operate as part of groups: families, schools, workplaces, communities of worship, labor unions, political parties, militias, parent-teacher organizations, sports clubs, etc…)” (Flint, 2016, p. 25)
- Sense of place concerns the ways that “people’s identity is a function of membership in a number of collective identities: gender, race, social class, profession, nationality, and last but not least, place. Sense of place is a collective identity tied to a particular place, perhaps best thought of as the unique ‘character’ of a place.” (Flint, 2016, p. 26)
An alternative view of society’s connection to place, or rather lack of attachment to place, is highlighted through a discussion of globalization. Contemporary globalization has facilitated the creation of a relatively small, and often privileged, class of people sometimes referred to as “global citizens” who crisscross the globe for business, political work, and/or leisure.
In contrast to privileged global citizens who feel at home anywhere they venture to, are diaspora populations – “networks of migrants who establish connections between places across the globe” (Flint, 2016, p. 28). Diaspora populations move from their home country for a variety of reasons. When discussing factors that impact human migration, human geographers often talk about “push” and “pull” factors. Push factors can include phenomena like poverty, natural disaster, civil war or violence, famine, political instability, and so forth. Pull factors might include economic opportunity, educational opportunity, safe haven from civil war or violence, family support, and political stability, to name a few. Diaspora populations often move because of a combination of push and pull factors. As such, they may feel attached to a number of places (their new country of residence, but also their home country). This can result in a feeling of not being completely “at home” anywhere.
This discussion of globalization and its role in defining a sense of place and belonging for various citizens lends itself to Doreen Massey’s (1994) definition of place: “(P)laces are networks of social relations" which have over time been constructed, laid down, interacted with one another, decayed and renewed.” The three aspects highlighted in Massey’s definition are:
- Places are products of human activity—they are “socially constructed”. We can easily understand the concept that places are physically or materially constructed, right? Well, before they are physically constructed, often times (but not always), plans are laid and decisions made with regards to how the place will be organized and put together. While seemingly straightforward, this process is laden with politics regarding who has the economic, political, and socio-cultural power to decide what the place will look like, who will be allowed to traverse it, what kinds of activities will be allowed (and at what times of day), etc… These kinds of decisions are made whether planning a public park, or a commercial district, or even a city’s zoning ordinances. Thinking about places through this lens, we can see that a myriad of human decisions and social relationships impact how a place is physically made. This is how a place is socially constructed.
- Places are dynamic and change over time. People move from place to place. Ideas and inspiration travel through social media, TV, e-mail and telephone communication. Culture, politics, and economics are dynamic – as are our identities… we grow and evolve. Likewise, places are in a constant state of flux. Landscapes are made up of layers of the past and present built on top of each other or beside each other—creating a complex story of place. Sometimes, this is masked through demolition and a literal and figurative burying of past events—and that process, too, is a reflection of local power politics at that time.
- Places can only be understood fully through their interactions with other places. Building off of the first two points, places interact with each other in many ways. Proximity or distance between two places can determine the level of influence each place has on the other. For example, Rockville, MD and Poughkeepsie, NY would be very different cities if they weren't located at the end of the commuter lines for the big cities of Washington DC and NYC, respectively.
The Politics of Scale
The concept of scale as used in human geography is a bit different than that used on a map. The scale of a map is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground. For example, one inch on a map is equal to one mile on the ground. The concept of scale in human geography is somewhat less straightforward.
Within human geography, we think of scale as a “form of hierarchy” that is not separate or discrete but interconnected. You can see this hierarchy when we discuss the local, the national, or the global economy. They may seem discrete because we can bound them politically. The State College municipality has political boundaries. The United States has its borders. And, well, the globe seemingly includes everywhere. While we can see their bounded territory on a map, the reality is much less spatially fragmented. In fact, movement of economic flows, of people or animals (migration), disease or natural disaster, and so forth, spreads across, and negotiates around, scale.
As mentioned in Introduction to Geopolitics (Flint, 2016), localized acts of personal defiance or protest (individual scale) can be motivated by national campaigns geared towards influencing national legislative processes (national scale). There is sometimes a fluidity of movement across scale, while at other times we may observe a jumping of scale (local ► global, may bypass national scales). Flint highlights the contested nature of scales—pointing out that “we need to move further away from the idea of a clear and distinct hierarchy of scales” because scales are interconnected and multiple scales may be implicated in any particular event or action. Flint uses the example of a suicide bombing of certain hotels in Kabul, Afghanistan. In particular, hotels that may host international or Western governmental and aid organization workers may become a local target as a geopolitical statement against the foreign presence in the country. As such, a local act (bombing of a hotel in Kabul) is intimately connected to the global scale (as embedded in the geopolitical struggle for state sovereignty within the context of a US-led global anti-terrorism effort).
Regions & Politics
Regions within geopolitics are social constructs that reflect certain perspectives and judgments in making particular groupings. Flint highlights that there are regional groupings that are determined by physical proximity to each other—i.e., the desert region of Africa or the mountainous region of South America. Or we may also think of geopolitical groupings like Western Europe or the Middle East. In some ways, this categorization helps us to try to group like things together, but such simplification tends to assume a homogeneity that isn’t actually there. The physical geography, as well as the cultural, religious, political, economic, and social aspects of the communities and citizens within each Western European or Middle Eastern country is actually quite diverse and not properly represented in a singular identity. Furthermore, as Flint explains, “Regions should be seen not only as a form of labeling or classification but also as the result of the construction of political institutions.” Here, he is referring to the creation of functional regions such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to name a few.
To understand regional groupings is to understand what is going on geopolitically at that time. For example, a reference to the “First World” or “Third World” is a reference to geopolitical categories created during the Cold War when the West (the First World) was battling major Communist powers (the Second World) for influence over non-aligned countries (the Third World).
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), this terminology is no longer quite as meaningful – though we certainly see its use in various settings. Nonetheless, it’s important to know the origins of such terminology and groupings.
The concept of the Global North and the Global South is also an important one to think about geographically and geopolitically. Also an extension of Cold War geopolitics, the Brandt line (essentially the line that separates blue and red) shows the north-south divide. The Brandt line image below has been updated to include countries like South Africa, Singapore, and Taiwan. The Brandt line shows the more economically developed countries (MEDCs) in blue and the less economically developed countries (LEDCs) in red.
If you compare the two maps above, you’ll notice that the First and Second World comprise the Global North, while the non-aligned or the Third World countries comprise the Global South. The competition between the First and Second Worlds was not just ideological, but one that vied for non-aligned countries to choose their economic development trajectory: Capitalism or Communism.
Territory as Political Space
Two related ideas that connect to territory as political space:
- Territory requires some sort of political control.
- Politics, or the exercise of power, often requires territory.
As Flint explains, territoriality is the power exercised through the construction and management of territory.
The film clip “The Magnificent African Cake” you watched in the first section (Geography & Politics) of this lesson, illustrates the messiness of sovereignty claims that highlight the tensions around the concept of territory (and territoriality) on the African continent.
Lesson 5 will explore the geopolitics of territory more fully, but, for now, it’s important to understand that “(t)erritory is both a fundamental building-block of geopolitics and something that is fluid over time and varies across space.” (Flint, 2016, p. 34)
The Politics of Networks
Perhaps one of the most common ways people these days understand the concept of networks is to think of the many often-used social networks, like Facebook. While our book doesn't necessarily cover or include social networks in our discussion of geopolitics, it is interesting to think of the ways virtual spaces such as the Facebook networking platform facilitate the organization of individuals into groups of similar interests, political beliefs, etc. Furthermore, it is also interesting to observe the ways in which various terrorist organizations have recently used social networking practices such as hashtagging (#) to draw attention to their cause and intimidate.
To Read
Please read the following article before completing the blog assignment.
- (Read Pg. 7-12) The Cyber Longbow and Other Information Strategies: U.S. National Security and Cyberspace [5] by Gary D. Brown, In War in the 21st Century and Collected Works, 5 Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs (2017). (pdf available in Canvas)
- Friis, S. M. (2015). 'Beyond anything we have ever seen': beheading videos and the visibility of violence in the war against ISIS. International Affairs 91(4), 725-746. (pdf available in Canvas) See author's abstract below:
This article examines the role of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS's) beheading videos in the United Kingdom and the United States. These videos are highly illustrative demonstrations of the importance of visual imagery and visual media in contemporary warfare. By functioning as evidence in a political discourse constituting ISIS as an imminent, exceptional threat to the West, the videos have played an important role in the re-framing of the conflict in Iraq and Syria from a humanitarian crisis requiring a humanitarian response to a national security issue requiring a military response and intensified counterterrorism efforts. However, this article seeks to problematize the role and status of ISIS's beheadings in American and British security discourses by highlighting the depoliticizing aspects of reducing a complicated conflict to a fragmented visual icon. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for further attention to how the visibility of war, and the constitution of boundaries between which acts of violence are rendered visible and which are not, shape the political terrain in which decisions about war and peace are produced and legitimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
We will go into further details on the politics of networks, but it is important to start thinking about the power of networks in your life and at multiple scales. Indeed, our political, social, cultural, religious, and economic networks fill (and perhaps fulfill) our daily interactions.
An Introduction to Geopolitics
Geopolitics (broadly the mutual construction of space and power relations) is both a matter of practice (doing) and representation (justifying the doing). - Colin Flint, Interview [6]
What is geopolitics?
- The connection between geopolitics and statesmanship: the “practices and representations of territorial strategies.” (p. 31)
- It is a way of “seeing” the world. (p. 40)
- It results from the identification of “situated knowledge”, or a nuanced understanding of “multiple practices and multiple representations of a wide variety of territories.” (p. 34)
- (Critical geopolitics) is the practice of identifying the power relationships within geopolitical statements. (p. 35)
Structure and Agency
As Flint explains (p. 43), there is an intellectual debate within the social sciences around the ideas of structure and agency. The textbook discusses some foundational definitions of agency and structure (pp. 43-44). If you need a refresher, please do re-read that section. Also, as a reminder, Flint provides some key rules to aid in our discussion of structure and agency. I repeat them below (p. 43):
- Agents cannot act freely, but they are able to make choices.
- Agents act within structures.
- Structures limit, or constrain, the possible actions of the agent.
- Structures also facilitate agents, in other words, they provide opportunities for agents to attain their goals.
- An agent can also be a structure and vice versa.
Agency is the actions behind trying to achieve a particular goal. Individuals or groups act, or have agency. Sometimes we can talk about states or a social movement having agency, but at other times it is more appropriate to think of groups or individuals at a lower scale (i.e., the President and the Pentagon acting differently to negotiate the defense budget). Agency is related to geopolitics in that it creates spaces (i.e., a nationalist group tries to create a nation-state) while actions are framed or situated within spaces.
Geopolitics, Power & Geography
Geopolitics, as the struggle over the control of spaces and places, focuses on power, or the ability to achieve particular goals in the face of opposition or alternatives. - (Flint, 2016, p. 45)
Flint reviews three forms of power important to the understanding of historic and contemporary geopolitical thinking: material, relational, and ideological power. In 19th and early 20th century geopolitical practices, power was seen as the relative power of countries in foreign affairs. In the 19th century, power was based on the size of a country, whereas in the 20th century, the study of geopolitical power became more academic as scholars created numerous indices of power focused on country-specific capabilities such as industrial strength, size, education level of the citizenry, as well as military capabilities. Power was based on a country’s material power or capacity to wage war.
Towards the latter half of the 20th century, discussions of power became more nuanced, sophisticated, and critical of seeing power as a thing that can be possessed. Rather, a relational sense of power came to greater prominence. As such, the “strong” power of one state was understood in relation to the “weak” position of another within a political network (i.e., the United Nations Security Council). In sum, geopolitical social relations create a framework that enables some actors to “force, cajole, or convince another actor to do what is wanted, or for that ‘acted-upon’ actor to resist, to varying degrees” (Flint, 2016, p.46).
Lastly, ideological power is “the ability or need not to force others to do what you want, but to make them follow your agenda willingly without considering alternatives” (Flint, 2016, p. 46). This analysis stems from Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s writing which observed that a ruling class rarely has to exert force to control the working class. Instead, the normative structure which frames our everyday lives incentivizes the working class to behave in a certain “acceptable” or “normal” way while marginalizing and belittling alternative behaviors or structures as “radical”, “abnormal”, or “unnatural.”
Introductory Blog Post
Please visit the Lesson 1 Module in Canvas for a full description, including due date and submission instructions.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
Now that you've gone through Lesson 1 and completed the associated activities, you should be able to discuss the basic concepts of place, scale, structure, and agency. After completing the assignments for this lesson, you should now also better understand how places in the world (i.e., your hometown) are both unique and interconnected. Furthermore, current events (happening in your hometown and elsewhere) are not territorially isolated events, but occur within an interconnected set of scales. Lastly, you should be able to discuss how these current events are performed by geopolitical agents, as well as how the actions of these agents happen within various interconnected and overlapping structures. And, of course, you should be able to articulate the multiple forms of power that underlie geopolitics.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 1 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 1! Double-check the Lesson 1 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 2.
Lesson 2: Geopolitical Agency - The Concept of Geopolitical Codes
Overview
This chapter will discuss the concept of geopolitical codes. We will build off of the previous chapter’s explanation of structure and agency by exploring the ways in which countries act as geopolitical agents (how they make decisions within a global context). We will engage with the concepts of scale, structure, and agency to interpret how countries make foreign policy decisions within regional and global contexts.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- define the concept of geopolitical codes;
- define the component parts of geopolitical codes;
- outline how geopolitical codes operate at different geographic scales; and
- show that geopolitical actors other than countries also construct geopolitical codes by using the example of al-Qaeda.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Geopolitical Codes
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 2 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
A geopolitical code is the manner in which a country orientates itself to the world. There are five main calculations that define a country’s geopolitical code. They are:
- Who are our current and potential allies?
- Who are our current and potential enemies?
- How can we maintain our allies and nurture potential allies?
- How can we counter our current enemies and emerging threats?
- How do we justify the four calculations above to our public, and to the global community?
(Taylor and Flint, 2000, p. 62; Flint, 2016, p. 52)
Before we go into greater detail exploring (or operationalizing) the five questions above, we might ask why a particular state actor might be considered an enemy or an ally. In order to identify our friends or foes, we must first understand our own global position (geographically, as well as politically and economically), assets, challenges, aspirations, and historical legacies.
Read: Perspectives
To get better acquainted with the various ways in which particular countries may consider their strategic geopolitical code, read:
A New Dimension of Russia’s Geopolitical Code (June 30, 2013), By Igor Okunev
[The pdf of this article is available in Lesson 2 within the Modules tab in Canvas]
There are numerous ways in which we work to identify, maintain, and nurture the geopolitical relationships with our allies and potential allies. Among these are diplomatic meetings and gestures, economic ties, cross-cultural and educational exchanges, military operations and exercises, and other types of aid.
Similarly, countries may utilize the aforementioned economic, political, or military tactics to counter or contain a current enemy or emerging threat. Two sides of using ‘military might’ to contain or counter enemies are explained in Flint (2016, p. 53). First, mutually assured destruction (MAD) was a geopolitical code during the Cold War, wherein the countries that held the nuclear power (USA, USSR, and Great Britain) were purported to be deterred from using nuclear force, because the capability for annihilation of the enemy and to cause extensive devastation was so extreme that no one dared to instigate war, and, thus, “peace” would be the default. The flip side of militarization to keep the peace is diplomacy. Diplomacy is the “negotiations between governments to, at the least, prevent hostilities and, at best, nurture more friendly relations” (Flint, 2016, p. 53).
Sanctions (and boycotts) are an economic tool used to put pressure on governments to change certain policies or actions. For example, in early 2014, many Western nations imposed sanctions on both individuals and industries within Russia in order to push for peace along the Russia-Ukraine border.
Read: Sanctions
The conflict in Ukraine is very much tied to Russia’s shifting current geopolitical code mentioned in the previous box. Western responses are tied to their own geopolitical codes as well. As such, Western strategies used to confront or contain Russia have implications not only for its leaders and the Russian elite but also, as sanctions continue, can have more long-term negative implications for the civilian population. Such strategies must consider whether or not they will get the targeted results, and at what cost. If sanctions result in greater hardship for the Russian people, it may bolster their support for their government’s actions rather than weakening their support and thereby prompting them to pressure their government to change course.
Representational geopolitics is a key part of the geopolitical code. This is the fifth point in the list of calculations presented above: How do we justify who are our enemies and our allies (and what we do to maintain or constrain these relationships) to our public, and to the global community?
The United States is comprised of a diverse constituency with familial, historic, cultural, and economic ties throughout the globe. Thus, decisions about whether or not to take action in a situation where an ally or enemy is implicated are complex and varied. The sections following, and the third lesson will further detail the ways in which representational geopolitics is a product of immediate situations as well as how they are developed through and built upon stories deposited in national myths and memorials.
Every country has a geopolitical code. While some countries' geopolitical codes may be primarily focused on closely neighboring countries along their borders, others (i.e., China in Southeast Asia or Iran in the Middle East and Arab world) may develop geopolitical codes at the regional level, while a few others (i.e., the United States) may adopt a global geopolitical code and strategy. Nonetheless, regardless of the scale at which a country develops its geopolitical code, they are all embedded in a global geopolitical context.
The Global Geopolitical Codes of the US
The scale of US geopolitical code has transitioned from having a local code to a regional code to a national code by the end of the 1800s. The evolution of the US geopolitical code is briefly outlined in Flint (2016, p 58). The text identifies NCS-68, written during President Truman’s administration, as a key document outlining the global geopolitical code of the US at the time, but it also served to influence the geopolitical code in the decades following.
National Security Council-68
For a historical overview of NSC-68, see The U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian website [9].
If you are interested in a scanned pdf of the original document NSC-68, go to the Truman Library [10].
The means of the geopolitical code were twofold:
- NSC-68 claimed a “policy to develop a healthy international community” (a geopolitical agenda).
- The document outlined a “policy of ‘containing’ the Soviet system” or negating the ideological and geopolitical challenger.
What were the goals of the containment policy?
What were the contradictions of NSC-68?
How was the US geopolitical code represented for domestic and for international audiences?
The War on Terror as a Geopolitical Code
NSC-68 was a key document for the mid- to late-20th Century. But geopolitical codes are necessarily dynamic. The break-up of the Soviet Union in the late 20th Century created a new global landscape that was no longer predicated on a bi-polar world of global powers.
Following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the US updated its geopolitical code to engage with anti-American terrorism. The National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2002, also known as the “Bush Doctrine”, asserted that the “struggle against global terrorism is different from any other war in history” (NSS, 5). The document delineated a strategy for the War on Terror—justifying a global reach while targeting specific countries. There was a certain vagueness (“the enemy is not a single political regime or person or religion or ideology. The enemy is terrorism.”), that was flexible enough to zero in on specific perceived threats.
What language was used to identify threats? What was introduced as a way to respond to counter threats? What were some of the means (“other than institutions and ‘principles’ to secure allies”) included to secure allies? How was the Bush Doctrine represented (justified) to the American people (what language was used)?
Watch
Watch a discussion about contemporary American geopolitics (A Farewell to Geopolitics: American Grand Strategy for the New Era given by MIT Political Science Professor Stephen Van Evera on March 6, 2012) and think about the answers to the questions below:
- Who are new geopolitical actors that the US (and others) should take note of?
- What are Dr. Van Evera’s recommendations for the US? How does this connect to our working understanding of geopolitical code?
ROGER OWEN: Welcome to the Cambridge forum discussing challenges of globalization and global engagement. I'm Roger Owen, Professor of History at Harvard University, and I will be the moderator. If 9/11 demonstrated how small and dangerous the world can be in the era of globalization, the decade after 9/11 has been a proving ground for responses to 21st century global threats.
Our speaker, Stephen Van Evera of MIT's Security Studies Program, looks at the ways the United States has responded to military diplomatic and economic challenges over the past decade and asks, have our actions made us more secure? Arguing that, in fact, US strategies have been ineffective, even counterproductive, he outlines an American grand strategy for the new globalization web of international relationships. What policies and actions does he see as effective in promoting American and global security going forward? Where does he find the political and economic will to achieve such a new strategic vision? And what should citizens be doing to foster increased security?
Stephen Van Evera is Ford International Professor in the MIT political science department. He earned his BA in government from Harvard and his MA and PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Van Evera works in several areas of international relations-- the causes and prevention of war, US foreign policy, US security policy, US intervention in the third world, international relations with the Middle East, and international relations theory.
He has published books on the causes of war, and on social science methodology, and articles on American foreign policy, American defense policy, nationalism and the causes of war, the origins of World War I, and US strategy in the War on Terror. His article "A Farewell to Geopolitics," which was his contribution to a consideration of the future of US foreign relations that was collected in the volume To Lead the World-- American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine from Oxford University Press forms the basis for our discussion. So welcome to the Cambridge forum Stephen Van Evera. Thank you.
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STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Thank you, Roger, and thank you, Pat. I always like to talk from an outline, partly so I don't get lost myself. So I think Pat passed out a little summary of the remarks I'm going to make that'll make it easier to follow what I'm going to say. If anyone doesn't have one, I think Pat can hand one out. It's great to be here to talk about these important questions. Pat put to me the challenge of speaking to American policy toward a globalizing world. What's the impact of this huge, unformed, unbounded phenomenon of globalization, and how well is America doing in managing It? And I thought, man, that's impossible. That's a huge subject. I give up.
So I thought, as long as I'm going to talk about something impossible, I'll talk about something even more impossible. I'll offer a overview of the broad sweep of American policy not only toward globalization, but toward all the threats in the world and ask, as a general matter, is the United States taking the right approach or wrong approach? Is US grand strategy today toward the main problems that the US faces rightly cast a wrongly cast? And I sort of sum up my argument at the outset there under Roman numeral one, I'm making a somewhat, if you will, radical argument that US grand strategy today should be radically different from what it was historically.
It's time for a complete rethinking of how the United States does business in the world-- that the nature of the threats the US faces in the world that they are perhaps not smaller-- I think they are somewhat smaller but not much smaller than they were back in the day-- back in decades past. But they're very different in shape and nature. But the US government is doing what it tends to do, which is to keep doing the same thing over and over again because large organizations and government bureaucracies don't like to change their missions, so we are basically largely pursuing foreign policies and security policies that are designed for the old days-- what I might call the age of geopolitics.
And today, we live in the new days where things are very different and it's time for a basic rethink. And to sum it up, for the first, really, two centuries of America's existence, the prime threats to the United States were always thought of as coming from other powers, especially from great powers, and especially during the years from 1917 to '89, the American foreign policy was directed at a single problem, which was the possibility that a single state would dominate all of industrial Eurasia. And if it did, it would then be strong enough to project power across the Atlantic and threaten the US.
And that was part of the motivation that led the US to decide to fight against the Germans in the First World War. It was a large part of the reason that FDR decided to join World War II and fight the Nazis. And it was the fundamental reason why the United States decided to join the Cold War in the late '40s and contain the Soviet Union. And it fits in with how great powers, in general, down through the ages have done business-- seeing each other as the major threats to each other.
And my argument is that we live in a new world where that kind of thinking is obsolete. And where the common interests among the major powers of the world today are much larger than their conflicts of interest. And we should be pursuing, essentially, an opposite policy of, if you will, concert rather than conflict with other major powers. The closest analogy in history is to the Concert of Europe that was pursued by the major states of Europe in 1815. Those of you who are close students of the old days will-- I'm sure you all remember the Concert of Europe.
But it was a brief period in European history after the Napoleonic Wars when the European powers saw the main threat to themselves to lie more in the danger of revolution than in the danger of conquest by one another. And they formed a broad, if you will, "concert," which did not have to do with the Boston Pops, it had to do with a courting-- bringing their policies into agreement and concerting their efforts together against the threat of revolution-- a threat from below, if you will. And they agreed on conflict abatement measures, ways to prevent war with each other, to sort of share the world, if you will, in quite an ugly way because, of course, what they were trying to do is prevent democracy and suppress popular movements and keep the people down, et cetera.
Their motives were very dark, but their objective and their answer was cooperation. This lasted for quite a while. Historians disagree on how long, but vestiges of this cooperation policy went on for some decades. And there was no major war in Europe while the European powers pursued that approach.
And what I'm arguing is that we're really in a parallel time where the great powers of the world have a large interest in cooperation, and we should once again pursue a concert not for those dark reasons of the old days but, because today, number one, the great powers of the world are not a major threat to each other. The United States is not going to be conquered any time in the near future under any scenario you can think of. The notion that China could be a security threat to the US is just wrongheaded and far-fetched. And therefore, the containment of China, which could only have the purpose of preventing China from threatening the US, is a wrongheaded idea.
At the same time, the US faces, along with everyone else, new threats that are best addressed and only addressed by common action by all the powers. And they can be addressed by common action of all the powers because these new threats threaten all the major states of the world, and they can only be effectively addressed by common action among them all. And those threats are, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which I believe has taken a new, frightening turn in the last few years; the spread of terror networks that want to use these weapons, which now look weak but I don't think have gone away; and perhaps most important-- threats to the global commons, by which I mean threats to the environment, especially the threat of climate change; threats of global financial disruption, which is a problem we thought we understood and could kind of solve five years ago, but it's clear we don't know what we're doing in that area.
And the threat of a new big economic downturn still hangs over us. And other threats, including the threat of pandemic disease, which isn't so much a threat as it's an opportunity these days. I mean it is a grave threat-- pandemic disease can kill far more people than major wars can if bad luck strikes but, by cooperating internationally, we can abate that threat in ways we couldn't used to. And we throw that opportunity away if we have great power competition. So that's sort of a summary-- that we ought to put geopolitics think if you will aside and pursue great power co-operation-- a highly unnatural thing for great powers to do, a very natural thing for the national security establishments of the world to do, but I think it's appropriate to the world we're in today.
And just to take you through the details of that argument, geopolitical threats have sharply diminished. In other words, we don't live in a world anymore where it's believable that any great power is going to conquer the US. The number one threat people point to today that the US allegedly needs to contain or address is China. After the Cold War ended, people were looking around for the new great power that might be the problem. For a while, people said, Germany! Man, they're the new danger. They're going to unify and get strong and be a danger and, of course, that argument kind of looked silly in a hurry. Or Russia-- will Russia come back? And again, that argument looked silly in a hurry.
So China has been featured as the main new potential quote, "geopolitical threat." By which I mean a state that could become strong enough to pose a security threat to the US and, therefore in some way, requires, or needs, or merits a confrontational approach-- a containment policy or even a nastier policy of rollback or some efforts to reduce its power-- a policy of hostility of some degree that would either contain its power or reduce it. And there's many voices in Washington who argue for a policy of containment toward China. And my argument is that even that threat just can't be-- you can't keep it together if you argue that that threat is a real threat to the US national security.
Because the world has changed in ways that make the whole logic of past American geopolitical activities no longer hold water for big changes in the world. One is that empires no longer pay rewards. Back in the day, the fear was that the Soviet Union would take over Western Europe, harness its industrial might, turn the industry of Western Europe to weapons, and then have an overwhelming military strength. That may have been true in those days.
One of my students actually wrote a terrific book called, Does Conquest Pay? Peter Liberman is his name-- excellent study of whether empires paid rewards to those who conquered them back in the First World War era and the Second World War era. His answer was, yes, they did pay, they didn't pay $0.100 on the dollar because the conqueror had to police the empire and, of course, there was always resistance and inefficiency.
But those who conquered industrial regions could milk them quite successfully. And today, I think that's just no longer true. We live in a knowledge economy era when areas you conquer can't be milked and can't be policed because you can't make knowledge workers produce at the point of a gun.
Second, we live in an age of nationalism where an empire is now much more costly and difficult to control than it once was. So the idea that China's going to expand and take over its neighbors and milk power from them is, I think, wrongheaded. If China really were to go on some kind of expansionist course, I think they could expect to suffer in the same way the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan or the US did in Vietnam.
Another huge change in the world is the nuclear revolution itself. And here, my view is somewhat that, even during the Cold War, the national security elites of the world, if you will, didn't fully think through what these weapons meant. But my argument is that these nuclear revolution was a defensive revolution in military affairs-- it was a frightening revolution-- it had many downsides-- but that basically, no great power is ever going to conquer any other great power that has a secure nuclear arsenal. You can't frame the argument that the clever briefer makes for, how does it work when you invade another country that has nuclear weapons you can't destroy? Well, you shouldn't do it. It's going to end badly for you.
And nuclear weapons are inherently very easy to hide, deliver, and protect, which means that it's very easy to maintain a secure nuclear deterrent if you work at it. And so it's not an accident, mind you, that we've had no great powers conquer each other since the nuclear revolution happened. And one of the counterintuitive unforeseen benefits of the nuclear revolution is it makes conquest among great powers fundamentally impossible. It makes it impossible. It's not going to happen. And when I say that's a benefit-- much warfare through the ages has been motivated by the search for security.
If you explore the motives that drove great states to wage great wars down through the ages, it was frequently that they felt insecure and felt that they either had to expand their borders to acquire more assets, or to overthrow nasty neighboring regimes, or to reduce the assets that other countries had and therefore to change the balance of power in their favor so that they could not be conquered by their neighbors. And this devilish problem has essentially been ended-- or at least has been ended as long as nuclear weapons are the dominant weapon in warfare.
And what that means regarding China and the US is, come on, good people. China is not conquering the US. Even if China's economy grows like Topsy, even if it does surpass the US in total GDP, even if its defense establishment does become larger than the US defense establishment, China is not going to cross the Pacific Ocean and conquer the US. So this threat that the US, for many decades, centered its policy around is now fundamentally gone.
The same is true of Russia-- as I said, ditto. The biggest threat to Russia posed to us is their own weakness-- the danger that they'll fall apart, the danger that they'll lose control of their nuclear weapons, which is quite a serious danger, and their weapons will fall in the hands of terrorists. So as that threat has disappeared, revolutionary change-- and very disappointing-- well, let's just say shocking to the defense establishment, because that's the threat toward which our defense establishment has been geared for many years-- great power warfare.
Two other threats have arisen. One is the danger of WMD, or weapons of mass destruction terror, which seems right now to be sort of in advance, but I believe we face long-term secular trends that are going to keep that threat, unfortunately, with us. One is that weapons of mass destruction are slowly becoming easier to make, slowly becoming more accessible to more players, slowly becoming things that it is more plausible to fear that might fall into the hands of bad actors. The price is going down. Knowledge of how to make them is going up. More actors seem to want them.
We went through a phase in this whole problem of things going the right way. After the Cold War ended, we saw Ukraine, and Belarus, and other countries-- Kazakhstan-- give up their weapons. We saw South Africa, which had built a bomb, decided it didn't want the bomb and abandoned the bomb. We saw the Argentines and Brazilians ramp back their nuclear program.
So things were looking really good like, we're heading the right way here. But since then, we've seen a number of states seem to develop nuclear ambitions-- the Iranians, the North Koreans, we know Saddam Hussein wanted the weapons. He very incompetently went after them and sort of was in a box, but he wanted them. And we see the prospect of new nuclear technologies that would make nuclear enrichment easier for people with fewer resources.
And we also see the danger of new kinds of WMDs being created. And especially, we see the synthetic biology revolution potentially bringing to fore, essentially, new weapons of mass destruction. Martin Reese has written a worrying book that people should read about where is technology taking in the world, arguing that the advance of science is essentially causing the power to destroy to outrun the power to counter the power to destroy.
The long-term trends suggest that science is bringing us more ways to destroy than it's bringing us ways to defend against such things. And he even talks about how nanotechnology might be used for mass killing, and even how folks in the low-temperature physics business are doing things that could be very destructive whose results they don't understand. REES Martin Rees it's a book-- some years ago now but a very important book. And I think that the trend he outlines, unfortunately, is real.
There is a second trend out there which is that there's some distemper loose in the world of global religions-- a rise of not just a sort of angry fundamentalism that you find in many faiths but, also, specifically, a rise of millenarianism, which you see really rising in all five of the world's great religions-- meaning, specifically, the idea that the world is ending, and that's a good thing, and perhaps a person of goodwill should hasten that along. The left-behind folks in the United States are essentially millenarians and who see something good in the end-of-the-world scenario that they have embedded in their faith.
The folks who shot Prime Minister Rabin in Israel in '94 were basically millenarian Jews. The Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan are, believe it or not, millenarian Buddhists. And there are also millenarian Hindus and some Muslims who are not connected to the Jihadis. They're a separate strand. If you want a rationale-- the reason I raise all this is, if you want a rationale for why someone might find it a good thing to do to unleash weapons of mass destruction on cities, to me, I gravitate to religious arguments, and I gravitate, particularly, to ones that argue that mass destruction is somehow God's will.
And we're seeing that kind of thinking growing not ebbing, as well as angry fundamentalism, which also is a problem that can lead people believing they have God's back to ignore the normal rules. Other threats that also don't take the form of great powers-- I mentioned three of them in the outline. The most important one, to me, is the threat of climate change and environmental destruction.
My view is that human civilization is now in the early stages of a horrifying collision with the natural world. And this collision is happening in slow motion, but it's inexorable, it's gathering force, it's leading manifestation today's climate change. And the problem of climate change, I think, is it's going to be an immensely difficult one to solve. And it can only be solved by international cooperation, which is why I raise it as a foreign policy problem. It's going to require a lot of action in other policy realms as well. We also see other threats to the global commons.
As I mentioned, to me, managing the world economy is a global foreign policy problem. Today, we do live in a globalized world where financial crises cross borders, recessions cross borders, and preventing global financial implosion is therefore, again, a global foreign policy problem-- one we didn't used to talk about much because we thought we sort of understood how to do that. But as I said in the outset, I'm increasingly convinced that it's a problem we don't have a good handle on. And we have to come up with better answers. What US strategies we adopt?
On the bottom there on page 1, I say, OK fine. A common policy that addresses all of these is to forge a concert of cooperation amongst all the major powers. Such a concert is both required by the nuclear revolution and enabled by it. It's enabled by it because great powers now need fear each other less so they can cooperate with each other more because they pose less threat of conquest to each other.
They also face a common threat, which is this WMD terror problem, which is another motive for them to cooperate. It somewhat resembles this threat of revolution that we saw back in the 1815 era. So they have the ability to cooperate. They have the need to cooperate. And Furthermore, they sort of have the double-need to cooperate. The threats to the global commons and to national security can't be solved without a wide cooperation.
The problem of WMD spread is inherently a multinational problem. You cannot stop proliferation without common action by a wide range of powers. You cannot deal with terror networks without common action by a wide range of powers. You cannot address climate change without common action by a wide range of powers. You can't deal with managing a financial crisis without common action by a wide range of powers.
So common action by a wide range of states and, in some cases, by everybody. If you have any bad actors in this system, terror networks can flourish and weapons can spread. So widespread cooperation is required. What do you do to create a concert? I list four things-- primary things-- that you want to do. One is, the United States should be a major peacemaker in the world. Cooperation happens when states get along.
The US, as the world's leading power, should take a strong hand in dampening conflicts among other major states. It should be the cop on the block that sees itself as having an active interest in making war unthinkable around the planet. What the US I think should do is, essentially, to frame the ambition-- should be to replicate the miracle of Europe everywhere. Today a miracle has been achieved in Europe. War is unthinkable in Western Europe. This is a part of the world where blood flowed in rivers for centuries.
And today, it is just not conceivable that the major states of Europe would go back to war again. No one in Europe thinks that's possible. How was that achieved? There's a number of actual ingredients to that miracle in my opinion, and students of peace should start with that achievement if they want to figure out how to make it happen elsewhere. But the US's goal should be to find-- let's replicate that achievement around the world. Another way to look at it is to say, let's play Bismarck, if you will-- the good Bismarck, the later Bismarck during the later period of his chancellorship of Germany in the 1880s.
Bismarck's goal was to see to it that around Germany, there was peace so that Germany wasn't sucked into wars on its periphery as he feared it would be. And he had an active policy of dispute resolution among his neighbors and also of deterring conflict among them and providing security for them. His main tool was defensive alliances. He wove a network of relations in which he told neighbors, if you are attacking your neighbors, I'm against you; and if you're the attacked party, I'm with you. My relationship with you is conditional on whether you behave yourself.
The US should use that policy to try to dampen conflicts abroad. And it also should use the strong arm-- should actively mediate conflicts that today it views as spectator sports-- most notably, for example, India/Pakistan where the US has been very laid back, and not been very involved, and not had a strong opinion, never framed its own view on what kind of a final-status peace settlement should be pursued. And to me, the US should be much more forward about pursuing peace for its own sake.
The US should pursue a modus vivendi with China and Russia. In the past 20 years, the US has, essentially, from time to time, poked a stick in both their eyes with NATO expansion, with national missile defense, with the talk of more NATO expansion. Under the Bush administration, the US promised entry into NATO to the Georgians and to Ukraine, which, in my opinion, would be bad things to do for a number of reasons-- one being that, for sure, there would be a war in Ukraine.
Same thing with China-- there was a policy under George W. Bush, basically, of encircling China and containing it. And we now see the Obama administration talking in those terms-- talking about reorienting US defense policy toward an East Asia scenario, meaning, essentially, toward containment of China. And my view is no, let's pursue, basically, detente with both these states on the premise, which we would explain to them often and early, that we have common interests that outweigh our differences.
Third and fourth, the US should build US global legitimacy, which, to some extent, Bush didn't do, and Obama has done it. And we're seeing the results of it in the ability of the Obama administration to forge big coalitions when they want to take action as, for example, on Iran. And fourth is to build capacities for diplomacy. You all know that, basically, in Washington, the Defense Department is the agency that ate government. We've militarized our whole approach to foreign affairs.
The State Department is this tiny, little outfit of overworked and underpaid people. And instead, we need to have, essentially, an understanding that the United States needs to be essentially a dealmaker worldwide-- a, if you will, global social engineer. And you need people who know how to do it and have the time. And that means you have to build up that expertise in the State Department. I also would put public diplomacy down as a major thing the US doesn't invest in that's required for this new strategy.
If you're going to lead a global coalition, you've got to persuade people that it makes sense, persuade people to stay in it, persuade people to support it, and go along with it. And the US has basically dismantled-- I'm overstating a little bit-- but it's largely dismantled it's public diplomacy or persuasion capacity over the last 20 years. Back in the day, the US was fairly good at that sort of thing, but it's been regarded as sort of, it's not kinetic so let's not bother. And this, I think, has been a huge mistake. It needs to be rebuilt.
So those are major pieces of how to build a concert. You then have to use the concert wisely-- the power of the concert. If you have a bad strategy for how to solve these problems I mentioned, you're still going to fail at them. I mentioned under C there in the outline that a good counterterror strategy is not very kinetic. It involves intelligence cooperation. It involves, for example, another thing most people don't think of as counterterror but it's centrally important to counterterror which is dispute resolution.
The Jihadis that the United States is now fighting love conflicts especially ones involving Muslims. They love the Arab-Israeli conflict. They love it. They love the India-Pakistan conflict. Because they use these conflicts for propaganda, for training, for networking-- they're like gasoline on the fires for these groups. And it follows that the United States should have an active policy of dampening or ending these conflicts. We shouldn't view them as something that the US spectates upon without any core interests being at stake. Rather, the US does have a core interest in resolving these conflicts and the US, I think, should have a strong policy and often should be willing to not just mediate them, but frame a final status solution that the US believes is fair and then use carrots and sticks to persuade the parties to move toward it.
It's the same thing with counter-proliferation. You haven't solved the problem of proliferation if you just assemble a big coalition. You need to know what to do with it. And if I look at US counter-proliferation efforts over the last 20 years, I'd say, OK, some smart things are done but also some not so smart things. The US has missed huge opportunities to resolve proliferation problems, especially with Iran and North Korea. I think we could have had deals with both those countries that would have resolved things-- solved 90% of the problem.
But because people in the US government sort of were believing in fantasies-- the fantasy of regime change-- and also because they didn't understand why states want nuclear weapons. They didn't realize that security is a major reason that states want them. So if you threaten those states' regimes or threaten the states themselves, you're not going to get them to stand down their programs, you're going to get them to escalate their programs. So it's the exact wrong way to go. So we've made mistakes in the past on this score, and if you're building a coalition, you need to know how to proceed.
To me, the most elementary thing to say about counter-proliferation or nonproliferation is, it involves talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. It involves a commitment of very long term, very deep engagement with whomever you are trying to persuade to change their behavior. The way we're handling things with Iran is just far from the right way. We now have sort of one meeting a year with Iran. Well you need to have a meeting every week. Because you need to engage in a very long-term process of persuading the other side and learning about the other side to make deals. That's how we dealt with China and the Soviet Union back in the Cold War.
This business of doing everything from arms length is never going to work-- doesn't work. It's a common belief in Washington that if you talk to adversaries that you're appeasing them in some way. And I think that's a very misguided way of thinking about the role of negotiations. We should elevate the problem of global commons issues to high priority in foreign policy. One reason to do that is because the danger we face if we don't manage these problems is so great, in my opinion. We could face a cataclysmic damage if we don't solve this problem.
The second is that especially the climate change problem, in my opinion, is the problem from hell. If you look at what social science knows about problems like this and line it up against the nature of this problem, it's a problem we can't solve. It's a problem we can't solve. We won't solve it. Because it's exactly the kind of problem that while it probably has a technical-- it does, in my opinion, have technical solutions, it doesn't have political solutions.
Specifically, it's a problem that pits a concentrated interest against the common interest domestically in the US. It pits the carbon industries against the common public interest. And if you look at American politics and how it works, the common interest is almost always defeated by special interests. That's the way our political system works. We solve the problem of ozone layer damage because the special interest that was causing the problem also was the guys who would solve it-- the DuPont corporation and the makers of CFCs also were the guys who would make the replacement for it.
But with climate change, we have a much tougher political problem that we face-- as I said, special interests that are dedicated to not solving the problem. And if we know anything about our own politics, we know that that usually doesn't end well. It also requires international cooperation. You've got to get transnational agreement on any measures. And we find it very hard to forge international cooperation on deals like this.
And there are other reasons why this problem is very hard. The problem itself is a problem where the damage is delayed. So the deed you do today doesn't do you harm for years. The harm only shows up much later, which means the harm is not visible, which means it's hard to rally people to solve it.
The harm of climate change has an appearance or a signature that doesn't, shall we say, appeal to or activate normal human fear pathways. As a species, we're hardwired to be frightened by things that involve blood, and screaming, and teeth. And climate change is something that doesn't present any of those things to us. So it's, on its face, a seemingly very unfrightening phenomenon, even though it's immensely destructive.
And finally, our religious traditions don't contain moral teachings that activate us to take action on this. There's nothing in Abrahamic religions that is quite like the great law of the Iroquois, which requires that you shall consider the effects of every deed you do down to the seventh generation. We don't have that kind of tradition.
So in many ways, this is a very hard problem. And I say that not to make everyone want to crawl under the pew but to say that this is a problem that requires very strong international action and political mobilization or it won't get solved. Can a concert be organized? I'll sort of stop with that.
The main objection to what I'm saying-- there's a number of objections to what I'm saying-- one of them is that, this is impossible. It's dreamy to think that you can get a broad international agreement on any kind of major international initiative because it's hard to organize coalitions in world politics. And my view is that what I'm really calling for is similar to the Grand Alliance of World War II or similar to the NATO alliance in the Cold War.
We're not talking about building huge institutions. We're talking here about forging cooperation-- perhaps even ad hoc-- but cooperation to solve specific problems. So it's a politically doable thing if elites and nations decide to do it. Now there's a number of big impediments to this strategy. There are special interest lobbies that are going to oppose it. There is the problem of the American public's unawareness of history that would guide them to solve this problem in the way I'm suggesting.
There's the problem that essentially the neoconservative community thinks in opposite ways about foreign policy from the way I'm suggesting we should think. So there's many obstacles to it but, in practice-- let's just say, in principle, I think this is a policy that's-- it's not only required, it's feasible. So I'll stop with that. Regarding peaceful energy versus weaponized energy, what I'm calling for is for the US to try to draw that line in a way that makes it stick around the world.
The nonproliferation treaty tries to draw that line permitting signatories to have, if you will, nuclear energy for energy purposes if they will forswear nuclear energy for weapons reasons. And I think, in practice, that's a line that's fairly visible and not hard to understand. And reaching agreement with other actors who are committed to making it work and who really want to live within those rules isn't all that hard.
With Iran, the obvious, in my opinion, way to flesh out what you're asking about is to reach an agreement with Iran where they agree they will not enrich uranium to more than 5% level of enrichment. And for those of you who are weapons wonks or nuclear power plant wonks, you all watch the Simpsons so you know about nuclear energy. He's laughing, at least. None of you are laughing, but he's laughing.
The nuclear power requires uranium that's enriched to around 5%. Once you go above that, you're doing something that's not useful for energy reasons but could only be useful for weapons reasons. Nuclear bombs require uranium enriched to 93%. The Iranians are now frightening everybody because they've been enriching above 5%-- up to 20%. They have some enrichment-- some uranium now enriched to 20%. So what's the wise final status solution is to ask them to walk that back, contain themselves to 5% or less, do it in some way that's visible to the world--
My colleague at MIT, Jim Walsh, has written a very good policy proposal with Bill Luers and Tom Pickering proposing that Iran be granted the right to enrich on its own soil-- to possess the enrichment facilities and the uranium, but that others would own it and have a right then to watch it, and observe it, and do the accounting on it. And Iran would agree not to go beyond 5%. So that's where I draw the line.
And to me, the real problem is persuading other states that this is where they want to go. Persuading Iran that they really don't want to either develop a bomb or, as many people think, maybe they don't want to develop a bomb but they want to be a turned key away from it or close to it. And instead, let's persuade them that they really want to be far from it. And to my mind, then that requires us getting into a wider discussion with them about their own security. Because a major reason why they want these weapons is because they've been invaded many times, and have many enemies, and five of the world's nine nuclear powers are in their neighborhood.
And in the end, they have to be satisfied that their security needs have been met in some other way. Then you ask about the UN as a format for what I'm talking about. The UN actually was originally organized as a remake of the Concert of Europe. This is not widely the way people talk about it, but when FDR was scratching his head thinking, what'll I do with this world we've got late in World War II, he looked back on the League of Nations, which was a collective security system in which states agreed to go to war with each other if anyone attacked anyone.
They agreed to defend any other member of the system against any aggressor. And he said, well, that just kind of didn't work. Nobody actually lived up to their obligations. I think I'll go back to an earlier model-- the concert system of 1815. So the UN is actually modeled on the Concert of Europe.
And there's a reason why there's a veto in the UN Security Council is the premise that all the great powers of the world would somehow be on the same page, pulled in the same direction, and have the same goals. Of course, it didn't turn out that way in the Cold War. But the UN is basically a structure trying to imitate, or trying to be prepared to operate as, a concert system. I still don't think, though, that it will operate as such without leadership. You have to have a leader state that sets the agenda, that points to the problems, and that tries to form the coalition.
So I think often the UN is a very useful, if you will, format for action of the kind I'm talking about, but the United States is going to have to play a central role and making it serve these purposes. If we stand back and say, let's wait for the UN General Secretary to carry out the agenda I was outlining, it's not going to happen. You have to have a leader state that's pushing the agenda.
ROGER OWEN: Now questions. And I'm afraid you'll have to get out of your pews and come forward to this microphone, which may require a bit of jumping around.
AUDIENCE: I'm curious to know what is your view of, I'll say, a proper policy on the part of Israel towards a nuclear Iran, particularly since they're in the immediate line of fire and there seems to be a lot of saber rattling going on?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Great question. Israel and Iran-- what should Israel's policy be toward Iran. My view is that regardless of your Israeli politics-- whether you're Labor Party, or Meretz Party, or Kadima Party, or Likud Party, or whatever-- I think Israel has an interest in drawing Iran in from the cold. Let's move away from the current issue of, should Israel bomb this spring, which is what people are thinking might occur.
The meta-policy, in my opinion, for Israel toward Iran should be-- Israel wants Iran drawn in from the cold. They want Iran to sort of join the rest of the world-- in the end, to walk back two aspects of its policy. One is its nuclear policy, because Israel should want to live in a Middle East where there is as few nuclear weapons as possible.
And because, in my opinion, an Iranian bomb is going to lead to other bombs in the Mideast, which is going to make the whole region much more dangerous. And second, they should want Iran to accept Israel as a legitimate state in the global system and to stop its support for rejectionist folks who don't want to pursue a two-state solution, especially Hamas and Hezbollah, and Iran has been supporting them. Iran is the only state in the world today that does not recognize Israel.
What has puzzled me is that Israel doesn't ask its friends in the United States to do this. There have been a number of occasions over the last 15 years when it seemed that Iran was offering to make a deal-- coming to the US to settle things. If I'd been the Israeli government at that time, I would have made known to Washington, guys I want you to pursue this. You are the one actor that can pull Iran out of its hibernation, its isolation, its hauled down, position toward the world. We want you to do that. So my advice to the Israelis is, push the United States and go along with US policy toward reaching some kind of modus vivendi with Iran.
AUDIENCE: So it's like America should act as a kind of a broker between Iran and Israel?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Yes. Well, and I would say, America should actually broker between Iran and everybody. In other words, what we have here is a-- I'm using the phrase, bring Iran in from the cold. Lets get around to decide it wants to get along better with its neighbors. It wants to stop supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. It wants to stop building nuclear weapons. That requires some kind of grand bargain, though. It's going to require some new security order in the Middle East that will make the Iranians feel that they have a stake in this.
Now let's imagine that's not going to happen; because you're asking a great question. Should Israel use force on Iran? And should the US use force on Iran? That issue's on the table right now. My opinion is that force isn't going to work. It's going to backfire-- not in the way most people point to.
Today, the common criticism of the idea of using force is, gee, Iran will retaliate. You'll see Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz, or you'll see Iran's friends in Hezbollah rocket Israel, or you'll see Iran even attempt to do acts of terror in the United States, or Iran will strike US personnel around the world-- perhaps even, well, you know, the easiest place would be in Iraq. And I think those are lesser dangers to a second danger, which is that airstrikes are going to fuel the Iranian nuclear program.
In the end, we really can't stop this program with weapons. We have to persuade them to stop it. And a military campaign is going to strengthen the hand of those in Iran who believe in a nuclear program so I'm against the use of force. I think it's going to backfire.
ROGER OWEN: We have a line, if you would be so kind.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
AUDIENCE: This is either a simple question or a complex question. It has to do with the effects on the US and global economy of a radical reduction in the price of oil. I realize that one answer to the question might be, well, it would just be like giving everybody a huge tax cut because it would reduce the amount of everybody's expenditures on gasoline. And so it would provide a terrific boost to the economy.
On the other hand, there is the view-- a sort of philosophical view that money obtains its validity as a result of its scarcity. And that we are, in fact, living in an age of paper money that is based upon largely the most important commodity in the world, which is oil. That is, we're really spending our petrodollars-- our greenbacks are really petrodollars. The question is, what would be the effect of a radical reduction in the price of gasoline and oil on the US and the global economy? That's the question. And I don't think there's an easy answer, but maybe you have one.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Short term, it would be an economic stimulus. It would be like a tax cut. Right now, we have an understimulated economy. It's still crawling out of the recession at a slower rate due to our own, in my opinion, big mistakes. We should have done a much bigger stimulus than we did, and this would help fill the stimulus gap. But long run, it will-- a lower price of oil will hook us further on fossil fuels and expand the danger of climate change.
And we have to face up to the danger we face here. We've got to act like adults. At some point, we're going to have to say, think of a future, plan for the long run-- concerning ourselves with short-term prices of oil commodities or carbon is all very well and good, but we've got to make a fundamental transformation in the energy systems of the world. And we delay that by keeping oil prices low. I'll make a further comment. My own policy recommendation for how to deal with climate change is two simple words-- carbon tax. Price mechanisms can solve the climate problem if we will use them. So the simplest tax shift is a better way to put it.
We should move taxes off of other things we do that are productive and onto the carbon complex so that, in fact, the carbon complex pays its full freight. So that it pays for all the damage that it does, including the damage it does the climate in addition to the cost of producing it. So we need to make this cost shift so that carbon pays the full freight. Once it does that, we'll find that green energy can compete in the marketplace with it, and we'll see a flourishing of new green energies. But until we do that, we're not going to see green energy being able to compete equally, and lowering the price of oil will make that problem worse. So I'm not hoping for a--
AUDIENCE: So we can lower the price of oil, only in the circumstance in which a carbon tax was imposed?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Well I'm saying you have to impose an even higher carbon tax to make up for a lower price of oil--
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: --in order to get the result you want. Yeah.
AUDIENCE: High, professor. I was wondering how you would apply the framework of acting in concert to the recent leadership transition in North Korea. Specifically, was and is there an opportunity for the US to act in concert with China to improve the lot of the North Korean people and still be in America's security interests?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: North Korea poses a really tough problem because there's so many large interests at stake-- not just the problem of weapons of mass destruction but the problem of human rights, and the suffering of North Korean people, and the incompetence of the regime there, and so forth. I am still a believer that we should engage North Korea. And that if we pursued engagement the way I'm recommending, which is-- spend a lot of time at it, do a lot of talking, don't do it at arm's length-- I think there's a 50/50 chance you could make headway.
I think we nearly had a deal with North Korea in 2001. It was a very close-run thing. The Bush administration made a big mistake walking away from the deal that was on the table at that time. And if we'd made that deal, we would have frozen their plutonium program. And I think they, today, would have no nuclear weapons, or they would have had the one weapon they built back in the '90s. And we made a huge mistake not cutting that deal. And my view is, if their regime was willing to make it then, let's re-explore it. Let's continue engagement.
And this requires talking to a very ugly regime. These guys are heartless people. They shoot people who try to flee the [INAUDIBLE] to escape from starvation. They oversaw a famine in the '90s that killed over a million people. So you're not talking to nice people. And my view is, that's world politics. You don't wait for people to be nice to talk to them. And the problem of nuclear weapons requires that we deal with everybody.
AUDIENCE: Thank you for your words. But there's one area that you neglected in the area of natural resources. And with expanding wealth among nations, and also we know the depletion of resources water, energy, and so on-- that, won't this usher in a new era of people being insecure and maybe a greater sense of nationalism in competing for these depleting resources in the future? And the second thing regards what you were talking about that we put more emphasis on the Department of Defense than diplomacy. And I think it's because of the nature of our capitalistic system that we don't know how to monetize diplomacy, but we know how to monetize defense activities.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Well regarding resources, I'm actually if you will an optimist about the long-term future of resources. My short history of resource development is, there's a race between us depleting what we now have found and developed and us finding new ways to develop yet new resources. And I think, usually, we win that race. The net price of most resources has been moving up some in recent years but not radically.
To me, the great danger is the environmental damage we're doing as we increasingly find more and more ways to essentially extract things from the earth. It's the collateral effects of our very skillful exploitation of the natural world that concerns me most. I'm thinking of peak oil, for example-- the argument people have made that we're going to run out of oil because we reached peak oil a little while ago or maybe now; and we're soon going to have more competition for energy resources. I think the other thing is true-- that we're very ingenious at finding new carbon resources.
And we just found a whole boatload of new carbon resources in the South Atlantic near Argentina. We're finding more carbon resources in the Mediterranean as we were talking about tonight. And to me, that's the problem. We're so good at finding new ways to extract things from the earth that we're damaging it in ways that are causing large collateral threats to us.
AUDIENCE: Well to follow up on that theme, it would seem that what's necessary for global survival is some concert developed for self-imposed self-restraint. In other words, we need something globally to restrain our use of carbon because we're in effect, moving it from terrestrial to atmospheric forms at a rate that we cannot survive. I don't mean just as a nation, state, or as Western civilization but as a species.
The rate at which carbon is being emitted to the atmosphere is such that it's going to induce climate change on a scale that's going to threaten every city on every coastline just as we're moving toward the coastlines. 60% of humanity lives within 50 miles of the coast, and that's increasing. At the same time, we know that sea level is rising. So that on a global scale, we've got global problems, and yet all we've got is international responses.
What you've done very well as outline for us how the international community might revive the 1815 consort of nations. But it's still within the framework of more bigger, better logic of continuous growth, which can't be sustained in what you've just outlined as the suicidal commitment to oxidizing terrestrial carbon. Do you have any insights about how we might move toward a global understanding of our global problem, not an international tweaking with competitive politics?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: He asks really easy questions, there. That's an easy one. You and I were chatting earlier about how a disaster seems to be under way in the domestic politics in the US on climate change. 10 years ago, it was accepted by many people in the Republican Party that climate change was human caused and posed a grave problem. John McCain talked about how it was a problem we had to take action to solve. And Newt Gingrich appeared in the famous ad with Nancy Pelosi saying this was a problem that had to be solved.
Others in the Republican Party, generally, agreed with that. Someone did a nose count of Republican Senate candidates in I, think, 2010 and found that 19 of the 20 strongest candidates were climate-change deniers of one kind or another. And we now we heard Rick Santorum the other night saying very sharp things about people who worry about climate change, arguing that they were twisting the facts. So there's been a very striking backward movement in public opinion on this.
And I think, in part, this does reflect, shall we say, mistakes of strategy by the scientific community. To me, when I watch the debate about climate change, the advocates of action against climate change generally frame the argument in rational scientific terms, and they argue from authority. They say of the IPCC scientists, of whom there are 2,500, only seven of them don't sign the IPCC reports, and there's enormous consensus that climate change is human caused and highly dangerous. They don't use the tools of marketing. They don't use tools of public relations.
Understandably, scientific culture is uneasy with marketing discussion, with marketing discourse, with hyping things, if you will-- with the telling only one side of the story. And my view is, I'm sorry we've got to use the tools that we understand work when it comes to making the needle move on public opinion. I'm not arguing for being dishonest, but I'm saying let's use the tools we know work.
I'd like the folks who are worried about this problem to have some chats with folks who know something about moving public opinion and how it's done. Because I don't see signs of it. I don't see that the folks who are working the climate change problem, generally, have a strategy for a very big project that needs doing, which is massive change in public opinion across the entire globe, which is a thing that will cost a ton of money, and there has to be a strategy for raising that money. And then there has to be a strategy for using that money, which, in my opinion, can't simply be confined to the normal reference to scientific facts and figures that folks from the climate science community are used to.
I'll say another thing, too, which is, I think that foundations have to play a huge role here. Abe Lincoln once said that governments exist to do the things that people can't do for themselves. And my opinion is, foundations exist to do the things that governments and people can't do for themselves. And my opinion is, this is a problem that as I said earlier can't be solved by governments. Because governments tend to be captured by special interests; and our government always is. As I said, special interests tend to very overwhelmingly dominate the common interests here.
Who then is going to bell the cat? Who is the actor that has to be made responsible to find some way to cut against these currents? In my opinion, I looked at the foundation world as a domain that has to be mobilized and understand that it has a heavy responsibility to deal with this. Does anyone know Bill Gates? Call him up. Tell him he needs to commit himself to a large, essentially permanent, public-opinion project that needs to continue until the end of time. Because this problem is not going to go away, ever. It needs to be a permanent effort to shape public opinion across the planet on this issue. I'm joking about knowing Bill Gates. I don't know him either.
AUDIENCE: 1815 is a great benchmark because France went through a very bloody revolution, and then Napoleon, of course, and we feel Napoleon III had the great vision to catch up with Great Britain socioeconomically, and Queen Victoria was very generous to reach out. And since that 1815 deal, there was no-- that was first time, to this day, that Great Britain and France have not had war. And looking at that experience with respect to North Korea, Maurice Strong proposed to use Sakhalin island oil to bring its oil pipeline to North Korea during the Kofi Annan time in the United Nations. Do you think that's an option to bring North Korea socioeconomically out of the woods?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Your proposal is use Sakhalin Island as a--
AUDIENCE: Oil to build a pipeline that would be paid for by South Korea among others and endow the North Koreans with a source of energy that they don't have.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Let me say that your proposal, which is somewhat, shall we say, to bribe North Korea into a different way of behaving--
AUDIENCE: It's not my proposal, it's Maurice Strong's.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Pardon?
AUDIENCE: Maurice Strong, who was the Special Envoy of the United Nations to North Korea during Kofi Annan's regime.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: And he proposed this?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Well, my recollection of what happened in the '90s, which was that the deal reached in '94-- you all should know that the US reached a deal with North Korea in 1994 that did freeze its plutonium program, and that deal involved bribery, if you will. The US promised oil and reactors to North Korea. The deal fell apart over time and not just because of North Korean action, but because the US Congress wouldn't carry out the US end of the deal. But let's just say a deal was made based on, shall we say-- I'm calling it bribery-- of the kind that you're outlining.
And one of my PhD students, Robert Reardon, has written a dissertation looking, in general, at that kind of deal and asking, does it work? And his answer is, yes, it does work. Positive inducements do persuade states on this issue to change their behavior. So I hadn't thought about this whole Sakhalin Island idea and the oil and so forth.
AUDIENCE: After the US deal [INAUDIBLE].
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: That idea emerged later?
AUDIENCE: Kofi Annan asked Maurice Strong to look for solutions. He met the Russian president, and they didn't say yes, but they didn't say no, either. So that was on--
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: You're catching me ignorant of the specifics. In other words, I don't know how easy that deal would be to do. I don't know how beneficial to the North it would be. I don't know what the costs would be to the Russians. But if it would transfer wealth to North Korea, to me, projects like that have a lot of potential.
North Korea's a very poor country. They live on the very edge. They do desperate things to pay their bills. That's one reason people are so anxious that they not get nuclear weapons is that they've basically been paying their bills for the last many years with counterfeiting money, selling drugs, and selling weapons around the world. And the fear is that they're going to get the temptation to sell some really big, bad weapons
AUDIENCE: The biggest concern of Putin was who's going to pay for it? And that's what Maurice Strong came up with-- that the Russians would not have to foot the bill.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: So who's paying for the deal under you?
AUDIENCE: It would be South Korea and the concert of nations as opposed to a Russians--
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: So a group would do it. Exactly. Exactly.
AUDIENCE: And Maurice Strong was the promoter of that idea.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Well if you can get people to pay-- like I said, the US-- in the end, the Congress bridled it-- fulfilling US promises in the '90s, and that caused a problem. You've got to willing players, but to me you're barking up the right tree.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Yes. Hi, good evening. My question has do with the conflict in Syria right now and how the US and the West can come up with some solution, I guess, in concert with the Arab League to try and get that murderous regime Assad, I guess his name is, out of Syria. Because I mean if that blows up-- and it looks like it's going to-- Egypt seems like it's disintegrating. Israel's unwilling to really talk about two-state solutions [INAUDIBLE] building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
So the whole Middle East is just sort of blowing up, and here we are still dependent on oil. And since we're so controlled by our special interests and the oil and gas and Israeli lobby, it's not a very optimistic picture. I'm just wondering if you have any ways of perhaps trying to deal with this?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: I'll give a quick answer, but then I'll turn to John Owen to answer because he knows much more about Syria than I do. My own quick way of thinking about problems like that is, I always gravitate toward solutions that involve sharing and security-- meaning, can some kind of political settlement be imposed-- in this case, it would have to be imposed-- that involves sharing among the major groups of Syria. The reason that the Alawites have been so ferocious in clinging to power and crushing their opposition is because they're afraid that it's all or nothing. That if they get pushed aside, they're going to not only be pushed aside, they're going to be trampled under, because they're a minority. The total Shiite population of Syria is only around 13%, 14%? How many are Allowite do you think?
AUDIENCE: 18% or 20% is the--
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: But it may be inflated.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Yeah, the country is about 75% Sunni. And the Alawites, in particular, fear that it's all or nothing. Their backs are to the wall. If they don't maintain dominance, they'll be crushed completely. They need to be somehow eased into sharing power with others on the promise that in the new order, they'll have a place at the table, and they won't be drilled under. And that will require outsiders to come in in some way and ensure that a settlement that involves sharing power or sharing things, positions-- is going to stick. But I think it's very hard to do in Syria.
And Syria is a much more difficult situation than most others because it's sort of a cockpit for conflicts in the Middle East. So many outsiders think they have a stake in the outcome there. The Sunni major states want to get rid of Assad because he's not Sunni and because he's friends with Tehran.
And there's much hostility toward Tehran, so the Saudis don't like him. Other major Sunnis in the area don't like Assad. And you've got the Tehran, which sees him as their longest standing ally. He's been the only reliable Iranian ally now for 30 years. I guess I'm pointing to another problem, which is, there's danger this conflict will spread if it's not somehow contained. But John, I'm sure you have the answer to this question.
ROGER OWEN: No, that's a judicious reply, thank you very much; and we need to move along.
[STEPHEN VAN EVERA LAUGHING]
AUDIENCE: Hi, I have a couple of questions. In terms of, let's say, the climate change difficulty, I think it's also related, in a way, to our foreign policy difficulties in that we cannot go towards sustainable stuff when the oil companies and the coal companies are putting our backs up against the wall at every stop-- like you said the special interests. You can't get public opinion to change when we have no media with which to tell the truth through.
And foreign policy-- who's going to want to come in concert with us when our way of dealing with things is, if we don't like you, we'll just throw a drone over your country? As long as you have oil that we can get to, we don't care about your collateral damage people. Part of our difficulty with Iran is because we're already drilling in Iraq, and the Sunni and the Shiites in that mess are on different sides.
And we have to stick up with Israel when we're the only ones that do, which makes our-- who wants to play with us? The oil companies and the fossil fuel people are just-- I mean the EPA is almost useless now. And . I don't know how they're getting away with it. And I don't know how like you said, how do we get public opinion to change? How do those senators? Are they really all that money hungry and power hungry?
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: You raise a number of questions, and I'll talk to the first one, which is, oh dear, aren't we really facing a losing battle here on the climate-change front and on the public-opinion front. And I would say, don't lose heart, OK? I would say, study the history of great wars of ideas-- I'm calling them wars of ideas-- contests of ideas if you want-- in this country and in the Western world for lessons.
And the first thing you'll notice is, we have seen problems on which huge change in public opinion happened. And often, it was engineered by good actors who knew what they were doing. I'm thinking, particularly, of the anti-slavery debate in the 1840s and '50s, where, essentially, a group of people had a strategy for shifting public opinion in the United States on slavery and a rather small group of them-- Louisa May Alcott and others.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Well anti-smoking is another very interesting case because it opposed a very powerful vested interest and, nevertheless, triumphed. And my favorite example is the civil rights movement. I believe that Dr. King was a genius in many ways but most importantly in his understanding of how to shape opinion. His entire movement was constructed as, essentially, public theater aimed at especially northern White, but the broad US audience. And his use of theater and his understanding of new media both were, I think, brilliant level. They were genius level. Where is the new thinker who is going to understand how to shape or move the needle on public opinion on climate?
I keep thinking about theatrical things-- if King were around, he'd have a lot of ideas on what to do about climate change. Recently, I remember I saw last summer-- I have a friend who is involved in politics in Tonga, so I follow a little bit what the Micronesians are doing. And of course, they're right in the front line here because their countries are going to go under water first. And there was a cabinet meeting recently-- I don't know if it was the parliament of the cabinet of Vanuatu, or Tonga, or Nauru, or one of the islands. Pardon me? Which one?
AUDIENCE: The Maldives.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Was it Maldives? Yeah. And they held their cabinet meeting underwater! And of course they filmed it, and the whole point wasn't to have the meeting, it was to dramatize the situation they faced. And to me, OK, that's thinking. Now you're understanding theater. Now you're understanding how to be on the media. Now understanding how to drive the discussion and be the ones that others are talking about.
Now in the end, I think the money will be on the other side, the Koch brothers have billions, and they invest billions in their arguments, but my opinion is, let's not give up the ship here. We've seen how clever actors can use slender resources to-- most often I gravitate to these theater strategies like Martin Luther King used-- but I don't think this is an unsolvable problem. I think we need to think hard.
AUDIENCE: Very good. Well the president who held that underwater meeting was ousted in a coup this last week. It's actually a good example of how theatrical events can be reversed very quickly. I'm surprised as well that you embrace foundations as a hopeful sign. Perhaps Gates is, but if you look at the burden of the contribution of the Rockefeller and the Ford Foundation in the post-war era, it has been to transform global agriculture from a solar-sustainable system to a petro-dependent one, just when we know we are potentially running out of petroleum.
In other words, it bought into the more bigger, better logic, and it brought more and more people into the tent, as it were, of the petrochemical solutions to agriculture. But it put humanity on an absolutely unsustainable trajectory. We've got more and more people dependent upon fewer and fewer crops grown in more and more, now, ecological regions dependent upon greater and greater subsidies of something we know we're running out of. That's suicidal. I'd be very nervous about embracing Western foundations as a model for funding something because their own strategies are based within the more bigger, better, competitive mode, not the sustainability mode.
I wondered if you'd have any way of suggesting to Gates that perhaps he move beyond this question of more vaccinations, more malarial treatment, and the like and deal with stable human populations on the global commons.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Well, I guess I'm calling for an effort to mobilize the foundations to adopt a wiser policy toward human welfare broadly and climate change in particular. The foundations aren't going to solve the problems if people don't mobilize them, don't educate them, don't engage them in discussion, don't propose to them that they fit into a larger strategy that they have a role to play in.
So- again, what would Martin Luther King say? He'd say, hey, don't just leave those folks to stew in their own juice and make mistakes. You've got to mobilize them. And you've got to direct them toward a program that makes sense, and persuade them that it makes sense, and get them lined up with it, and get them acting in favor of it.
So to me, the mistakes that you outlined were mistakes that weren't-- to me there's more hope with the foundation because they're not tied to any interests that makes them have to behave badly. The money's in the bank. The coupons all get clipped. Their income doesn't go down if the problem gets solved. So they are a player in the game that can be steered toward positive action and has no real reason not to take positive action. That's why I think about them as a key player that needs to be brought on the scene and talked to.
ROGER OWEN: Hi, excuse me, we need to wind down so this is the last question, if you could be succinct.
AUDIENCE: First quickie is that, does President Obama have a clear foreign-policy strategy and vision hat you could put forth in a few words? And secondly, I've heard that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is getting tired and wants to step down from her role, and I think she's been doing a great job as Secretary of State. Is there enough resources there? Who would fill her shoes if, hopefully, Obama continues and has a second term? And finally, what if Romney wins? I mean, I shudder to think of that, but what's this world going to come to if Obama doesn't get the second term? Thank you.
STEPHEN VAN EVERA: Those are great questions. About Obama's strategy, I thought, during his first year, that he was sort of in line with the strategy I'm outlining-- a concert strategy. And his tactics toward world politics do fit pretty well with the strategy I'm outlining. He's a multilateralist, not a unilateralist. He believes that you build the legitimacy of the United States before you act, you work on persuading other countries that you act in their interests, not just in your own.
So in a number of ways, he's tactically pursuing policies that align with a concert. But he's not putting all the pieces together, and he's drifting, as I said, toward some kind of confrontation policy with China, which, to my mind, precludes a concert. Once you're in some kind of [INAUDIBLE] with the Chinese, boy, this kind of cooperation is impossible.
And in my opinion, many bad things will follow. People better understand a cold war with a major power is something that's very hard to unwind and many troubles will flow from it. If you try to solve these cooperation problems in a divided world where you've got two states that don't like each other and don't trust each other and are engaged in a militarized [INAUDIBLE], it's going to be much tougher to solve any of the issues we talked about tonight.
So I was quite unhappy at the recent Obama national security strategy statement that came out a few weeks ago where he talked about-- or I guess Panetta talked about reorienting our defense effort toward East Asia. It's fine to reorient toward East Asia as long as you're being nice. The veiled reference really was to a policy of containing China, which I think is a big mistake. They're not the first to do it. I mean, Bush 43 also favored a policy of containing China. He made a big nuclear deal with India that was all part of an encirclement strategy.
So Obama is kind of halfway there, halfway not there. And I think he's been stepping away from some of the elements of the policies that I talked about more recently. He started out with an effort to abate the Arab-Israeli conflict. And I think, for perhaps understandable reasons, he's given up on it. He's decided that he's not going to spend more capital on it.
His policy towards South Asia-- I believe he should take a much stronger hand towards sorting things out in South Asia, resolving the conflict in Afghanistan, or resolving the India-Pakistan conflict. He's been stepping back from them and adopting policies that I think are really eyewash-- the whole idea of a new Silk Road and, let's make everybody rich in South Asia, and it'll all be good, which has sort of been how they've been talking about approaches in South Asia-- I don't think is adequate. So I think he's sort of been drifting a little away from this idea of broad cooperation.
Regarding Hillary, I've heard also that she's thinking of retiring. As a replacement, I don't know who's being talked about. I know one thing people said is, why don't Hillary and Biden trade places. Some people are saying she'd be a stronger candidate than Biden. But I have no idea if that's being talked about. There's a number of skilled people, though, that could do a very good job as Secretary of State.
And I think she's done well. I think that they can find other people who can do well. What they really need is an administration decision, though, to redirect things in a fundamental way, and that's a decision the president has to make. If you're going to do this big change I'm talking about, the president has to stand by it, sell it, explain it, educate the American people why it's a good idea.
Then you asked about Romney, and I believe that the neoconservative community is sort of a self-defined, fairly cohesive community of foreign policy thinkers. They tend to work together to some extent, and I think in fairly-- there's some disagreement among them, but they think in fairly common ways-- and they're very, I think, well established now in the Republican Party. So I think they will likely have considerable influence in the next administration.
Without reading the exact tea leaves of Romney, I'm expecting them to have considerable influence. People thought they wouldn't have much under George Bush 43, and they did have a lot of influence, especially through Cheney, who listened very carefully to them. Romney is not a natural member of that community, but I think he's going to wind up listening carefully to them.
So my prediction is that you're going to see a return to fairly neoconservative ways of doing foreign policy if the Republicans win the election, which means-- on the last page there I outlined some axioms they believe in-- unilateralism, big stick policy, the assumption that others-- you make more friends by intimidation than you do by accommodation-- preventive war as a solution in extremis but fairly often.
The notion that great powers are a fundamental threat to the United States-- that China is a threat-- the neoconservative community is quite convinced that a hard line toward China is the right approach-- also toward Russia. So if you find that community shaping foreign policy, they're going to be walking in the opposite direction from the one I was recommending tonight.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Other Examples of Geopolitical Codes
Flint briefly reviews three countries' (Russia, India, and China) geopolitical codes. Now it's your turn.
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 1A
Please see the Lesson 2 Module in Canvas for a full description of this assignment, including due dates and submission instructions.
Other Non-State Agents and Geopolitical Codes
Two questions Flint brings forth:
- Do non-state geopolitical agents have geopolitical codes?
- Is the concept of geopolitical code useful in understanding the actions of non-state agents?
After reading Flint’s account of Osama bin Laden’s 1998 statement in the London-based Arabic language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, how would you answer the following regarding al-Qaeda’s geopolitical code?
- Who are our current and potential allies?
- Who are our current and potential enemies?
- How can we maintain our allies and nurture potential allies?
- How can we counter our current enemies and emerging threats?
- How do we justify the four calculations above to our public, and to the global community?
It is clear that it is not just state actors that have geopolitical codes, but other organized groups such as al-Qaeda do as well. However, Flint asks us to go a little bit deeper to really parse out who are today's geopolitical actors. He explains, “Insurgents would seem to be a case where a geopolitical code is a useful tool to identify whom they are fighting and cooperating with, through what means, and for what reasons. However, are pirates and organized crime syndicates just out to make money and hence not in need of the strategy and representations that are the content of a geopolitical code?”
Do Somali pirates have a geopolitical code?
What are your thoughts? Read the following Economist article to get a little bit of insight into Somali piracy to inform (at least partially) your analysis.
Further, what about non-state actors that are not necessarily violent? Can a social or environmental movement or organization have a geopolitical code?
Green Peace International
Read pgs 3-4 and 6-7 of Green Peace International’s Annual Report 2013 [12]
Are you able to answer these questions for GPI?
- Who are our current and potential allies?
- Who are our current and potential enemies?
- How can we maintain our allies and nurture potential allies?
- How can we counter our current enemies and emerging threats?
- How do we justify the four calculations above to our public, and to the global community?
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to define geopolitical codes, interpret government foreign policy statements as the manifestation of geopolitical codes, and consider the actions of geopolitical agents other than countries as the manifestations of their geopolitical codes.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 2 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 2! Double-check the Lesson 2 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 3.
Lesson 3: Justifying Geopolitical Agency - Representing Geopolitical Codes
Overview
We will build on the previous chapter’s focus on understanding the practices of states and non-state agents by using the concept of geopolitical codes. This chapter will extend our conversation by exploring the way that a country’s decisions and actions are justified. Through an analysis of popular culture, we find that our exposure to and participation in the geopolitics is pervasive. We will see that geopolitical representations are fluid and dynamic—adapting to the quickly changing contexts.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- describe the cultural aspect of geopolitical codes;
- describe the ways in which geopolitical codes are justified;
- identify the linkage between popular culture and foreign policy;
- define the concept of Orientalism;
- discuss how popular culture helped the public interpret the content of NSC-68;
- discuss how the administration of President George W. Bush represented its War on Terror;
- discuss how Saddam Hussein used a combination of Arab nationalism and Muslim belief to justify his 1990 invasion of Kuwait; and
- map the changing geography of US foreign policy representations in the State of the Union speeches.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
War
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 3 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
The two most common themes for justifying war: material interests and values.
As Flint explains, these two themes are not competing or mutually exclusive. However, they are the two most common themes used to justify participation in warfare.
There is an interesting geographic distinction associated with each of these themes:
- Representations of war that are based upon material concerns are territorially based, often reflecting concerns over control of territory or boundary locations in order to access key resources.
- Representations of war that resort to ideals are less bound to specific pieces of territory, and tend to speak to visions of what is best, or “common sense” for humanity.
(Flint, 2016, p. 81)
Read: World War I
Read President Woodrow Wilson’s speech to Congress back in 1917 as he urges Congress to declare war on Germany. How does he represent the US interest in going to war with Germany? How does Wilson explain its geopolitical position and how he, as the US President, came to the conclusion that war is justified? Who has he identified as our allies and our enemies? Note also how he treats the German people in contrast to his consideration of the government making decisions and taking action on their behalf.
Woodrow Wilson’s “War Message to Congress” (April 2, 1917) [13]
Now let’s journey to the present, nearly a century after Woodrow Wilson’s speech, and examine our current geopolitical code embedded in President Barack Obama’s speech to the public outlining the US strategy to combat the terrorist group known as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
Read: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
Read the transcript of President Barack Obama’s public address on September 10th 2014 outlining a four-part plan to combat the Islamic State. How does President Obama identify our enemy? What distinctions does he make about who ISIL is and who they represent? How does he represent American interests in actively combating ISIL? What is our justification for engaging in armed conflict with ISIL?
Transcript: President Obama’s speech outlining strategy to defeat Islamic State [14]
Nationalism and War
Nationalism is the belief in a common culture, or people, and its connection to a particular country. For a deeper discussion of the importance of nationalism(s), see below.
For Deeper Discussion
Countries on the Cusp—The Power of Nationalism (by Martha Legace) [15] This will take you to an interview with Harvard Business School Professor Rawi Abdelal where he describes the power nationalism has over new countries—and their far-reaching effects.
Another perspective on nationalism is discussed in the following article by Jerry Z. Muller in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2008), titled Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism. [16]
Sources of Our Knowledge
As Flint explains, “we all carry around ‘knowledge’ of countries that we probably know very little about.” (2016, p. 85) We gather information about these countries from a variety of sources including Hollywood movies, television shows, songs, jokes, comedy routines, comics, magazines, and so forth. These sources can paint an interesting picture or caricature of a group of people, a particular location, or a nation as a whole.
This list of ‘patriotic songs’ wasn’t created based on some rigorous scientific analysis with objective criteria establishing what patriotism is. A list claiming such qualifications would be questionable at best. The point of directing you to this list is to have you go through the list and observe what songs are on the (subjectively created) list and perhaps even look up the lyrics to a song of interest. What image is being created in this song? How are places (or people) constructed (or characterized)? What assumptions do you make about the topic(s) of the song and how might it inform your narrative about America?
Born In The U.S.A. - Bruce Springsteen
This is not the typical patriotic song in that it actually questions American Nationalism. The song focuses on the conflicted physical/mental/emotional space of the “common man” – providing examples ranging from an American soldier returning from Vietnam to an ungrateful America, to factory workers who were being displaced while the nation was unable or unwilling to confront the domestic loss in manufacturing jobs to a new global economic order. The song’s chorus: "Born In The U.S.A." has become a rallying cry for US pride and patriotism. However, Springsteen’s intention was to question various political and economic trends underway in America and how they were impacting average Americans. (Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen Songfacts [18]. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2015)
To Watch
Watch the following The Daily Show with Jon Stewart clip titled, The Fourth Estate [19].
The video highlights the power of discourse and “knowledge” production. French philosopher Michel Foucault argues “experts” are given the authority to create “knowledge” which then becomes ‘common sense’ and normative behavior. In the clip from The Daily Show, Jon Stewart highlights how various media outlets have “succeeded” in creating “knowledge” and thus shaping our understanding of the world in particular ways.
Indeed, as Flint argues, pop culture references are ubiquitous—they are ever-present, everywhere. What we read, watch, and listen to all inform various aspects of what we “know.” In particular, Flint discusses how Reader’s Digest and the Bourne movies are an example of both the Gramscian and feminist definitions of power. Are there any other TV shows, movies, or fiction works that you can think of that might fit well into these categories?
Orientalism: The Foundation of the Geopolitical Mindset (Representations of the ‘Other')
The following suggested videos and readings should help you think through the discussion and debate on Said’s Orientalism and critique of Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations. If Flint's (2016) discussion of these sources seems unclear, the following resources should provide more background, context, and points of analysis.
The Clash of Civilizations, by Samuel Huntington
The Clash of Civilizations, by Samuel Huntington (pdf) [20]
The Clash of Ignorance, by Edward Said
The Clash of Ignorance, by Edward Said [21]
The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations (Video)
I'm going to start, in fact talk throughout about an essay and a book written by Samuel Huntington entitled The Clash of Civilizations. When it first appeared in 1993 in the Journal of Foreign Affairs it had a question mark after it. It announced in its first sentence that world politics is entering a new phase. Three years later, Huntington expanded the essay some would say bloated it to the size of a book without a question mark. The new book which was published last year entitled The Clash of Civilization and the Emerging World Order. My premise is that the essay is better than the book, it got worse the more he added to it. So I'll concentrate most of my attention on the essay, but make some comments about the book as we go along.
Now, what Huntington meant when he said the world politics is entering a new phase was that whereas in the recent past world conflicts had been between ideological caps grouping the first, second, and third worlds into warring entities, the new style of politics which he discerned would entail conflict between different and presumably clashing civilizations. I quote him, "The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics." Later he explains how it is that the principal clash will be between Western and non-western civilization. But he spends most of his time in the two works discussing the disagreements potential or actual between what he calls the West on the one hand and on the other Islamic and Confucian civilizations. In terms of detail a great deal more attention, hostile attention, is paid to Islam than to any other civilization including the West. Much of the tremendous interest subsequently taken in Huntington's essay, I think derives from its timing rather than exclusively from what it says. As he himself notes there have been several intellectual and political attempts since the end of the Cold War to map the emerging world situation. This includes Francis Fukuyama's thesis on the end of history which nobody talks about, so the end of Fukuyama really. The thesis put about during the latter days of the Bush administration the theory the so-called new world order, but there have been more serious attempts to deal with the coming millennium in works by Paul Kennedy for example. I recalled less interesting and more rabid Connor Cruise O'Brien, Robert Kaplan and a book that's apparently making the rounds on campuses on Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin Barber. All these books have done so have looked at the coming millennium with considerable attention to the causes of future conflict. Which has given them all, I think, justly cause for alarm. The core of Huntington's vision, which is not really original with him, is the idea of an unceasing clash. A concept of conflict which slides somewhat effortlessly into the political space vacated by the unremitting war of ideas and values embodied and values in the unregretted Cold War of which of course Huntington was a great theorist. I don't think therefore, its inaccurate to suggest that what Huntington's providing in his work, especially since it's primarily addressed to influential opinion and policy makers, is in fact the recycled version of the cold-war thesis. The complex in today's and tomorrow's world will remain not economic or social in essence but ideological. If that is so, than one ideology the West's, is a still point where the Locust, locust around which for Huntington all other civilizations turn.
In effect then, the Cold War continues, but this time on many fronts with many more serious and basic systems of values and ideas like Islam and Confucianism struggling for sentencing and even dominance over the West. Not surprisingly therefore, Huntington concludes his essay a with a brief survey, not only his essay but his book as well with a survey, of what the west might do must do to remain strong and keep its opponents, keeps its opponent's weak and divided. He says, "The West must exploit differences and conflicts," I'm quoting now, "and conflicts among Confucian and Islamic states to support in other civilizations groups sympathetic to western values and interests to strengthen international institutions that reflect and legitimate western interests and values, and to promote the involvement of non-western states in those institutions." That's a very interventionist and quite aggressive attitude towards others civilizations to get them to be more western. So strong and insistent is Huntington's notion that other civilizations necessarily clash with the West. Relentlessly aggressive and chauvinistic in it's prescription for what the West must do to continue winning. So that with the reader is forced to conclude that he's really most interested in continuing and expanding the cold war by other means rather then advancing ideas that might help us to understand the current world scene or ideas that will try to reconcile between cultures.
Not only will conflict continue, but he says, the conflict between civilizations will be the latest phase in the evolution of conflict in the modern world. It is a very brief and rather crudely articulated manual in the art of maintaining a wartime status in the minds of Americans and others that Huntington's work has to be now understood. I'd go so far as saying that it argues from the standpoint of pentagon planners and defense industry executives who may have temporarily lost their occupations after the end of the cold war, but have now discovered a new vocation for themselves. But perhaps because Huntington is more interested in policy prescriptions than he is in either in history or in the careful analysis of cultures, Huntington in my opinion is quite misleading what he says and how he puts things. A great deal of his argument first of all, depends on second and third-hand opinions that scants the enormous advances in our concrete understanding and theoretical understanding of how cultures work how they change in how they can best be grasped or apprehended. A brief look at the people and opinions he quotes suggests that journalism and popular demagoguery are his main sources rather than serious scholarship or theory. When you draw on tendentious publicists and scholars, you already prejudice the argument in favor of conflict and polemic rather than a favor to understand the kind of cooperation between peoples that our planet needs. Huntington's authorities are not the cultures themselves, but a small handful authorities picked by him because in fact they emphasize the latent bellicosity in one or another statement by one or another so-called spokesperson for about that culture.
The giveaway for me is the title of his book and his essay The Clash of Civilizations, which is not his phrase but Bernard Lewis's. Is on the last page have Lewis's essay titled the The Roots of Muslim Rage, which appeared in the September 1990 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Lewis speaks about the current problem with the Islamic world. I quote, this is incredible stuff, "It should by now be clear," Lewis says, "...that we are facing a mood and a movement in Islam far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of civilizations. The perhaps irrational, but surely historic receptions, of an ancient rival against our," whenever your hear the word our, you want to head for the exit, "...against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the world-wide expansion of both, it is crucially important that we, on our side, should not be provoked into an equally historic, but also equally irrational reaction against our rival." In other words, we shouldn't be as crazy as they are. Of course Lewis is very much listened to at the Council of Foreign Relations the New York review books, and so on and so forth. but few people today with any sense would want to volunteer such sweeping accusations that the ones advanced by Lewis about a billion, a billion Muslims scattered through five continents, dozens of different languages and traditions and histories. Of them all, Lewis says that they are all in rage at Western modernity, as if a billion people were really only one person and Western civilization was no more complicated a matter than a simple.
Case Study—Justifications for War
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 2A
Please visit the Lesson 3 Module in Canvas for a full description of the assignment, including due dates and submission instructions.
Reminder: You should also be submitting comments on group member #1's post from last week!
A detailed explanation of this ongoing assignment can be found in the GEOG 128 Syllabus.
The Dynamism of Geopolitical Codes
Geopolitical codes are not static. They change over time—as they should. A country’s geopolitical code is relational. It depends on relationships within a complex web of both domestic and international actors and conditions. This section in Flint (2012) explains the dynamism of geopolitical codes. Flint also discusses this dynamism in his 2009 article “Mapping the Dynamism of the United States’ Geopolitical Code: The Geography of the State of the Union Speeches, 1998-2008”. The following figures are from that article: Flint, C., Adduci, M., Chen, M., and Chi, S. (2009) Mapping the Dynamism of the United States’ Geopolitical Code: The Geography of the State of the Union Speeches, 1998-2008. Geopolitics, 14:4, 604-629 [22].
In an effort to provide a visual representation of this dynamism, look at the following images from Flint, et al. (2009).
What do we understand by looking at and analyzing these maps (and their associated speeches)? According to Flint, et al. (2009), p. 625:
Three general trends can be discerned from the analysis of the speeches: an increase in reference to adversaries; an increase in the number of countries mentioned; and an increase in the geographic scope of the foreign policy references. There was a clear rise in the geographic scope of the speeches, especially the inclusion of all regions of Asia, and a concomitant increase in the number of countries mentioned. From the confined regional foci of Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush, the American public was introduced to a broad spectrum of countries, regions, and foreign policy issues through the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.”
Over time, Flint, et al. (2009) highlights how our geopolitical code has expanded its foci to a more broad and diverse selection of countries, regions, and foreign policy issues. This is, of course, not coincidence, but certainly moves in concert with the trajectory of contemporary globalization that finds every country more economically, politically, and culturally enmeshed with each other.
Summary and Final Tasks
You should now be able to:
- express how popular culture is an integral part of geopolitics;
- critically evaluate government statements justifying foreign policy;
- relate the use of different justifications used by countries to different geopolitical situations;
- think critically about the way other countries are represented in popular culture; and
- think critically about the way the foreign policy of one’s own country is portrayed in popular culture and government statements.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 3 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 3! Double-check the Lesson 3 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 4.
Lesson 4: Embedding Geopolitics Within National Identity
Overview
In this lesson, we will try to further understand the key elements of geopolitics discussed in the previous lessons (geopolitical practices and representations of those practices) by exploring the concepts of “the nation,” “nation-state” and “the state.” We will subsequently discuss the geopolitics of nationalism by investigating national identity construction and also the process of “ethnic cleansing.” Further, we will analyze how masculinity/femininity are incorporated into concepts of nationalism and geopolitical code. Finally, we will deconstruct the binaries that underlie the geopolitics of national security.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- define the terms nation, state and nation-state;
- discuss nationalism and its different manifestations;
- discuss the way gender roles are implicated in nationalism;
- make connections between gender roles, nationalism, and geopolitical codes; and
- provide a classification of different nationalisms and their impact upon geopolitical codes.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
State, Nation and Nation-State: Clarifying Misused Terminology
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 4 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
What is a State?
A State is an independent, sovereign government exercising control over a certain spatially defined and bounded area, whose borders are usually clearly defined and internationally recognized by other states.
- States are tied to territory
- Sovereign or state as absolute ruler over territory
- Have clear borders
- Defends and controls its territory within those borders
- Is recognized by other countries (diplomatic recognition, passports, treaties, etc.)
- States have bureaucracies staffed by state’s own personnel
- Has a national bureaucracy staffed by government personnel (legal system, educational system, hierarchical governmental units, etc.)
- States monopolize certain functions within its territory (sovereign)
- Controls legitimate use of force within its territory
- Controls money at national scale (prints currency; collects taxes)
- Makes rules within its territory (law, regulations, taxes, citizenship, etc.)
- Controls much information within its territory
States try to form nations within their borders (through symbols, education, ‘national interest,’ etc.).
So, what is a Nation?
A nation is a group of people who see themselves as a cohesive and coherent unit based on shared cultural or historical criteria. Nations are socially constructed units, not given by nature. Their existence, definition, and members can change dramatically based on circumstances. Nations in some ways can be thought of as “imagined communities” that are bound together by notions of unity that can pivot around religion, ethnic identity, language, cultural practice and so forth. The concept and practice of a nation work to establish who belongs and who does not (insider vs. outsider). Such conceptions often ignore political boundaries such that a single nation may “spill over” into multiple states. Furthermore, states ≠ nations: not every nation has a state (e.g., Kurds; Roma; Palestine). Some states may contain all or parts of multiple nations.
And what about a Nation-State?
A Nation-State is the idea of a homogenous nation governed by its own sovereign state—where each state contains one nation. This idea is almost never achieved.
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Nationalism
Nationalism is the idea that cultural identity should lay the foundation for a state. It is an imagined community unified around a common identity. It is the process of nation-state building. That is to say, nationalism is the process of unifying people who live within a particular territory around a shared identity. Flint explores two processes of nationalism: top-down and bottom-up.
Top-down nationalism refers to the role of the state in creating a sense of a singular, unified national identity.
Nationalism
The following video “Crash Course” on Nationalism provides some good detail, information, and a case study (of Japan) on top-down nationalism:
Transcript of Samurai, Daimyo, Matthew Perry, and Nationalism: Crash Course World History #34 Video
Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course World History and today we’re going to talk about Nationalism, the most important global phenomenon of the 19th century and also the phenomenon responsible for one of the most commented upon aspects of Crash Course: my globes being out of date. USSR: not a country. Rhodesia? South Vietnam? Sudan with no South Sudan? Yugoslavia? Okay, no more inaccuracies with the globes. Ugh, the little globes! This one doesn't know about Slovakia. This one has East frakking Pakistan. And this one identifies Lithuania as part of Asia. Okay, no more globe inaccuracies. Actually, bring back my globes. I feel naked without them.
[Intro music]
So, if you’re into European history, you’re probably somewhat familiar with nationalism and the names and countries associated with it. Bismarck in Germany, Mazzini, and Garibaldi in Italy, and Mustafa Kemal (aka Ataturk) in Turkey. But nationalism was a global phenomenon, and it included a lot of people you may not associate with it, like Muhammad Ali in Egypt and also this guy. Nationalism was seen in the British Dominions, as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became federated states between 1860 and 1901. I would say independent states instead of federated states, but you guys still have a queen. It’s also seen in the Balkans, where Greece gained its independence in 1832 and Christian principalities fought a war against the Ottomans in 1878, in India where a political party, the Indian National Congress, was founded in 1885, and even in China, where nationalism ran up against the dynastic system that had lasted more than 2000 years. And then, of course, there are these guys, who in many ways represent the worst of nationalism, the nationalism that tries to deny or eliminate the difference in the efforts to create a homogeneous mythologized unitary polity. We’ll get to them later, but it’s helpful to bring them up now just so we don’t get too excited about nationalism.
Okay, so,before we launch into the history, let’s define the modern nation-state. Definitions are slippery but for our purposes, a nation-state involves a centralized government that can claim and exercise authority over a distinctive territory. That’s the state part. It also involves a certain degree of linguistic and cultural homogeneity. That’s the nation part. Mr. Green, Mr. Green! By that definition, wouldn't China have been nation state as early as, like, the Han dynasty? Dude, Me from the Past, you’re getting smart. Yeah, it could be, and some historians argue that it was. Nationhood is really hard to define. Like, in James Joyce’s Ulysses, the character Bloom famously says that a nation is the same people living in the same place. But, then, he remembers the Irish and Jewish diasporas, and adds, or also living in different places. But let’s ignore diasporas for the moment and focus on territorially bound groups with a common heritage. Same people, same place. So how do you become a nation? Well, some argue it’s an organic process involving culturally similar people wanting to formalize their connections. Others argue that nationalism is constructed by governments, building a sense of patriotism through compulsory military service and statues of national heroes. Public education is often seen as part of this nationalizing project. Schools and textbooks allow countries to share their nationalizing narratives. Which is why the once and possibly future independent nation of Texas issues textbooks literally whitewashing early American history. Still other historians argue that nationalism was an outgrowth of urbanization and industrialization, since new urbanites were the most likely people to want to see themselves as part of a nation. For instance, Prague’s population rose from 157,000 to 514,000 between 1850 and 1900, at the same time that the Czechs were beginning to see themselves as separate from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Which is a cool idea, but it doesn't explain why other, less industrialized places like India also saw a lot of nationalism. The actual business of nationalization involves creating bureaucracies, new systems of education, building a large military, and, often, using that military to fight other nation states, since nations often construct themselves in opposition to an idea of otherness. A big part of being Irish, for instance, is not being English. So emerging nations had a lot of conflicts, including: The Napoleonic wars, which helped the French become the French. The Indian Rebellion of 1857, which helped Indians to identify themselves as a homogeneous people. The American Civil War. I mean, before the Civil War, many Americans thought of themselves not as Americans but as Virginians or New Yorkers or Pennsylvanians. I mean, our antebellum nation was usually called “these united states,” after it became “the United States.” So, in the US, nationalism pulled a nation together, but often, nationalism was a destabilizing force for multi-ethnic land-based empires. This was especially the case in the Ottoman empire, which started falling apart in the 19th century as first the Greeks, then the Serbs, Romanians and Bulgarians, all predominantly Christian people, began clamoring for and, in some cases, winning independence. Egypt is another good example of nationalism serving both to create a new state and to weaken an empire. Muhammad Ali (who was actually Albanian and spoke Turkish, not Egyptian Arabic) and his ruling family encouraged the Egyptian people to imagine themselves as a separate nationality. But okay, so nationalism was a global phenomenon in the 19th century and we can’t talk about it everywhere. So, instead, we’re going to focus on one case study. Japan. You thought I was going to say Germany, didn't you? Nope. You can bite me, Bismarck.
Japan had been fragmented and feudal until the late 16th century when a series of warrior landowners managed to consolidate power. Eventually, power came to the Tokugawa family who created a military government or bakufu. The first Tokugawa to take power was Iyeasu, who took over after the death of one of the main unifiers of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, sometimes known as “the monkey,” although his wife called him, and this is true, “the bald rat.” In 1603 Ieyasu convinced the emperor, who was something of a figurehead, to grant him the title of “shogun.” And for the next 260 years or so, the Tokugawa bakufu was the main government of Japan. The primary virtue of this government was not necessarily its efficiency or its forward-thinking policies, but its stability. Stability: Most underrated of governmental virtues. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. The Tokugawa bakufu wasn't much for centralization, as power was mainly in the hands of local lords called daimyo. One odd feature of the Tokugawa era was the presence of a class of warriors who by the 19th century had become mostly bureaucrats. You may have heard of them, the samurai. One of the things that made this hereditary class so interesting was that each samurai was entitled to an annual salary from the daimyo called a stipend. This privilege basically paid them off and assured that they didn't become restless warriors plaguing the countryside —that is, bandits. We tend to think of samurai as noble and honorable, but urban samurai, according to Andrew Gordon’s book A Modern History of Japan, "were a rough-and-tumble lot. Samurai gang wars – a West Side Story in the shadows of Edo castle – were frequent in the early 1600s.” And you still say that history books are boring. As with kings and lesser nobles anywhere, the central bakufu had trouble controlling the more powerful daimyo, who were able to build up their own strength because of their control over local resources. This poor control also made it really difficult to collect taxes, so the Tokugawa were already a bit on the ropes when two foreign events rocked Japan. First was China’s humiliating defeat in the Opium Wars, after which Western nations forced China to give Europeans special trade privileges. It was a wake-up call to see the dominant power in the region so humbled. But even worse for the Tokugawa was the arrival of Matthew Perry. No, Thought Bubble. Matthew Perry. Yes. That one. The tokugawa are somewhat famous for their not-so-friendly policy toward foreigners— especially western, Christian ones— for whom the penalty for stepping foot on Japanese soil was death. The tokugawa saw Christianity in much the same way that the Romans had: as an unsettling threat to stability. And in the case of Matthew Perry, they had reason to be worried. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So the American naval commodore arrived in Japan in 1853 with a flotilla of ships and a determination to open Japan’s markets. Just the threat of American steam-powered warships was enough to convince the bakufu to sign some humiliating trade treaties that weren't unlike the ones that China had signed after losing the Opium Wars. And, this only further motivated the daimyo and the samurai who were ready to give the Tokugawa the boot. Within a few years, they would.
So what does have to do with nationalism? Well, plenty. First off, even though the Americans and the Japanese didn't go to war (yet), the perceived threat provided an impetus for Japanese to start thinking about itself differently. It also resulted in the Japanese being convinced that if they wanted to maintain their independence, they would have to re-constitute their country as a modern nation-state. This looks a lot like what was happening in Egypt or even in Germany, with external pressures leading to calls for greater national consolidation. So, the Tokugawa didn't give up without a fight, but the civil war between the stronger daimyo and the bakufu eventually led to the end of the shogunate. And in 1868, the rebels got the newly enthroned Emperor Meiji to abolish the bakufu and proclaim a restoration of the imperial throne. Now, the Emperor didn't have much real power, but he became a symbolic figure, a representative of a mythical past around whom modernizers could build a sense of national pride. And in place of bakufu, Japan created one of the most modern nation-states in the world. After some trial and error, the Meiji leaders created a European style cabinet system of government with a prime minister and, in 1889, promulgated a constitution that even contained a deliberative assembly, the Diet, although the cabinet ministers weren't responsible to it. Samurai were incorporated into this system as bureaucrats and their stipends were gradually taken away. And soon, the Japanese government developed into, like, something of a meritocracy. Japan also created a new conscript army.
Beginning in 1873, all Japanese men were required to spend 3 years in the military. The program was initially very unpopular— [shocker] there were more than a dozen riots in 1873 and 1874 in which crowds attacked military registration centers. But eventually, serving in the army created a patriotic spirit and a loyalty to the Japanese emperor. The Meiji leaders also instituted compulsory education in 1872, requiring both boys and girls to attend four years of elementary school.
Oh, it’s time for the Open Letter?
An Open Letter to Public Education. But first, let’s see what’s in the secret compartment today. Oh, it’s a graduation hat. Thanks, Meredith the Intern, for letting me borrow your graduation hat.
Dear Public Education, When you were introduced in Japan, you were very unpopular because you were funded by a new property tax. In fact, you were so unpopular that at least 2,000 schools were destroyed by rioters, primarily through arson. Stan, it doesn't look good when you bring it in close like that. I look like a 90-year-old swimmer. And even though public education is proved extremely successful lots of people still complain about having to pay taxes for it. So let me explain something, public education does not exist for the benefit of students or for the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order. We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education. So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools even though I don’t personally have a kid in school. It’s because I don’t like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people. Best Wishes, John Green.
In Japan, nationalism meant modernization, largely inspired by and in competition with the West. So the Meiji government established a functioning tax system, they built public infrastructures like harbors and telegraph lines, invested heavily in railroads, and created a uniform national currency. But the dark side of nationalism began to appear early on. In 1869, the Meiji rulers expanded Japan’s borders to include the island of Hokkaido. And in 1879, they acquired Okinawa after forcing its king to abdicate. In 1874, Japan even invaded Taiwan with an eye towards colonizing it, although they weren't successful. And, in these early actions, we already see that nationalism has a habit of thriving on conflict. And often the project of creating a nation state goes hand in hand with preventing others from doing the same. This failure to imagine the other complexly isn't new, but it’s about to get a lot more problematic as we’ll see next week when we discuss European imperialism.
Thanks for watching.
Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller, our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. We’re ably interned by Meredith Danko, and our graphics team is Thought Bubble. Also, the show was written by my high school history student John Green and myself, Raoul Meyer. Last week’s phrase of the week was "Bearded Marxist" If you’d like to guess at this week’s phrase of the week or suggest future ones, you can do so in comments, where you can also ask questions about today’s video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thanks for watching Crash Course, and as we say in my hometown, Don’t Forget to be awesome. [outro]
Bottom-up nationalism refers to a politics of violent nationalism where the goal is to create a “pure” nation-state where only one culture or national group exists. Flint discusses a few types of this bottom-up nationalism through examples of ethnic cleansing by utilizing figures 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, and 4.6 to illustrate tactics of expulsion, eradication, and expansion to create a “pure” nation-state.
Flint highlights the case study of the Russian invasion of Chechnya to discuss bottom-up nationalism. An additional example would be Rwanda.
Rwandan Genocide
We will go into more depth about the Rwandan Genocide in Lesson #10. So, for now, read The Rwandan Genocide (2009) [23] for a history of the Rwandan genocide to understand how it is an example of bottom-up nationalism.
Gender, Nationalism and Geopolitical Codes
Mother Politics: Anti-colonial Nationalism and the Woman Question in Africa by Joyce M. Chadya, Journal of Women's History 15.3 (2003) 153-157:
All nationalisms are gendered, . . . they represent relations to political power . . . legitimizing, or limiting, people's access to the rights and resources of the nation state.– Anne McClintock
Anne McClintock's comment on nationalism succinctly captures the position of women during anti-colonial nationalism on the African continent. Across the continent, especially following World War II, women played a crucial role in the ousting of colonial/apartheid minority governments. However, the top leadership of most, if not all, of the nationalist movements was exclusively male. There was, therefore, a gender bias right from the creation of nationalist movements. This scenario was to be replicated in independent Africa when most of the senior government posts were (and continue to be) held by men. Women still find themselves at the margins of political and economic decisions at the party and government levels.
Locating Women During Wartime
Gendered divisions of labor have historically placed women in the private or domestic spheres—as homemaker, nurturer, and educator. During wartime, women are called upon to serve the nation through constructions of these gendered identities as you see in the following propaganda posters:
Thus, a woman’s role in the private sphere is utilized to create a sense of national unity, rallying for the cause of war. Sending their husbands, sons, and fathers off to war, women are encouraged to support the national war agenda through their consumer choices (or ability to ration said choices), domestic habits and production, and so forth.
The purported vulnerability of women to the enemy is also part of the rally to war. The figure below presents an image of a naked and seemingly unconscious woman being carried away by a caricature of a Japanese soldier. Such wartime propaganda utilizes gendered constructions of female vulnerability and purity in conjunction with a depraved, immoral enemy to embolden our soldiers and allies to act in defense of the defenseless.
Nationalism during war can work to temporarily disrupt gendered divisions of labor as well. As in the case of Rosie the Riveter (figure below) and the women featured in the Hollywood Film A League of their Own, women are called upon to fill traditionally male roles and occupations in an effort to also help with the war effort.
While these transgressions of traditional gender roles do temporarily offer women opportunity to participate more fully in the public sphere, once the war is over and the men come home, women are thanked for their service to country and directed back to the domestic/private sphere.
NARRATOR: Girls playing pro ball? You bet. Back in 1943 when the boys went off to war, baseball and chewing gum tycoon Bill Wrigley decided to keep the parks filled by creating the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Even though the league lasted for 12 seasons, very few people knew about it.
[BACKGROUND YELLING]
Now, director Penny Marshall brings us the long overdue story of these remarkable girls of summer in Columbia Pictures' new comedy, A League of Their Own. The all-star lineup includes Tom Hanks as the manager, the catcher, Geena Davis, the pitcher, Lori Petty.
LORI PETTY: I made it, a Rockford Peach.
NARRATOR: The scout, Jon Lovitz.
JON LOVITZ: Are you coming? See, how it works is the train moves, not the station.
NARRATOR: Rosie O'Donnell at the hot corner, and batting cleanup, Madonna.
ANNOUNCER: No wonder they call her All the Way Mae.
PRODUCER: 189 Charlie, take one, aim one.
PENNY MARSHALL: There were scouts going around. They went around to various factory leagues and softball leagues. They were made to try out in Wrigley Field. It started with four teams, 16 girls on a team, and drafted them.
JON LOVITZ: Hey.
GEENA DAVIS: Hey yourself.
JON LOVITZ: I saw you playing today. Not bad. Not bad. You ever hear of Walter Harvey? Makes Harvey Bars.
GEENA DAVIS: Yeah. I feed them to the cows when they're constipated.
JON LOVITZ: He's starting a girls' baseball league. Want to play?
GEENA DAVIS: Huh?
JON LOVITZ: Nice retort. It's a real league, professional.
LORI PETTY: Professional baseball?
JON LOVITZ: They'll pay you, 75 dollars a week.
LORI PETTY: We only make 30 dollars at the dairy.
JON LOVITZ: Well, then, this would be more, wouldn't it?
GEENA DAVIS: My sister and I are both picked for the team. And we feel like misfits a little bit, you know, like we have this skill that we have never had anything to do with. And then this amazing thing comes along, this baseball leagues, that gives us in a way to fulfill ourselves.
MADONNA: What are you looking at?
ROSIE O'DONNELL: Yeah, what are you looking at?
LORI PETTY: All these girls going to be in the league?
[CHUCKING]
MADONNA: You know, they got over 100 girls here, so, um, some of yous are going to have to go home.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: Yeah, sorry about that.
MADONNA: Come on, Doris.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: Some people are jerks.
LORI PETTY: What do you mean, some of us?
MADONNA: Do it. OK, some of them are going home. Hey,
ROSIE O'DONNELL: How did you do that?
SPEAKER 1: One of the problems that we had right off the bat was finding girls that had some ability on the baseball diamond. That was a long process. We screened an awful lot of girls.
PENNY MARSHALL: Out here in Los Angeles, they said the batting cages never did so much business. Every actress in town was at the batting cage, hitting the balls.
TOM HANKS: This is the best gig to be in a position where I get paid to come and put on a uniform and run around the ball field as much as I want to. It's a man's fantasy baseball experience.
GEENA DAVIS: Well, yeah. We have a very funny scene in the movie where he's been a bad coach to us. So I sort of have taken over. And I give all the signs and do the coaching basically. Tom doesn't like the play that I've called. So we're giving opposing signs and things. It was fun.
TOM HANKS: Hey, who's the damn manager here? am.
GEENA DAVIS: Then act like it, you big lush.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: Ho, ho, ho, ho. You tell him, Dottie.
TOM HANKS: Play ball. I play Jimmy Dugan, six time National League home run champion. He hates being here. And he doesn't want to be here. And he's not going to take it seriously. And.
[CRYING]
Are you crying? Why are you crying? There's no crying in baseball.
PENNY MARSHALL: Let me see what happens, Rosie and Madonna.
MADONNA: I actually never played baseball my entire life. So I had to start from scratch. I have a problem that it's that I have a lot of years of dance training. And Penny was always screaming at me that I was playing baseball like a dancer.
TOM HANKS: In the early going, yeah, her throwing technique was pretty much-- it was a choreographed step, step, kick, fling kind of thing.
MADONNA: I'm going to kill Tom for saying that about me.
TOM HANKS: But she's better now.
PENNY MARSHALL: I had teamed her up with Rosie O'Donnell. I said, OK, you two are going to be best friends in the movie. So get to know each other.
MADONNA: What if at a key moment in the game, my uniform bursts open. And oops, my bosoms come flying out.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: You think there are men in this country who ain't seen your bosoms?
PENNY MARSHALL: Cut. Nice.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: She's OK. There's my girl. You're all right. Every so often, she starts acting like a big superstar, you know, big pop movie icon, star celebrity, singer thing. And that's when, you know, Penny looks at me and goes, Rosie, take her down. Bam, right down. She's humbled.
MADONNA: Rosie is a great baseball player like. And I just, I'm so glad she's here, because she coaches me on everything.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: Now I'll show you how.
MADONNA: OK.
[LAUGHTER]
ROSIE O'DONNELL: You know, I'm working on it. We've got about five more weeks. I'm thinking I'll have it done by the end of the--
PENNY MARSHALL: She was a real good sport. She worked so hard. She would run every morning. Then she'd work out playing ball. Then at night, she'd jitterbug.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 2: The official stance of the league was that they had no social life, that they would-- it was basically a convent. The girls were sent to charm school. Not too patronizing, right?
INSTRUCTOR: Gracefully and grandly. Gracefully and posture.
SPEAKER 2: They had people from Helena Rubinstein come out, give them all new hairdos.
INSTRUCTOR: And sit, right over left. Legs are always together. A lady reveals nothing.
[GIGGLING]
LORI PETTY: It was just hysterical to me. But that was really important in the '40s, that you're, you know, a lady. And a lady reveals nothing. They played three games in two days. And they always had to take all these showers and set their hair. And they were all curly, because they had to be all pretty.
TRACY REINER: Oh, for God's sake.
LORI PETTY: And it's just the love and the dedication that they had for baseball.
TOM HANKS: Uh, Lord. I'd just like to thank you for that waitress in South Bend. You know who she is. She kept calling your name.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: OK.
TEAM: Go Peaches!
[MUSIC - "CHOO CHOO CH' BOOGIE]
ANNOUNCER: Unbelievable! Full house audience.
Times have certainly changed since World War Two and women are now more fully a part of the public sphere. Indeed, they are part of our military, police and fire fighting forces. Nonetheless, the full inclusion of women into these spheres (and of men into the domestic/private sphere) without stigma or bias, still has some ways to go.
Women in the US Military
Watch this video (10:40) which explores the changing role of women [24] in the US military.
Core beliefs of militarism are:
- that armed force is the ultimate resolver of tensions;
- that human nature is prone to conflict;
- that having enemies is a natural condition;
- that hierarchical relations produce effective action;
- that a state without a military is naïve, scarcely modern, and barely legitimate;
- that in times of crisis those who are feminine need armed protection;
- that in times of crisis any man who refuses to engage in armed violent action is jeopardizing his own status as a manly man.
And expanding upon these concepts, Bernazzoli and Flint (2010), assert that militarization also requires a connection of these ideas to national identity, patriotism and moral right. They extend the core beliefs of militarism to include:
- that soldiers possess certain values and qualities that are desirable in civil society;
- that military superiority is a source of national pride;
- that those who do not support military actions are unpatriotic;
- that those who do not support military actions are anti-soldier;
- that for a state to engage in armed conflict is to serve the will of a divine being.
In this section, it should be much clearer how gender, nationalism, and geopolitical codes have been constructed and strategically deployed.
Nationalist Myths and Geopolitical Codes
Three types of “historical-geographic understandings” that are used to frame the specific justifications of particular countries are:
- the state is a historic homeland of a distinctive ethnocultural group;
- the state is a distinctive physical-environmental unit;
- the state is the modern incarnation of a long-standing political-territorial entity.
These categories are not deterministic of an aggressive or defensive geopolitical code, but they do show that justification for geopolitical actions used by government need to be grounded in a national ideology that resonates with the population (what Flint identifies as a “nationalist myth”).
Flint elaborates upon these types of historical-geographic understandings on page 125.
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 3A
Please visit the Lesson 4 Module in Canvas for a detailed description of this assignment, including due dates.
Reminder: You should also be submitting comments on group member #2's post from last week!
A detailed explanation of this ongoing assignment can be found in the GEOG 128 Syllabus.
Deconstructing Binaries
What is a binary (or binary opposition)?
A light switch is either on or off; in a sports match, a team either wins or loses; water is either hot or cold; something in relation to something else can be left or right, up or down, or in or out. These are opposites - concepts that can't exist together.
Binary opposition is a key concept in structuralism, a theory of sociology, anthropology, and linguistics that states that all elements of human culture can only be understood in relation to one another and how they function within a larger system or the overall environment. We often encounter binary oppositions in cultural studies when exploring the relationships between different groups of people, for instance: upper-class and lower-class, male and female, or developed and under-developed, and so on. On the surface, these seem merely like identifying labels, but what makes them binary opposites is the notion that they cannot coexist.
The problem with a system of binary opposites is that it creates boundaries between groups of people and leads to prejudice and discrimination. One group may fear or consider a threat the 'opposite' group, referred to as the other. The use of binary opposition in literature is a system that authors use to explore differences between groups of individuals, such as cultural, class, or gender differences. Authors may explore the gray area between the two groups and what can result from those perceived differences.
Source: Education Portal [25]
As Flint states,
(T)he construction of national myths has been essential in representing geopolitical codes in a way that makes them believable or readily accepted. Such representation requires the construction of us/them and inside/outside categories…. In other words, the nation requires an understanding (of us) that is tidily bounded both physically and socially. The geographic extent of the nation is understood to be clear, it simply follows the lines on the map, and we are led to an understanding of who ‘belongs’ or is a member of the nation and who is a foreigner, alien, or whatever term is used to describe ‘other’. (2016, p. 128)
Flint goes on to discuss the effects that contributions of feminist geopolitical theorizing have had on better understanding our contemporary globalized geopolitical landscape. To be sure, the world we live in and negotiate is much more diverse, complex, and messy than how it is represented to be. Thus, alternative representations encourage us to think outside of the nation-state framework. Indeed, in subsequent chapters/lessons that discuss territory and borders, networks, and environmental geopolitics, we will come to understand how the flow between places (of natural resources, people, commerce, and trade, etc.) has become increasingly integrated into our everyday lives. And so, processes of globalization (which describes the intensification of global interconnections and flows), underscore the tensions between the concept of nationalism and neatly bounded, homogenous identity; transnationalism is a social phenomenon and scholarly research agenda that has grown out of the heightened interconnectivity between people and the receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states. This tension has been hotly debated in the geopolitical community—as some have subsequently predicted that the rise of the “network society” may lead to the “end of the nation-state”. Others are skeptical of this thesis. Certainly, states are still very powerful geopolitical actors. Flint goes further in a discussion of the ways in which states are crucially important and relevant in facilitating the transnational flow of people, ideas, commodities, and so forth. Further, Flint highlights Agnew’s (1994) work that explores the ways in which sovereignty is “‘unbundled’ through the operation of networks that cut across national boundaries” (2016, p. 130).
One of the reasons Flint pushes us to think about the ways in which binaries have underpinned geopolitics is to see how their construction and application have been a part of nationalist myths and geopolitical codes. Instead, he compels us to think about the importance of human security (in contrast to a national security) within our interconnected transnational global framework.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- identify the connection between national identity and the state;
- identify the manifestation of nationalism in current affairs;
- identify the way gender roles are defined by the practice of nationalism;
- identify the important role of “combat” in the creation of national identities;
- understand how geopolitical codes are rooted in national histories; and
- question the dominant inside/outside binary underlying the geopolitics of national security.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 4 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 4! Double-check the Lesson 4 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 5.
Lesson 5: Territorial Geopolitics - Shaky Foundations of the World Political Map?
Overview
In this lesson, we focus on the politics of the geographic boundaries of states and how this ties with the processes of territorialization, deterritorialization, reterritorialization and constructions of national identity contained therein.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- describe the role boundaries play in geopolitics;
- define boundaries, borders, borderlands, and frontiers;
- situate boundaries and borders as one form of territoriality;
- consider territorial constructions other than states;
- discuss the role of boundaries in the construction of national identity;
- identify the boundary conflicts that most commonly appear in geopolitical codes;
- discuss how peaceful boundaries may be constructed;
- discuss the concept of the borderland and its implications for boundaries, nations and states;
- examine case studies of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Korean peninsula; and
- describe the territoriality of the sea.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Definitions
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 5 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Boundary: the dividing line between political entities/the “line in the sand”.
Border: refers to that region contiguous with the boundary, a region within which society and the landscape are altered by the presence of the boundary.
Borderlands: the two borders either side of a boundary can be viewed as one borderland.
Frontiers: the process of territorial expansion in what is deemed (usually falsely) as “empty” areas, e.g., the American Frontier.
Watch
Watch Boundaries and Borderlands [26](by Annenberg Learner) for an exploration of the US and Mexico boundary and borders (28 minutes).
As you watch the film, think about the terms listed above (boundary, border, borderland, and frontier). While the definitions give us abstract understandings of the terms. How does the case study of Ciudad Juarez (Mexico) and El Paso, TX (USA) help us better understand the terms and their implications for the people who live on either side of a boundary? Using the case study of the US-Mexico boundary and border highlighted in the film, think of examples for each of the aforementioned terms.
Constructing Territory
Territorialization: The way that territory is used to enable politics. The next lesson will discuss flows between spaces. In this lesson, we will cover boundary formation and management as a territorial process—and how nation-states or non-state actors direct or contest this process of territorialization.
Deterritorialization: The way in which what is believed to be a coherent nation-state loses its ability to enact the despotic and infrastructural forms of power introduced previously (in other lessons/chapters). These entities are often referred to as “failed states” and are identified as security threats. Failed states have largely lost the ability to govern effectively across the whole of their territorial extent. Furthermore, failed states are often unable to provide basic services (especially education and health care) and are ill-equipped to provide order or security for the population. Flint gives the examples of Somalia and Yemen as often cited failed states. A more recent example of a failed state might be Syria (and Iraq). It can be argued that the current civil war in Syria and the overwhelming presence of ISIS (also known as ISIL or the Islamic State) call to question the central government's ability to effectively govern the territory, or provide basic services or security to its people. This leads us to the concept and term, reterritorialization
Reterritorialization: While Flint provides examples of reterritorialization at a regional scale with the example of the creation of the European Union (EU), we can also see the practice of reterritorialization operationalized at a smaller scale. Essentially, reterritorialization happens in contrast to deterritorialization. Reterritorialization is the restructuring of a place or territory that has experienced deterritorialization. So, as the Syrian government under Basher al-Assad struggles to stay in power (against both moderate rebels, like the Free Syrian Army, supported by the US government as well as its battles against ISIS over Syrian territory and people), opposition groups have increasingly gained ground throughout Syria. The following three articles highlight some of the process of reterritorialization in portions of Syria under ISIS.
To Read
The following articles provide specific examples of the ways in which ISIS has been able to control infrastructure and distribution of basic services and utilities, collect taxes, and enforce its own strict laws and regulations in the regions it controls. Such an example sheds light on how territorialization is a process that is/can be contested. Further, it illustrates the role non-state actors can have in processes of deterritorialization as well as reterritorialization.
Life in a Jihadist Capital: Order With a Darker Side
In a Syrian City, ISIS Puts Its Vision Into Practice [27] (NY Times)
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Has a Consumer Protection Office
A guide to how the militant group overrunning Iraq wins hearts and minds [28] (The Atlantic)
ISIS Builds Government in Northeast Syria
(Article from the NY Post [29])
Geopolitical Codes and Boundary Conflicts
Flint identifies four categories of grievances that can ignite a boundary conflict. Those four categories are: identity, demarcation of boundaries, control of natural resources, and security. The textbook provides a great general analysis of a fictitious state called Hypothetica. Using the example of Hypothetica, Flint goes through each of the four categories of grievance to highlight how they become points of contention leading to geopolitical boundary conflicts. After his fictitious example, he then details the geopolitical history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
As you review the case study, note how identity, demarcation, resources, and security are engaged with and utilized over the history of the conflict. Who are the key actors involved in the conflict? What issues are at the center of the conflict? What has been the process of territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization for each actor(s)? What continue to be the main sticking points of the conflict? What are the possibilities for making peaceful boundaries?
The Geopolitics of Making Peaceful Boundaries and Borderlands
Flint notes that a focus on boundaries (the line in the sand) may work to perpetuate conflict as boundaries definitively establish what is/isn’t part of a state’s territory and who is/isn’t a member of its citizenship. Thus, he shifts our focus to an approach that may be more productive: a focus on borders and borderlands as trans-boundary spaces of interaction. A focus on these spaces (versus a line) might open the opportunity for mutual control, use of resources, and joint economic activity along borders/borderland regions.
Of course, in order to establish a peaceful collaboration along borders, political goodwill among the parties is fundamental.
Flint (2016, p. 159-160) points to five conditions that are necessary to facilitate a peaceful trans-boundary interaction:
- There is no dispute over where the boundary has been established and how it has been demarcated (territorial questions are settled).
- The boundary facilitates flows of tourists and migrant laborers (for example) between neighboring countries rather than preventing them (trans-boundary interaction within the law is easy).
- Rather than being seen as a source of potential conflict, the boundary is seen as a sign of strength as commuting and joint economic projects enhance well-being and eradicate concerns of potential warfare (the boundary provides a sense of security).
- The basis of the peaceful boundary is mutual economic growth through interaction (e.g., shared lakes, rivers and aquifers may be jointly managed) (joint resource exploitation is possible).
- Emergency services and transportation logistics are created that straddle the international boundary and coordinate services to the border area (local administration is coordinated).
Likewise there are five key processes that shape a borderland (Flint, 2016, p. 160-161):
- Transnationalism
- Otherness
- Separateness
- Areas of cultural accommodation
- Places of international accommodation
Geopolitics of identity, integral to the establishment of a trans-boundary borderland, challenge the importance of the hyphen in nation-state. These borderlands highlight a geography of cultural groups that do not lie neatly within state boundaries, but often spill over territorial lines—woven together across the globe in networks of migration and cultural associations that intersect state boundaries.
Boundaries and Geopolitical Codes
How is the process of establishing and maintaining boundaries an important part of geopolitical practice?
Let's use the following videos to examine the US-Mexico Border, boundaries and borderlands, and issues connected to the US geopolitical code:
To Watch
Obama on Mexico-US Border Situation (Full Speech, 7/9/2014)
Hello everybody. Just had a good meeting with Governor Perry, local officials, and faith leaders to talk about the steps that we have taken and that we need to take to address the humanitarian situation on the border. And I want to thank everybody who's been involved for taking the time to talk to me. It's important to recognize two things. First the surge of unaccompanied children and adults with children are arriving at one sector the border and that's the Rio Grande Valley. Second, the issue is not that people are evading our enforcement officials, the issue is that we are apprehending them in large numbers. And we're working to make sure that we have sufficient facilities to detain, house, and process them appropriately while attending to unaccompanied children with the care and compassion that they deserve while they are in our custody. While we intend to do the right thing by these children, their parents need to know that this is an incredibly dangerous situation and it is unlikely that their children will be able to stay. And I've asked parents across Central America not to put their children in harm's way in this fashion. Right now there are more Border Patrol agents and surveillance resources on the ground than at any time in our history and we deport almost 400 thousand migrants each year. But as soon as it became clear that this year's migration to the border was different than in past years, I directed FEMA to coordinate a response at the border. Members of my cabinet, my staff made multiple trips to facilities there and we're also addressing the root of the problem. I've sent Vice President Biden, Secretary Kerry, and Secretary Johnson to meet with Central American leaders as well as working with our international partners to go after smugglers who were putting their kids lives at risk. And earlier this week Mexico announced a series of steps that they're going to take on their southern border to help stem the tide of these unaccompanied children.
Last week I sent a letter to Congress asking them to increase penalties on smugglers and give us flexibility to move migrants through the system faster. Yesterday I asked Congress to fund these efforts. About half of the resources would go to border security, enforcement, and expedited removal of people who don't qualify for a humanitarian claim. About half would go to make sure we're treating children humanely. We would also make investments to further tackle the root problems in Central America. So right now congress has the capacity to work with us, work with state officials, local officials, faith-based groups, and not-for-profits who are helping to care for these kids. Congress has the capacity to work with all parties concerned to directly address the situation. They've said they want to see a solution. The supplemental offers them the capacity to vote immediately to get it done. Of course in the long run the best way to truly address this problem is for the House of Representatives to pass legislation fixing our broken immigration system which by the way would include funding for additional thousands of border Patrol agents something that everybody down here that I've talked to indicates is a priority. If the Senate passed a common sense bipartisan bill more than a year ago, it would have strengthened the border, added an additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents. It would have strengthened our backlogged immigration courts. It have would put us in a stronger position to deal with this search, and in fact prevent it. So let me just close by indicating the nature the conversation that I had with Governor Perry, which I thought was constructive. Governor Perry suggested four specific areas of concern. He was concerned about how many Patrol agents were directly at the border, he was concerned that some of the positioning of Border Patrol agents is too far from the border to be effective in deterring folks from coming in as opposed to simply apprehending them. I indicated to him that what he said sounded like it made sense and that in fact if we passed the supplemental we would then have the resources to carry out some the very things that he's requesting. On a broader policy level, he indicated concern that right now kids who come to the border from Mexico are immediately deported, but because it's non-contiguous folks were coming from Central America have to go through a much lengthier process. I indicated to him the part of what we're looking in the supplemental is some flexibility in terms of being able to preserve the due process rights of individuals who come in, but also to make sure that we're sending a strong signal that they can't simply show up at the border and automatically assume that they're going to be absorbed.
He also expressed concerns about how the immigration judicial system works. How the administrative processing works how long it takes and the fact that oftentimes people appear are then essentially released with a court date that might be six months out, or nine months out and a sizable number not surprisingly don't show up. I indicated to him that if we had more administrative judges, more administrative capacity, we can shrink those wait times. This administrative practice predates my administration and in fact has been going on for quite some time and a lot of it has to do with the fact that there's not enough capacity both in terms of detention facilities but also in terms of judges, attorneys, space, in order process these things more quickly and expeditiously. So the bottom line is actually that there's nothing that the Governor indicated he'd like to see that I have a philosophical objection to. I've asked Jeh Johnson to contact his head of Health and Human Services when he comes down for the sixth time at the end of this week to coordinate and make sure that some other suggestions that the governor has are technically feasible and what kind of resources might be needed.
But what I emphasized to the governor was the problem here is not a major disagreement around the actions that could be helpful in dealing with the problem. The challenge is, is Congress prepared to act to put the resources in place to get this done? Another way of putting it and I said this directly to the governors is, are our folks more interest in politics or the more interest in solving problems? If they're interested in solving the problem then this can be solved. If the preference is for politics then it won't be solved. And I urged the governor to talk to the Texas delegation which is obviously at the heart of the Republican caucus both in the house and has great influence in the caucus in the Senate. If the Texas delegation is in favor of this supplemental, which by the way does not include its some things that I know many of them object to around dealing with undocumented workers who've been in this country for quite some time. This is just a very narrow issue, the supplemental, in terms of dealing with the particular problem we have right now. If the Texas delegation is prepared to move this thing can get done next week. We can have more Border Patrol agents on the border as the governor's request, we can shorten the time tables for processing these children or adults with children as the governor thinks is important. We can make sure that some of the public health issues that were raised in the meeting that I just had are addressed so that we've got enough folks vaccinating, checking on the health status of these children to make sure that not only are they safe but also our communities are safe. The things that the governor thinks are important to do would be a lot easier to do if we had this supplemental. It gives us the resources to do them. So the only question at this point is, is why wouldn't the Texas delegation and the other republicans were concerned about this not want to put this on a fast track in get this on my desk so I can sign and we can start getting to work. I suggested the governor years I suspect some influence or the Texas delegation that might be helpful to call on them to pass a supplemental right away.
Final point I'll make is I just want to thank some of the faith-based group that I just met with as well as mayors, commissioners, local officials. Dallas has been incredibly compassionate looking at some sites some facilities in which they can accommodate some of these children. And I indicated in hearing the stories of churches that are prepared to not just make donations but send volunteers to help construct some of these facilities or fix them up and their willingness to volunteer and in providing care and assistance to these children. I, I told them thank you because it, it confirmed what I think we all know which is the American people are an incredibly compassionate people and when we see a child need we want to care for them. But what I think we all agreed on is, is that the best thing that we can do is to make sure that the children are able to live in their own countries safely. And that's why it's going to be important even as we saw the short term problem here for us to be able to direct attention and resources and assistance as we're doing but not at a sustained and high enough level back in Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador and other places so that parents don't think that somehow it's safer for their children to send them thousands of miles just so that they don't get harmed.
With that I'll take a couple of questions.
WOMAN (asking question): There are increasing calls not just from republicans also from some democrats for you to visit the border during this trip. Can you explain why you didn't do that and do you see any legitimate reason for you to actually do that at some point or do you think those calls are more about politics than anything else?
Jeh Johnson has now visited at my direction the border five times. He's going for his sixth this week. He then comes back in reports to me extensively on everything that's taking place. So, there's nothing that is taking place down there that I am not intimately aware of and briefed on. This isn't theater, this is a problem. I'm not interested in photo-ops, I'm interested in solving a problem. And those who say I should visit the border, when you ask them what should we be doing, they're giving us suggestions that are embodied in legislation that I've already sent to Congress. So it's not as if they're making suggestions there we're not listening to in fact the suggestions of those who work at the border, who visited the border, are incorporated in legislation that were already prepared to sign the minute it hits my desk. There's a very simple question here and that is Congress just needs to pass the supplemental. There's a larger issue that I recognize involves a lot of politics which is why aren't we passing comprehensive immigration reform which would put an additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents and give us a lot of additional authorities to deal with some of these problems. That should have been done a year ago, should have been done two years ago. It's got caught up in politics and and I understand that. One of the suggestions I had for Governor Perry was that it would be useful for my Republican friends to rediscover the concept of negotiation and compromise. The Governor's one concern that he mentioned to me was is that setting aside the supplemental I should go ahead authorize having National Guard troops surge at the border right away. And I what what I told him as we're happy to consider how we could deploy National Guard down there, but that's a temporary solution that's not a permanent solution. And so why wouldn't we go ahead and pass the permanent solution or at least a longer-term solution. and if the Texas delegation said a for us to pass a supplemental we want to include a commitment to your going send National Guard early be happy to consider it. So, so that that this should not be hard to at least get the supplemental done. The question is are we more interested in politics or are we more interested in solving the problem. If we're interested in solving the problem then there's actually some broad consensus around a number of the issues. There may be some controversies and differences between Democrats and Republicans on some of the policy issues, but on a whole bunch of this stuff there's a pretty broad consensus. Let's just get that done. Let's, let's do the work.
MAN (asking question): Mr. President, the Governor gave indication that you would ask the Texas delegation to get behind the supplemental and it sounds like you are concerned that the supplemental will fall victim to partisan politics.
Well, the uh, I think it's fair to say that these days in Washington everybody's always concerned about everything falling victim to the partisan politics. You know, if, if I sponsored a bill declaring apple pie American, it might, it might fall victim to partisan politics I get that. On the other hand this is an issue which my Republican friends have said it, it's urgent we need to fix it. If that's the case then let's go ahead and fix it. As I indicated Governor Perry, you know, he suggested well maybe you just need to go ahead and act and that might convince Republicans that they should go ahead and pass a supplemental, and I had to remind him I'm getting sued right now by Mr. Banier apparently, for going ahead and acting instead of going through Congress. Well here's a good test case. This is something you say is important as I do. This is an area that you have prioritized, as I have. Don't wait for me to take executive actions if when you have a capacity right now to go and get something done. I will sign that bill tomorrow we're going to go ahead and do what we can administratively, but this gives us the tools to do many other very things that Republicans are seeking. At the same time I will just repeat that if we got a comprehensive bill done it doesn't just solve this problem for a year, it solves it potentially for twenty years and I would urge those who so far at least have failed to to act on the comprehensive bill to take another look at it.
MAN (asking question): It doesn't sound like you got any promises.
I didn't get any promises, but it was a constructive conversation I just want to emphasize that you know it I, I think that it was a good exchange of ideas. And he did have some specific suggestions in terms of how we align border agents that I've asked Jeh Johnson to take a look at because I, I think there may be ways in which we could use the resources that we already have more effectively than we're currently doing. And I think it is important that we make sure we've got a strong federal-state collaboration on the issue.
I'm going to take just two more questions then I got to move on.
WOMAN (asking question): Mr. President, Governor Perry put out a statement shortly before you spoke saying that he pressed, his verb, you to secure the border. Does that statement in any way indicate that he is interested in compromise?
I'm interested in securing the border. So, as I explained, as far as I could tell the only disagreement I had with Governor Perry was is that he wanted me to go ahead and do it without Congress having to do anything. We'll do what we can administratively. I think the useful question, not simply for the Governor, but for John Maynard, Mitch McConnell, and the other members the Texas Delegation is why wouldn't you want to go and pass a bill to give us additional resources to solve the very problem that you say is urgent. Jackie.
JACKIE: Mr. President, There's been a number of Republicans who have said that [INAUDIBLE] had deferred action executive order from 2012 that you signed is to blame, that it was an invitation, that these other children are now taking up on. What do you say to that?
You know, if you look at the pattern of immigration into our country, we're at actually a significantly lower level in terms of overall immigration flow illegal immigration flow then we were when I took office. I think that the challenge we have that has really caused a spike is the significant security challenges in the Central American countries themselves and to the fact that you got smugglers are increasingly recognizing that they can make money by transporting these folks often in very dangerous circumstances to the border and taking advantage of the compassion on the American people. Recognizing that we're not going to simply leave abandoned children who are left at our doorstep, but that we've got to care for them and provide for them some basic safety and security while we determine where we can, where we can send them. You know, I think one of the most important things that we're going to have to recognize that this is not going to be a short term problem this is a long-term problem. We have countries that are pretty close to us in which the life chances of children are just far, far worse then they are here. And parents, who are frightened or misinformed about what's possible are willing to take extraordinary risks on behalf of their kids. The more that we can do to help these countries get their acts together then the less likely we are to have a problem at at the borders. and and the fact of the matter is is the Dhaka in comprehensive immigration reform generally, would allow us to reallocate resources precisely because all the budget of DHS instead of us chasing after families that it may have been living here for five or 10 years and have kids were US citizens and are law-abiding, say for the fact that they didn't come here legally. If, if they have to earn citizenship, paying taxes, learning English, you know, paying a fine, going to the back to the line, but they are no longer a enforcement priority. That suddenly frees up a huge amount of resources to do exactly the kinds of things that many Republicans for for us to do and that we've tried to do within resource limitations we have. Alright, thank you everybody. Appreciate it.
Most of us are somewhat familiar with the ongoing issue of undocumented migration from Mexico and Central American across the US border. In the above video, President Obama discusses some of the more recent (Summer 2014) issues pertaining to movement of unaccompanied minors across the US-Mexico border.
Homeland Security says terrorists haven’t crossed US-Mexico border
Visit the CBS News Website [30] to view this video.
However, beyond the movement of unaccompanied minors (and/or their parents) from Mexico, Central and South America into the US for jobs and other opportunities, we should understand that that isn’t the only issue of concern on or around our borders. So, with this in mind, what are some of the various issues brought up in this 2-minute video (regarding Homeland Security)? As you watch, think about how these issues relate to the US geopolitical code. How is the process of establishing and maintaining boundaries an important part of geopolitical practice?
Territoriality of the Ocean and Territorial Disputes
To Watch
Watch the following video on East Asia’s maritime disputes (The Economist):
The standoff between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea brings the two sides closer to armed conflict than at any time since the second world war. After the war the islands known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyu Islands in China were under American administration until they were 100 back to Japan in 1972. Japan says they have long been its territory and admits no dispute claiming also that China only started expressing an interest when it began to seem that oil and gas might lie under the sea. But China says they have always been part of China just what it says about Taiwan which also claims the Diaoyus. This is the most active and dangerous dispute, but not the only one in which Japan is embroiled. It was furious in 2012 when South Korea's president Lee Myung-bak visited the island South Koreans call Dokdo and Japan claims as Takeshima. It is a mirror Japan's dispute with China. South Korea is in control.
Then there are what Japan calls its northern territories. Occupied by the Soviet Union in the dying days of the war, these islands the southernmost four of the curel chain are still administered by Russia. Because of the dispute Japan and Russia have yet to sign a peace treaty ending the second world war. Maritime claims in southeast Asia even more complex and competition is made more intense by speculation that the South China Sea might be hugely rich in oil and gas. China, Taiwan, and Vietnam all say they have sovereignty over the Paracel Islands controlled by China since it evicted the Vietnamese from them in 1974. To the south the same three countries also claimed the Spratly archipelago, but there and elsewhere in the sea the Philippines also has a substantial claim. Malaysia also claims some islands even tiny Brunei has an interest.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS and its tribunal, is one form for tackling these disputes. But UNCLOS cannot rule over territorial disputes, just over the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone the owners a habitable islands are entitled to. And the claims of China and Taiwan may have nothing to do with UNCLOS. They point to a map published in the 1940s, showing a big U-shaped, 9-dashed line around the edge of the sea. That they say, is historically all China's. This has no basis in international law, and China often fails to clarify whether its claims are based on the 9-dashed line or claims to islands, rocks, and shoals. That lack of clarity alarms not just its neighbors and rival claimants, but the United States which says it has its own national interest in freedom navigation in a sea through which passes a huge chunk of global trade.
Similar to the examples in the text, the examples in the short clip illustrate how “territorial disputes over maritime boundaries are an intersection of material practices aimed at exploitation of natural resources and representations of the dispute that reference longstanding nationalist beliefs.” (Flint, 2016, p. 172)
How might these territorial disputes be tied to a country’s geopolitical code? How are discourses of national interest, identity and patriotism engaged to stake their claim on maritime territories?
Here is another short video clip on “Ocean Grabbing”:
Africa is a wealthy continent in terms of natural resources. However, it is rarely the African countries or the local communities who benefit from the wealth. Multinational companies are increasingly seizing control and ownership of African resources and the oceans are no exception. This is called ocean grabbing. Ocean grabbing means that the control of fish stocks that historically been of benefit to the local fishing communities are suddenly taken over by multinational companies and other power factors. For instance, through privatization of the oceans. As a result, small scale fishers lose their access and rights to resources and pawn, which their livelihood has traditionally depended on without ever being heard or included in the decision making process. Ocean grabbing has severe environmental and social consequences. In the pursuit of profit, overfishing reduces the biodiversity of the oceans. Industrial fisheries cause large amounts of bi-catch that end up as trash instead of food, and the money ends up in the hands of few while the local communities suffer the consequences: pollution, unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity. Ocean grabbing creates an unjust redistribution of the ocean resources with few winners and many losers. But fighting against ocean grabbing can pay off.
Take South Africa for example. When the government issued the privatization of the fishery resources, 45,000 small scale fishers lost access to the sea overnight while the large scale industry took over a majority of the countries fishery resources. But the local fishers joined forces and in the fight for their rights to the ocean's resources and through a difficult struggle over several years they succeeded in getting the government to listen to their rightful claims.
Worldwide, 800 million people depend on a small scale fishery, but ocean grabbing is gathering speed and threatening small scale fisheries and communities all over the world. With inspiration from South Africa, small scale fisheries are joining forces in an international network in order to fight against the global privatization push, so that the sale of our commons can be stopped before it's too late. Our oceans are not for sale. Let's stem together and support the fishers people's fight for a fair distribution of the ocean's resources.
This clip focuses less on territorial disputes made between countries and more on the privatization of the ocean which results in the exclusion of small scale fishermen and communities that rely on these smaller scale operations for their lives and livelihoods. The short clip highlights a multiple actors including fishermen and their communities, the national government, as well as multinational corporations. Although they focus on how national policy is used to privatize Ocean resources at the national scale, they also point out how this is a global trend.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- identify how the concept of territoriality is applied in case study examples;
- identify geopolitical practices of deterritorialization and reterritorialization;
- consider the ways in which boundaries are an important part of the practices of geopolitics;
- identify the types of boundary conflicts within current affairs;
- consider the ways in which the establishment of boundaries is an important geopolitical practice;
- consider how geopolitical agency can undermine or change the roles boundaries play; and
- consider the importance of maritime disputes over territorial demarcation.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 5 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 5! Double-check the Lesson 5 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 6.
Lesson 6: Network Geopolitics - Social Movements and Terrorists
Overview
In this lesson, we focus upon the geopolitics of networks. After discussing the term meta-geography and its connection to the geopolitics of globalization, we will further delve into a geopolitical perspective on transnational social movements as well as terrorism. We end with thinking about how these concepts apply to our selected country of research.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- define the term meta-geography;
- discuss the geopolitics of globalization;
- identify the key attributes of transnational social movements;
- discuss the geography and history of peace movements;
- discuss the geopolitics of defining terrorism; and
- identify the changing geography of terrorism over the last 100 years.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Geopolitical Globalization: A New Meta-Geography
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 6 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
(T)he geopolitics of the world is one in which the construction of territorial entities, such as states, has always occurred in conjunction with the construction of networks to enable flows across the globe. The construction of networks and maintaining flows within them is no less a form of geopolitics than the construction of states and the practices of their geopolitical codes. - Flint, 2016, p. 177
Meta-geography: the “spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world” (Lewis and Wigen, 1997, p. ix; Beaverstock et al., 2000; quoted in Flint, 2016, p. 179). For example, Flint notes that Anglo-American geography has impacted modern geopolitics with its dominant framework that sees the world as a mosaic of nation-states. Thus, the unit of analysis, where power is purported to reside, is within the established nation-state.
However, contemporary globalization and the transnational networks and flows of goods, money and people across boundaries, create new and important non-state actors (i.e., banks, businesses and groups of refugees). As such, power is not merely about controlling territory. It is also embedded in a geopolitics of controlling movement (of people, commodities, etc.) and creating networks of opportunity or advantage across political boundaries.
As Flint identifies, “Networks are inherently neither good or bad: they are political constructs used for political ends” (2016, p. 184). And so, we turn our attention to two of the many forms in which networks can exist in our contemporary worlds: 1)Transnational Social Movements, and 2) Terrorism.
Transnational Social Movements
Transnational social movement, a collectivity of groups with adherents in more than one country that is committed to sustained contentious action for a common cause or a common constellation of causes, often against governments, international institutions, or private firms.
Prominent examples of transnational social movements include the antiglobalization movement and the movement against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). A narrow definition of the concept emphasizes its differences from international nongovernmental organizations and transnational advocacy networks, which are generally more institutionalized and professionalized and more frequently funded or promoted by particular states or international organizations. A broader conception of transnational social movements includes or focuses on other types of transnational actors and posits a causal relationship between globalization and the development of transnational activism. Accordingly, this broader view affords transnational social movements a greater role and influence in national and international systems of governance, where their primary achievements are the creation, strengthening, implementation, and monitoring of international norms.
- "Transnational Social Movement." [31] Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
Globalization and Social Movements
Transnational social movements were established and organized as a result of four related changes or trends (seen as components of contemporary globalization that have intensified in recent decades):
- a growing trend toward democratization
- increasing global integration in economic, political, and social spheres
- confusing and diverging values that in turn bring people together in the name of a shared concern or issue that may be seen to be in opposition to other values and goals (e.g., environmentalism versus capitalism)
- a proliferation of transnational institutions that facilitate social organization beyond state boundaries
Five ways in which transnational social movements are able to alter the existing political landscape:
- mobilize support for particular policies
- increase participation in the decision-making process
- maintain the public’s attention on critical issues
- represent or frame the issues in a particular way
- enact certain policies, or make such policies come about
These five themes identified by Kriesberg (1997) explicitly recognize the importance of geographic scale. Smith (1997) highlights three scales of particular salience: individual (e.g., people holding a rally to highlight an issue for the general public); state governments (e.g., writing letters to state leaders and politicians), and intergovernmental institutions (convening or participating in an international convention).
Flint identifies the “anti-globalization movement” as a strong example of the fluidity and diversity of transnational social movements. This movement is non-hierarchical, not bound to any particular territory, and has a flexible and fluid agenda. It continually changes its methods/tactics of protest and engagement as well as its goals as they get feedback, direction, friction from their diverse membership. Flint explains that they are also known as the “Movement of Movements” to which I will add that many scholars also refer to the movement as the “global justice movement” (rather than the anti-globalization movement—as they are not necessarily “anti-globalization” so much as “anti” globalization-as-we-see-it-now). Nonetheless, as Flint consistently uses the “anti-globalization movement” terminology, I will continue to refer to it as such. I did think it was important to point out that this is somewhat of a misnomer—lest we get confused about the goals of the movement because of the title.
The anti-globalization movement is an umbrella for a large eclectic group of interests including the environment, gender justice, economic justice, and so forth. There is no one governing body for the anti-globalization movement—which has been identified as a weakness by those who oppose the agenda(s) or have been caused frustration by those who share the same agenda, but are more state-centric. However, proponents of the anti-globalization movement claim that its fluidity is one of its strengths—allowing it to quickly and continually adjust to the dynamic nature of economic globalization. The networks of connectivity engaged with the anti-globalization movement covers a large geographic territory and a diversity of topics. Table 6.1 and Figure 6.2 (p.188 of Flint) highlight this diversity through an analysis of participants at the World Social Forum.
Geopolitics of Peace Movements
George Konrad (1984) proposed an idea to counter the military build up during the Cold War. He asserted that the idea of “antipolitics” could/should challenge the nuclear militarism of the US and Soviet Union. His vision of antipolitics rejected state-based politics and created alternative movements that crossed international boundaries in order to form communities of people with shared goals and values, which was, perhaps, a precursor to transnational social movements and the central role of peace movements within the World Social Forum.
Flint distinguishes between positive and negative peace, where:
- Positive peace is through a process: a means to resolve conflicts peacefully and transform institutions and behaviors to promote justice and well-being (Galtun, 1996, p. 32).
- Negative peace is, simply, the absence of all violence (Galtung 1964; 1996, p. 3)
Positive peace requires identifying inequitable economic and social structures, transgressions of the natural environment, and attitudes of racism, homophobia, sexism, and religious fundamentalism; and creating means to transform these structures and create dialogues of mutual understanding between individuals, states, and social groups.
Three basic categories of peace can be related to scale:
- Individual Peace: How individuals become and stay at peace with themselves.
- Social Peace: How groups become and stay at peace with themselves.
- Collective Peace: How groups become and stay at peace with each other.
In relation to geopolitics and negative peace (lack of violence), the latter two categories (social and collective peace) connect to peace within a state (i.e., absence of civil war or social disorder) and peace between states (absence of war between states).
If we focus on positive peace, we must draw our attention to the engaged process(es) and constant energies required to achieve and maintain a state of well-being. Such a goal requires active engagement at all scales—from the individual to the local to the global. See the peace pyramid (figure 6.4) on p. 170 of Flint. Adolph (2009) proposed this pyramid as a reflection of the three scales of transnational social movement activity discussed earlier: individual, states and intergovernmental institutions.
As you review this pyramid and the discussion of the pyramid on pp. 170-171, think about how these scales are interconnected, as well as how much agency any individual or collective group has to control various factors aiding their quality of peace.
Looking over the section on Flint (2012) pp. 171-175 (peace movements in time and space), note some of the general conclusions that are drawn from Herb’s (2005) geographic interpretation.
Defining Terrorism
Revolutionaries or Terrorists?
Throughout history, the world has known political violence and war. For centuries, political and religious thinkers from many traditions have wrestled with two key questions. When is the use of force acceptable? What principles govern how force may be used? These two questions are central to something known as just war theory.
These two questions and the concepts of just war theory may also be useful in considering terrorism. In past debates about terrorism, some have suggested that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Are these terms merely labels that have to do with whether one agrees or disagrees with the cause? Or, is the distinction based on more concrete and objective grounds?
Today, just war theory underlies much of accepted international law concerning the use of force by states. International law is explicit about when states may use force. For example, states may use force in self-defense against an armed attack. International law also addresses how force may be used. For example, force may not be used against non-combatants. Despite these laws and norms, there are those who oppose the use of violence under any circumstances. For example, this commitment to non-violence led Mohandas Gandhi to build a movement of national liberation in India organized around the practice of non-violent resistance.
Over the years, the international community has been working to better define the rules of war. The Geneva Conventions established in the aftermath of World War II introduced new internationally accepted regulations on the conduct of war between states. These rules protect non-combatants, govern the treatment of prisoners of war, prohibit hostage-taking, and respect diplomatic immunity.
In addition, the concept of proportionality - long a part of just war theory - has gained new importance as the weapons of war have become increasingly destructive. Proportionality argues that it is wrong to use more force than is necessary to achieve success.
After the Second World War, the use of violence in struggles for self-determination and national liberation fueled a new aspect of the debate on legitimate use of force - the differences between freedom fighters and terrorists. For example, newly independent Third World nations and Soviet bloc nations argued that any who fought against the colonial powers or the dominance of the West should be considered freedom fighters, while their opponents often labeled them terrorists.
Following the violence at the 1972 Munich Olympics, U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim called on the General Assembly to discuss measures to prevent terrorism. Waldheim's suggestion provoked furious debate over the nature of terrorism and the role of armed struggle in national liberation.
...all liberation movements are described as terrorists by those who have reduced them to slavery. …[The term] terrorist [can] hardly be held to persons who were denied the most elementary human rights, dignity, freedom and independence, and whose countries objected to foreign occupation. - U.N. Ambassador from Mauritania Moulaye el-Hassan
Critics countered that this argument was misleading because it failed to consider the issue in its entirety. What mattered was not the justness of the cause (something that would always be subject to debate) but the legitimacy of the methods used. The ends, they argued, could not be used to justify the means.
State Terror?
During the U.N. debates on terrorism, some argued that the methods of violence used by states can be morally reprehensible and a form of terrorism.
...the methods of combat used by national liberation movements could not be declared illegal while the policy of terrorism unleashed against certain peoples [by the armed forces of established states] was declared legitimate. - Cuban Representative to the U.N.
By the late 1970s, significant portions of the international community (though not the United States) had decided to extend the protection of the Geneva Convention to include groups participating in armed struggle against colonial domination, alien occupation, or racist regimes; and to those exercising their right of self-determination. The significance of this change is that it seemed to extend legitimacy to the use of force by groups other than states.
The events of September 11 and the subsequent war on terrorism have led us to consider important questions concerning the use of force. When is force justified? What is a terrorist? How does a terrorist differ from a freedom-fighter? Who decides?
The excerpt above highlights what Flint explains—that “the definition of terrorism is, at best, contested and, perhaps more fairly, unclear” (p. 191). Nonetheless, Flint uses the table on p. 193 to discern three important geographic elements of terrorism. First is the symbolic nature of terrorist actions in targeting particular places or buildings. Second, the goal of terrorism is to expand the geographic scope of a particular conflict in a manner that (they hope) benefits their cause. Third, terrorists claim to be performing political altruism—they believe they are speaking for or serving a marginalized or oppressed group.
Furthermore, the PBS excerpt highlights the challenge of representing terrorism—labeling some people or actions “terrorist” and others “non-terrorist”. Here, Flint highlights the scale of analysis… if only a few people or actions are identified to be terrorist, then that is a sub-national scale and absolves or excludes state-sponsored violence from being seen as “terrorist”.
Four historic waves of terrorism:
- 1st wave: (1880-1914) motivated by the piecemeal political reforms of the Russian Tsar hoping to preclude more radical and revolutionary change.
- 2nd wave: (1920-60) dominated by the political geography of the ending of imperialism, or decolonization, and the establishment of nation-states.
- 3rd wave: (1960-90) maintained a nationalist anti-colonial agenda, with an ideological twist—nationalist groups who saw the project of decolonization and national self-determination as incomplete and unfair resorted to terrorism.
- 4th wave: (1990-present) period of religious terrorism, though still motivated by intersections with nationalism.
Going back to the text (pp. 197-202), be familiar with the evolution of terrorism, their goals, strategies, and actions through these four historic waves.
To Read
Please read the following articles before completing the blog assignment.
- ANC, from 'Terrorist' Label to Liberation Movement. [32] NPR (January 2012)
- Nelson Mandela, from Terrorist to Tea with the Queen [33]. The Independent. (May 2015)
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 4A
Please visit the Lesson 6 Module in Canvas for a detailed description of the assignment, including due dates and submission instructions.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- consider the geopolitics of globalization;
- understand the activity of social movements as a form of geopolitics;
- interpret peace movements as geographically situated actors;
- identify the geography of contemporary terrorism;
- identify the geography of contemporary counter-terrorism;
- consider the geographic mismatch of terrorism and counter-terrorism; and
- consider the geopolitical implications of cyber-warfare
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 6 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 6! Double-check the Lesson 6 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 7.
Lesson 7: Global Geopolitical Structure - Framing Agency
Overview
In this lesson, we begin to discuss geopolitical structure, or the context within which geopolitical agency takes place. While we will primarily review George Modelski’s model of cycles of world leadership, I have also included supplementary information on Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- use a geopolitical model (Modelski) to explain the global geopolitical structure;
- discuss the different components of this model;
- analyze the validity of the model;
- describe how the model is both similar to and different from “classic” geopolitical frameworks; and
- explain how we can use the model to provide a structure or context to understand geopolitical agency.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Introduction to Modelski’s Model of World Leadership
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 7 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Thus far, we have really focused on the ability of agents to make strategic geopolitical choices and decisions and how these choices are complicated by competing goals and changing circumstances. However, decisions are not made in a social and political vacuum.
Our ability to make choices is an important aspect of our everyday lives. This ability affords us some modicum of control in a very complex socio-political landscape. Indeed, our ability to make key decisions is an exercise of our personal agency. This agency aids in our strategic navigation and negotiation of social, political, cultural, and economic terrain so that we can work towards social, cultural, financial (etc.) security. But, as the last paragraph highlighted, we make these decisions within a structure that shapes and constrains the selection of choices and decisions we have to make. This is certainly true at the individual scale—and now we will investigate how geopolitical structure works at the national and global scales.
As Flint (2016) explains, “One of the benefits of this (the Modelski) model is an understanding of global politics that is based on empirical observation. In contrast, the classical geopoliticians of the nineteenth and early twentieth century invoked a ‘God’s eye view of the world,’ providing simple histories or theories that, they claimed, not only explained what has happened in the past but suggested particular policies inform the actions of their own country in a global competition with others (Parker, 1985). In other words, geopoliticians make dubious claims of historical and theoretical ‘objectivity’ to support their own biased view of how their country should compete in the world.” (p. 217)
Thus, as we make our own policy recommendations for our DVPM projects, we should understand how these fit in with global geopolitical structures; how these structures shape agency; and also how such policies and actions are justified through various geopolitical claims, as mentioned above.
A cautionary note worth repeating from Flint, 2016, p. 218:
Modelski’s model of geopolitics is not capable of predicting events. It is a historical model that interprets a wealth of historic data in a simplified framework. In other words, it is a descriptive model. Also, Modelski’s model is useful, but only within certain parameters. His view of geopolitics is limited to conflicts between the major powers; smaller countries and geopolitical actors that are not countries are not included in this model. However, the model is useful for introducing the idea of a geopolitical structure and offering a context for current geopolitical events.
Long Cycle Theory
George Modelski, who presented his ideas in the book, Long Cycles in World Politics (1987), is the chief architect of long cycle theory. In a nutshell, long cycle theory describes the connection between war cycles, economic supremacy, and the political aspects of world leadership.
Long cycles, or long waves, offer interesting perspectives on global politics by permitting "the careful exploration of the ways in which world wars have recurred, and lead states such as Britain and the United States have succeeded each other in an orderly manner." The long cycle is a period of time lasting approximately 70 to 100 years. Modelski divides the long cycle into four phases. When periods of global war, which could last as much as one-fourth of the total long cycle, are factored in, the cycle can last from 87 to 122 years.
Many traditional theories of international relations, including the other approaches to hegemony, believe that the baseline nature of the international system is anarchy. Modelski's long cycle theory, however, states that war and other destabilizing events are a natural product of the long cycle and larger global system cycle. They are part of the living processes of the global polity and social order. Wars are "systemic decisions" that "punctuate the movement of the system at regular intervals." Because "world politics is not a random process of hit or miss, win or lose, depending on the luck of the draw or the brute strength of the contestants," anarchy simply doesn't play a role. After all, long cycles have provided, for the last five centuries, a means for the successive selection and operation of numerous world leaders.
Modelski used to believe that long cycles were a product of the modern period. He suggests that the five long cycles, which have taken place since about 1500, are each a part of a larger global system cycle, or the modern world system. Under the terms of long cycle theory, five hegemonic long cycles have taken place, each strongly correlating to economic Kondratieff Waves (or K-Waves). The first hegemon would have been Portugal during the 16th century, then the Netherlands during the 17th century. Next, Great Britain served twice, first during the 18th century, then during the 19th century. The United States has been serving as hegemon since the end of World War II.
Source: Wikipedia: Hegemonic stability theory [34]
As Flint explained in his cautionary note above, Modelski’s model is useful for thinking about geopolitical structure. In particular, it helps us to observe the ways in which world leaders play a key role in creating a global geopolitical structure. Further, he notes that we can examine how the geopolitical structure changes over time, and how that change aids our interpretation (or contextualization) of geopolitical codes (of the US, other states, or non-state actors). Flint states, “geopolitical decisions are made with an eye toward the global geopolitical context, and especially the ability of a dominant power to set the agenda.” (p. 218)
Modelski’s model is a historically based theory founded on his interest in naval history. Some key elements of his theory are:
- Power is a function of global reach (the ability to influence events across the globe).
- Historically, world power rested upon the ability to control the oceans (“ocean-going capacity”).
- Ocean-going capacity is measured by the combined tonnage of a country’s military and merchant navies.
- Power in this model is about strength and dominance.
- Note the feminist geopolitical critique of this conception of power.
- A world leader is able to offer an “innovation” that provides geopolitical order and security.
- An innovation refers to bundles of institutions, ideas and practices.
- Cycles of world leadership are dynamic—they rise and fall.
- Each cycle of world leadership is comprised of four phases (pg 199):
- Phase of global war
- Phase of world power
- Phase of delegitimation
- Phase of deconcentration
Flint calls our attention to the representation of world powers in Modelski’s model. They are referred to as “leaders” rather than hegemons or super powers. This is important because it implies that other countries are “willing followers”, whereas the representations of hegemons and super powers acknowledge the relationship of dominance and use of force (economic, military, or otherwise).
Modelski’s model identifies five previous cycles of world leadership in Table 7.1:
| World Leader | Century | Global War | Challenger | Coalition Partners |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portugal | 1500s | 1494-1516 | Spain | Netherlands |
| Netherlands | 1600s | 1580-1609 | France | England |
| Great Britain | 1700s | 1688-1713 | France | Russia |
| Great Britain | 1800s | 1792-1815 | Germany | US plus allies |
| United States | 1900s | 1914-1945 | Soviet Union/al-Qaeda | NATO/Coalition of willing |
(Cycles of World Leadership from Flint, 2016, p. 221)
Flint notes that the above cycles of world leadership conveniently show that Great Britain held two consecutive cycles of world leadership prior to the United States’ current position as the world leader. This is ‘convenient’ because, according to the model, the US is at the end of its period of world leadership. However, the precedent set by Great Britain shows that perhaps the US will ‘serve’ as world leader for one more cycle. In order to make our own assessment of the US’s attempt to maintain its preeminent power status in the face of challenges to its leadership, Flint asks us to consider the dynamics of two separate but related concerns:
- Is there a country willing and able to act as world leader?
- Is there a country at hand that is able to offer and enforce a “geopolitical innovation”?
- Does the rest of the world (or a significant majority) want that order?
| Modelski Phase | Preference for World Order | Availability of World Order |
|---|---|---|
| Global War | High | Low |
| World Power | High | High |
| Delegitimization | Low | High |
| Deconcentration | Low | Low |
(Table 7.2 from Flint, 2016, p. 225)
The US's rise into world leadership after World Wars I & II corresponds to the global war phase of Modelski’s model. During that time, there was a high preference for world order, but generally a low availability of world order. The US was well poised to take the charge in the post-WWII geopolitical landscape. Flint provides a thorough analysis of the ways in which the US fits into the Modelski model on pages 230-232. It is a good example that can help you better understand some of the more abstract aspects of the Modelski model within a specific context.
Flint also provides great examples that highlight the application of the Modelski model to contemporary states and organizations of states (the European Union). I won’t recount them here, but make sure you have read The War on Terror and Modelski’s Model (p. 232), The European Union and Modelski’s Model (p. 233), China and Modelski’s Model (pgs. 234-235), and North Korea, the NPT, and Modelski’s Model (pgs. 236-237).
Lastly, Flint discusses the legacy of world leadership by exploring “feedback systems in Modelski’s model” (p. 237). The first feedback system is the “developmental loop”—which explains that the “innovations” brought about by world leaders remain even after their time as a world leader expires. Flint provides the example of the United States—presumably, the innovations of the idea of self-determination as well as institutions such as the United Nations, World Bank and the like, will continue to play a role in future global geopolitics. They may shift and change, but their foundation has been established and thus they will continue to have some influence (even if altered) going forward.
The second feedback system is a “regulatory loop” that “examines the process of an emerging challenger and the establishment of a new world leader” (p. 237). While Flint reminds us that the Modelski model is not a predictive model, it does highlight some historical patterns that can give us insight into possible future outcomes. In particular, he explains that the next world leader does not typically fall to the challenger of the current world leader. Rather, the next world leader is usually one of the coalitions or allied countries. For example, the case of the US and Great Britain followed this process. Germany challenged Great Britain’s role as world leader, which brought on two world wars. Germany needed allies/a coalition to challenge Great Britain’s leadership status. Great Britain, in turn, could not fight off the challenger alone and needed to establish a coalition of allied forces to fend off Germany. Flint explains that both the previous leader (Great Britain) and its challenger (Germany) exhausted their material capacity for power in the long phase of the global war (WWI & WWII). But the US became an increasingly prominent member of the world leaders’ coalition and at the end of the wars, was able to assume the “preeminent global position”. Thus, Flint explains, we might look at this pattern in history to make an educated guess that the next nation to rise to world power will be among the US’s allies, rather than its adversaries.
However, Flint does caution us that the Modelski model views global geopolitics through a prism that only considers the state to be a key strategic actor. The rise of non-state actors as legitimate threats complicates the model in a way that is yet to be resolved.
Wallerstein’s World-Systems Analysis
Box 7.2 (Flint, p. 220) gives only a cursory mention of Wallerstein’s world-systems theory. This video provides a good overview of the theory. You will need to re-read the box and also watch the video below in order to complete the blog assignment for this week.
World Systems Analysis
Watch this video on Immanuel Wallerstein's World Systems Analysis. [35]
Now, the first thing I'd like to discuss with you now is the legacy of colonialism.
Now colonialism is defined as how a foreign power maintains political, social, economic, and cultural domination for an extended period of time over a group of people or a country. In simple terms, colonialism is ruled by outsiders. Relations oftentimes between the colonial nation and the colonized people are very similar to relationships that are described in class terms between the dominant capitalist class and the proletariat. This is very reminiscent of the work of Karl Marx when he talked about the haves and the have-nots.
Now, by the nineteen-eighties in the world, traditional colonization - colonialism –had pretty much disappeared. Most of the nations that had been colonies prior to, say, World War I, had achieved some sort of political independence and had established their own governments. And the way that that occurs is the colonizing nation had swooped in and set up a government in these countries, and after a period of time, when these nations decided that they no longer needed to be in the country for whatever reasons - whether that was they no longer needed the labor resources or they no longer needed natural resources -they largely just sort of left. And they left the country to set up its own government and to try and fix many of the problems that had been inherent in the colonial systems of the past.
Colonial domination established some patterns of economic exploitation and a lot of these countries that continued on even after they achieved their own nationhood. And part of the reason for that is because some of these nations had never been allowed to develop their own infrastructure, develop their own industry and technology. And they had become very dependent on the countries that had come in to colonize them (what we would refer to as colonial masters). So when the colonists moved out it caused a continuing dependence and foreign domination, which today we refer to as neo-colonialism: the continued dependence on more industrialized nations for managerial and technical expertise by the former colonies.
This is a pretty common occurrence with countries that were once colonized. So whether we're actually talking about colonialism or neocolonialism it's important to note that the economic and political consequences are very real.
Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein has done a lot of work in this area. He has what he termed world systems analysis which is a perspective or a theory which says that there are unequal economic and political relationships in which certain industrialized nations (among those the United States) and their global corporations still continue to dominate at the core of the world system. At the semi-periphery of this system would be countries that have somewhat marginal economic status. They're kind of in the middle. They're not a dependent country necessarily. However, they do depend on the assistance of those core nations at times. The countries that fall into this category could be South Korea, India, Mexico.
And then there's a third category: the peripheral nations. The peripheral nations of the world are still in an exploitative relationship to the core nations. And the core nations and their corporations often control and exploit the non-core nations’ economies, natural resources, and labor pools.
So the division between core and periphery nations is significant and it's a very stable relationship. And what I mean by stable relationship is once you find a place in one of these categories it's extremely challenging to move yourself out. The core nations have pretty much been the core nations for decades, if not a few centuries. The semi-peripheral nations, however - we have had some countries that have lifted themselves from the periphery into that semi-peripheral state. It will be challenging, indeed, for those semi-peripheral nations, however, to bump up into the core nation category, with the exception of a couple of nations. I would have to say that China and India are probably the two that would be most readily poised to move themselves up into a core nation category. And the largest reason for this is the development of an infrastructure, industrialization, and the size of their population. They have so many people to contribute to a workforce in those countries that that will very rapidly help them to overcome their semi-peripheral status and maybe move into that core nation ranking.
So Wallerstein kind of speculated that the system as we currently understand it will undergo some changes as the world becomes increasingly urbanized. Once we do become urbanized we will actually start to eliminate the large pools of low-cost workers that live today in rural areas. And so, in the future, core nations are going to have to find other ways to reduce labor costs. So we're exhausting land or exhausting resources such as water through clear-cutting and pollution. We're driving up the cost of production and we're also depleting our labor source. This has some serious ramifications for quote-unquote business as we know it on the world labor market.
Wallerstein world systems analysis is a very widely used theory that falls under the broader spectrum of what we call dependency theories. So dependency theories, in general, talk about developing countries -even while making economic advances -will remain subservient and weak to core nations and large corporations.
And I think there is a lot of truth to Wallerstein’s assumptions and to dependency theories in general and you really can see that it is conflict type of theory. The interdependency of industrialized nations allows them to continue to exploit developing countries. The industrialized nations playing the roles of the bourgeoisie, or the haves, and the developing countries playing the role of the proletariat, or the have-nots. So what's actually happening here with regard to natural resources in the world? A growing share of the human resources and the natural resources of developing countries is actually being shifted. It’s being redistributed to the core industrialized nations. This happens because developing countries go into debt to core nations as a result of foreign aid, loans, trade deficits, etc. And when that happens and the developed nations start to call in their markers - one of the ways in which they can pay us back is by allowing corporations to exploit the workers and the natural resources of that country.
So what actually ends up happening in developing nations is, for example, the currencies may be devalued, workers wages might be frozen. You'll have an increased privatization of industry and a reduction in government services and employment because as the government scrambles to try and pay back the debts they owe to core nations, they take money away from building their own infrastructure.
This is problematic for those dependent countries because it puts them in a position of spinning their wheels more or less. They don't really ever get to significantly lift themselves out of the status that they're in because they're caught in a cycle of having to pay the man, basically.
All right, I hope this helps you to understand these basic concepts. We'll talk again soon. Have a great day. Take care! Bye bye!
Pros and Cons of Modelski’s Model
Modelski’s model allows us to put contemporary geopolitics within a framework that understands it as a continuation of historical processes and trends rather than isolated or unrelated events. The Modelski model offers greater understanding of an event, its significance and implications as it relates to world politics / global geopolitics. It is a model where current events can be used as data points to be plugged in to the model to investigate whether or not they counter or support trends we would expect from the Modelski model.
Of course, there will be deviations, but, nonetheless, it is a good teaching tool and certainly useful for looking at global geopolitics over a longer period of time.
Nonetheless, we should be aware of the critiques of the model—many of which are similar critiques of Wallerstein’s world-systems analysis. The first critique is that of historical determinism. Observing cyclical patterns in the past does not allow us to predict that the demise of the US’s world leadership role is inevitable or determined. This is connected to the critique of structural determinism: the US is a geopolitical agent and thus has some degree of freedom to choose actions that may or may not lead to a “drift towards global war”. Of course, the US is constrained by various other global structures and state agents. Nonetheless, our path has not been predetermined on a track towards global war.
Another set of criticisms relate to some points I mentioned above. 1) The state is the unit of analysis—geopolitical agents are all state actors; 2) the focus is on rich, powerful countries and not inclusive of poorer countries in the “global south”. Furthermore, Modelski’s measure of power was predicated on the historical importance of sea-power. With the advent of remote weapons and surveillance systems (i.e., unmanned drones), we may reconsider how we evaluate Modelski’s power index.
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 1B
Please visit the Lesson 7 Module in Canvas for a detailed description of the assignment, including due dates and submission instructions.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- define the key components of Modelski’s model of World Leadership;
- define the key components of Wallerstein’s world-systems theory;
- discuss and debate the critiques of the models;
- use them to interpret US foreign policy, as a form of geopolitical agency; and
- use them to interpret the geopolitical codes of other states and non-state actors.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 7 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 7! Double-check the Lesson 7 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 8.
Lesson 8: International Political Economy - Economic Geography and Globalization
Overview
In this lesson, we will look at the ways in which contemporary globalization creates a world that is highly integrated. Places and regions have become increasingly interdependent, linked through complex and rapidly changing commodity chains that are orchestrated by transnational corporations. The emergence of globalization – with its transnational architectural styles, dress codes, retail chains, popular culture, and ubiquitous immigrants, business visitors, and tourists—seems as if it might inevitably impose a sense of placelessness and dislocation, a loss of territorial identity, and an erosion of the distinctive sense of place associated with certain localities. Yet, the common experiences associated with globalization are still modified by local geographies.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- describe the changing patterns of interdependence among different world regions;
- compare the three tiers that constitute the modern world system;
- explain how the growth and internal development of the world’s core regions could take place only with the foodstuffs, raw materials, and markets provided by the colonization of the periphery; and
- identify an example of each of the four key issues caused by globalization—environmental, health, core-periphery disparity, and security issues.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Globalization
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Knox & Marston, 2013. Human Geography: Places and Regions in a Global Context. Sixth Edition. Pearson Press. Chapter 2. You can download this reading from the Lesson 8 Module in Canvas.
Globalization
Watch this short video clip on globalization:
The world is becoming more and more interconnected. Never before in human history has there existed such an intense relationship between international trade, communication, and politics. The term globalization is all around us. Sometimes as an opportunity, sometimes as a new challenge, but what exactly does globalization mean and what are its ramifications? Even though the term globalization is frequently used, it is not easy to define. One thing is clear: in today's world economic, environmental, social, and political issues and problems are no longer limited to the national level because the world has become so interdependent. Reasonable governance can only be realized within broader groups of stakeholders. For example state confederation such as the European Union, regional economic organizations like the OECD, or the whole world.
Today modern communication technology and mass media like radio, TV, phones, or internet are global standard. This means that information can be distributed worldwide, in real time at affordable prices. For instance, the average price of a telephone call from New York to London has decreased by 99 percent since 1930. International TV broadcasters deliver information, opinions, and cultural products to the most remote areas. The cost for transportation of products and persons dropped 65% since 1930 due to low fuel prices and the development of new means of transportation, in particular container shipping. Air freight costs dropped even more, 88%. The freight charges per ton of coffee delivered from Asia to Europe only counts for one percent of its price. Such developments are the result of technological advancements, but there are some aspects which were introduced purposefully as well. Since the 1980s, the richer more industrialized countries work towards removing trade barriers such as tariffs, import quotas, and fans worldwide. Thus new technologies decreasing transportation costs, and the liberalization of international trade has made it possible and profitable for major companies to produce and sell worldwide.
Let's take a glance at the three main areas of globalization. The economic sphere is a particular importance. It is a major catalyst for globalization and is at the same time the most affected area. International exports have increased 30-fold in the last 60 years. The foreign direct investment companies and governments has increased substantially. It's written from $13 billion dollars per year in 1970 to more than one point a trillion today. Many companies are searching for new markets and opportunities for cheap production in countries with low wages and soft environmental regulations. The number of such multinational corporations rose from 7000 to 65,000 since the 1990s. Similar to the world economy, international politics is also more interdependent today. Most important policy issues like climate change, the financial crisis, or terrorism do not care about borders. Such problems cannot be solved by a single state alone. Politics tries to react by attempting to make decisions in broader groups of countries like the EU, the G-20, or even the United Nations. At the same time, there are more and more international pressure groups which do not belong to a particular state. These so-called non-governmental organizations or NGOs are able to exert influence in politics related to their field of work. Examples include Greenpeace, Amnesty International, or attack. A global public forum evolves through the previously mentioned new possibilities of communication. NGOs use this in order to influence politics. International political problems and the emergence of new global actors like NGOs in multinational corporations lead to a decrease of the political latitude of single states, especially of small states.
The influence of globalization can be observed in our culture as well. One aspect is often referred to as McWorld. The term describes how Western culture, especially popular culture, becomes dominant and destroys cultural diversity. The global distribution of western music, news, products, and even the English language promotes this effect. To counter globalization, we can also see backlash. For example, people are increasingly returning to local and regional cultural customs. Globalization is a very complex development. Some countries benefit more others benefit less. Newly industrialized countries like Taiwan and South Korea, as well as the rapidly developing India, Brazil, and China, gain considerable advantage from their integration into the world economy. They can build up their factories with foreign direct investment in infrastructure and sell their products internationally. Due to the low wages in these countries, these products are very competitive on the world market. China represents a perfect example of how the broader population can benefit too. It's fast economic growth has enabled 500 million Chinese to leave extreme poverty. On the other hand, there are whole regions who are suffering more than they're benefiting from globalization. This is particularly true for most sub-Saharan African countries. Such countries are not prepared to sufficiently for tightened international competition. The cheap products produced by industrial newly industrialized countries flood the local markets and destroy local production facilities. Moreover, these countries are not attractive for foreign investors. Thus they cannot walk the same road as the newly industrialized countries.
Globalization is both threat and an opportunity for industrialized countries. On the one hand, they can acquire new markets for their industrial goods. On the other hand, they're facing the competition newly industrialized countries that can produce at lower costs. Specifically, the production of simple good is no longer profitable and very few products like textiles, toys, or white goods are still produced in industrialized countries.
It becomes clear that globalization takes place at many areas such as politics, culture, and the economy. Declining costs of transport and communication, and the global liberalization markets, have fueled this trend. While some countries benefit from globalization, it is exacerbated the problems of others. Thus, globalization presents both new opportunities and new challenges.
Globalization is the increasing interconnections of different parts of the world through common processes of economic, environmental, political, and cultural exchange.
It is not new, but it is different than past iterations of globalization. Globalization is recognizable at least as far back as the 16th century. The basic framework for contemporary globalization goes back to the 19th century with the:
- international institutions being formed;
- standardization of time (railway, sea freight/container shipments);
- internationally recognized citizenship and concept of rights; and
- global network of communication (telecommunication).
So, globalization is not new, but contemporary globalization is markedly different. It is:
- faster;
- wider scale (few are untouched);
- broader in scope: global connections are multiple (cultural, economic, technological…);
- more complex connections than ever before (more actors involved, over vaster spaces).
Economic Development and Globalization
One of the economic (geographic) characteristics of contemporary globalization is its geographic unevenness. Using Wallerstein’s categories of Core, Semi-Periphery, and Periphery, we can engage with various theories of economic development to better understand why we see a growing unevenness in development between Core and Peripheral countries.
Compare the following three maps of the expansion of core, semi-periphery, and periphery over the past two centuries.
The unevenness of economic development (as seen in the core-periphery maps above) can be attributed to a number of different and overlapping factors. These include:
Historical legacies (colonialism, decolonization, neocolonialism)
- Think back to the film we watched in the beginning of the course: Africa: The Magnificent African Cake. The legacies of colonial relationships still exist today.
- Neocolonialism is the economic and political strategies by which powerful states in core economies indirectly maintain or extend their influence over other areas or people, including through the presence of transnational corporations and other international organizations that govern the global economy.
Resources (energy, cultivable land, industrial resources)
- Certainly, the environmental endowments make a difference for economic development. A country rich in natural resources (timber, coal, oil) and arable land (fertile soil for agriculture), for example, will be able to exploit these resources for economic gain. However, having such environmental endowments does not mean the country has geopolitical economic power to flex in the global marketplace. Here, again, historical legacies can come back to haunt a country and put them in an inferior bargaining position with respect to the (under)valuation of their country’s natural resources. Furthermore, the country’s geopolitical location matters – is the country land-locked? Does it have access to a port? What is the relationship with the bordering countries?
Economic structure of country/regions
- The political and economic structure of a country can depend (again) on historical legacies of colonialism. Was the decolonization/ independence process a relatively smooth transition? How was the country able to restructure politically, economically, socially and so forth? How is the country funded? Who has political/economic power, and how do they exercise their power? How does this impact the everyday development path of the country?
Neoliberal International trade rules that tend to perpetuate the status quo
- The film “The Luckiest Nut in the World” gives a great summary of trade neoliberalization and four case studies that highlight how the system perpetuates the current core, semi-periphery, periphery relationships.
International debt
- The film, the Luckiest Nut (above) highlights the plight of Senegal (as one example) and the ways in which international debt inhibit their own economic growth.
And so, we continue on to watch “The Luckiest Nut in the World” in the next section.
The International Economic Order - Neoliberal Capitalism
Watch This
Summary of the film [37]
SINGER: This is a film about nuts.
CHORUS: Nuts, nuts, nuts.
SINGER: It's a film about nuts.
CHORUS: Nuts, nuts, nuts.
SINGER: That's right. Like peanuts and pecans, pistachios too.
BASS SINGER: Brown nuts, Brazil nuts, and the cashew.
CHORUS: It's nuts.
SINGER: That's what I said. It's a film about nuts.
SINGER 2: It's a film about trade and economics.
CHORUS: It's about nuts.
SINGER 2: It's a film about globalization.
CHORUS: Nuts are grown all over the world.
BASS SINGER: Touching every life in every nation.
CHORUS: Nuts.
PRESENTER: Starring Mr. Peanut, the luckiest nut in the world. And the rest of his gang. Hit it, boys.
CHORUS: Just in case you forgot what this film is about.
SINGER: This is a film about nuts.
CHORUS: Nuts, nuts, nuts, nuts.
PEANUT: OK. Let's get started. This is a bowl of nuts.
PRESENTER: Typically eaten as a savory snack, nuts have a wide range of culinary uses. Nuts are grown all over the world and often traveled many miles to get to your table.
PEANUT: And some of them have had a bumpy ride, but not me. Because I'm an American peanut. I was born in Georgia, in the deep South, with a silver spoon sticking out of my mouth. I sure was surprised when I realized I was allowed luckiest nut in the world. I traveled around all over the globe. And I was pretty shocked at what I seen. All around there were nuts struggling to survive.
CHORUS: While he was living the American dream.
PEANUT: Our politicians tell us that trade liberalisation is going to make things better. But what exactly is trade liberalisation?
PROF BROWNE: Liberalization is the process of becoming more liberal or free. Trade liberalisation is therefore making trade more free by removing trade restrictions.
PEANUT: Well, I suppose in theory it sounds pretty good. We all like freedom. But from what I've seen, things aren't exactly working out as planned.
CHORUS: We're going to tell you some stories that'll make it clear why these problems won't disappear.
PEANUT: By making trade free indiscriminately,
CHORUS: It's only making things worse. It's not a blessing, but a curse.
PEANUT: And it's happening more every year.
This is a groundnut.
CHORUS: He's a ground nut.
PEANUT: Ground nuts are part of the peanut family.
CHORUS: Cousin of the peanut.
SPEAKER 1: Did you know that peanuts and ground nuts aren't really nuts at all?
SPEAKER 2: What are they, then?
SPEAKER 1: They're legumes.
PEANUT: This groundnut originated in Senegal, a country in west Africa.
CHORUS: Ground nuts have been grown in West Africa for centuries.
PEANUT: They were brought to Africa by the Portuguese in the 16th century. And later on--
CHORUS: Ground nuts replaced slavery as Senegal's biggest industry.
PEANUT: And by the time Senegal got their independence in 1960, ground nuts were their main export crop.
PROF BROWNE: By specializing in the thing that a country does best and then trading for the other things it needs, it maximizes its productivity.
CHORUS: But like many newly independent African states,
PEANUT: Senegal lacked the resources to invest in their development.
CHORUS: They needed cash.
PEANUT: So they got some help from the World Bank.
SINGER: There's a lot that you need if you want to succeed as a viable industrial nation. You need car parts and roads, bridges, telephones, dams, drains, and irrigation. If you need a little cash, we'll help you in a flash. The World Bank will come to your aide. We'll loan you some dough, so that you can grow and compete in international trade.
LENDER: We're satisfied as to your credit and income and we're glad to make you the loan.
PEANUT: The World Bank encouraged Senegal to focus on exports to earn the cash to repay this debt.
CHORUS: And Senegal's main export was groundnuts.
PEANUT: But then in the '80s, something happened that no one had counted on. Because groundnuts appeared to be a lucrative and stable export crop, other developing countries began to focus on producing ground nuts as a means of earning foreign currency.
PRESENTER: Across the globe, groundnut production is booming. From the Far East in China to the wilds of Ghana, farmers are saying goodbye to their traditional crops, hoping to get it on the ground floor of this thriving industry.
PEANUT: As more and more countries were producing groundnuts, more groundnuts were on the market. And so the price fell.
PROF BROWNE: It's the law of supply and demand. When supply goes up without a corresponding increase in demand, the price will go down.
CHORUS: With the bottom falling out of the groundnut market, Senegal, Senegal, Senegal was getting less for their nuts.
PEANUT: And they had to borrow even more money just to keep their head above water. Facing bankruptcy, Senegal implemented an economic reform program with the aide of World Bank economists.
SPEAKER 3: See, The World Bank doesn't just lend money. But the also lend expert advisors.
SPEAKER 4: Yeah, right. Experts in making sure they pay the debt.
PEANUT: This program followed the economic thinking of the time and called for--
CHORUS: Trade liberalization.
PROF BROWNE: Which begins with the removal of tariffs and duties.
PEANUT: So taxes on imports of foreign nuts were removed.
CHORUS: And privatization.
PROF BROWNE: Reducing government's involvement in industry.
PEANUT: The state-run groundnut company, Sonacost, which had guaranteed prices to the farmers was partially privatized.
CHORUS: And caps in public spending.
PEANUT: So state programs to help farmers by seeds, fertilizers, and tractors were all cancelled. They implemented the new strategy for 10 years, but the situation only got worse.
CHORUS: As the price of nuts went down, the debt got out of control.
PEANUT: And today, Senegal is officially one of the world's most indebted nations.
CHORUS: They spend more on paying their debt than they do on health and education combined.
PEANUT: So the theory goes that you should borrow to invest, and put the money in the one thing that you do best. Well, the Senegalese, they put their faith in nuts and they ain't exactly impressed. With all the payments to me, it's hard to stay on your feet, let alone compete with the rest.
PRESENTER: Now let's have a look at this cashew nut. He originated in Mozambique, a country in East Africa.
CHORUS: Cashew nuts are one of Mozambique's main exports.
PEANUT: That's right. And cashews are grown all over the country.
CHORUS: By people like this man and these two.
PRESENTER: Cashew nuts grow from trees, suspended beneath the cashew apple. Once separated from the apple, the removal of the hard outer shell must be done with care, as the shells are highly toxic. With this is achieved, the nuts can be enjoyed and have a rich, succulent flavor.
PEANUT: In the 1990s, there was a growing processing industry. Over 10,000 people were employed in the factories, shelling and roasting cashew nuts.
CHORUS: People like this man and this man and these.
PROF BROWNE: Processing increases the value of the nuts, and allows Mozambique to profit more from their exports.
CHORUS: This is what we mean by industrial development, oh yeah.
PEANUT: But a processing industry needs nuts to process, and too many raw nuts were being sold abroad.
PRESENTER: Down in Mozambique, cashew nuts are leaving in the thousands, bound for parts unknown. Good luck, Mr. Cashew. And bon voyage.
PEANUT: But the government had a plan. To keep enough raw nuts in the country, the Mozambique government would impose a tax on the export of raw nuts.
EXPORT OFFICER: I'm sorry, sir, but you will have to come with me.
PEANUT: Once processed, the nuts could leave at no charge.
EXPORT OFFICER: Right this way, sir. Good day, sir. Right this way.
PEANUT: That way, more raw nuts would stay in the country.
CHORUS: And the factories would have enough nuts to keep them busy.
PEANUT: Like Senegal, Mozambique was deeply in debt and they desperately needed some help.
SPEAKER 5: What collateral can you offer for this loan?
SPEAKER 6: I can offer only my record and my present salary.
SPEAKER 5: I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we can't accommodate you.
PEANUT: Then the IMF and the World Bank came to their aide.
CHORUS: Oh, oh, oh, they would be saved.
SINGER: If you get it in a sweat because you can't pay your debt, things aren't working out as planned. The International Monetary Fund will come and lend a helping hand. The first thing they'll do is they'll give to you a little bit of emergency lending. We'll send our top economists who will probably insist you embrace free trade, open up your markets and cut back on public spending.
PEANUT: But the help would come at a price. As a condition of their loan, Mozambique would have to abandon its plan to tax raw nut exports.
PROF BROWNE: The IMF's policy was based on the concept of the free market.
PEANUT: Their economists believed that a free trade in cashew nuts would allow the farmers to sell to the highest bidder.
AUCTIONEER: And let's have the beginning bid. Thank you, sir. Thank you at the back. Yeah.
PEANUT: The Mozambique government disagreed with this analysis, but the IMF insisted.
CHORUS: Oh, oh, oh, they put their foot down.
PRESENTER: Of course, Mozambique didn't have to comply. But if they didn't, they face bankruptcy.
PEANUT: At first, it seemed that the IMF was right.
CHORUS: For a while, the price of cashews did go up.
PEANUT: Farmers were getting more for their nuts, as foreign companies competed with local factories to buy their crops.
CHORUS: Yeah, the price went up, up, up.
PEANUT: The price went so high, the local factories could no longer afford to buy them. The industry dwindled.
CHORUS: And one by one, the factories shut down.
PEANUT: By 1999, 9,000 people had lost their jobs.
SPEAKER 7: Unemployment is just a fact of life.
SPEAKER 8: Yeah, and what I hear is, it was good for the farmers. And there's over a million of them.
PEANUT: But that was only the beginning. With no competition from the local factories, the market became dominated by two export companies, who could dictate their price.
AUCTIONEER: Sold at half the going rate.
PEANUT: The farmers had to sell their nuts to them, whatever the offer.
CHORUS: And the price went down, down, down, lower than it was before.
PEANUT: So within a few years, the cashew processing industry had been destroyed. Thousands of factory workers were without jobs and the farmers were getting less money for their raw nuts.
CHORUS: No, things haven't worked out well for Mozambique.
PEANUT: And now after all this, the IMF has conceded that they were wrong and is allowing Mozambique to implement their original plan. So you see what havoc the free market can wreck on a poor country like Mozambique. Free trade may be swell when you're doing well, but it ain't always great for the weak.
NUT 1: Coming up--
NUT 2: The Brazil nut.
PEANUT: This is a Brazil nut.
CHORUS: Brazil nuts only grow in the Amazon rainforest.
PEANUT: But unlike the name suggests, most Brazil nuts don't come from Brazil. They come from Bolivia.
CHORUS: Three quarters of the world's Brazil nuts come from Bolivia.
PEANUT: Brazil nut trees can only grow under the protection of the rainforest canopy.
PRESENTER: This specific species of bee, which pollinates the Brazil nut flower lives in the orchids which occur naturally in the grooves surrounding the Brazil nut trees. The trees will not bear fruit without these little helpers.
PEANUT: And because they provide an economic alternative to clear cutting and open mining--
CHORUS: Brazil nuts have been singled out as a good example of sustainable agriculture.
PRESENTER: The traditional harvesting method involves waiting for the pods to fall to the ground, and then gathering them from the rainforest floor. The pods are then opened with a hatchet or similar tool, and the nuts taken to the processing plant to be deshelled.
PEANUT: Brazil nut harvesting encourages the Bolivian people to take advantage of the natural resources of the rainforest.
CHORUS: Oh, that's conservation.
PEANUT: Like Mozambique, Bolivia has encouraged the development of a processing industry to get added value from their nut exports.
CHORUS: That's industrialization.
PEANUT: In the 1990s, with the help of charities and NGOs, the Brazil nut industry boomed in Bolivia.
CHORUS: They helped them to build factories and to get their nuts to market.
PROF BROWNE: In the Amazon region of Bolivia, 80% of households live in extreme poverty.
PEANUT: Expansion of the Brazil nut industry gave these people a significant rise in their standard of living.
CHORUS: They got roads, power, clean water, and medicine. Things were looking up.
PEANUT: However, in 1999 a change in EU health and safety regulations seemed to threaten the future of the Bolivian Brazil nut industry.
SPEAKER 9: All tree nuts are susceptible to a naturally occurring fungus, which can leave traces of a carcinogen known as aflatoxin. Aflatoxins are measured in parts per billion, which is one particle per billion other particles.
PEANUT: Because of the way Brazil nuts are harvested from the rainforest floor, they often have a slightly higher level of aflatoxin compared to nuts grown on industrialized plantations.
CHORUS: The internationally recognized safety level for aflatoxins is 20 parts per billion.
PEANUT: Bolivian Brazil nuts have complied to this standard for years.
CHORUS: Then in 1999 the EU lowered its accepted level to four parts per billion.
SPEAKER 9: Four parts per billion is easily achievable on industrialized plantations.
SPEAKER 10: But it's much more difficult in the Amazon rainforest.
CHORUS: Because you can't build a factory there.
PEANUT: So although this new health and safety regulation applied to all nuts imported to the EU, it happened to hit Bolivia the hardest.
CHORUS: So much for sustainable agriculture.
SPEAKER 11: Did you know that Europe is the biggest single market for Brazil nuts?
SPEAKER 12: Yes. And they're considered to be a luxury commodity.
PEANUT: Europe and Bolivia are both members of the World Trade Organization.
SINGER: With 137 member nations, we have no geographical affiliations. From the Sahara to the Pacific, our aim, it is quite specific. Through a process of complex negotiation, we encourage and promote trade liberalisation. We're the final arbiter in any dispute. Our members must accept our rules as absolute. We never rest in our crusade to grease the wheels of trade. We're the World Trade Organization.
PROF BROWNE: Within the WTO, countries are allowed to set their own health and safety standards for food imports. But they are expected to provide scientific evidence to back them up.
PEANUT: Bolivia argues that there is no scientific evidence to suggest that four parts per billion is any safer than 20 parts per billion. The EU claims that it is just being cautious.
DOCTOR: Just how many Brazil nuts did you say you ate?
SPEAKER 13: You know, they could just be doing this to protect their internal nut producers.
SPEAKER 14: Well, that would be difficult to prove.
PEANUT: Whether safety precaution or trade protection, the EU's new regulation is certainly causing trouble for Bolivia.
CHORUS: So what can they do about it?
PEANUT: Bolivia has complained in WTO committees.
CHORUS: So far, with little success.
PEANUT: They're planning to launch an official dispute process.
CHORUS: But that could take years and meanwhile, Bolivia's a mess.
PEANUT: So with a natural monopoly on the Brazil nut, Bolivia was onto a good thing, but one little change in EU legislation put the industry in a tough situation. If everything was equal and the playing field level, they could tell the Europeans to go to the devil. But when you need your partner more than they need you, you have to do just what they tell
The Luckiest Nut in the World [38] from Emily James [39]
The film follows an animated American peanut, who sings about the difficulties faced by nuts from developing countries.
Supported by a mixture of animation and music, our American peanut takes the viewer through the stories of the cashew, brazil, and ground nuts — all of whom suffer as world trade is liberalized. But, it is a different story in America — where the peanut is protected by tariffs and heavily subsidized, and worth over four billion dollars a year to the American economy. Certainly, the luckiest nut in the world.
The film helps people to understand how the pressure to embrace “free market” economics, with its promise of a wealthy, abundant market place has actually driven many countries further into poverty.
International Development Patterns, Strategies, Theories & Explanations
Modernization Theory (Rostow)
The following information is quoted from Jacobs, J. (n.d.). Rostow's Five Stages of Economic Growth and Development are Widely Criticized [40]. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
Rostow's Five Stages of Economic Growth and Development are Widely Criticized
By Juliet Jacobs
Development Theories in Geography
Geographers often seek to categorize places using a scale of development, frequently dividing nations into the "developed" and "developing," "first world" and "third world," or "core" and "periphery." All of these labels are based on judging a country's development, but this raises the question: what exactly does it mean to be "developed," and why have some countries developed while others have not? Since the beginning of the twentieth century, geographers and those involved with the vast field of Development Studies have sought to answer this question, and in the process, have come up with many different models to explain this phenomenon.
W.W. Rostow and the Stages of Economic Growth
One of the key thinkers in twentieth-century Development Studies was W.W. Rostow, an American economist, and government official. Prior to Rostow, approaches to development had been based on the assumption that "modernization" was characterized by the Western world (wealthier, more powerful countries at the time), which were able to advance from the initial stages of underdevelopment. Accordingly, other countries should model themselves after the West, aspiring to a "modern" state of capitalism and a liberal democracy. Using these ideas, Rostow penned his classic Stages of Economic Growth in 1960, which presented five steps through which all countries must pass to become developed: 1) traditional society, 2) preconditions to take-off, 3) take-off, 4) drive to maturity and 5) age of high mass consumption. The model asserted that all countries exist somewhere on this linear spectrum, and climb upward through each stage in the development process:
- Traditional Society: This stage is characterized by a subsistent, agricultural based economy, with intensive labor and low levels of trading, and a population that does not have a scientific perspective on the world and technology.
- Preconditions to Take-off: Here, a society begins to develop manufacturing, and a more national/international, as opposed to regional, outlook.
- Take-off: Rostow describes this stage as a short period of intensive growth, in which industrialization begins to occur, and workers and institutions become concentrated around a new industry.
- Drive to Maturity: This stage takes place over a long period of time, as standards of living rise, use of technology increases, and the national economy grows and diversifies.
- Age of High Mass Consumption: At the time of writing, Rostow believed that Western countries, most notably the United States, occupied this last "developed" stage. Here, a country's economy flourishes in a capitalist system, characterized by mass production and consumerism.
Rostow's Model in Context
Rostow's Stages of Growth model is one of the most influential development theories of the twentieth century. It was, however, also grounded in the historical and political context in which he wrote. Stages of Economic Growth was published in 1960, at the height of the Cold War, and with the subtitle "A Non-Communist Manifesto," it was overtly political. Rostow was fiercely anti-communist and right-wing; he modeled his theory after western capitalist countries, which had industrialized and urbanized. As a staff member in President John F. Kennedy's administration, Rostow promoted his development model as part of U.S. foreign policy. Rostow's model illustrates a desire not only to assist lower income countries in the development process but also to assert the United States' influence over that of communist Russia.
Click to expand to provide more information
Flowchart of Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth
The flowchart starts at the bottom left with traditional society and moves up and to the right through the following steps.
1. Traditional society
a. Limited technology; static society
b. Transition triggered by external influence, interests, or markets
2. Preconditions for take-off
a. Commercial exploitation of agriculture and extractive industry
b. Installation of physical infrastructure (roads, railways, etc.) and emergence of social/political elite
3. Take-Off
a. Development of a manufacturing sector
b. Investment in manufacturing exceeds 10% of national income; development of modern social, economic, and political institutions
4. Drive to Maturity
a. Development of wider industrial and commercial base
b. Exploitation of comparative advantages in international trade
5. High Mass consumption
Rostow's principal argument is that some places have progressed further than others in terms of economic development (as represented by the map of GNP). Rostow believes that poorer places are in an initial or beginning stage of development, while countries with higher levels of GNP are in a later stage of higher development. All places, therefore, are at some stage in a development sequence.
The sequence of development that Rostow outlines include the following five stages:
- traditional society
- preconditions for change
- take-off
- drive to maturity
- mass consumption
These stages suggest that a society moves from a traditional phase which is characterized by a lack of exposure to Western society, a lack of science or technology, a dependence on agriculture, and a high level of poverty to a modernized, industrialized, and developed economy. Rostow argues that through increased investment, increased exposure to modernized, Western society, and changes in traditional culture and values, societies will become more highly developed.
What is presumed goal and model?
The goal is industrialized, capitalist liberal democracy; the U.S. is the model. Modernization theory is basically a diffusionist theory: the premise is that development in the U.S. and Europe can be copied elsewhere. It purports that what developing countries need is at least an initial stimulus from an outside source, a developed country perhaps, to jumpstart the process. It, therefore, posits that internal development is unlikely. [Note the focus on external stimulus: how did it happen in the first cases, then?]
The following information is quoted from Jacobs, J. (n.d.). Rostow's Five Stages of Economic Growth and Development are Widely Criticized [40]. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
Continued: Rostow's Five Stages of Economic Growth and Development are Widely Criticized
By Juliet Jacobs
Stages of Economic Growth in Practice: Singapore
Industrialization, urbanization, and trade in the vein of Rostow's model are still seen by many as a roadmap for a country's development. Singapore [41] is one of the best examples of a country that grew in this way and is now a notable player in the global economy. Singapore is a southeast Asian country with a population of over five million, and when it became independent in 1965, it did not seem to have any exceptional prospects for growth. However, it industrialized early, developing profitable manufacturing and high-tech industries. Singapore is now highly urbanized, with 100% of the population considered "urban." It is one of the most sought-after trade partners in the international market, with a higher per-capita income than many European countries.
Criticisms of Rostow's Model
As the Singapore case shows, Rostow's model still sheds light on a successful path to economic development for some countries. However, there are many criticisms of his model. While Rostow illustrates faith in a capitalist system, scholars have criticized his bias towards a western model as the only path towards development. Rostow lays out five succinct steps towards development and critics have cited that all countries do not develop in such a linear fashion; some skip steps or take different paths. Rostow's theory can be classified as "top-down," or one that emphasizes a trickle-down modernization effect from urban industry and western influence to develop a country as a whole. Later theorists have challenged this approach, emphasizing a "bottom-up" development paradigm, in which countries become self- sufficient through local efforts, and urban industry is not necessary. Rostow also assumes that all countries have a desire to develop in the same way, with the end goal of high mass consumption, disregarding the diversity of priorities that each society holds and different measures of development. For example, while Singapore is one of the most economically prosperous countries, it also has one of the highest income disparities in the world. Finally, Rostow disregards one of the most fundamental geographical principals: site and situation. Rostow assumes that all countries have an equal chance to develop, without regard to population size, natural resources, or location. Singapore, for instance, has one of the world's busiest trading ports, but this would not be possible without its advantageous geography as an island nation between Indonesia and Malaysia.
In spite of the many critiques of Rostow's model, it is still one of the most widely cited development theories and is a primary example of the intersection of geography, economics, and politics.
Sources:
Binns, Tony, et al. Geographies of Development: An Introduction to Development Studies, 3rd ed. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2008.
"Singapore." CIA World Factbook, 2012. Central Intelligence Agency. 21 August 2012.
Critiques of Rostow’s Modernization theory:
- The goal is industrialized, capitalist liberal democracy; the U.S. is the model.
- The model assumes development in the U.S. and Europe can be copied elsewhere. One size fits all.
- It ignores a lot of geography and history, such as the impact of colonization on economic development.
- It does not address the obstacles to development that previously colonized regions face: exploitation of resources, genocide, political domination during long periods of time, civil unrest, extreme poverty, artificial boundaries (Africa).
- Countries that do not develop like the U.S. or Europe are seen as “problems”.
- There are ecological limits to high mass consumption (the final goal).
Dependency Theory: The Development of Underdevelopment (Frank)
- Scale of analysis: Regional / Global
- Through historic (colonial) and contemporary (neo-colonial) interaction, developing countries have seen change, but for the worse.
- Source of cheap labor and raw materials for the developed countries, through which these poor countries were then further depleted & impoverished.
- Unequal exchange and declining terms of trade.
- Lack of institutions and infrastructure not necessarily the problem.
- i.e., infrastructure in Africa, MNCs, IMF & WB
- The question of who they serve is integral.
Critiques of Dependency Theory:
- Since the problem is the international capitalist system, the solution is a revolution of the capitalist system.
- Views core countries as the obstacle to peripheral countries' well-being.
- Heavy weight on the role of the government - to serve the people.
Import Substitution
Import substitution industrialization (ISI) is a trade and economic policy that advocates replacing foreign imports with domestic production. ISI is based on the premise that a country should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of industrialized products. Early European merchants and manufacturers as far back as the 1400s became adept at import substitution (copying and making goods previously only available by trading). This process facilitated the rise of Western Europe as a core region of the world (Knox & Marston, 2013).
As a contemporary economic development strategy, import substitution industrialization is much more challenging. The goal here is to develop a diversified economy, rather than specialize in a primary commodity.
Export-Led Trade Based on Comparative Advantage
The export-led growth paradigm rose to prominence in the late 1970s when it replaced the import-substitution paradigm that had dominated development policy thinking (especially in Latin America) in the thirty years after World War II. Export-led growth is a development strategy aimed at growing productive capacity by focusing on foreign markets.
Mainstream examples would probably include coffee in Peru and parts of sub-Sarahan Africa; low-wage labor forces for manufacturing in Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico; software from Silicon Valley and Seattle; etc.
Comparative Advantage: The advantage in the production of a product enjoyed by one country over another.
This is the model favored by most mainstream economists and by major international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF.
Late Developers’ Model: Learn from Predecessors
This is Gerschenkron's concept of the late developers. His idea was that there were countries in Europe that wanted to follow in the industrial footsteps of Britain. The problem was, how could they compensate for the huge lead that Britain had already developed? If you wanted to get into the game, you had to come in incredibly big. You had to have leading-edge technology, and you had to raise or save huge amounts of capital to compensate for the lead that Britain had, and come on board producing with the very latest technology and competing aggressively for market share. There are advantages to late development, though: you can learn from your predecessors' mistakes, borrow their best and latest approaches, and plan the timing of your market entry.
An example of this at the firm level would be the car manufacturer, Kia. This South Korean company has had tremendous growth in US sales over the past six years, basically by replicating Honda’s earlier strategy of producing basic, reliable cars for the very low end of the market. Kia did exactly what Honda did starting in the 1970s, but with even cheaper cars, more efficient production methods, and a lot of help from the South Korean government.
State Intervention
Compatible w/ any of above, coordinated by the state to reduce inefficiencies.
- Common concerns include raising national savings rates; balancing growth in different sectors of the economy; managing the demographic and economic shifts that go along with transitions from a rural, agrarian society to an urban, industrial one; managing monetary policy so that foreign investors will invest in the country and trust the national currency, and so on.
- Very often, the state has to raise huge amounts of capital by borrowing on the international lending markets. The government itself may intervene in shaping industrialization.
- For example, the South Korean government has acted as an entrepreneur, a banker, and a shaper of industrial structure. The Korean state has deliberately adjusted economy through subsidies, protection, price controls (food, etc.), and restrictions on foreign direct investment.
There is no one formula that works equally well for all countries. Each of the models or strategies above will or won’t work (in the form mentioned or in some hybrid or modified form) depending upon historical contingencies, government structure, geopolitical positioning, environmental resource endowments, and so forth. And, of course, the international organization of the global economy—how the rules are made, regulated and evolve over time will work to determine how any one strategy will fare in the global market.
Nonetheless, though each country has its own set of circumstances that facilitate its economic development path, all countries and their economies are linked to the global economy. One way to learn more about this is to investigate global commodity chains (also known as the “global assembly line”) that produce our everyday products.
Commodities, Commodity Chains and the Global Assembly Line
Fetishism of Commodities
Let's begin by watching this video on “Fetishism of Commodities”.
On screen text: "A commodity is, therefore, a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labor..." "..to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world, the production of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men's hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor..." -Karl Marx, Capital vol. 1]
There are a lot of people that are really powerful in the world. Presidents, CEOs, bankers, leaders of movements, but there is an object, a thing, that is more powerful than any of them. This object is money. Money is really powerful; it makes people, societies, and countries do all sorts of things. The pursuit of money as an end in itself occupies many people's lives and is the driving force of economic growth. All over society money acts as the symbol, status prestige, and social power. The funny thing about money is that it is just an object. Nowadays it's not even a valuable object like gold. It's just pieces of paper or digits on a computer screen. It has all this power and influence and it needs no will, weapons, or words. This phenomenon where objects have social power in which things act as if they have a will for their own is what Marx sought to unravel with this notion the fetishism commodities.
When Marx talks about fetishism, he wasn't talking about whips and chains and leather outfits. He was talking about the way the relations between producers in a capitalist society take the form of relations between things. The word fetishism originally was used to describe the practices of religions that distributed magical powers to objects like idols or charms. If the Israelites of the Old Testament won a battle with the Philistines, they attributed their victory to the powers of the arc of the covenant that they carried around. If they lost, it was because they had pissed off the arc. Of course, in reality, it was their own actions that caused them to win or lose. Attributing their own powers to an object is fetishism. For Marx, money and commodities are much like this. We think that they have mystical powers if their powers really come from us from our own creative labor.
Let's take a look inside a workplace. It could be any workplace. A capitalist factory, a peasant commune, the family farm, whatever. Here the relations between different workers are direct. I make a widget and I hand it directly to the next person. If something needs to change about the labor process someone brings workers together and says now we will organize things differently. Whether it is a democratic or hierarchical form of organization, it is an organization that happens directly between people.
Now let's take a look outside the workplace at the market. In the market things are different. The organization of work, the division of labor, doesn't happen through direct social relations between people. In the market, the products of labor confront each other as commodities with values. These interactions between things act back upon production. They are what send signals to producers to change their labor, to produce more, produce less, go out of business, expand business, and so on. Farmers, electricians, and auto workers don't directly relate to each other as workers. Instead the products of their labor meet in the market and are exchanged with one another. The material relations between people become social relations between things. When we look at toasters, corn, and TV's we don't see the work that created them. We just see commodities standing in relation to one another as values. A TV's value is worth so many ears of corn. A car's value is worth so many jars of peanut butter. The value, the social power of the object, appears to be a property of the object itself, not a result of the relation between workers.
We are atomized individuals wandering through a world of objects that we consume. When we buy a commodity we are just having an experience between ourselves and the commodity. We are blind to the social relations behind these interactions. Even if we consciously know that there's a network of social relations being coordinated to this world of commodities, we have no way of experiencing these relations directly because they are not direct relations. We can only have an isolated intellectual knowledge of these social relations, not a direct relation. Every economic relation is mediated by an object called a commodity. This process whereby the social relations between people take the former relations between things Marx calls reification. Reification helps explain why it is that in the capital society things appear to take on the characteristics of people. Inanimate objects spring to life endowed with the value that seems to come from the object itself. We say a book is worth twenty dollars, a sweater worth twenty five dollars, but this value doesn't come from the sweater itself. You can't cut open the sweater and find $25 dollars inside. This twenty-five dollars is an expression of the relation between this sweater and all of the other commodities in the market. And these commodities are just material forms have a social labor process coordinated through market exchange Its because people organize their labor through the market the value exists. The illusion that value comes from the commodity itself, not from the social relations behind it, is a fetish. A capitalist society is full of such illusions. Money appears to have god-like qualities yet this is only so because it is an object which is used to express the value of all other commodities. Profit appears to spring out of exchange itself, yet Marx worked hard to explain how profit actually originates in production for the unequal relations between capital and labor in the workplace. Rent appears to grow out of the soil yet Marx was adamant that rent actually comes from the appropriation of value created by labor. We see these fetishistic ideas in modern-day mainstream economic theory in the idea that value comes from the subjective experience between a consumer and a commodity and the capital creates value by itself. Yet the theory of commodity fetishism isn't just a theory of illusion. It's not that the entire world is an illusion reality existing somewhere far below the surface always out of site. The illusion is real. Commodities really do have value. Money really does have social power. Individual people really are powerless and material structures really do have power. There is not a real world of production existing below the surface in which the relations between producers are direct. Relations between people or only indirect, only coordinated to the mystifying world of commodities.
The theory of commodity fetishism is central to Marx's theory of value and it's one of the things that sharply distinguishes him from his predecessors. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, both held that prices were explained by labor time, but Marx's value theory is much more than a theory of price. It's a theory of the way social relations between people take on material forms that then act back upon and shape these social relations. Labor takes the form of a value embodied in commodities. Money price becomes the universal expression of this value. The pursuit of money as an end in itself dominates society. Means of production become capital. Money, commodities, and capital as representatives of social value become independent forces in their own right out of the control of society. The law of value is the law of these forces. Attempts to exert some control over these forces for monopoly or the state always become immeshed in the social antagonisms of value.
Definitions
Commodity Fetishism is the "mysterious" process by which the external appearance of goods conceals the story of who made them and under what conditions. Commodity Fetishism is the belief that commodities fall from the sky into our shopping basket. Commodities appear simple, and give the impression that they consist of only things. However, commodities are really crystallizations of social and material relationships, which are often invisible to us.
As William Blake said, “To see the world in a grain of sand.” So, too, did Karl Marx explain that to understand commodity fetishism is to, “To see capitalism in a papaya.”
So, how do we uncover the hidden social and material relationships that are embedded within a commodity? You must follow the commodity chain – the series of locations where resource extraction and labor processes are invested into making the final commodity. This process of expanding the production of a commodity from local to global follows the transition from Fordist production systems (assembly-line production in one factory—a la Henry Ford’s auto factories) to a Post-Fordist production system (where the assembly-line is stretched throughout the globe).
For More Info
The website, followthethings.com [43] is also an interesting website to look through to investigate commodity chains and global assembly lines.
Following along commodity chains help us to demystify the commodity—to uncover the opaque social relationships and environmental impacts of the products we buy. Furthermore, we start to see the economic relationships between core, semi-periphery and periphery to identify where resource extraction and cheap labor are located and how these resources and laborers are used by their governing bodies and corporation for economic development and profit.
China Blue
Let’s take a moment to wrap up this lesson and transition into the next (the Rise of China), by watching the film “China Blue” via this link [44] — which takes a look at the process of making blue jeans in China.
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 2B
Please visit the Lesson 8 Module in Canvas for a detailed description of this assignment.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- describe the changing patterns of interdependence among different world regions;
- compare the three tiers that constitute the modern world system;
- explain how the growth ad internal development of the world’s core regions could take place only with the foodstuffs, raw materials, and markets provided by the colonization of the periphery; and
- identify an example of each of the four key issues caused by globalization—environmental, health, core-periphery disparity, and security issues.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 8 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 8! Double-check the Lesson 8 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 9.
Lesson 9: The Rise of China
Overview
In this lesson, you will get an overview of China’s economic development path and transformation over the past four decades.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- describe the main characteristics of a centrally planned economy, the guaranteed social provisions by the state, and the various social, political and economic campaigns under Chairman Mao;
- describe the ways that Deng Xiaoping changed the course of the PRC through ‘opening and reforms’;
- discuss China’s establishment of Special Economic Zones for economic development; and
- discuss China’s economic engagement in Africa.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Background on the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
Required Reading Reminder
You should complete the following readings for this week's lesson:
China During the Mao Era (1949-1978)
Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao) came to power on October 1st, 1949 with the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established a centrally planned economy (i.e., not market-oriented) where the government controlled key economic sectors of the economy, including:
- Steel production
- Transportation
- Communication
- Media
- Banks
Everyone worked for the State (local or regional government), and in return were guaranteed (Iron Rice Bowl):
- Education
- Housing
- Health care
- Pension program/care in old age or disability
Throughout his leadership, Mao implemented numerous ideological campaigns which severely (negatively) impacted economic growth and societal stability. These campaigns include the:
- Hundred Flowers Bloom (1956-57)
Anti-Rightist Campaign (1957-59)
- Campaign first to welcome diverse ideas, then to persecute those who criticized the state (specifically those who criticized Chairman Mao), distrust of intellectuals
- Great Leap Forward (~1958-1961)
- Campaign to go from agrarian society to an industrialized, modern one
- Collectivization introduced (private property confiscated)
- Emphasis on steel and grain production, with ambitious production targets leading to inflated reports net exporter of grain=local famine
- Estimates of somewhere between 18-45 million unnecessary deaths
- Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
- Promote Communism through routing out Capitalist, traditional and cultural elements deemed incompatible w/ Maoist Communism
- Violent class struggle
- Red Guards (youth group leading persecution of ‘capitalist roaders’)
- Down to the Countryside Movement (late 1960s - early 1970s / re-education)
- Economic activity halted
- Education system suspended
- Cultural Relics destroyed and practices marginalized or lost
- Millions persecuted, hundreds of thousands died
Learn More
For an interesting (and entertaining) overview of this period, I recommend watching the movie “To Live” available on YouTube with English subtitles.
Economic Development: Opening and Reforms
Deng Xiao Ping came to power (1978-1992) and set a new course for the PRC.
Ezra Vogel
Watch an interview with Ezra Vogel, author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, to understand the importance of Deng Xiaoping and the policies he implemented to shape the China we know today.
INTERVIEWER: And joining us now here in studio, Ezra Vogel, a Lionel Gelber prize winner for his book Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. And we have a nice tradition here of welcoming the Gelber prize winner to our studio. We're glad you could continue the tradition.
EZRA VOGEL: I'm glad to receive the prize. I'm glad to be here.
INTERVIEWER: Let me start by just reading a short excerpt of your book that will help set up the first question here. You write, "In the summer of 2000, I told my friend Don Orberdorfer, one of America's greatest 20th century reporters on East Asia, that I was retiring from teaching and wanted to write a book to help Americans understand the developments in Asia. Without hesitation, Don, who had covered Asia for half a century said, 'You should write about Deng Xiaoping.'"
First question. Why is understanding Deng Xiaoping so important to understanding today's China?
EZRA VOGEL: Because after Mao died in 1976, China took a completely new course. And just as if you understand the United States' government, you have to understand how Jefferson Madison formed the government and their philosophy and direction. So to understand China's new course, they have to understand how it was built and who built it. Deng Xiaoping was the one who built the new course that China has followed.
In 1978 if you had asked, could a communist country grow faster than a capitalist country, nobody would have said yes. And nobody did say yes in the Western world. And yet he brought it about.
INTERVIEWER: Now we're asking the opposite question. Can the capitalist countries grow as fast as China? Not sure about that. He was-- I mean, you talk about a political survivor. This was a guy who was at the center of things and then ostracized three different times?
EZRA VOGEL: Right.
INTERVIEWER: He made a political rehabilitation. How did he do that?
EZRA VOGEL: Well, the first time he had been cut down about six months. It was in the early 1930s, and he was accused of being too much of a follower of Mao Zedong. At the time it cost him about six months because Mao was then in trouble with the Central Committee. And then after Mao came back he brought Deng back with him. And when Deng had a chance to rise in the early 50s in Beijing, Mao was a great sponsor. But Mao was a purist and revolutionary, and Deng was more practical. So Mao wanted to teach Deng a lesson. And he put him aside at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and attack him. But he didn't put him in jail and didn't punish him so badly that he couldn't come back later. He was teaching him a lesson.
INTERVIEWER: Why do you think he did that? Because obviously Mao was absolutely brutal and ruthless to many of his political adversaries, but not Deng.
EZRA VOGEL: I think there are perhaps three reasons. One was because the first time Deng was birds it was because he was a Mao faction. He'd been a loyal follower of Mao for decades. Secondly, his performance, moving so quickly and so rapidly and doing things so well, that Mao was very proud of his performance. And the third thing was he was especially good at arguing with the Soviet Union. In the early one 19602 he thought Deng was getting a little too pragmatic about approving markets, but Deng was the key arguer with the Soviet Union, and Mao loved and respected that. So I think those are all three bound up in why Mao was not going to dispatch Deng and to just teach him some lessons.
INTERVIEWER: It's funny. He was more of a hawk on the Soviet Union than many American presidents were. In fact, he kept telling them, you guys got to pick up your socks and get in there and get tougher with these guys.
EZRA VOGEL: Deng was tough. Especially after the United States pulled out of Vietnam and 1975, Deng, who is beginning to have a strong power, felt that the Soviet Union was the greatest threat and was taking advantage of the vacuum that America had created in Asia, and was going to cause lots of problems with China. So he became very tough on the Soveit Union.
INTERVIEWER: I want to show a bar graph right now. If any picture shows, perhaps, what Deng Xiaoping's influence was on the Chinese economy-- if we can, let's bring up this next bar graph here-- this might show it. That was the value of the Chinese economy before Deng became the paramount leader. And that's where it is as of a couple of years ago. Now if that's not a stark picture of this man's influence, I'm not sure what was. He inherited a large party bureaucracy. He inherited a stagnating economy. He inherited a country that he described as backward. What approach to reform did he uniquely bring that allowed that bar graph to take place?
EZRA VOGEL: Well Deng had been overseas in France for five years a young man. And he was familiar with the outside world having visited the United States and France in '74 and '75. And he understood what you had to do to catch up with the world. And he believed that you had to send scientists abroad and young students to bring back technology in all spheres. He didn't have any single model. He wanted to send bright young people abroad in all fields to bring back the most modern up to date way of thinking, the technology, management that would help China grow.
INTERVIEWER: What were the fields that interested him the most?
EZRA VOGEL: Surprising enough it was natural science, even more than economy. I've gone through the list of the people that Deng met over many years. I haven't found one meeting with an economist. The people that he liked to meet-- number one scientists, and number two businessmen, and number three politicians. He wanted people who had run things themselves. He wasn't interested in a broad theory. He was interested in people who had confronted problems and figured out a way to make them work.
INTERVIEWER: Speaking of Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor--
EZRA VOGEL: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Looked at him and said, you're a guy in a hurry.
EZRA VOGEL: And he was. And he also said, this is a guy we can deal with.
INTERVIEWER: OK, let's bring this up. I'm in chapter three right now, Michael. This is another excerpt from the book. This is Deng Xiaoping's visit in 1978 to Japan. "At Kimitsu, then the world's most advanced steel plant, Deng saw a new continuous-casting production line and computer-controlled technology that would become the model for China's first modern steel plant at Baoshan, just north of Shanghai. Dung said that to make the Baoshan work, the Chinese needed Japanese aid to learn management skills. He tried to explain to his countrymen, who believed what they had been taught under Mao about Western exploitation of workers, that the reality was quite different. Japanese workers owned their own homes, their own cars, and electronic equipment that was unavailable in China."
Here's a question. He obviously was blown away by what he saw in terms of what a capitalist economy could achieve. I guess what's somewhat surprising is that he never felt China needed to take the next step, which was economic liberalization, yes, but political liberalization, absolutely not. How come?
EZRA VOGEL: He thought that China had been so divided from the time of the Opium War right after 1949. They couldn't grow because there were too many contending forces and led to chaos. His experience was that the Cultural Revolution, when you let people have full blown democracy, encourage them to express their views, including on the street, that it could ruin China. China did not yet have the commitment of its people. They weren't rich enough to have a comfortable way of life. There were too many people who'd been upset with the way that landlords intellectuals had been treated, that there was not the basis, at the time when he was empowered, to have a confident leadership, you can count on the support of the people. And he felt in this short run, you certainly needed a strong government that was united and can make things happen quickly.
INTERVIEWER: Do you think by the end, though, he still believed in communism, per se? Or was it more just the power of the Communist party?
EZRA VOGEL: Deng was not one to quibble about words. He wouldn't quibble about the word of communism. But I think it was not what we Westerners call capitalism. Some people thought of what Deng did as capitalism, just under another name. But land ownership is still by the state in China. They have large state companies that control more than half the economy. They still have a planned economic system. The Communist party is still in charge. And so it's not exactly what we would call capitalism. But open markets wide, and that he had no hesitation in opening markets and encouraging competition.
INTERVIEWER: Socialism with a Chinese character.
EZRA VOGEL: That's what he called it. That was a way of allowing him to do whatever he wanted without getting bogged down by any logical arguments.
INTERVIEWER: I want to take it to June 4 1989, which I suspect, sadly for Deng Xiaoping, is how many people in the West are going to remember him-- as the guy who, when he saw a couple of 100,000 Chinese students protesting in Tienanmen Square, gave the order to clear the square by any means necessary.
EZRA VOGEL: Exactly.
INTERVIEWER: Why did he give that order?
EZRA VOGEL: He gave that order at the end of two months of turmoil in which he was really frightened that China was going the path of Eastern Europe where communist parties were falling apart. The Soviet Union was falling apart. And he felt the only way to enforce order, at that time, when so many people were demonstrating-- and on May 20 of '89 had blocked the entrance of the military, who then went in an armed, to try to restore peace. And they were unsuccessful. So he felt the country was just getting too lax. And the only way to bring it back together was, as you say, sadly, by force. And he would do what was necessary. And he never regretted it.
INTERVIEWER: It's odd because I guess, what? 12 years earlier? 13 years earlier? There had been demonstrations in Tienanmen Square for him. And yet, I guess, he didn't see the irony.
EZRA VOGEL: You read the book carefully, and you're exactly right. He understood the difference. And it wasn't that he believed that all demonstrations are bad, or that all democracy was bad. Some Westerners thought Deng was against all democracy, but not so. In 1978 he allowed students to write on the wall, what was known as Democracy Wall. And it took about three months before he decided it was getting out of hand, and he had to clamp down. And the same way in 1986, and the same way in '89. He didn't reflexively stop every demonstration. But when he felt it was getting out a hand and he needed to use force, he was always ready.
INTERVIEWER: One of the things that I'd forgotten about this time, which you reminded me about in the book, was the Tienanmen happened, in part-- I mean, the gathering of the students in the first place-- because Mikhail Gorbachev was there. He had come to visit to sign a friendship treaty, I guess, with China.
EZRA VOGEL: Right.
INTERVIEWER: And Deng Xiaoping didn't want having happen to him what was about to happen to Gorbachev.
EZRA VOGEL: Exactly. Exactly.
INTERVIEWER: And did he respect Gorbachev?
EZRA VOGEL: He regarded Gorbachev as a young man who was trying to move things ahead. But his son once told a foreigner that my father thought Gorbachev was stupid because he was trying to have political economic reform at the same time. And if you had economic reform, you had to have a strong political structure to make it happen. And so he thought that Gorbachev was trying to deal with the problems of the Soviet Union, but he made a serious mistake in allowing things to get out of hand.
INTERVIEWER: In looking at the research material that you encountered to write this book-- and I understand that Deng kept it all up here. He didn't leave notes.
EZRA VOGEL: Right. He left no notes.
INTERVIEWER: Did you ever find anything that would lead you to believe that this man, who I guess was 84 years old at the time when he ordered Tienanmen Square cleared out, that he had any regrets about the fact that he had, who knows how many-- maybe 5,000 people put to death with automatic machine guns in public?
EZRA VOGEL: Oh, it wasn't 5,000.
INTERVIEWER: How many was it?
EZRA VOGEL: The best estimate is by a Canadian scholar Tim Brooke were 700 and 800. He was there, went to the hospitals, took the data.
INTERVIEWER: Maybe 5,000 including injured?
EZRA VOGEL: Oh yes. There were 5,000 casualties.
INTERVIEWER: OK
EZRA VOGEL: But some 700 to 800 died. Deng had fought for 12 years-- first against the Japanese and against the [INAUDIBLE]. He had seen people killed in land reform, in the anti-rightist campaign. He felt that, as Mao said, the revolution is not a dinner party. To get established power, you do what's necessary. And Deng was far more willing to have the voice of democracy than Mao was. But, in the end, if he felt the country were falling apart-- he had experienced lots of battles and lots of deaths. And it was a lot more important to him to keep 1.3 billion people under some kind of stable order than it was to protect the lives of the 500 protesters, 800 protesters.
INTERVIEWER: That actually leads nicely to the next quote I was going to take from the book here. Which of the following: "When many Chinese people compare Deng's response to the Beijing student uprising with those of Gorbachev and his Eastern European counterparts to their own versions of the Beijing Spring, they believe the Chinese people and the Chinese nation today are far better off. They are convinced given its early stage of development, China could not have stayed together had the leadership allowed the intellectuals the freedom of thought. They believe even greater tragedies would have befallen China had Deng failed to bring an end to the two months of chaos in June 1989. You've looked at it. Are they right?
EZRA VOGEL: I think that there are a lot of students who believe that. And if I had to come down, I would guess yes. There's no way to prove one way or the other counter-factual, something didn't happen. Many of my Chinese friends that I respect thought if he had been moved more to democracy before Tienanmen would have never happened, and China would be far better. That's possible. I don't really know. I mean, I try to tell what happened and why it happened. Try to tell what he thought. But the ultimate judgment of could he have done it another way to have it work? History just doesn't answer that. And any scholar who seriously tries to understand can't leap and suddenly say one of the other. We just don't have that data.
INTERVIEWER: Well, fair enough. But the sprite inside you must occasionally ask yourself, what if he'd listen to his number two instead of ostracized him, and what if he'd allowed a liberalization, and what if he'd allow this? Would it have been so bad for him to go out and speak to the students? How might history have been different?
EZRA VOGEL: It's possible if he had gone out and talked to the students in May or June that they would have quieted down. But he was already, at that time, as you say, 84 years old. He didn't get out much. And he was determined to be fairly tough with the students. He thought that the students had benefited from the measures that he had brought about, and he had worked so hard to bring about. And now they were complaining and trying to overthrow the kind of structure that had brought all the changes to China. So I think he was really angry with the students at that point.
INTERVIEWER: In the long run, did China's relations with the rest of the world suffer all that much because of the Tienanmen Massacre?
EZRA VOGEL: For several years it suffered. There were a lot of sanctions. China was not involved in a lot of international affairs. And some of the sanctions for the sale of military weapons are still in existence even today. But as Deng said at the time, Westerners have a short memory. Businessman will want to be in the China market. And before long, we can resume contacts. We should not only stay open, we should open wider. And some people in China said, you know the foreigners are a threat. We have to stay clear of them. And they're the ones supporting the students who caused all the trouble. Deng said, no. We have to be open even wider to the outside world.
INTERVIEWER: It's odd because he didn't suffer from the xenophobia that many of his colleagues would have suffered from.
EZRA VOGEL: He certainly did not.
INTERVIEWER: Maybe because he was in France so really?
EZRA VOGEL: I think that the French five years had a lot to do with it. He understood the outside world. And he understood that countries that did well in the contemporary era were those that were linked to the world economy. And he was prepared to endure a few more years of difficulty, as China done in the 50s and 60s when it was closed, but in the long run, he wanted it wide open.
INTERVIEWER: The China that we see today, how closely do you think it mirrors what he had in mind?
EZRA VOGEL: I think it's very close to what he had in mind. I think if Deng, who died in 1997, were back today, 15, 16 years later, he'd be very pleased that more Chinese were now able to afford a comfortable way of life. And he would be proud that China is now a stronger and respected and listened to in world affairs. I think he would be strong against corruption. He would feel that his followers have not done enough to tighten up on corruption. I think he would still feel that they could begin to experiment with democracy, when the time came. And I think that, as a whole though, he would feel that the leaders are just a little too cautious. He was a broad revolutionary willing to make big stances. His followers who grew up in the system by being nice people and getting along with everybody else were not bold enough in tackling the problems that China faces.
INTERVIEWER: And unlike Mao, he didn't feel the need to kill millions of his fellow citizens to make it happen.
EZRA VOGEL: That's right. And he believed that China should be a peaceful country in the world. The Soviets made a big mistake by having too many enemies, putting all of the money in the military, which wasted the country and led to the ruin. He wanted China not to spend so much on the military, to keep good relations with the countries, and put the resources in the domestic economy. And that's what he believed should happen.
INTERVIEWER: A couple of minutes left. I want to touch on two more things. He dealt with a number of American presidents. Who do you think was his favorite?
EZRA VOGEL: That's hard to say, but I wouldn't be surprised it was Bush Sr. Because he had known Bush Sr. In 1975 when he, under Mao, was in charge of running China, basically. And Bush was in charge of the liaison office in Beijing and therefore saw them very often. Surprisingly enough, he probably liked Nixon because Nixon was a grand strategist. He didn't meet him in 1972 because he was [INAUDIBLE] at that time. When he met Nixon at the White House, and he met him when Nixon and later came China after that. And he also got along with Reagan. He and Jimmy Carter hit it off very well. Tip O'Neill and he hit it off. It's surprising the range of American political leaders-- he got along with all of them.
INTERVIEWER: And just finally, as a person-- he's not a person who managed to avoid personal tragedy, right? A first wife who died and a child who was--
EZRA VOGEL: Died seven several days later, yes.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah. And another son who was handicapped I think from having been--
EZRA VOGEL: In the Cultural Revolution, he was pursued by Red Guards. And there's a question whether he was pushed or jumped out the window. I think the evidence is that he was jumped out of the window.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have any sense of how all of those personal tragedies might have affected the man he became?
EZRA VOGEL: I think he was steeled by the time he came to office. Particularly 12 years in war time fighting-- I think this is one very tough person who was just determined to think of the big picture and to look at things and not to be frightened. And I think that he was there for a very bold and doing what he thought was good for the country.
INTERVIEWER: Professor Vogel there aren't many people who can say I beat Henry Kissinger at something. But you beat Henry Kissinger for your book on China against his book on China for the Lionel Gilbert prize, for which we congratulate you.
EZRA VOGEL: Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: Ezra Vogel. Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.
VOICEOVER: Support Ontario's public television. Donate at tvo.org.
Chinese Central Television (CCTV) Series: China 30 Years
The following video clips are from a Chinese Central Television series on the impacts of these policies with a 30 year retrospective. They provide some insight into China’s period of opening and reforms. Below are select clips to view, though you can certainly view all of them for a fuller picture of the impact of these reforms (from the perspective of the PRC).
1978—The Turning Point
Thirty years have flown by since China adopted reform and opening-up policies in 1978. Starting today our new Biz China 360 series takes you through enormous changes over the decades. In this first installment, we take a brief look at how this historic decision set China on the road to becoming the country as we know it today.
It's the Beijing Olympic games and the Shenzhou 7 manned space flight has surprised and fascinated the world. It was a decision made 30 years ago that made all this possible.
In December 1978, the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing. Looking back, it can be considered a turning point in Chinese history opening up a new era that outside world that has since referred to as reform and opening-up.
BI JIYAO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR INST. FOR INT'L ECONOMIC RESEARCH, NDRC: The decision to implement economic reform and opening-up policies was very important decision in the 1970s for China. Since then, we have been on the road to economic reform and opening-up and we have graduated from the traditional centrally planned economy to the market economy. Our economy has moved from a closed one to an open one.
[ON SCREEN TEXT: 1979, SHENZHEN SET UP CHINA'S FIRST SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE]
While Chinese people were pushing ahead to change their lives, the outside world was also moving on and wondering what this Asian Eastern nation could achieve.
MELINDA LIU, BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF NEWSWEEK: Even among my own friends and colleagues the reaction was very mixed. My personal reaction was curious and surprised and again, I think excited. I think simply the idea that things were starting to change even if we didn't know what the outcome would be made this an extremely unusual situation. I think I even then I had a feeling it might be a once in a lifetime type of story for a journalist.
It was never going to be an easy task. It required great focus and determination to stay the course. The world's most populous nation began its march out of the closed and planned economy towards a socialist market economy which aimed to expand rural income, encourage experiment in enterprise autonomy, and join in more overseas investments. To ensure the experiment would prove a success, China started a series of pilot programs in selective cities and villages such as setting up economic zones and household contract responsibility experiments in rural areas.
LAURENCE BRAHM, POLITICAL ECONOMIST: The thirty-year changes [INAUDIBLE]... and basically cross through a wall walking on the rocks. And this approach made China transform from a nation of scarcity to a nation of surplus, from a nation which had tremendous poverty to you know, removing so many people from poverty. And this shift presented the world with an alternative to the Washington Consensus.
Reform and opening-up brought a fundamental change to the China of the time. It freed up people's minds, unleashed productivity, injected a great vigor and vitality into the nation, and greatly stimulated economic and social development. As a result, China's economy has maintained nearly a 9.8% annual growth rate for the past three decades. Back in 1978, China's GDP accounted for only 1% of the world's total.
By 2007, it had reached more than 5%. China's share in global trade also jumped from less than 1% to roughly 8% during this period. And the development got a further lift when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, 23 years after it adopted the reform and opening up policy.
BI JIYAO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR INST. FOR INT'L ECONOMIC RESEARCH, NDRC: When China adopted the WTO, China had been significantly involved, integrated into global economies. And our contributions to the world economic goals have surpassed the United States as the number one over past three years. So we can see China's economic development providing important driving forces for the whole economy.
Reform and opening-up has also brought new benefits to the people whose lives have undergone great changes. From suffering the lack of basic living necessity to enjoying moderated prosperity.
"The development of Chinese cities including Beijing, is very impressive. I think they are even better than foreign countries. Very modern."
"Buses, flyovers...Changes are huge."
"People's living standards improved a lot. It's just that simple."
"I'm feeling well, and quite satisfied with the current life."
"Food clothes...people used to need those quota coupons to get what they need. With China's economic development, these have become things of the past."
"Now whatever you want to eat, you can have it. I feel even better than what ancient emperor's ate."
Great changes have swept across this world's most populous country during the past three decades. Including wealth and more open-mindedness, changes can be found in every corner and in all walks of lives. But there is one thing that remains unchanged, that is China's determination to carry on its reform and opening up and ensure a better life for its people. This is Feng Ling reporting with Biz China 360.
1978—Rural Reforms Started
December the 18th, 1978 is a very special day for all Chinese. It was on this day that other reform and opening-up policy was issued. With only 30 days to go before the 30th anniversary of his historic event, we bring you a special series on events that have taken place on each December the 18th since 1978. We will look at three decades of changes in China. Today will begin with 1978 and the country's most authoritative paper. The cultural revolution ended two years earlier and big changes are in store.
This is people's feeling on December 18th 1978. No advertisements, no entertainment, and no mention the day's most important news. But, the message can be seen in the headlines. Three-fourths of the front page deal with agriculture. The top story shows how Zhejiang province revived agriculture production. The next is the success of the collective system Yantai cotton harvest. And this article calls for setting up agricultural product bases across the country.
The focuses are different, but all share the same purpose. To share the country's main concern, how to boost agriculture to feed the world's largest population after 10 years of economic stagnation due to the cultural revolution. Farmers have already lost interest in the people's common system. Regardless of how much or how little they work, everyone gets an equal share.
Land reform is necessary. Senior party leaders address the issue at a meeting on December 18. And from this meeting, comes a decision to establish a house hold responsibility contracting system. The reform gives farmers freedom in rights, hoping to invigorate the rural economy. In 1978, the reform was controversial. It told farmers, it was the beginning of a new chapter.
Rural Reforms
PRESENTER: 30 years of reform in China have had an enormous impact on the country's vast rural areas. In fact, the earliest blueprint for change arose from farmers wishing to improve their lives in a tiny village in Anhui Province, in eastern China. In today's part of our BizChina 360 series on three decades of reform and opening up, Qi Tianxing shows us how life has changed dramatically in another village. That's Sunzhuang in central China's Henan Province.
QI TIANXING: Zhang Xiuying is preparing lunch for her family. She's happy with her daily life. She's able to take on some work on the farm, cook for the family, and take care of her grandchildren.
ZHANG XIUYING: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: I'll cook rice and meat.)
QI TIANXING: Now, the family can eat whatever they want, but 30 years ago, that was impossible. Like farmers across the country, people in Sunzhuang Village worked for production teams, basic farming units of the time. They handed in what they'd grown to the team and got allotments of grain in return. And this amount was the same however much or little each family worked. That meant most of the farmers had little incentive to till the land. Poor soil conditions and the effects of natural disasters left a very low standard of living.
ZHANG XIUYING: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: I picked leaves from elm trees after work and cooked soup with them. I only earned 6 yuan a month at that time.)
QI TIANXING: Xu Guizhen's family was even poorer. They had to beg for their bread.
XU GUIZHEN: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: We staved in those days, when people worked for the production team. I went to other places, begging for food with which to feed my child.)
[BAMBOO FLUTE MUSIC PLAYING]
QI TIANXING: Starving farmers had to find a way to change their lives, and 18 of them in Xiaogang Village of Fengyang County in Anhui Province came up with what were revolutionary ideas for the time. In 1978, they secretly carved up farmland and allotted them to households. Each household was allowed to keep what they grew on their own piece of land. This sounds simple, but what happened in Xiaogang Village was a bold step towards rural economic reforms.
This scheme was later promoted across the country by the Communist Party of China after its Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee. The scheme was officially established in 1982, giving a big boost to agricultural production.
XU GUIZHEN: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: After the farmland was divided up and handed over to households, we had enough food and never went begging again.)
[LAUGHING]
ZHANG XIUYING: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: We grew enough grain to feed the family, we didn't need to buy grain anymore.)
QI TIANXING: Since 1982, the CPC Central Committee issued number one central documents for five years in a row to develop rural areas. That's liberalizing production. Xu Guizhen's son, Chen Zhong, was one of the first batch of individual business operators in the village. He began to work in the transportation business when he was 17 years old. Over the last 20 years, he has moved from using a tractor to driving a truck.
CHEN ZHONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: When local residents earned 10 yuan per day, I could earn 70 to 80 yuan by driving a lorry, well, at least 50 to 60 yuan a day.)
QI TIANXING: With China entering the 21st century, agriculture and rural development still remain the top priority for the government. A series of preferential policies were issued to farmers. The party branch secretary for Sunzhuang Village will never forget what happened on the 1st of January, 2006, when China abolished its agricultural tax nationwide, a tariff that had existed for more than 2,000 years.
WEI GUODONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: The agriculture tax was canceled for the first time in thousands of years. Farmers were very glad. Prior to that, a family had to hand in 40 to 60 kilograms of wheat, that costs between 40 and 60 yuan.)
QI TIANXING: In addition, the government also offered subsidies to farmers to help them buy farming materials.
XU GUIZHEN: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: We can get 70 to 80 yuan in subsidies for each mu(666 square meters) of farmland. Farming has been mechanized, we don't have to labor so hard.)
QI TIANXING: 30 years ago, there were 250 million Chinese farmers who were inadequately fed and clothed. Per capita income of Chinese farmers then was only 134 yuan. But by the end of 2007, the per capita income of Chinese farmers had increased to 4,140 yuan. Farmers now are pursuing more than enough food.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Wei Guodong's wedding photo, but taken 40 years after the happy day.
WEI GUODONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: This picture was taken in 2006, on the 40th anniversary of our marriage. But we consider this our wedding photo.)
QI TIANXING: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: Did you take any photos when you got married?)
WEI GUODONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: No, no, we had never taken a wedding photo before 2006. In fact, the first photo in my life was taken in 1963 when I graduated from middle school. I had no money to take a photo but we were all part of the graduation photo.)
QI TIANXING: Now, having a photo taken is something anyone can enjoy. Farmers also care more about the quality of life. Some villagers are helping workers build a road. Like other roads in the village, it's partly funded by local government and partly funded by villagers themselves.
WEI GUODONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: In recent years, we have built more than 10 thousand meters of roads that connected almost the whole village. 95 percent of the families here now have roads leading right up to their homes.)
[MUSIC PLAYING]
QI TIANXING: The CPC Central Committee decided in the latest plenary session held in October to improve markets for the needs of contracted farmland and the transfer of rights for the use of farmland. This gives farmers opportunities to conduct relatively large-scale management and new business operations. In Sunzhuang, the local government has collected some lands for enterprises. Outside capital has boosted the local economy. And the rights of farmers whose land have been taken away has also been protected.
WEI GUODONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: Farmers whose per capita land is less than 0.3 mu(200 square meters), will be transferred from rural residents to urban residents. The government will provide them subsistence allowances under the urban standard, that is 200 yuan a month.)
QI TIANXING: The CPC Central Committee has also set a goal of doubling per capita disposable income for rural residents by 2020. Sunzhuang Village is moving toward that goal by exploring more business opportunities.
WEI GUODONG: [SPEAKING CHINESE] (English Translation: We are having talks with a mushroom company. We plan to encourage villagers to grow mushrooms at home. By doing so, the income of a family is likely to increase by 10 to 20 thousand yuan a year.)
QI TIANXING: Maybe in the near future, urban residents can enjoy delicious mushrooms cultivated in Sunzhuang. To the people, food is all important. To the country, agriculture is the foundation of the national economy. 30 years ago, the reforms began on the farms. 30 years later, the CPC's Decision on Major Issues Concerning the Advancement of Rural Reform and Development will lead to new breakthroughs in farmers' lives. Qi Tianxing, reporting for BizChina 360.
PRESENTER: Now 30 years of reform in China have also greatly boosted the country's private sector. Our next installment of the 360 series will focus on the extraordinary development of the private economy.
Financial System
If you just joined us, you're watching Biz China, about halfway through this program now. Let's continue with Biz China 360 as our ongoing series as we take a look at the country's 30th birthday in reform and opening-up. This episode today will focus on the development of the financial system over that period Quentin has the details.
In 1988, when the American investment expert Jim Rogers came to Shanghai and bought a few Chinese stocks in small outlets of ICBC, the Shanghai Stock Exchange still hadn't opened, in fact it will be another two years until it existed. Needless to say, few of the over one billion Chinese knew much about stock investment.
No one knows that early time better than millionaire Young. He's one of the earliest individual investors in China. His original name was Young Qi Din. People began to call him millionaire Young after he earned the first million assets through stock investment during 1980s. At that time up our key and shortage, a family with ten thousand grand was already considered wealthy. At first, Young was worried what people thought about his way of making money because using one's hands to earn money was thought to be honorable. He was even afraid to be put into jail. Marketing investment was considered speculation and capitalism. But the words of Deng Xiao Ping, the chief designer of China's reform and opening-up reassured him.
YANG HUAIDING, INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR: When Deng Xiao Ping completed his southern China tour, and traveled to Shanghai, he said the securities market does not belong to capitalism or socialism. We should give it a try first. If it failed, we could close it then. But we should develop it first. Now 20 years have passed, and how things have changed!
Such a change of mind was turning point. Since then China's market has been growing at a rapid China has established two stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen. There are already more than 1,500 companies listed on the two stock exchange. People with a more disposable income are also taking increasingly active parts in stock investments By October 2008, big jumps accounts in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets reached $121 million. Millionaire young helps us investors also growing more mature with the development of the securities market.
YANG HUAIDING: Although the history of our securities market is short, we have been able to successfully complete the set up of the market in a short time. It took the west a hundred years. It's a great achievement. We cannot judge the success of the market according to the fall and rise of our shares. The securities market cannot ensure everyone makes money. However, it provides equal opportunity. If you seize the opportunity, you can grow along with the reform and opening up process.
The reform of the securities market is only one part of China's Financial System reform.
What's even more amazing is a banking reform. Banks are considered the core of the nation's financial system. As a result it's reform was given high priority. In 1979, Deng Xiao Ping proposed to develop banks as the leverage point for economic development and technology innovation, and make banks real banks. Lacking historical context people may not understand which real banks meant. Before 1979, China's banks were departments within the government serving the planned economy. However, the reform started centering around markets within the financial institutions.
Ms. Tan Yaling worked as a Senior Analyst at Bank of China, China's second largest bank. She told us the change she experienced, "Previously, we just sat in our offices waiting for customers. However, now we go out to companies, to markets, and to ordinary people to promote our products and improve our business. The change has not only affected the daily operations of the company, but our mind set as well."
However, the development in route was not that smooth. In 1998, Asian financial crisis exposed the problems of having a high non-performing assets ratio and low cap to sufficient rates of Chinese banks. Some foreign experts even said China's banks were on the verge of bankruptcy and when China joined the Dublin to: in 2001 the country promised to open its financial system in five years. This made the challenges for the domestic banking industry even more pressing. However the reform later amazed the world. Steps were taken quickly and decisively. It involved the injection of capital and the introduction of strategic foreign partners. In its biggest move, the government initiative displayed share reform and overseas listing of three state owned commercial banks. Just two to three years later, the listings of the three banks created a China tidal wave in the world's capital markets. The industrial and commercial banks of China set the IPO world records by reaching twenty-two billion US dollars. This market capsule was also one of the largest of the world banks.
TAN YALING, STANDING DIRECTOR, CHINA INT'L ECONOMIC RELATIONS ASSOCIATION: During the whole process of state share reform, and the listing, the inner and exterior structure and social image changed a lot. First Chinese banks became market oriented banks, and it caused their performance and profits to rise. The influence of Chinese commercial banks is undoubtedly growing. Now in the world's top 100 or even top 10, there are Chinese financial institutions and commercial banks. It proves the significant impact that the share reform has brought about.
The reform is considered fruitful. By the end of 2007, the three state-owned commercial banks recorded profits of 67 to 82 bin yuan, one of the most profitable intervals. Their capital sufficient rate was around 13% compared to the global standard of 8%. The non-performing loan ratio dropped from the peak of 40% to less than 3%. Their healthy development has cured China's financial stability in the world's financial system. Lead by these large banks, city commercial banks, private banks, and other financial institutions are also burgeoning in China. China's banking industry now has over 8,000 banking corporations and over 190,000 around the country that greatly support the nation's economic development.
Although remarkable progress has been made over the past 30 years, China's finance industry is still young and will face tough challenges such as global financial crisis. But although China's increased integrations with the world economy does make it more vulnerable to situations. But China's strong economy as well as continuing reform, and opening up will ensure a bright future for China's finance industry. I'm reporting for Biz China 360 here in Beijing.
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Manufacturing
Chinese Central Television (CCTV) Series: China 30 Years
Now watch one more clip from the CCTV series on China's Special Economic Zones (SEZ):
Special Economic Zones
And that's where we're going right now because by the mid 1990s China's reform and opening-up had brought a remarkable transformation to the country's economic landscape. The changes were most evident in the bustling business activities along the coastal regions, especially among the so-called special economic zones. Launched in the 1980s, the special zones were given flexible policies to conduct economic reform. In today's 30 in 30 series we look at this unstoppable trend of reform and the model of special economic zones.
In December 1996, policymakers was steadfast in the continuation and consolidation of economic reform. A national meeting was held in Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone. State Council officials said transformation in trade and business should alternate the country's development model between speed and quality optimizing trade structures and improving sustainability. 1996 was also the first year of a new five-year growth plan. Given achievements made in the past, officials said flexible policies would be granted to more cities and regions and more measures would be taken to reform the National Economics Center. On the same day, Xiamen celebrated its 15th anniversary as a special economic zone. Two ceremonies for construction projects for transportation will also help. An official from the National People's Congress said Xiamen had entered a second stage of development. As the country was set to deepen reform the city should serve just came accumulating relevant experiences as an economic testing ground.
Shenzhen and Xiamen were among China's earliest gateways to foreign investment. They were designated as special economic zones in the beginning of the 1980s. Both were chosen for geographical reasons. Shenzhen to attract investment through Hong Kong, and Xiamen to welcome businesses from Taiwan. For years the special economic zones took the lead country's economy, focusing on imports and exports as well as manufacturing. Their success encouraged the government to expand the scheme to cover almost the entire coastal regions opening more cities to foreign capital. By 1996 there were dozens of special economic zones around the country that had opened up to foreign trade and investment. Most were not officially designated, but in practice their experimenting was the same economic reforms. Their experiments were also encountering new issues and missions to maintain the growth of a newly established market economy and to explore ways to become more mature and innovative.
Optional Reading
If you are interested in learning more, you can check out the China accession protocol (pdf) [46].
Chinese Central Television (CCTV) Series: China 30 Years
This final video clip from the CCTV series explores what is next for China, after 30 years of reform:
What’s Next?!
Well, after thirty years of reform and opening-up, China has transformed from a closed economy to a vibrant more open one. So, one of the natural questions is what's next? In the final episode of our Biz China 360 series, we look at future development trends as well as challenges and opportunities in the year to come.
Skyscrapers, high speed trains, fancy luxuries. China has not only achieved what it planned thirty years ago, but it has done so far more successfully than anyone ever thought. Looking forward, the world is curious about where China will go from here.
MELINDA LIU, BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF NEWSWEEK: We all are watching with great admiration and curiosity as to how things go from, from now on. I think we have all been extremely impressed with the past 30 years.
And the answer is clear, Chinese leaders have emphasized on various occasions that the country is committed to pursuing reforms and opening up. But as some experts say, the road ahead might be tougher than the previous several years.
BI JIYAO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR INST, FOR INT'L ECONOMIC RESEARCH, NDRC: Before the different kinds of reform, may be more difficult than before because we are facing more complex problems than 30 years ago.
Fast economic growth has certainly resulted in some side effects. An income gap, environmental issues, problems with the health care and pension system, and an aging population. These are some of the concerns voiced by the public. While admitting the top challenges ahead, premier Wen Jiabao said at the 2008 summer doubles in Tanjing, that the fundamental solution to all these problems lies in the deepening of the reforms.
WEN JIABAO, CHINESE PREMIER (ENGLISH SUBTITLES): We will continue to deeper economic reforms. We will further improve the basic economic system and market systems, deepen reforms of the fiscal, tax and banking systems; and improve the macro-economic regulatory system. Only by continuing reforms and opening up and unswervingly following the path of socialism with distinctive Chinese features can China have a bright future.
Experts also pointed out that transforming the export based economy to a consumption-based one is a also a highlight of future reforms - especially at the time when the global financial tsunami is weakening external demands.
BI JIYAO, DEPUTY DIRECTOR INST, FOR INT'L ECONOMIC RESEARCH, NDRC: If China can maintain economic growth, that will make a greater contribution to the world economy. As you know China has become a very important engine for where the economy goes and the reason is our government has formulated a series of important policy matters to stimulate the master demand.
MELINDA LIU, BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF NEWSWEEK: I think now much of the world is looking to China to actually lead the way out of this global recession, partly because it has a lot of wealth as you say a lot of money, the government has a lot of money. And partly because it's, you know economy is somewhat buffered from a certainly the American and the European recession that we see going on now. I think if there's any country that could, could afford to spend its way to you overcome the current challenges in the global economy it would be China. It's very lucky that way.
With ever-increasing integration with the world economy, China is becoming more active and important on the international stage. Thirty years of reform and opening-up have brought historic changes to China's development creating a rocketing economy that is now the fourth largest in the world. For the ordinary person on the street, the past 30 years have not only meant better clothes and food, but also China's rise on the international stage and that is what makes them proud to say, I'm Chinese.
Let's see what they're hoping for in the years to come: "I hope China is regarded not only as a large country. I hope China's technology development will enter a new stage." "I hope our country will become stronger, and our economy will develop faster and be more integrated with the world." "I am very confident in China's future. China will become better and better."
Let some people get rich first, and then help the rest to achieve a good standard living. That's one famous phrase from late China's leader Deng Xiaoping. The past thirty years has proven China to be very successful at the first part, and now the country is on its way to achieving the second part of it, and that is what the reform and opening up is all about. This is Feng Ling reporting for Biz China 360.
China in Africa: New Imperialism?
At the beginning of this course, you watched Africa: The Magnificent African Cake that discussed the colonization of Africa by various European powers. Now, in the post-colonial era, we see a new “scramble for Africa”, as the US, China, and other nations are attempting to consolidate their grip on Africa's natural resources and its growing consumer class. In the video below, the Al Jazeera English program, Empire, travels to Kenya, France, and the USA to examine who is gaining, who is losing, and what it means to Africans.
As you watch this film (47:32), think about China’s geopolitical and economic interests in Africa. China’s engagement with Africa has shifted the national and international economic development dynamic. Many African governments now look to China to invest in their economic development programs instead of working with international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF so that they can avoid or resist various loan conditions and provisions—such as the often criticized Structural Adjustment Programs. See the globalissues.org website [47] for a critical history of Structural Adjustment Program and its evolution to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers.
China’s engagement with Africa can be seen as one whereby overlapping geopolitical codes facilitate a development strategy (for China and within Africa) that is seen as mutually beneficial to the governments and, particularly the elites (“post-structural adjustment oligarchs”) involved. This does not usually translate to a “trickling down” of the benefits, and there has been ample criticism and scrutiny. The film highlights the “new scramble for Africa” and positions this scramble as a neocolonial and neo-imperial battle between China and the West (in particular, America). So, what does the ‘Rise of China’ mean for the US? What does it mean for your MMRP country?
Watch: Empire: The New Scramble for Africa | Al Jazeera English
MARWAN BISHARA: Africa-- hopeless, corrupt, dysfunctional, just not a place to do business. But suddenly, everything changed. Suddenly, Africa is the place to be and foreign investment is flooding in. And foreign powers are coming back. And that's why we've come to Africa. When the global business media is suddenly interested, when even the Economist, the neo-liberal bible of free trade and free markets, changes their forecast from hopeless to hopeful, somebody should ask the question, hopeful for whom?
So people died for the cause of Africa [INAUDIBLE] Independence. There have been attempts at establishing democracies, but in the end of the day what we see is, the French are there and expanding. The Americans are there and expanding. The Chinese are there expanding like hell, but where are Africans from those challenges that we're talking about? Are we going to back to the same old historical events?
ABUBAKAR ADDY: Most of our group we see, we are talking about 6% GDP per annum, and loose Ghana [INAUDIBLE], but they are coming for mining. They are not really trickling down to the ordinary person.
MARWAN BISHARA: They're coming from where?
ABUBAKAR ADDY: For mining sectors, basically.
MARWAN BISHARA: For natural resources.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: Natural resources.
DUNCAN MPUSETSANG: I go to my home village, and it's the same as it was 10 years ago.
MARWAN BISHARA: Your home village, where?
DUNCAN MPUSETSANG: In Botswana.
EMMANUEL SAMPSON: It's about states' priorities. They don't even care about the masses when you are talking about these deals. You come to certain countries, all state's enterprises now have been privatized because it gets the state or the bureaucrats something. India--
MARWAN BISHARA: In return.
EMMANUEL SAMPSON: Do you get what I'm trying to say? And in the end, they are not providing any opportunity for the youth, so there are lots of unemployment in Africa, now. And people from my home will travel out of Africa because things are just not working.
MARWAN BISHARA: For centuries, Africa was treated like a chessboard by competing global powers. But for a moment about half a century ago, it seemed that there was a sliver of hope. That somewhere between the darkness of colonialism and the horrors of an emerging cold war, that popular movements were winning independence, taking matters into their hands. Africa was rising.
But then the Cold War killed the dream.
Moscow and Washington divided the continent into new spheres of influence. Proxy wars plunged the continents into civil war. But two decades after the Cold War, it seems that Africa is rising again, that investments are flowing in. We need to ask the big question and we need to ask it in Africa. Are Africans, at last, taking matters into their own hands, or is this just another scramble for Africa?
Our journey starts in Kenya. Our first stop is its capital, Nairobi. Nairobi, by all African standards, is a young colonial city. It was built on the railway towards the Port of Mombasa. Today Nairobi is buzzing. It's the financial and trade hub of East Africa. You will see trucks and cranes everywhere, developers at work, except they're not from the west. They're from the East.
China is now Africa's biggest trading partner. In just 10 years, China's trade with the continent has grown from 10 billion to over 200 billion dollars. At least 2,500 Chinese companies are operating in Africa, and more than a million Chinese nationals have moved here to do business. In Kenya, Chinese companies are visible everywhere but they are remarkably camera shy. We were just off this construction site and were turned down by dozens of Chinese firms before we found a businessman who was eager to speak with us.
GAO WEI: Kenya and Africa is a hopeful land and is in the early stage of taking off, so we believe there are a lot of opportunities.
MARWAN BISHARA: When Gao Wei moved to Kenya 10 years ago, he says there were only a handful of Chinese living here. Now, there are tens of thousands.
GAO WEI: The competition between China and the US about this land of Africa, and I have my own opinion. They decide to look East and now Kenya, or Africa country, will make a decision. Which one is better? And the which one I will take.
MARWAN BISHARA: And Kenya, like most of the continent, is choosing China for its big infrastructure projects.
ANNOUNCER: The excellency, the president, will now proceed to view the port and then our [INAUDIBLE].
MARWAN BISHARA: Last August, three African heads of state celebrated the Chinese-built expansion to the port of Mombasa. It will soon be linked to a Chinese-built railway connecting five East African countries.
SPEAKER: Your Excellencies, that is what our region needs.
[AFRICAN MUSIC AND SINGING]
MARWAN BISHARA: A railway for 3.5 million dollars connects you to the port, builds ports, that's quite an achievement for Africa and for China.
HOWARD FRENCH: There's ports already in every African country that has an ocean-front, and those ports were built another imperial power, one or another, in the last century. This is what imperial powers do. They build ports so that they can send their goods to that country and so that they can export from that country, to their markets, the things they need from that country.
MARWAN BISHARA: You don't think Africa needs this kind of infrastructure anyway-- at any rate.
HOWARD FRENCH: Africa desperately needs infrastructure. Whether it needs infrastructure of these terms is the question. They are negotiating many of these deals on the basis of a kind of barter-- secure supply of resources for a piece of infrastructure. That's a type of modern barter. Most people elsewhere are not doing that kind of trade or investment with Africa. The second thing that they are doing, which makes this arguably very far from a win-win situation, is China is creating these very powerful feedback loops for its own victory, its own win, that really cut Africa or African countries out of the equation in terms of the benefits. So the blueprints and engineering, no turnover, no handover.
MARWAN BISHARA: It's all Chinese.
HOWARD FRENCH: All Chinese. The workers. They send over 500 or 1,000 workers. They do this for two years. I've been on projects where even the people pushing wheelbarrows are Chinese.
MARWAN BISHARA: So what you're saying is that the loan is Chinese, the investment is Chinese, the plans are Chinese, the designs are Chinese, and the implementations and the workers are Chinese?
HOWARD FRENCH: Many times even the materials are Chinese.
MARWAN BISHARA: Are they actually importing the materials from--
HOWARD FRENCH: The salaries of the workers are typically, or at least very often, banked in China. So win-win is a propaganda slogan. It's not an accurate description of this sort of arrangement. Imperialism evolves. It's different from age to age. The circumstances change. What doesn't change is the balance of power between the two parties that are engaged in imperialism.
MARWAN BISHARA: The weaker and the stronger.
HOWARD FRENCH: The weaker and stronger. And the weaker has an inability to resist, or a lack of alternatives, and that's exactly what we're talking about.
PARSELELO KANTAI: I'm very skeptical about the whole Africa rising narrative. What civilization can one reference that has ever been developed by foreigners.
MARWAN BISHARA: But you also seems to be creating an elite that are benefiting from all the investments, benefiting from the selling of the land, benefiting from the new security situation.
PARSELELO KANTAI: I think the old word for that, if you read your Franz Ferdinand, is the comprador elite. This is not new. We just have a new class of elites. You have your kind of post-structural adjustment oligarchs and others, you know, who are now skimming off the top of these new deals.
MARWAN BISHARA: There are three ways of looking at Africa's so-called growth and prosperity. One is that it is real. The numbers prove it. Seven out of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. As a continent, Africa is growing at 7 to 10% faster than any other continent in the world. The other way of looking at it is that this is fake. All fake. It's a false dawn. Africa's growth is fueled by debt and the mass sale of natural resources.
And then there's a third scenario, which is yes, Africa is growing. Yes, Africa is prospering, but who's benefiting? Africans and their majorities or only a few oligarchs-- only the elite that is linked to global finance and global power? So which is it? And this is the question I need to take to the man in charge of industrializing Kenya-- a former banker turned minister.
You're a former banker and you know what I'm talking about when I say that there's no real development going on in building an industrial infrastructure in the contract or in the country. In fact, your local manufacturing has dropped in terms of production and in terms of exports. And now you're importing a huge number of Chinese cheap products.
ADAN MOHAMED: Correct. China turned into the factory of the world where not only Africa, but many countries, globally, have moved their productions into China. This is now the perfect time for Africa to become what China was many years ago.
MARWAN BISHARA: But you're signing contracts that say 70% of the labor for all these projects is going to be Chinese.
ADAN MOHAMED: Well, I mean there are cases like that in different parts. It's not that--
MARWAN BISHARA: Most cases--
ADAN MOHAMED: It's not like that across Africa. There's no infrastructure project the Chinese do without it being put on a tender-- international tender. People bid and the most appropriate--
MARWAN BISHARA: And the Chinese win.
ADAN MOHAMED: Chinese win. That is the nature of the open nation.
MARWAN BISHARA: But we know that even before the process starts because they're providing the credit. They're the ones who already do the barter, and they are ready to under-price the rest, because they have a long term plan.
ADAN MOHAMED: There are things that you can do as a country, as government, and there are things that you need to do with support of private capital or foreign capital. We must make the grounds convenient and producing for people to want to come and invest in Africa.
MARWAN BISHARA: But for the time being, this is all theory.
ADAN MOHAMED: Well it is not theory. It's a plan that just needs to be executed.
[SINGING IN AFRICAN LANGUAGE]
MARWAN BISHARA: For most of us non-Africans, this is the exotic continent-- open skies, open horizon, natural beauty. Global powers have long projected their fantasies and fears on Africa. The continent presents expanding markets, cheap labor, and natural resources. On the other hand, it's the incubator of their worst nightmares-- instability, ethnic conflicts, and global terrorism.
With the drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US war on terror has pivoted to Africa. Last year the US Africa Command ran over 400 missions in more than 35 African nations. The US is training, equipping, or running joint exercises with most of the militaries on the continent.
JEREMY KEENAN: The number two in U-Comm, General Charles Wald, came out with a statement, "the Sahara is a swamp which we must drain of terrorists." He talked of 30,000 terrorists having swarmed out of Afghanistan, through the Sudan, through Chad, through Niger, through Mali, up to Algeria. I've never found a trace of one who's been on that route.
MARWAN BISHARA: Professor Jeremy Keenan has written five books about Africa and the War on Terror. He argues that the threat of terrorism was initially greatly exaggerated both by the US military and by African leaders.
JEREMY KEENAN: So you have these very dictatorial governments basically referring to any civil society movement that had any angst or complaint against the government, they were being branded as sort of terrorists. It's what I call terrorism rents. You're actually getting money off fabricating creating terrorists. And, of course, your opposition gets dubbed as terrorists.
[NEWS ANCHOR VOICEOVER] It is been described as a new front in the War on Terror.
JEREMY KEENAN: What has happened in the last year or two is that it's got out of control. It is now becoming serious. It's become a self-fulfilled prophecy.
[NEWS ANCHOR VOICEOVER] World-wide attention is growing over the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
NEWS REPORTER 2: What should we know about Al Shabaab?
NEWS REPORTER 3: Al Qaeda in the Maghreb which is this group, has about a 1,000--
NEWS REPORTER 4: And safe haven and training grounds for Al Qaeda. Exactly what Afghanistan was in the 1990s.
MARWAN BISHARA: So now the global war on terror has come to Africa. And it's expanding from Nigeria to Kenya. From Algeria to Uganda. It's as if Washington has recreated it's school of the Americas into a new school of Africa. One where, under the rubric of African, American advisers train African security forces to fight Washington's war on terror. So is the new military aid helping stabilize Africa? Or is it dragging the continent into a war that's not its own?
PARSELELO KANTAI: We're in a very tough neighborhood in East Africa. And Kenya has always been something of a save haven.
If you were to present, five years ago, the idea that in five years time, your country is going to be in a state of siege, facing a constant threat of grenade attacks, bombings, or mass scale killing, they would have told you, that's impossible.
The African intervention, in Somalia especially, was predicated on the idea that America was going to avoid embarrassment by putting its own boots on the ground, so African boots could be put on the ground.
MARWAN BISHARA: Right.
PARSELELO KANTAI: In other words, Africa lies.
MARWAN BISHARA: So it outsourced the war on terror to you.
PARSELELO KANTAI: Yes.
MARWAN BISHARA: The war on terror to you.
PARSELELO KANTAI: Absolutely.
MARWAN BISHARA: And do you feel more secure now?
PARSELELO KANTAI: Of course not. I mean, what are the implications of that?
MARWAN BISHARA: What are the implications?
PARSELELO KANTAI: Well, what we are seeing in this country, in Kenya, today is a total backlash-- blow back, really-- against our presence in Somalia. It feels sometimes, and in a lot of places, like we're in a state of siege.
MARWAN BISHARA: Like a state of siege?
PARSELELO KANTAI: Yes.
[CHEERING]
MARWAN BISHARA: Parselelo isn't alone in these feelings. Even the prime minister, who first sent troops to Somalia, has had a change of heart. He now finds himself in the opposition and is calling for a troop withdrawal.
Prime Minister, have you enlisted in the US war or terror in East Africa?
RAILA ODINGA: Yes. It is unfortunate that we are in the midst of the war on terror. It's something that's the circumstances has imposed on us.
MARWAN BISHARA: And it started under you. You're the one who sent the troops to Somalia.
RAILA ODINGA: Yes. We called it operation Linda Nchi. Meaning that that's an operation to protect the country.
MARWAN BISHARA: But don't you think the occupation of Somalia genetics more radicalism and extremism?
RAILA ODINGA: I think so. That's why we must have an exit strategy.
MARWAN BISHARA: But you don't think the President is necessarily on board because he just declared the war on terror.
RAILA ODINGA: He's still in a fighting mood.
MARWAN BISHARA: He's in a fighting mood?
RAILA ODINGA: Yes.
MARWAN BISHARA: That does not bode well for the country. Because as you said, the continent is going to need more stability, not more war.
RAILA ODINGA: Yes. That's what you need-- more stability than war. Exactly.
MARWAN BISHARA: It's war on terror, war on terror.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Oh my god.
MARWAN BISHARA: Now that might have not reached [INAUDIBLE] yet, but I think--
MALE SPEAKER 1: It's in Kenya.
FEMALE SPEAKER 1: Oh, tell me about it.
JANE BYANI: This war on terror, who is it helping? I mean, when they kept giving us military aid, it's keeping the current government in power.
MARWAN BISHARA: So you cry war on terror, and you get paid, and you stay in power.
JANE BYANI: And you stay in power.
MARWAN BISHARA: But are you saying that the new military solutions of training troops, putting money in new security structures, you think that does help bring peace?
MALE SPEAKER 1: That's not help. All you're going to do with them is to shoot them and kill them. You're not solving the problem.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: The fighting, I think, creates escalation. I think, sometimes, an eye for an eye.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: Like no, we did not invade Somalia just because we wanted to invade Somalia or because it's fun, right?
JANE BYANI: Yes.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: It's true.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: We invaded Somalia it was destabilizing--
MARWAN BISHARA: It wasn't for fun?
KITAKA MUSEMBI: No, it wasn't.
MARWAN BISHARA: Yes.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: It wasn't fun at all. It was destabilizing us and our--
KITAKA MUSEMBI: It was destabilizing Kenya.
MARWAN BISHARA: Now I'm curious.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Yes?
MARWAN BISHARA: You actually think Kenya can stable Somalia?
KITAKA MUSEMBI: No. I don't think Kenya can stabilize Somalia.
MARWAN BISHARA: So why send the military in then?
JANE BYANI: Yes.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: It's just to--
MARWAN BISHARA: Look [INAUDIBLE].
KITAKA MUSEMBI: Make the situation a bit better.
MALE SPEAKER 1: me one country that was stabilized using military intervention. Give me one country.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: Afghanistan.
MALE SPEAKER 2: Maybe Lebanon. Maybe Lebanon.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: Wait, wait, wait, wait. I don't believe the Kenyan military was ever in Somalia to occupy Somlia.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Exactly.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: It was to at least try and stabilize Somalia in as much as we can and then move out.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Yes. That was intention.
KITAKA MUSEMBI: It was never an issue about--
MARWAN BISHARA: But that's why America's in Afghanistan. That's why America is in Iraq.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: No, no, no, no.
MARWAN BISHARA: Only to stabilize.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: No, no, no, no.
JANE BYANI: To introduce democracy.
MARWAN BISHARA: To introduce democracy.
JANE BYANI: Introduce democracy.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: No, no, no, no.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARWAN BISHARA: It's perverse, even if it's predictable, that Washington would find its way back to Africa under the pretext of the global war on terror. Clearly today's Africa security agenda is not set in Nairobi or Lagos, it's set in Washington. That's why we need to get to the American capital and speak to an African strategists. Jennifer Cooke is the director of The Africa Program at The Center for Strategic and International studies.
On the one hand, you to fight extremism. On the other hand, you support military dictatorships or military regimes from Egypt or Nigeria.
JENNIFER COOKE: Well, this is a pattern for the US all over the world. I mean, it's not anything new in Africa. What is new in Africa is that we pay a lot more attention because we tend to think we have fewer interests in Africa. It's almost like the US can have morals where it doesn't have interests, in a way.
MARWAN BISHARA: What are Americas interests in Africa?
JENNIFER COOKE: Well, obviously there's the security agenda. There's a growing economic agenda as well. There's also the competition, I think, for political ideas and ideologies.
MARWAN BISHARA: You mean the scramble with the Chinese, and the French, with the Turks, and the Iranians.
JENNIFER COOKE: Yes. I think there is a competition for global norms. We want to remain relevant and influential in Africa. And so I think that's where the game is going to be played.
MARWAN BISHARA: And that justifies the 1.2 billion dollars extra now investment in the military base in Djibouti.
JENNIFER COOKE: Does it justify? Well-- the problem is in the US system, the military is probably the best resource tool that we have. If we had a limited budget, I would say we have to be very careful to balance that with the military. You can train a military in Mali to shoot straight and do the right thing. If the government that they work for is corrupt or weak, no amount of military training is going to fix that country's security problem.
MARWAN BISHARA: Or perhaps the contrary. When you support, train a corrupt military government, that could probably lead to even more disaster.
JENNIFER COOKE: Yes. But you have to get the mix of both, I think.
MARWAN BISHARA: It's good to end on an agreement.
JENNIFER COOKE: Good grief.
MARWAN BISHARA: When we come back, French troops on African soil. Is this the return of the dark, old days of Francafrique.
PARSELELO KANTAI: We're dealing with a continent that has been doubly, maybe even triply, wounded.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NEWS REPORTER 5: France saying it's just hours from direct combat with Al Qaeda fighters.
NEWS REPORTER 6: France is involved now.
NEWS REPORTER 7: Now the French are leading the fight.
NEWS REPORTER 8: Well, I know it sort of offends most American sensibilities.
NEWS REPORTER 9: In fact, the most aggressive country fighting the jihad is France, if you can believe it.
[PARISIAN MUSIC PLAYING]
MARWAN BISHARA: When France invaded Mali last year, it offended Fox News sensibilities to learn that people they once thought of as cheese eating, [INAUDIBLE] were now the front line force in the war on terror in Africa. Here, in Paris, the news was hardly shocking. Many still think of Francophone Africa as their backyard. But it did mark a dramatic change in policy.
[FIREWORKS LAUNCHING]
[MILITARY MARCH PLAYING]
A few years ago, it seemed that France's military was being relegated to the grand parades of the Champs-Elysees That Paris was going to put its past behind it. No more wars, no more interventions, and certainly no more Francafrique, that corrupting system of patronage that governed France's relations with Africa.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Time and again, in the early days of independence, popular African leaders were assassinated or deposed in coups led by ex-French Foreign Legionnaire. Togo in 1963. The Central African Republic in 1966. Burkina Faso also in '66. Mali in 1968. In 50 years of independence, there have been 16 coups in former French colonies, more than in all the other countries of Africa combined. All that violence kept in power governments that were in line with France's political interests and friendly to its oil and mining industry.
The system of interlocking military, political, and economic influence is known as Francafrique. Even today, many former colonies continue to struggle to free themselves from it. France holds the national reserves of 14 African countries in its central bank. It has a web of military bases across West Africa, unparalleled by any other foreign power. And exercises deep political and commercial influence on the continent.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: This has to change and this has to be ended. So at some point, we have to renegotiate the terms of Francafrique.
MARWAN BISHARA: Do you think this is going to be transformed any time soon?
DOUGLAS YATES: Five, six years ago, you had some very strong anti-French rhetoric coming out of Francophone Africa. What's happened? The actors who were speaking against France have been replaced.
MARWAN BISHARA: Like who? Like where?
DOUGLAS YATES: Well, for example, Ivory Coast.
MARWAN BISHARA: And where else?
DOUGLAS YATES: Where militarily intervenes to impose a pro-French ruler. Or in Mali, where Francois Hollande militarily intervened, suppressing a popular, indigenous movement in the North, to impose a southern leader through what you could barely call real elections. And that Southern leader now, [INAUDIBLE], is a servant of France. In Niger, where Mahamadou Issoufou, who is a former employee of the French uranium country, AREVA, is now the President of Niger. And he recently signed a 40 year concession giving away Niger's only non-renewable natural resource-- uranium.
MARWAN BISHARA: This is an exhausting list. Is he being harsh?
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: Yes. I think so. Quite a bit. I was not supposed to be the French lady on stage, but I have to.
MARWAN BISHARA: No, please. Please. Otherwise, I'm going to have to be the French lady on stage.
DOUGLAS YATES: The French lady.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: It would be dreadful. I discussed with an American diplomat. They said, OK, French speaking countries. Your history, your stuff. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
MARWAN BISHARA: How do you translate that into English?
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: Shoot first, dear, French people.
MARWAN BISHARA: A text that is written by President Hollande and President Obama, published in the Washington Post, about the deep, important, strategic relationship between the United States and France, especially in Africa. What is this relationship that suddenly has become so important? And why is it there?
DOUGLAS YATES: Well, each of these partners has something to offer in this region that's being called the Africanist. The United States, what does it have to offer? It has money, it has military hardware, things like drones, satellite information. It has a high tech capacity. What does France have to offer? Boots on the ground and intelligence, the one thing The United States can't get in French speaking Africa because it simply doesn't have the language. The businesses are competing for their strategic resources, but the governments are collaborating in the war on terror.
MARWAN BISHARA: But are they now finding that the bigger threat is not amongst themselves, but China? Economically speaking.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: Economically speaking, everybody acknowledges the power of China. They're saying, OK, we can't compete. They're just there. And they know we have to reorganize to find new ways to make business, new ways to make diplomacy, so that we can keep some influence.
MARWAN BISHARA: And Francafrique helps, in this sense.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: We speak a lot about the military intervention, but we don't speak about the [INAUDIBLE], for instance. 10 years from now, the biggest French speaking city in the world will be Kinshasa. So it's something very, very important.
MARWAN BISHARA: The cultural of entrenchment in Africa is an asset for Paris.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: Yes. And we aim to use it strategically.
MARWAN BISHARA: So in that sense, France and the US are getting involved to perhaps confront or contrast with the Chinese involvement?
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: Just to keep their share.
MARWAN BISHARA: So this is it. It's dividing the pie.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: We are all doing the same things, the same mistakes that we were doing the colonization.
MARWAN BISHARA: Dividing areas of influences within Africa.
HELENE QUENOT-SUAREZ: Yes. But the risk that is at stake--
MARWAN BISHARA: Yes.
You know, it's puzzling to me that the same France that condemned the American British invasion of Iraq would be so in denial over its own military interventions in Africa. Now here you have a country that is capable of debating anything from the smell of cheese to France's rightful place in Europe, but it's incapable of having a frank discussion over it's present and past relationship with Africa. As if, for France, Africa is a place where truth goes to sleep. What is more peculiar is France's anti-imperialist, socialist left that is no less in denial over France's imperialism in Africa.
So how do you feel now about France enlisting in America's war on terrorism in Africa?
MICHEL ROCARD: I don't like this relation and not even this formulation. I am afraid of the taste of the Americans for violence. And, in a way, afraid, too, of their youth. China, Britain, France are thousands year old countries with long historical experience. We are still ashamed of our last colonial wars. We have finished with all that. We have no more any strategic interest in Africa.
MARWAN BISHARA: But now Francois Holland wants to double the trade from 30 billion dollars to 60 billion dollars. How do you double the trade?
MICHEL ROCARD: You are strange. You have a strange way to the question. Francois would like to double the trade of France with the whole world.
MARWAN BISHARA: But the problem is, in Africa, you have been involved in four wars while you are talking about trade.
MICHEL ROCARD: You like to mix all the questions at once.
MARWAN BISHARA: They are mixed.
MICHEL ROCARD: The French reaction is the duty left by history that puts on us an obligation to go there, even if alone. You cannot rub out history. It's not my fault.
MARWAN BISHARA: France is a force-- let's call it a force of stability in Africa. Meaning Africans look to France, it has 10,000 soldiers, it has multiple bases, and it's involved in war, in intelligence on the continent. So it's normal for them to preference France for their trade because France is a power in Africa.
MICHEL ROCARD: Maybe for them. In my vision, we are fed up with all of that. I would have preferred not to have to go to Mali, not to have to send to Africa. But take Mali. They call for help. No one was ready. America was too busy with Iraq, where they should never have been, but they are. Anyway, we helped to destroy the killers. It was a two month operation. For the rest, it's their affair.
MARWAN BISHARA: But you're staying there, in Mali. You're not leaving Mali. Even after the UN comes--
MICHEL ROCARD: I am as sad as you are that all these Muslims, between themselves, are not capable to find ways to speak and to reconstruct friendship.
MARWAN BISHARA: All the new murderous groups, the religiously motivated, religious groups--
MICHEL ROCARD: Yes.
MARWAN BISHARA: Have all of them come out of result of foreign intervention? Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, ISIS in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, Shabaab in Somalia, et cetera, et cetera. Every time there is a foreign military intervention, it creates radical, extremist, violent groups. Aren't you doing the same thing in Sahel today?
MICHEL ROCARD: I'm not sure you're right. You may be.
MARWAN BISHARA: It's factual.
MICHEL ROCARD: I don't permit you to take so quick conclusions. It's another conversation.
MARWAN BISHARA: Are you trying to--
MICHEL ROCARD: If there is a terrorist zone in Central Africa, it will be, first of all, a worry for all of you. Muslim people are those who live there. The better you manage without calling for us is the best. It's up you to you to treat the problem. You will not draw me and you will not draw France backwards to colonialism.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARWAN BISHARA: Listening to the Chinese, and the Americans, and the French, you would think they're all out there to help Africans help themselves, as they say. The French want to help Africans build democratic institutions. The Americans want to help Africans build security structures. And the Chinese want to help them build the economic infrastructure. But the big question is, are Africans benefiting from the new competition? Or are they being squeezed by this new scramble?
JAMES SHIKWATI: The Chinese, if I used American lives, are living their dream. The Western countries are living their dreams. Africans are being forced to live other people's dreams. So in this--
MARWAN BISHARA: You mean Africa is living the China dream?
JAMES SHIKWATI: No. We've been living the Western countries' dreams. And now China is there with it's dream. It's yet to be clear whether Africa will live it's own dream.
PARSELELO KANTAI: We need to distinguish what the African agenda is. It's become very fashionable for African governments to talk about a new policy of looking East. The question, for me, is whether they're looking East or whether the Chinese are looking to Africa. So the question of what the African agenda is, is a very important one. Now if you look at the--
MARWAN BISHARA: But are Africans benefiting from the Chinese engagements in Africa?
PARSELELO KANTAI: Yes. On the one hand, there is an unequivocal yes. African governments are now free. They have now been freed to actually make deals on terms that they can live with.
MARWAN BISHARA: So the Chinese engagement is a step forward from the European and Western one?
PARSELELO KANTAI: In the terms in which it creating opportunities for African government to begin dreaming about a new infrastructure or modernization age.
JAMES SHIKWATI: We should not forget that when Western countries were also coming to Africa, they also looked friendly. They also came in the name of trade. They came even with infrastructure. In fact, the British built the Kenya, Uganda railway. And in that earlier stage, they were not talking about their colonizing anybody. How the Africans reacted at that time looks so similar to how Africans are reacting to China now, in terms of their [INAUDIBLE] with these good things that are coming, but they don't have game. What is critical is to pinpoint an African game or an African agenda. In the absence of which, it just becomes very difficult to celebrate any kind of achievement, in the absence of a goal in mind.
PARSELELO KANTAI: I'm constantly puzzled about the fact that there hasn't been an internal debate, on this continent, about what we want to do with the Chinese. The Chinese are constantly having these conferences and inviting African governments for these debates. But Africa, ourselves, whether on a regional level, at an African Union level, we have not actually had this debate. These are questions that need to be asked.
MARWAN BISHARA: I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical that Africa has the leadership, that it has the leverage, that it has the unity and the coordination to do any of this.
PARSELELO KANTAI: You have to understand that we're dealing with a continent that has been doubly, maybe even triply, wounded over the past 50 years. The sense of purpose that was driving the kind immediate post independence generation of nationalities, the whole independence dream for the continent, that's almost completely gone. You have the rhetoric. You have the rhetoric of it being banded around, but the meaning has been totally excavated from the nation.
MARWAN BISHARA: How is that? And why?
PARSELELO KANTAI: For different reasons. The kind of wars that were waged here, either proxy wars during the Cold War or else just civil wars over the last 40, 50 years--
MARWAN BISHARA: Or today, war on terror.
PARSELELO KANTAI: Today, the war on terror. But also, just as much, military and civil conflicts has been the kind of economic war, or the war on economic policy, that has been waged here. Economic policy has been externalized in a profound way.
MARWAN BISHARA: But it does have African agents. There's an African agency for that.
PARSELELO KANTAI: There are African boots on the ground at various treasuries, but the policies themselves are fundamentally neoliberal. And they are fundamentally pursuing a line that was developed by the West.
MARWAN BISHARA: But then that grew towards the Chinese and the competition between the Chinese and the rest. That has not changed that game in Africa.
PARSELELO KANTAI: Yes, but the terms-- it's more important to explore the terms on which an engagement with the Chinese is possible. In a post [INAUDIBLE] adjustment era, in a neoliberal age, how do you begin to negotiate your goods and services, your resources? You're constantly going to be pursuing and outsourcing kinds of projects. Projects that will privilege private capital and the privatization of collective resources and public goods.
MARWAN BISHARA: But that doesn't sound like development to me. It sounds like a lot of things. It doesn't sound like development.
JAMES SHIKWATI: Yes. For me, awareness is a good step. To first of all be aware that you are not playing your own game, you're playing somebody else's game. It's a good step now to [INAUDIBLE] on them. And in terms of the issues of trade, if you are not sitting down to think long term, then you're opening doors and benefiting short term. And then, eventually, your country or continent loses in the long term. So I think the issue of how to reverse this trend is really on our side, as Africans, to ask ourselves when we talk about industries. Who's running the industries in African?
PARSELELO KANTAI: We are a continent that is emerging from an era of intellectual surrender, intellectual policy surrender. Where your entire economic outlook and orientation was externalized. What is so encouraging, especially for political elites, about China is that we are freed from the conditionality regime that governed this continent for so long. There's a little bit of policy petulance, if I may call it that, amongst the elite at the moment. Saying to the West that we no longer need you. You can see, we now have China.
MARWAN BISHARA: I actually read, in the local press, a long expose about the rise of the African oligarchs. Do you agree with that?
JAMES SHIKWATI: We are in that state now, 50 years down the line. Because if we look at even how the political leadership changes, the word change does not really mean the dictionary aspect because it's the same group that keeps recycling itself.
MARWAN BISHARA: Right.
JAMES SHIKWATI: And holding the door on behalf of the country.
MARWAN BISHARA: Right.
JAMES SHIKWATI: Or on behalf of the region of the continent.
PARSELELO KANTAI: It's interesting to me when we talk about oligarchs because the oligarchs are actually a natural, historical outcome of the privatization of public resources. Changing the face of the so-called investor from an American, or a Chinese, or an Indian to an African face doesn't change the nature of the kind of exploitative, extractive policies that already are in motion. What you actually require is to totally revise or transform the nature of the game.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SAMATHA WEYA: I think it's a generational thing because our grandparents, per say, were dealing with the colonialists, literally. So it was, let's take in all this information and let's do it as they have told us. Our parents' generation is more or less, let's imitate the West. And that's a problem because the Western ways don't necessarily work for Africa. That's not what Africa needs. But I feel like our generation is taking a step forward.
I think part of the problem is people thinking there's no hope, there's no room for change. And that's an old thinking. So we need to flush out the old and encourage the new, encourage the ways of thinking and bring that forward.
MARWAN BISHARA: But the question is, now that you have multiple, global corporations and powers interested in Africa, is that giving you more room to maneuver and to get better deals? Or is that sandwiching you in among various interests?
ABUBAKAR ADDY: I think one thing also we should realize is, most of the time, Africans, we negotiate as single entities.
JANE BYANI: Yes.
SAMATHA WEYA: Yes.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: If Europe is negotiating, you see the European Union.
JANE BYANI: The European Union.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: You see the United States in Africa. You see China as very global, [INAUDIBLE] power. But Africa, we go as Ghana. We go as Sierra Leone. We go as Niger. You don't have bargaining power.
JANE BYANI: Yes, yes, yes.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: You're just simple economics. You're bargaining power has no strength. We need to negotiate as a block. And I see The African Capacity Building Foundation and The African Development Foundation. They should really try and maybe think about ways of we going and speaking with one voice. That's the only way we can go.
SAMATHA WEYA: It takes a movement. It takes a number of people getting into the system and changing the system from the inside out. Because otherwise, as individuals, you go, and you're fought by the system, and you get caught in the system, and you become redundant.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: I don't want to be in the non-governmental organization, I want to be in the government. The government has the last say. The government has the last say on how much tax you pay--
MARWAN BISHARA: I agree.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: In the private sector. And when you go to these meetings, and you listen to what the government officials have to say, and you're wondering, oh my god, is this the best we've got? Because as much of intellectual capacity-- they don't have so much. They never demand for anything.
MARWAN BISHARA: So it doesn't have to be just NGOs or business, people need to get into the decision making process and change government.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Exactly.
JANE BYANI: Exactly.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: We are the young generation, we'll change it.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Yes.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: We are the young generation. We will change it.
MARWAN BISHARA: Hooray. No, no--
RUTH MIYANDAZI: To us, to us, to us. Yes.
ABUBAKAR ADDY: No. We are the young generation, we will change it.
RUTH MIYANDAZI: Yes.
MARWAN BISHARA: I don't know about you, but I'm not buying into this whole French, Chinese, American argument that they're in the continent to help Africans help themselves. You know we, at Empire, take it for granted that global powers act out of self interest. But what's been striking for me making this episode is the dynamism and determination of African youth, those who make up 70% percent of the continent's population. Their political maturity has been striking to me. They have this pan-African vision that makes it indispensable for African countries and peoples to work together in order to turn the tables on those who are trying to carve the continent into pieces. Cliche, perhaps. Simple, yes. But I say, brilliant.
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 3B
Please visit the Lesson 9 Module in Canvas for a detailed assignment description.
China’s Maritime Disputes
Check Out: China's Maritime Disputes
- Go to the Council on Foreign Relations Interactive Article on China's Maritime Disputes [48].
- Read through the entire site using these instructions to ensure you're reading through/viewing all of the content:
- Play/watch the Overview Video
- The “Mapping the Claims” section is interactive. You can click on the countries to open additional information. And you can see the territorial claims by checking the click boxes for each country. You can click on the territorial area to open text to read on the territorial claims for that country.
- The “Historical Context” is also interactive. Once you scroll down past the paragraph labeled “Historical Context” you will see an interactive timeline. Click on the right arrow to advance the images and text to guide you through the timeline.
- The section titled “Power Projection” has a few different interactive features. The ‘bullseye’ image can be clicked on in various spots to relay more information. And, there is a slider tool that you can drag to the left/right to view the island building images and compare buildup of the islands over a span of time (between approximately 1-3 years time).
- The section on “Policy Options” begins with a video.
- There is a substantial “Further Reading” section listed under “Resources.” If you want to dig deeper into this issue, I do suggest checking this section out.
Sources:
“China’s Maritime Disputes.” [49] Interactive site. Council on Foreign Relations
Also, South China Seas Dispute during the Trump Administration
Hayton, B. (July 31, 2017) The Week Donald Trump Lost the South China Sea. [50] Foreign Policy.
De Luce, D. (November 16, 2017) With Trump Focused on North Korea, Beijing Sails Ahead in [51]South [51] China Sea [51]. Foreign Policy.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
This lesson gives a brief overview of the 'Rise of China' since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Contemporary China's domestic politics, economic growth (and recent stock market slides), global investment and development strategies, as well as its regional and global geopolitical ambitions are certainly much more complex than we can cover in one lesson. However, it is a start and should provide some foundation for you to further investigate and research in the coming years and months beyond this class - as the nation will certainly not shrink from geopolitical importance.
For More Information
Indeed, the Obama Administration has embraced its "pivot to Asia" as part of its geostrategic planning. For more information on this pivot, check out the following two links:
What Exactly Does It Mean that the US is Pivoting to Asia (The Atlantic, April 15th, 2013) [53]
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 9 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 9! Double-check the Lesson 9 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 10.
Lesson 10: North Korea
Overview
Introduction/Overview
We hear a lot about North Korea in the news these days, but many people are not really familiar with the history of the “Democratic Republic of North Korea” (DPRK), its government, and especially the everyday lives of its people. This module pulls together resources from a number of places to attempt to fill in the gaps in our knowledge in order to better understand the current geopolitical issues pertaining to North Korea.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- frame the context of the Korean War and the subsequent creation of North Korea and South Korea;
- examine the ways in which the Korean War was an extension of the Cold War;
- describe the general timeline of events relating to the development of nuclear arms in North Korea;
- describe North Korea’s development of cyber capabilities;
- discuss the humanitarian crisis ongoing in North Korea and the potential implications for neighboring countries (China, South Korea) and countries invested in the fall of the North Korean government;
- discuss the importance of China for negotiations with North Korea.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
The Korean War
These resources help us understand that the current manifestation of a North and South Korea date back to the Korean War—an extension of Cold War political struggles that waged war on the Korean Peninsula.
To Watch
Please watch the following video: Korean War Remembered (3:15).
To Read
Please read the following article that provides an overview of the Korean War.
The Korean War [54]
Nuclear North Korea
Despite North Korea’s relative isolation from the global community, it has gained prominence as a geopolitical threat to many in the region and throughout the globe because of its nuclear ambitions. The articles and timelines below discuss North Korea’s military capabilities. The extensive timeline highlights the development of North Korea's military arsenal as well as attempts at negotiations, and economic sanctions, towards a diplomatic solution.
To Read
North Korea’s Military Capabilities [55]. (read the entire page – all sections)
The US and North Korea on the Brink: A Timeline [56]
North Korea profile – Extensive Timeline [57] (including nuclear negotiations)
North Korea’s Cyber War
In addition to North Korea’s nuclear and missile developments, it has also engaged in cyber operations in an effort to disrupt the status quo operations of perceived enemies (whether state or non-state actors, ie/ Sony). Watch and read the resources below to learn more about North Korea’s cyber capabilities.
To Read/Watch
North Korea’s Cyber Capabilities: Assessing the strategic and analytical implications of North Korea's cyber operations capabilities [58] (video, 16 minutes)
Executive Summary: North Korea’s Cyber Operations: Strategy and Responses [59]
North Korea’s Humanitarian Crisis
Lastly, but certainly not least, these aforementioned developments (nuclear/missile and cyber warfare) tend to mask a large-scale humanitarian crisis that has been unfolding in North Korea for quite some time. The articles below highlight the humanitarian crisis ongoing in the DPRK and also posit that any strategy for dealing with the collapse or fall of the North Korean government will need to address a large-scale famine and mass-migration (towards China) in its aftermath.
To Read
Preventing a Post-Collapse Crisis in North Korea: How to Avoid Famine and Mass Migration [60]
Significant Food Shortages Likely in North Korea [61]
Fearing the Worst, China Plans Refugee Camps on North Korean Border [62]
Containing North Korea
Foreign policy/politics are unfolding at a very fast rate, such that previous stakeholder analyses do not always hold up to the quick-changing winds of the current US administration. Nonetheless, there have been key stakeholders on this issue that maintain relevance. The analysis below discusses China’s role in stabilizing Northeast Asia. Indeed, given Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent reception of DPRK Leader Kim Jong-Un, it seems that China will maintain its prominent role in any upcoming negotiations, dialogues or discussions.
To Read
A Sharper Choice on North Korea: Engaging China for a Stable Northeast Asia [63]
Geopolitical Analysis Blog Post 4B
Please visit the Lesson 10 Module in Canvas for a detailed assignment description.
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- frame the context of the Korean War and the subsequent creation of North Korea and South Korea;
- examine the ways in which the Korean War was an extension of the Cold War;
- describe the general timeline of events relating to the development of Nuclear arms in North Korea;
- describe North Korea’s development of cyber capabilities;
- discuss the humanitarian crisis ongoing in North Korea and the potential implications for neighboring countries (China, South Korea) and countries invested in the fall of the North Korean government;
- discuss the importance of China for negotiations with North Korea.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 10 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 10! Double-check the Lesson 10 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 11.
Lesson 11: Environmental Geopolitics - Security and Sustainability
Overview
In this lesson, we will discuss another global structure that frames geopolitical agency: the environment. This geopolitical topic has been highlighted by academics and social movements concerned about environmental degradation and the sustainability of the planet. This lesson will investigate the ways the environment has become “securitized” or seen as an object toward which traditional geopolitical practices must be targeted in order to provide security.
Lesson Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- discuss the topic of environmental geopolitics;
- identify different ways to understand environment-society relations;
- apply the term Anthropocene to explain the current situation;
- discuss the securitization of the environment in the Anthropocene age;
- explain how the environment has become a part of the geopolitical code of states;
- give examples of how environmental threats are represented;
- discuss the geography of resource conflicts; and
- interpret the geopolitics of oil.
Required Readings and Assignments
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
Questions?
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Humans and the Environment
Required Reading Reminder
Please begin by reading Chapter 8 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Flint identifies four approaches to understanding human-environment introduction.
Approach #1) Humans are to Blame I: Malthus
Hi, I'm John Green. This is Crash Course World History and today we're talking about one of my least favorite subjects, the end of humanity. Mr. Green! Mr. Green! Does that mean that you can see the future? If so, how do things work out with Amanda Key? Oh, me from the past, the phrase "work out" implies that there was a relationship to work out, which there wasn't, and there will never be. However, you do currently know your eventual wife. But I'm not telling you who she is, because if I do you will screw it up!
[INTRO MUSIC]
So we're not gonna look at the actual end of humanity today. We're going to learn about a theory about the downfall of civilization. And unlike all the true theories, this one doesn't involve aliens, or robots, or robot aliens. But it is related to environmental catastrophes of the man-made variety. Today we're going to look at population and the most persistent theory about population growth and its effect on humanity. The one proposed by Thomas Malthus. And what's amazing about the persistence of this theory, is it's complete lack of connection to actual human history. All right so in 10,000 BCE fewer than a billion people lived on earth. Nearly 12,000 years later, around 1800 CE, human population had grown to... still under a billion. At about that time, an Anglican minister, named Thomas Malthus wrote an essay on the principle of population. That explained why this slow population growth was the way things were always going to be. Malthus saw the growing number of poor people on the English streets and he did what any reasonable thinker would do, he analogized them to rabbits. He reasoned that the same forces that checked the population of rabbits would limit humans too. Predators, harsh weather, epidemics, and starvation. Now it turns out that humans have ways of dealing with predators, we killed all the lions. And also we've got this amazing way of dealing with harsh weather that rabbits have never figured out called clothes. Not to even get in to fire and housing. So that leaves us with alien predators, disease, and starvation as the big obstacles. Okay, we're going to address these one at a time. First, Arnold Schwarzenegger already took care of the alien predators. Thank you Mr. Schwarzenegger, in exchange we made you Governor of California. Then we have disease. So around the time Malthus was writing, disease was becoming less dangerous to human populations. And then there's starvation, right, well we've argued in the past that starvation is generally a man-made problem. But to Malthus, it was still a natural disaster. For Malthus, uncontrolled reproduction was the central problem. Remember, he was, you know, coming from the context of rabbits. He explained it through math. Humans could reproduce geometrically, capable of doubling population every 25 years, but land on Earth is finite and at best, it could only be coaxed into producing small, arithmetic, increases in food. So you've got population growing geometrically, food growing arithmetically, all the people are gonna die. Now among simpler creatures, the theory went food shortages caused immediate famine. But humans would continue to eek out ever more desperate lives, as increasing demand raised the price of food, and clothing, and bread, and medicine. Powerful individuals and nations would seize the assets of the weak, but even some of the strong would fall victim to hunger and disease. Inevitably the population would then dip low enough for the land to recover. Giving another generation a chance to repeat the same mistakes. Over time then, human population would remain roughly constant with the natural fertility of the land. Because he was such a fun guy, Malthus called this theory of history "The Cycle of Misery." This essay is one of the most influential pieces of writing in history, along with a handful of other works, it established the methods and importance of the modern field of economics. It opened the door to the universe of evolutionary science. And most immediately, Malthusian theory played a devastating role in the Irish Potato Famine of 1846-1851.
Let's go to the sure to be depressing, Thought Bubble. Nearly 1 million Irish people died of starvation, disease, and violence during the famine, which was triggered when a fungus wiped out the one strain of potato grown in Ireland. Had Ireland's poor population had access to the thousands of other varieties of potato or aid to purchase more expensive crops, the suffering may not have been as terrible. But official English policy toward Ireland, as determined by its colonial master Charles Trevelyan, was to give no aid nor allow anyone else to give it either. He blocked American ships filled with corn from reaching the island. He allowed Irish farms that grew crops other than potatoes to sell them straight to England. Now hundreds of years of anti-Irish Catholic hatred, were the roots of England's cruel policies. But Malthusian theory also played a role. In the century before 1846, Ireland's population had grown significantly, and many English thinkers saw the famine as an outcome of Malthus' predictions. From this point of view, providing food or aid to the Irish was futile - it could only delay the cycle of misery until it's downward swings scythed down even more people. Trevelyan thus felt assured of pronouncing that the only remedy for the starving was for them to die, and let their corpses serve to remind the survivors not to have sex. Quote, "the judgment of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson and that calamity must not be too much mitigated". Trevelyan reassured people upset about the news of starving children, the real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse, and turbulent character of the people. Thanks Thought Bubble.
So why did Ireland want independence in the first place? Oh right, yeah that! So by 1852, emigration and starvation had shrunk the population of Ireland from about 6.5 million to 4 million. In 2010, the islands population was still lower than at the famine's start. So Malthusian theory seemed to have it's airtight proof, right? Well, no. In fact, even as Malthus was writing, the curve of human population growth was beginning to slope upward. The increase in population was so gradual that all Malthus noticed of it, were the outliers, the poor clinging to life. But the growth in the number of human beings was far more permanent than Malthus ever imagined. In fact, it was unstoppable. From 1750 to 1850, right when Malthus was alive, the number of humans on Earth grew by half a billion people. From about 800 million to 1.3 billion. By 1960, the population reached 3 billion. And since then, the world has added a billion humans roughly every 15 years. Sometime in 2009 or 2010, the United Nations estimates that the Earth's 7 billionth person was born. Consider that contrast, at the very moment that Malthus was writing that it was impossible, human population was beginning it's rocket like acceleration. So what did he miss? Well, Malthus was like an A+ student in the subject of human existence, he was right for like 95% of history. But it turns out, grades aren't a super accurate predictor of success in life. Malthus should have looked past prominent disasters like the potato famine and recognized that two major revolutions in food production were occurring while he was alive. One of the reasons that he struck out so spectacularly is that, like many Western thinkers, he wasn't paying attention to China. So Chinese farmers had altered the land, and used a number of inventions like dykes, and paddle wheels, and bicycle chains, to grow rice in man-made paddies. It took a lot of labor, but it paid off. Especially when they discovered that by using the entrails and bones of the fish that swam in the water, they could get you know, fertilizer! And then they could grow two rice crops in one year. Thus, the secret of China's greatness: food! And with the benefit of added surplus, fortunate people in China were able to free up their time to study and to invent. Yet, while the birth of this system had begun in the ancient past, additions to it continued throughout Chinese history and progressed straight through the Qing dynasty.
But agriculture was also changing in Europe during Malthus' lifetime. Like there's Jethro Tull's seed press, the crop rotation system developed by Charles "Turnip" Townsend, and animal husbandry practiced by scientific farmers such as Robert Bakewell, who increased the size of his sheep by selective breeding. So it kinda seems impossible that Malthus could have missed this revolution, because he could see it from his house in Surrey England. But from his perspective, that agricultural revolution had the opposite effect of what had happened in China. Like instead of giving people more food, and more comfort, it seemed to Malthus that it was driving them to greater misery. That's because, for lots of Europeans the agricultural revolution was largely about evictions. The most important innovation of Europe's agricultural was largely invisible. It was the decision to treat land as private property. So for most Europeans, the concept that individual humans could own, like, land was a foreign concept. Even as late as 1500, most of Europe conceived of land as rightly belonging solely to its creator - God. And then God's anointed on earth - kings and the Church - could parcel out packets of land to people they chose. But any land not specifically granted to a land lord, remained open to anyone who wanted to use it. This open land was called the commons. And in parts of Europe it made up more than half of the territory. But then around 1100 CE, British monarchs found themselves perpetually strapped for cash and they needed new taxes. So in return for voting for tax increases and gifts, the crown granted enclosure acts to rich Englishman. Giving them the right to fence off the commons and claim it as their own. So the people who'd used that land to graze animals, or cut wood, or grow crops could be forced off of it. And for the first time, richer people could maintain miles of fenced in property to pasture their sheep or dig mines. Meanwhile the dispossessed, deprived of their opportunity to grow or hunt their own food, turned to beggary and theft, and to London. Where they hired out their labor for wages.
Wages?! That's not how humans should live! Having to fill out time cards and punch clocks! Wait - Stan...don't you make wages? Ugh, it's horrible. Myself, I live off the land. If I can't grow it, I won't eat it!
So by the time Malthus was a young man, things weren't great for the poor and dispossessed. So it's a small wonder that Malthus only saw the downside of the agricultural revolution. Only through historical hindsight, do we know that private property accelerated incentives to experiment with new methods of food production, which dramatically increased the amount of food produced. Like before enclosure, it wouldn't have made sense for someone to buy a seed press and plant neat rows of seeds because anybody with a cow could have trampled on them an hour later. The lower food prices created by more food supply began to ease the cycle of misery that Malthus described, although only just barely.
So in fact, agricultural innovations proved that Malthus was almost entirely wrong. So, why is he still influential? I think because there's a very seductive logic to the idea that resources, especially food, are finite. I mean, we live on one planet that has a certain amount of arable land and surely at some point humans will suck up all of the resources. And this is especially true in the age of global climate change. In 2014, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report that warned of the potential for warmer temperatures to restrict food supplies in the face of growing demand. In fact, it claimed that rising temperatures had already diminished wheat production by 2% per decade. While demand for food was rising at 14% over the same period. Food prices, which had been declining steadily until 2007, have been volatile since then. Sometimes leading to famine other times to political unrest. And those are real problems that may yet prove disastrous. But other doom and gloom scenarios regarding population and food, most notably the 1968 book The Population Bomb, have proven wrong at least so far. In fact, fewer people will die of starvation this year than died 500 years ago of starvation, even though we have far more people on Earth. And there's still lots of room to improve agricultural yields. But simply knowing that Malthus was wrong, isn't as interesting as thinking about why he was wrong. Malthus underestimated how successful we would be at adapting to environmental constraints. And he underestimated the role that technology and innovation could play in creating a world where more humans could live. Now, of course, that hasn't come without its costs - including climate change. And that's why I think Malthus remains so influential. Human existence is not a zero-sum game. It is possible for me to benefit and other people also to benefit. But it's also true that many resources that we imagine as infinite - aren't. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.
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An Essay on the Principle of Population (Malthus)
- Food supply is the critical limiting factor to human population growth. People will exhaust the food supply, unless something is done to curb population growth.
- The proposed solution by Malthusians: laws to limit human reproduction (especially of poor people).
- Historical context: English Industrial Revolution – technological innovations were eliminating jobs faster than new ones were established, causing a “surplus” of labor. Wealthy individuals were particularly wary of this “surplus” population, leading to the enactment of so-called poor laws to regulate begging and public behavior (of the poor).
Approach #2) Humans are to Blame II: Marx
- Critics of Malthus: Marx and Engels argued that a combination of technological innovation and a more equitable distribution of resources would solve the fictitious (socially constructed/created) imbalance between people and food.
- While Malthus argued that drew attention to the actions of the poor, Marx drew attention to the exploitative actions and excessive consumption of the wealthy. This, he argued, was the problematic nature of capitalism.
- Redistribution of resources, particularly in the form of Communism was his proposed solution to the problem of exploitation and limited resources.
- Ultimately, Marx’s contribution to thinking about the relationship between population growth and environmental degradation is to understand that population growth isn’t necessarily the problem, rather it is the unequal distribution of resources that allows for high mass consumption by some while others are left to engage in unsustainable resource extraction for survival (individual scale) or economic development/competition (e.g., clearing of rainforests for cattle grazing for fast food companies, at the national scale).
Approach #3) Humans May Hold the Solution: Boserup
Ester Boserup noted that people in developing countries make adaptations to their agricultural practices in the face of specific problems. People will innovate and problem solve, providing a “technical fix” to ameliorate environmental problems. The problem with this solution is that it puts its faith in a future-oriented technical solution to achieve some fictitious utopia. It does not call to question the impacts of high mass consumptive behavior.
Boserup did not view larger populations as a bad thing—rather, she believed that it forces innovation, technological development, and more human capital allows for more problem solvers.
Approach #4) The Problem is a Human One
This view focuses on the pivotal moment of the Industrial Revolution for both humans and the natural environment. Indeed, it marks what we call the beginning of the Anthropocene—where humans come to play a central role in influencing environmental change. This is most succinctly observed if we investigate anthropogenic (human-induced) global climate change. Acknowledgement of the age of the Anthropocene requires a reconsideration of nature-society relations, and subsequently our approaches to security and geopolitics.
To Learn More
For greater discussion of the Anthropocene, read the following short articles and watch their embedded videos:
Martini, B. (2013, July 11). 'Anthropocene' Period Would Recognize Humanity's Impact on Earth' [64]. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
A man-made world. [65] (2011, May 28). Retrieved April 16, 2015.
(Read the article and watch the video at the bottom of the article.)
Griffiths, S. (2015, January 16). Dawn of the ANTHROPOCENE era: New geological epoch began with testing of the atomic bomb, experts claim. [66] Retrieved April 16, 2015.
Securitizing the Environment
Abstract of: Securitizing Climate Change: Expectations and Concerns:
Climate change is increasingly understood as a significant threat to national and global security. But while the securitization of climate change may have raised hopes of finding a more effective response, it has also generated concerns that environmental problems are becoming increasingly militarized, argues Rafaela Rodrigues de Brito.
- By Rafaela Rodrigues de Brito for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Read full article of: Securitizing Climate Change: Expectations and Concerns [67]
The Return of Malthus
Neo-Malthusians:
- A growing population is the biggest threat to the environment.
- Although people in core countries consume more, strict demographic controls are needed everywhere to solve the problem – even severely coercive tactics where necessary.
To Watch
Watch Three’s a Crowd? The Battle Over Population and Reproduction, through minute 11:39.
Transcript of Three’s a Crowd? The Battle Over Population and Reproduction Video
[MUSIC]
ADRIAN SCOTT, PRINCIPAL OF ENABLE SOLUTIONS: We have a finite planet. We've already consumed the accessible high grade deposits of most of the crucial non-renewable resources, and it's worse for the renewable resources. We are already consuming more than the natural machine can replace. This means we're literally eating into our capital such as the breeding stock of a fishery. Once that capital is gone, the resource ceases to exist totally. The poster child here is climate change, but that's not the only crisis, there are many others such as extinctions, deforestation, destruction of the soil. Solving this problem requires we reduce our total impact on the planet and on its ecosystem. This impact is made up of only three factors: the average affluence per person times the effective technology measured as a percentage (the lower being better) times the number of people. To reduce humanity's impact, we have to reduce one or more of these three. Especially in the environmental movement, the focus is on reducing affluence totally, but that isn't going to work. Most of us will simply refuse to adopt a third world standard of living that it would require to succeed. Others believe that our ingenuity will produce the new technology needed to allow us to have the same standard of living, but with lower impact, however this faith is rooted in the market mechanism with rising resource prices making it profitable to supply the new technology as a business. Logical. Yet for many key resources, drinking water may be the crucial one. Government prevents prices from rising, so if the market simply doesn't get back the signal. Moreover, the scale involved. It takes a great deal of money and considerable time to develop and distribute a new technology. That leaves only population reduction, fortunately, this one works. The UN estimates that an amazing 1/3 of current births are unwanted. Simply avoiding these would reverse population growth. When women learn about contraceptives and have access to the means for it, they in general reduce their fertility voluntarily, substantially and quickly. No coercion is needed, and the cost is very, very low. The problem here isn't carbon emissions, that's a symptom. The underlying cause is absolutely clear, there are too many of us.
DR. AUSTEN IVEREIGH, CATHOLIC COMMENTATOR; LEAD ORGANISER OF WEST LONDON CITIZENS: The lens through which the populations view the problems of the world is is one of pathologic anxiety and I use pathological in it's correct and proper sense meaning an obsessive focus on one side of the problem. The multiplication of human beings is in itself a frightening and awesome phenomenon from we as a planet and as a population need to be defended. Ever since Malthus argued that without war and pestilence and famine human numbers would outstrip food production, ever since the late 1700s there has been this same pathologic anxiety reoccurring in almost every generation. Production on the whole has increased along with population growth, and there is no reason to think this wouldn't continue. The key resource is human beings, not the key problem. Large families in poor countries are on the whole a necessary response to the absence of opportunity, the need for rural communities to be self sustaining. Those are the problems that need to be dealt with. The population debate has now moved on to the impact of the demographic growth on the environment. Now human beings are looked at not as primary consumers of dwindling resources, but now as emitters of greenhouse gases. So suddenly if we reduce the number people, we reduce the emissions and therefore somehow solve our environmental problem. This is merely a tactical shifting of the ground on the part of the populationist. They know that their arguments about the need for fewer poor people are unacceptable, so they're now trying to seize a share of the moral ground which is now occupied by the green movement. But I'm afraid the same arguments hold here too. People are the source of resolving the green crisis, the ecological crisis, not simply the cause of it. I believe openist life is the center of true development, and what I mean by that is that our focus must be on the welfare of human beings, it must start from human need. It must trouble us, it must keep us awake at night. The people born into poverty and without opportunity. And we need to organize our societies and our planets so humans are nurtured into life and not chased off the planet.
MARK WALPORT, DIRECTOR OF WELLCOME TRUST: The first thing that we're all going to agree about, I'd say for anyway, is that coercion isn't the answer. We're asked whether it's moral imperative that we should alter population. I don't think it's moral imperative, I think it's actually a judgment based on evidence. When a population reproduces in the presence of finite resources, then at some point a catastrophe happens to that population. And I think the issue in the sense of population control is that it will happen. The question is will it happen nicely or will it happen nastily? Will we in fact go on reproducing at the rate we are? In which case something ghastly will happen, we'll run out of resources, we're soiling the planet, or in fact will human development mean that actually we're in enabled to control our population? So, I think the essence is if we are going to get there it has to be through choice, and what we have to do is enable people's choice. And again, I think if you look at the evidence, there's this process which is called demographic transition. And one can look at the evolution of the populations in the following way. In a completely undeveloped environment, the death rate is very high because the conditions are unsanitary, there's often infection, and the birth rate is very high as well. In that situation you have a very balanced population. What's happening in the developing world and what's happened in all societies at different stages of development, is that the death rate has gone down, the food supply has improved, sanitation has improved, basic healthcare has become available, and that's the situation in which you get very dramatic population growth. But then, as populations become urbanized, as there's a transition towards development, as contraception becomes available, children survive, they require education, they go out to work, and people actually start making choices about whether they have children or not. And that's why contraception is so important in the choice people make. And then we get to the situation in the most developed countries in the world where birth rates are actually in many countries below replacement rates. So, I think we can see actually a natural evolution where it becomes to people's advantage not to have too many children. They way that we're going to engender population change in the development world, is actually by making sure we reduce child mortality, we reduce maternal mortality, we feed children better. But where I depart from you radically, is that at that point those populations need contraceptives. But what I would just emphasize in closing that choice requires access to free contraception.
DR. ELLIE LEE, LECTURER IN SOCIAL POLICY AT UNIVERSITY OF KENT: I think we need to repose this debate in the way it happened, and has happened historically. Over time, the debate around population has really been one that's posed between two perspectives. One which broadly speaking you can call antinatalist, so that's to say one which tends to represent birth, population is a problem for development. The other pronatalist sees birth and population growth as positive for development. So that's the kind of line of debate. I think there's a need to repost the issue because where I'm coming from, actually these two movements and these two outlooks on the world have more in common than sets them apart. Both movements are either pro or antinatalist, perceive reproductive decisions and what happens in people's family life an entirely appropriate area for intervention in the interest of the greater good. So both movements pose to us the idea that is societal problem and the way that we should go about resolving this societal problem is to encourage people to have more children or less children. And I know this panel is set up as if we sort of argue two against two. I don't mind this, but I actually think it's three against one and I just want to make my position clear on that because I'm opposed to everybody else. [LAUGHTER] I very, very strongly oppose the idea that we should see reproductive life and family life as an area of society which we seek to manipulate and influence in the interest of the greater good. I think in whichever form it takes, the moralization and politicization of private life is a really problematic thing to do. I think private life is a very fragile thing. Our privacy is a hard win gain. It's taken a very, very long time for civilized societies to develop ideas about privacy and intimacy which we culturally hold in high regard in which we value. And we seize to protect it's space an area of freedom in which individuals can shape their own destinies, make decisions that they conceive are right. From my point of view, what I perceive as the most important moral imperative, it matters more than anything else, is guarding that realm of freedom and privacy and intimacy. Both pronatalist and antinatalist movements, have really moved back from suggesting that they have anything to do with coercion or the state or laws or anything like that. No, no, no that's not turfs, we're not into the one child policy. If you're antinatalist, we're not trying to ban abortion. If you're from the Catholic church, all time telling us what they're into is empowering women. And this brings me to my second point which is I think there's a huge level of dishonesty about what they're really saying to women here. At the very least, women should expect from them a level of honesty about what they're saying. Which is what they are really saying, is they think women make bad, wrong decisions. What the Catholic church and the pro-life lobby really thinks is that women shouldn't have abortions and I think it would actually love it if there were laws that made abortions much harder to get. I very much doubt Adrian would be manning the barricades if the Government did introduce a two children policy. In opposition to that policy, I think he would probably applaud it. Women want to have sometimes three or four children because that's the way they perceive it to be best, pursue their family and develop their family. Even if those pregnancies are unplanned, then they come to private decisions with their partners in the context of thinking about their family life is the way to resolve it. I'm just saying that where all these women who got into this situation because they didn't have proper contraception, I just think isn't true. That's not why women have more than two children. So if you're really saying stop at two, what you're really saying is that if you decide to have three children or four children you are doing something which is morally wrong and at least you should have the honesty to come out with that position and be clear about what you're really saying to women.
What many Neo-Malthusians fail to consider is that environmental degradation in the periphery is often connected to consumption in the core. Think about it, we don’t just outsource manufacturing (labor) to China and other semi-periphery and periphery states. Natural resource extraction (for oil, lumber, etc.) as well as raw resources for manufacturing goods and textiles are not primarily located in core nations—poor semi-peripheral and peripheral nations are the sites of such resource extraction. Our consumption in the core contributes to environmental degradation in the global south.
Territory, Conflict and the Environment
The Flint (2016) textbook only briefly covers the topic of water wars in the section Water Wars? Interstate and Everyday Geopolitics (pages 267-269). Let’s expand on this case study of water wars and bring it into conversation with the section on Territory, Conflict and the Environment. Review this section in the book (from pages 270-274) and then watch and read the material linked below.
To Watch
Been cause for bitter disputes among nations, but for many it may be a surprise to hear that it's water rather or oil or gas that's becoming a reason for conflict. And you can see on this map right here that the world has witnessed close to one hundred and eighty disputes over water resources since nineteen fifties. These include small clashes and protests as well as more serious large-scale conflict. One example is the tensions in the Middle East where the struggle for water is a key issue and some ongoing conflict. Artis Boslear has more.
The Bible tells us that within a short distance from here Jesus turned water into wine. Two thousand years later, the greater miracle might be turning the wine back into water. Babi Kabalo has been living in the Golan Heights for over 30 years. Each day he attends to his vineyard and orchards keeping his wine in a cellar that was once a Syrian bunker. He is proud of the wine he produces but knows that in the absence of water none of this would be possible.
BABI KABALO, WINEMAKER: Water is important because it's the second main resource that we have other than the lamb. Each crop needs water and without it you will destroy all the crops and destroy all of the farming here. It can turn the Golan Heights into a desert.
And it's not just about the Golan Heights. Rainwater from its catchment feeds into the River Jordan providing a third of Israel's water supply. The disputed region was seized from Syria after the six-day war and residents of the Golan remember that water was a key issue in the conflict.
AVI ZERIA, LOCAL RESIDENT: Anyone who stands here understands the importance of Golan water supply of Israel, because every drop of water that is raining here on the Golan is flying to the sea of Gallity. So we can say it is a must for the state of Israel to have control over these water sources.
It's a worldwide rule that whoever controls the water controls the land, but the problem is in some cases there's very little water to go around. MARTIN SHERMAN, FOUNDER, ISRAEL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES: When you have a common water source shared by several sovereign nations, there's always a possibility of clash of interest. Conflicts that should be manageable will spin out of control.
And examples of possible conflicts are plentiful. Syria's major water sources travel through Turkey and Iraq making it vulnerable while Jordan is reliant on a river with Syria water dam. Egypt also recently expressed concern over countries using the Upper Nile to generate electric power.
PAULA SLIER: In the dry landscape of the Middle East, water is a prize more precious than diamonds. In its absence famine and drought are quick to follow, but this is a region that very seldom needs an excuse for war and water shortages might just tip the balance. Paula Slier in the Golan Heights.
As mentioned in the report Egypt is becoming increasingly concerned over a construction project on the Upper Nile. The country relies greatly on the river where upstream Ethiopia is currently building a massive dam. Political science professor Said Sadek says Egypt it may face serious consequences when the project is completed in 2017.
SAID SADEK, POLITICAL SCIENTIST, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO: We have to remember that Egypt has only six to seven percent of its land. The rest of the Egyptian territory is desert. So that can really be serious, affecting national security. And that's why immediately when the Ethiopians raise the issue of the high dam there were some experts here in Egypt that were talking about going into a war with Ethiopia because if you cut water on us we will be dying. Eighty-five percent of the water, Egyptian water comes from Ethiopia and so it's serious. In fact, in 2050 Egypt will be 150 million people and we would be needing in addition to the fifty 5.5 billion cubic meter are 21 billion cubic meter extra. What would happen to Egypt in the year 2050 if we don't have more water?
To Read
Goldenberg, S. (2014, February 8). Why global water shortages pose threat of terror and war. [69]
Harrington, C. (2014, April 15). Water Wars? Think Again: Conflict Over Freshwater Structural Rather Than Strategic [70] | New Security Beat. (less alarmist, more strategically thinking)
After reviewing the above materials, think about how water is discussed in geopolitical terms and how various states (e.g., Egypt, India, China) integrate discourses of national security, development, and so forth (in relation to water) with their geopolitical code and strategy.
Oil, Empire and Resource Wars
After reading the section in Flint (2016) on Oil, Empire and Resource Wars, you should be familiar with the argument, as quoted on p. 276 by David Harvey that " 'whoever controls the Middle East controls the global oil spigot and whoever controls the oil spigot can control the global economy, at least for the near future' (2003, p. 19).”
Flint goes on to state that “(t)he contemporary geopolitics of oil is a complex mixture of global supply, increased demand related to economic growth (and especially the trajectory of India and China), a territorial focus upon military presence in the Middle East, and the flow through trade networks of oil exports” (2016, p. 276).
To Read
This article by Richard Heinberg, titled “Resource Wars: Geopolitics in a World of Dwindling Energy Supplies” [71] (June 20, 2011) further examines the global landscape for geopolitics of oil.
Oil is not the only commodity for which war has been fought. The Business Insider website [72] provides a summary of nine wars over the past few hundred years.
Lastly, though not discussed in Flint (2016), it is worth thinking about a commodity that we take for granted (in fact, most of us have probably never thought of it as a “commodity”), but which literally underpins much global development and modernization processes: sand.
The following article, The Deadly Global War for Sand [73] by Vince Beiser (3/26/2015) investigates how sand has become one of the most sought-after natural resource commodities of the 21st Century.
Supplemental Films
The New Great Game: The Decline of the West & the Struggle for Middle Eastern Oil [74] (Kanopy Films - 54 minutes)
Blind Spot: Peak Oil and the Coming Global Crisis
RICHARD HEINBERG, JOURNALIST/EDUCATOR: We humans have been using energy for as long as we've been around. We extract energy from our environments in various ways. Food is the most basic form of energy, and then we exert energy into our environment by way of muscle power. We've been doing that for a very long time, and gradually, using our intelligence, opposable thumbs, language, all of these special gifts, we've been able to increase our ability to extract energy from the environment: by way of fire, agriculture, harnessing animals to carts and sleds and all kinds of things, but with fossil fuels, we came across an energy source that was far beyond anything we had been using previously. Those of us who are alive today take fossil fuels for granted. We've always had them around - doesn't matter whether you're 20 years old or 70 years old - we've all grown up during this unique, historic period of cheap abundant energy from coal, oil and natural gas.
Even 150 years ago, something like 65% of the work being done in the American economy was being done by horses, oxen, mules; another 18% or so was done just by human muscle power, and the rest, less than 20% of the work getting done, was being done by fuel fed machines. Now, virtually all the work is being done by fuel fed machinery. The contribution of muscle power is virtually nonexistent by comparison. Imagine pushing your car 20 or 30 miles. That's what we get from a single gallon of gasoline that we pay maybe two dollars and fifty cents for. That amount of work is roughly equivalent to 6-8 weeks of hard human labor. Imagine getting 6-8 weeks of hard human labor for two dollars and fifty cents. That's what we've gotten used to.
LESTER BROWN, FOUNDER OF EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE: I think it's fair to say that oil is the lifeline of our modern global economy. It is the principal energy source sustaining our civilization. The problem is, for the last 25 years or so, world oil production has exceeded new oil discoveries, so the reserves of oil in the world are now shrinking, and shrinking reserves will soon convert into declining production. This new world, with declining oil production, which could begin any year now - could be this year, next year, five years from now, but I think it's close, it's immanent. And it's going to create a world very different from any we've known before, simply because throughout our lifetimes, oil production has always been increasing. I think the world of declining oil production will be so different from the one of rising oil production and oil use that we'll hardly recognize it. It's going to change almost everything we do, almost every facet of our lives and every sector of the economy. When historians write about this period they may use the nomenclature BPO and APO, before peak oil and after peak oil. So I think there's been a public information campaign to discourage the world from gearing up and seriously preparing for a world in which oil production will be declining.
RICHARD HEINBERG, JOURNALIST/EDUCATOR: Peak oil is a term that's used pretty frequently these days to describe the time when the world's rate of oil production is going to reach a maximum and then start to decline. Now the reason we know that this is going to happen is that this happens in individual oil fields all the time. We find an oil field, gradually begin to exploit it, the rate of extraction increases, then when about half of the oil is gone, the rate of extraction peaks, starts to decline, and the tail end could go on for a very long time, but it will never reach the same rate of extraction that it did when it was at peak. The same is true of whole oil producing countries, like the United States. The U.S. used to be the world's foremost oil-producing nation back in the early part of the 20th century. U.S. reached its peak of production in 1970. It's been declining ever since. The same is going to happen to the world as a whole. No one disagrees about that. There is some controversy as to exactly when that's going to happen. But everyone agrees it will happen. And when it does, it will change virtually everything about how we live in the modern world because without energy nothing happens.
ALBERT BARTLETT, PROF. EMERITUS OF PHYSICS: No matter how you cut it, young people today, you folks, you're going to see the peak of world oil production. And you gotta ask: what is life going to be like when we have declining oil production and growing world population and growing world per capita demand for oil? What's gonna happen? Well, I think the only thing you can say with some reasonable assurance is that prices are going to go up. And I think the recent price increases that we have seen for liquid petroleum are just a harbinger of this. It's on its way now. The price goes up and down. It's, again, a noisy system. It fluctuates. There's a big hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, takes out some of the production platforms, price goes way up and the production recovers and prices come back down. But it won't come back down to where it started, and it's on a rising trend, and I suspect you'll see this trend rising very, very rapidly as we go past the peak.
TED CAPLOW, MECHANICAL/ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER: Food and energy are, and always have been, very closely related. Today, we use an incredible amount of energy in agriculture - many times what we did before industrialization, and more and more energy all the time. If oil prices were to dramatically rise, say they were to double over night, you would see broad impacts rippling through the agricultural sector because the agricultural sector depends on energy. Farmers would be paying more for tractor fuel, truckers would be paying more for truck fuel, and the price in the super market would have to go up so that those industries could survive. So an energy crisis becomes a food crisis. The other thing that is happening today between energy and agriculture is bio fuels, so, for instance, in this country, we grow a lot of corn for ethanol, and as the cost of petroleum fuels rise, the competitiveness of the energy crops rises. So a farmer would be more inclined to grow corn for ethanol than to grow a food crop because ethanol competes with petroleum fuels. So there's kind of a two-pronged effect.
DAVID PIMENTEL, GLOBAL AGRICULTURALIST: The U.S. Department of Energy put me on a committee as advisor to the Secretary of Energy, and he at that - way back in 1980 - asked me to chair a study on ethanol because it was so much conflicting information. And I must admit it still remains conflicting today. All of these studies have documented that the energy inputs to produce ethanol, well biodiesel, from corn, from soybeans, from switch grass, wood, and so forth - all have turned out to be energy negative; that is, it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol and/or biodiesel than the energy that is contained in the biodiesel and/or ethanol. We have some people in the USDA who felt that ethanol, despite the data that we put together, could be very helpful, and they sold the politicians this bill of goods, ignoring the question of ethics of burning food to produce fuel and the problems in the world where we've got 3.7 billion people who are malnourished on earth today, the largest number ever in the history of the earth.
BILL MCKIBBEN, ENVIRONMENTALIST: One of the ways that you can tell - one of the sectors where you can see most easily how fossil fuel has transformed our way of life in this country is when you consider that a century ago half of Americans were farmers. Now that number is under 1%. The census bureau - you can't even check off 'farmer' as one of your occupations because there aren't enough people to make them worth it listing it. There's a lot more people in prison than working on the farm. In the first place, there's a lot of people who would like to work on the farm and have been chased off it by the endless commercialization of our culture. But in any event, what's impossible is continuing to spend 30 calories of fossil energy to bring one calorie of lettuce from California back to the east coast. We've substituted oil for people. That's what's happened, between big tractors and synthetic fertilizer. We have lots of oil doing the work of lots of people. That's had some benefits. We have incredible amount of cheap food. But as we begin to understand, in the last few years, even that's not the greatest benefit in the world. It's one reason that Americans are now fat, and we have too much of that stuff. So we're gonna have to stop taking for granted our use of energy. On the one hand, at least as it comes to oil, it's not gonna be there anymore. We're beginning to run out, and it's not gonna be, at the very least, cheap anymore.
MAX FRAAD WOLFF, ECONOMIST: From about 1830, when our first data that's of any value starts, to about 1970, in every decade, actually including the Great Depression, average real wages in the United States rose. Some more than others, but the 1980s and the 1990s are unique because they didn't. And so it's an unprecedented extended crisis in the middle class real wages of this country that we're now in the third decade of. There's definitely a connection between the stagnant to falling real wages and the oil shocks and oil peaking in the mid 70s. One way that you can systematically redistribute the wealth of a society is to have the wages that the mass of people earn not rise as fast as the things they buy. So they're nominal. They're dollar wage. What it says on your check, that may be going up, slowly but going up. The problem is real wage, what you can buy with your money doesn't. This is easiest and most commonly done when there's an inflation. When the prices suddenly rise so that in order to keep up your wages would have to zoom up, but when we suddenly have a surge in prices, which we did in the mid 70s with oil, it's very rare to see a whole lot of big wage increases because corporations are pinched by the rising cost of energy, and this pushes down what people's wages can buy. So the long, serious decline in the average wage for the average American began with the oil shocks and the inflation there, and it never really recovered. There have been some good years, but, in fact, cheap imported goods and debt are the single two biggest supports of the average American's material standard of living. Anything that interferes with the ability of Americans to continue to go deeper into debt or to get cheap, undervalued imported goods will immediately and probably painfully lower the material standard of living of American middle and lower classes. So they are dependent on that. If Chinese goods were to double or triple in price, millions and millions of Americans would face a situation very rapidly where they could no longer afford the basic housewares, clothing, and items that they buy all the time. Particularly at a place like Wal-Mart, which is basically the distribution arm of the People's Republic of China.
ALBERT BARTLETT, PROF. EMERITUS OF PHYSICS: Archeologists study civilizations that have disappeared. What's a major factor in the cause of those disappearances? One factor is: they grew beyond the capacity of the surrounding country to supply them with food. And in olden days you could maybe transport food however far a horse and wagon could travel in maybe a week, something like this, might be a hundred miles but not farther than that. The average item of food on our table today has traveled 1500 miles from where it was produced. And the only reason that's possible is that petroleum is so cheap. So petroleum is, and we ought to ask: now what's gonna happen as the world goes over the top peak and petroleum starts its inevitable decline, production decline towards zero? Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food. This isn't high-level mathematics. This isn't rocket science. This is just plain common sense, and it's universally rejected by the business community, the commercial community, the political communities.
RICHARD HEINBERG, JOURNALIST/EDUCATOR: The biggest question always in my mind was how to understand the Industrial Revolution, because everything up to that point is pretty easily comprehensible. We figured out agriculture 10,000 years ago, and gradually the population increased as we spread out across the planet and spread agriculture with us and so on. But then 200 years ago with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution it's like everything goes haywire. The human population goes from fewer than 1 billion to 6.5 billion, and the scale of the human impact on the environment increases exponentially as well. So, again, how to explain that? Well I tried looking into the history of capitalism, and looking into our mythological, psychological interaction with nature and so on, but then finally in 1998, I read a paper in Scientific American by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere, titled The End of Cheap Oil. And for the first time, I began to understand the role of energy in human social evolution. And for several years I studied this and read books, and I realized that this was the key to understanding everything that's happened in the last 200 years - that fossil fuels are the essence of the Industrial Revolution. So that creates a problem because fossil fuels are inherently finite. Oil was created 90-150 million years ago, and we're drawing down that stock of highly concentrated fuel in an amazingly short period of time. What's 200 years compared to 150 million years? And that oil is going to be gone, virtually, by the end of this century. So, the 20th century was all about using more of this stuff, and it was the great petroleum fiesta, one time only in the history of our species. The 21st Century is going to be all about how that party winds down. This is the most serious problem to face the human race since we've been human.
WILLIAM R. CATTON, PROF. EMERITUS OF SOCIOLOGY: Why don't we understand the ecological facets of our predicament and of life in general? Is it just because we are preoccupied with our own personal interests or is it something more serious than that? I think it's both. Obviously, when I get into the car, and I start up the engine, and I step on the gas, and I go someplace, I don't, most of the time, think about all of the effort of all of those people out there drilling oil wells and pumping oil out of the ground and shipping it to a refinery and producing gasoline. I just think of where I'm going and the pleasure I'm going to have or the purchase I'm going to make or whatever. So preoccupation with the routines of life is of course a major obstacle to people thinking the things that it's becoming increasingly important that people do think about. But in addition to that, we have been through a period of history in which expansion was tantamount to progress. The fact that every little town aspired to become a city, and the fact that the country was growing and becoming more powerful, and the fact that we were becoming more prosperous, and we compare ourselves with our colonial ancestors and we think: ‘what great progress we have made' and so on. It means that the whole approach to the study of history has been a non-ecological approach. We have simply been preoccupied with the political aspects of it and with the economic aspects of it, with the fact that we advanced from being an agrarian society to being an industrial society.
JASON BRADFORD, EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST: This faulty premise that we can always keep expanding human population and human consumption of resources, how does that perpetuate? I think what it happens is this, is essentially you have this, this physical reality based upon the availability of fossil fuel energy, which allows us to raise our short-term carrying capacity of the planet tremendously. We are able to now organize the resources of our planet to support more and more people, and more and more consumptive lifestyles, to a point where it's gone on for so long, and we've met so many challenges, that, in essence, we developed a culture that reinforces the idea: we'll have the ingenuity and the ability to solve it. This society, in general, then has generation after generation going back with that belief system, and those set of expectations. And so, to be able to turn that around when all anyone who is alive today can see is just this era of human progress that goes back to the past and they assume it's going to stretch out to the future. And it's embedded in the laws and the habits that people have. It's just sort of a positive feedback loop. So there you see this cultural constraint then on change that becomes very very dangerous because when that is challenged, it's challenging generations of belief and assumptions. And what happens is that those who challenge it are essentially putting themselves outside of their own culture, and that becomes very difficult to handle as an individual psychologically and emotionally, because you're constantly gonna be looking at your own culture and saying: Oh, my gosh. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yet the culture will look back at you and say: You're crazy.
JOSEPH TAINTER, ANTHROPOLOGIST/HISTORIAN: When I looked at what happened to ancient societies over long periods of time, I realized that the challenge they faced was the cost of their societies becoming more complex. As these societies faced problems, whether it was problems of external enemies or problems of managing their own environment, they would tend to develop more complex institutions. Very often they spent a larger military, a larger government, more control over their people, and these societies tended to tax their citizens more heavily to pay for their complex problem solving. Well this had lessons for today, obviously, because we have the most complex institutions of problem solving that have existed on earth, that humanity has ever developed. The difficulty with complexity is that it always costs, whether we're talking about organisms as they evolve to become more complex, or societies as they evolve to become more complex. In past societies, the problem was that complexity would increase beyond the point that was sustainable with the solar energy that ultimately supported them. We have to remember that they didn't have the fossil fuel energy we have today. So ultimately, they reached the point where their complexity of their societies could not be sustained on the basis of solar energy, on the basis of agriculture. When I look at the industrialized world today and try to project how it might develop over the next few decades, what I see are a large number of very expensive problems converging at once. We have not only the problem of energy that is so prominent today, but we have problems involving such things as an aging population and funding the pensions for the people of my generation. We have problems of decaying infrastructure that needs to be maintained and replaced. We have the continuing problems, a very high military costs. In ancient societies that I've studied, for example the Roman Empire, a great problem that they faced was when they would have to incur very high costs just to maintain the status quo - invest very high amounts in solving problems that don't yield a net positive return but instead simply allow them to maintain what they've already got. This decreases the net benefit of being a complex society, and so ultimately, it was very costly to be the Roman Empire, and it was no longer worthwhile. So the immediate problem that I see for our future is great difficultly maintaining the standard of living that people in industrialized nations are accustomed to and the social and political unrest that may follow from this.
MAX FRAAD WOLFF, ECONOMIST: The United Sates of America is where everything gets sold. More or less, one out of little over three dollars privately spent on consumption in the whole world is being spent here in the United Sates. That's kind of staggering. Our job in the world is to buy everything. So we have 4.5% of the world's population, and we do a little more than 30% of the world's private consumption. And the global economy relies on the United States as the consumption point. So more or less, when we ran out of our own money, they were happy and in fact, had to lend us our own money back to keep buying, because there's no other place for the world to produce, export to, and have do all that consumption. We are that place. And the weird specialization of the modern post-1970s international economy, where the consumer of first, last resort for a significant portion of the world. And so they'll loan to us, so long as we'll borrow, so long as we'll spend, so they can keep producing.
RICHARD HEINBERG, JOURNALIST/EDUCATOR: We've been advertised into being the world's greatest consumers. Americans aren't sort of genetically pre-disposed to being consumers. We are victims of the greatest propaganda system ever devised in human history, which is the modern advertising industry. Something like 200 billion dollars a year spent to convince us to buy, use and consume, and we've gotten to think of this as normal - growth as normal. We've experienced it for the past couple of hundred years, and we project that into the future and think that this is normal life. Well there's nothing normal about it.
MATT SAVINAR, ATTORNEY: You've got an entire generation that has been brought up in a completely artificial environment where their beliefs have been shaped by television, which is designed to sell things like huge SUVs, and in by movies, which are completely disconnected from reality, particularly here in western culture where the good guys always win, and there's always a happy ending, and so on and so forth. And I don't think they understand that everything we do revolves around consuming massive amounts of oil- all our food, transportation, most of our jobs, our social niches that we occupy - all revolve around consuming massive amounts of oil. So once you're aware that the oil is going to become very scarce, a lot of these social niches are going to disappear. A lot of these things that we take for granted are going to severely contract or go away all together. And yet you're living in it right now, and nobody else really seems to be too concerned about it. The cognitive dissonance, it can be pretty severe. Because in America we're consumers, so all we relate to is celebrities and the media. And I do think it's sort of on purpose, because if you're an automobile manufacturer, and television station A starts running all these programs about all the economic and energetic and environmental issues we're facing, they're not gonna get as high a return on investment as they would if they sell ads on another television station that's talking about how wonderful everything is or is only talking about celebrity this and celebrity that. So it's sort of - I don't know if there's anyone sitting around planning - I wouldn't be surprised if there is, but it sort of works out that way that what tends to sell stuff the most happens to be stuff that also turns the viewer into a bumbling idiot.
ELKE WEBER, PROF. OF PSYCHOLOGY: Probably one of the most important social questions is how to change behavior. And one of the reasons why behavior is so difficult to modify is because so much of it is automatic. We just react to our current environment. We do things by habit the way we've done them thousands of times before. If you think about making decisions to change your consumption patterns in order to provide a better environment for future generations, in order to reduce CO2 emissions, that it involves trade-offs - trade-offs between getting benefits now and getting other types of benefits later. One thing that you find is that people are incredibly impatient as soon as one of the options allows for immediate consumption - immediate receipt of something that they value. So a blind spot is something to which we don't pay attention because it's often times removed from us either in time or in space, and therefore it doesn't threaten us in any immediate way.
BILL MCKIBBEN, ENVIRONMENTALIST: There's plenty of interest in this society that would like to keep anyone from ever finding out anything about this. I mean the fossil fuel industry spent most of the last 15 years funding every absurd, misinformation campaign they could think of, and fairly successfully. But one of the reasons they were so successful was because we didn't really wanna know the truth either. It's a good deal easier to lie to people when they're happy to have you lying to them. It's extremely threatening to us, because more than any country on earth, we've taken the logic of cheap fossil fuel and run with it. More than any place else, our lifestyles reflect that dependence on cheap oil and cheap energy. We live in huge houses, drive huge distances. We're gonna feel that pinch if we start to change. We've become highly, highly individualized. That's what it means to live two people to a 4 thousand square foot house and a quarter mile from your nearest neighbor on some enormous subdivision.
MATT SAVINAR, ATTORNEY: Our culture in this way is unique in that we're completely atomized and isolated. Most folks who are born here and live here their whole life - their very neural connections in their brains are formed within a very high energy, high tech society, and I'd say in the last 20 years or so, as our society has sort of become too complex for its own good, more and more people, because they're kind of getting tossed by the waste side, I dunno. you start thinking: 'Something's not right here.' And since we're atomized, people don't start talking about their experiences with other people because they've sort of been shamed into it through what they watch on television and the rest of the media. And so you got a lot of people who the greater society's not serving them, and they're sort of feeling left out, but they're not talking to anybody about it, because they think they're the only person or they're somehow in a minority, and they're actually more in a majority than in the minority.
LESTER BROWN, FOUNDER OF EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE: I see the oil situation as part of a much broader situation, where we're pressing against the limits of many of the earth's resources. We see this now in commodity market prices, for example, we see it in copper prices. I could go through a long list. But I'm concerned about how we're pressing against the limits of all the earth's resources, both renewable and nonrenewable. I'm concerned about the water situation and the extent to which we're over- pumping aquifers around the world. Half the world's people live in countries now where water tables are falling and wells are starting to go dry. I'm concerned about the excessive demands on forests. I'm concerned about climate change and the fact that we're discharging so much CO2 into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels that nature cannot absorb it. So if everyone in the world consumed at the same rate as the average American, we would need three planets. The problem is we only have one.
JAMES HANSEN, PHYSICIST/ASTRONOMER: If we follow business as usual with 3 degrees Celsius global warming, the warming on Greenland and West Antarctica would be enough to have a lot of summer melt and once the ice sheets start to soften up and begin to move, we could get sea level changes of several meters in a century. The big danger about ice sheets is the positive feedbacks that exist. As it starts to melt, it becomes darker and that means it absorbs more sunlight, so that's one positive feedback. But also as the ocean warms, it melts the ice shelves, which exist where the ice streams exit to the ocean. And so, that opens the gate and the ice streams move faster. And it lowers the surface and that makes the surface warmer, and as sea level rises, that will lift the ice at the mouth of the ice streams, and especially West Antarctica, so that tends to unhinge the ice so that there's the danger that these positive feedbacks will cause a situation that begins to run under its own power, and just runs out of our control, and we end up with sea level rise of several meters, or even conceivably 25 meters. That would be a global disaster of unprecedented proportions.
So the question is: do we want to preserve a planet that resembles the one that we inherited from our ancestors? And if we do want to preserve that planet, then there are going to have to be some changes made in the way that we use energy, the rate that we use energy, and the fuels that we use for it.
TERRY TAMMINEN, FORMER HEAD OF THE CALIFORNIA EPA: Many people ask me: 'We're a smart country. How could we be this dumb?' 'How could we allow this to go on?' It's one thing to have it happen, we all learn, but since the 1950s or 60s, we've understood about the harms of oil and the harms of tailpipe emissions. How could we continue to allow this to happen? And I have a two-word answer: it's politics and lies. The politics are pretty straightforward. As I lay out in my book, over the last 10 or 12 years, oil and auto companies have spent 186 million dollars on campaign contributions at the federal level, and that's for Congress and the president, and for every one of those 186 million dollars, they've gotten back 1000 dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies. I think if you could invest a dollar in something, and get back 1000, you'd keep doing it. So that's the politics part of it. The lies part of it is that going back to the 1950s, under increasing pressure from regulators, including many right here in California at that time, the auto companies got together, and they said: 'You know what? We'll check our competition at the door on this one issue about smog coming from our tailpipes, and we'll work together with the automobile alliance that we're now going to create to make sure that our products are safe when used as directed.' In fact, they boasted that if there was any harmful emission coming from tailpipes that they could engineer that out of all of their vehicles within one model year. And of course, the record shows they formed the automobile alliance to do the exact opposite, to lie to regulators, to lie to the public, to conceal the true science of the harms of their products, and to stifle the production of alternatives to their products. Oil and auto companies got together and conspired to kill the electric car, to stifle the development of other alternative technologies that might have brought us cleaner, safer products over these years.
DERRICK JENSEN, ACTIVIST: There's this great line by Zygmunt Bauman: Rational people go quietly, meekly into a gas chamber if only you allow them to believe it's a bathroom. And what he's talking about is that at every step of the way it was in the Jews rational best interest to not resist. Would you rather get an ID card, or do you wanna resist and possibly get killed? Do you wanna move to a ghetto, or do you wanna resist and possibly get killed? Do you want to get on a cattle car, or do you wanna resist and possibly get killed? Do you want to take a shower, or do you wanna resist and possible get killed? At every step of the way it was in their rational best interest to not resist, but that's all based on this whole system of make believe. You have to make believe that what you know is going to happen to you is not going to happen to you. The same thing is happening today. Zygmunt Bauman says that rational people go quietly, meekly into a gas chamber if only you allow them to believe it's a bathroom, and I'll say that rational people will go quietly, meekly to the end of the world if only you allow them to believe that buying energy-saving bulbs is gonna save the day. So we have all this, and we see this in personal relationships, too, and abusive relationships. If somebody's in an abusive relationship, they see one little but of change, it's like: 'Now things are okay!‘ And then they're not okay, but they see one little bit of movement: 'Now things are okay.‘ And they keep doing this again and again. They have to make believe constantly in order to maintain their place in this wretched relationship. And we have to do it too. We have to make believe that the planet isn't being killed. We have to make believe that money equates to happiness. We have to make believe that you can have infinite growth on a finite planet. I mean we could list out dozens of these ways. We have to make believe that the age of oil is going to go on forever. We have to make believe that the people who are living in toxic hell, because of oil refineries, that they don't exist. We have to make believe that you can kill a planet and live on it too.
RICHARD HEINBERG, JOURNALIST/EDUCATOR: In some respects, I think population is certainly one of the worst environmental problems because almost anything else we try to tackle, whether its pollution or climate change or dependence on fossil fuels, we can make incremental gains along the way, but then as the human population grows, it just wipes out anything we do. And then, of course, having those extra mouths to feed is ultimately a problem because the earth is a finite sphere, and global food production is going to be peaking very soon. Already, per capita global grain production has peaked and is declining. So the responsible thing to do would be to reign in the human population, gradually over time, using all the most humane methods: increasing levels of education, making birth control methods more readily and cheaply available around the world. But it may be too late for that. It's going to take decades to turn around the problem of global human population.
WILLIAM R. CATTON, PROF. EMERITUS OF SOCIOLOGY: The kind of atmosphere that this planet has is eminently suitable for human life, one-fifth oxygen and four-fifths nitrogen, and then traces of other gases. But some of those trace gases are becoming more abundant than they used to be, and so we have now the greenhouse effect. In greater quantity, we have more carbon dioxide than we used to have, and we have some other greenhouse gases that are accumulating that are making the climate of the planet get warmer, which is going to change the distribution of various other species over the surface of the planet. Where you can grow crops is going to change, and we're beginning to kill off some of the life in places that we have been accustomed to interacting with existing species, both on land and in the oceans. We're not only overfishing the oceans, but as they warm up there's certain species of sea life that will no longer thrive. There are these examples of other species, of creatures, that exist in finite environments with finite quantities of the resources that they need, and finite disposal space, and so on. We can learn from the kind of experience that they have. One good example is the wine vat, in which the juice from grapes or some other kind of fruit for that matter, is fermented and turned into wine by the life processes of micro-organisms, a form of yeast will do this. And if you think of a crock here, in which you've put this mash of grape juice and so on, and you introduce some of that appropriate kind of yeast into it, they multiply, and they consume the sugars basically that are in that mash, and they convert the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. And the alcohol and the carbon dioxide mostly accumulate, and eventually the concentration of those byproducts of life become so great that it kills the yeast cells. So what was, at the outset, a marvelous, unspoiled environment, in which they could proliferate and really live it up, becomes an environment in which they can no longer exist. In effect, that's what we are doing now. We are so changing this planet on which we live, that we might find ourselves in a position very similar to that of the yeast and the wine vat. So we're not gonna like it, but eventually the population of this planet is going to be a whole lot less than 6 billion. The question that we face is: Will it come about through voluntary or involuntary means? If it comes about by involuntary means, how horrendous are those means going to be?
JASON BRADFORD, EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST: Most of the assumptions that our society runs on are false. The major ones, the ones that we use to guide our planning, and these then lead to habits that we have that lead to very unsustainable lifestyle. We've got a front end and a back end, and the front end goes in resources and the back end comes out waste. And that transformation that happens in our bodies is what allows us to develop and grow. But as an individual, we all reach a certain growth phase where we reach maturation and then we decline. In our economic system, it's the same thing. There are resource inputs to our whole economy, every widget and gizmo you hold has stuff going into it that got mined from the earth and transported to a factory, turned into something that we now use, and all that produces waste. And that waste we call pollution. So we have this economic system which has resources going to and pollution going out, and the assumption is that they can always get bigger. And the problem with that is that it's impossible, absolutely physically impossible, and yet we set up our institutional frameworks, our financial frameworks, and our habits and expectations as individuals, based upon the availability of fossil fuel energy, and so we developed a culture that reinforces the idea that we can always get more.
ALBERT BARTLETT, PROF. EMERITUS OF PHYSICS: I dropped out of college for a while, and I worked on these iron ore freighters. We'd go up here and get a whole load of however many thousand tons of this iron ore, and haul it down, throw it in a blast furnace in Buffalo, run back up and get some more. And I used to think: will we ever run out? And I can remember saying to myself, ‘Al, you're just a dishwasher. There are smart people in Washington. If there's any danger of running out they will act rationally and warn us so that we can reduce our consumption. And I'm ashamed to admit how many years it was before I realized that my trust was misplaced. And I suspect that if you ask any of these people on the street about these problems, you'll most likely find that they have faith that somebody intelligent is looking at these things. And that isn't justified faith. We have to do our own thinking for ourselves. We can't let other people do our thinking for us, because a lot of people have ulterior motives, and they'll try to steer us in the wrong direction. A lot of them don't know what's going on even though they're in positions of power. The thing that we miss in this country is a national leader in the White House who'll go up and say: ‘Hey, this is a problem. Look at the numbers.‘ We need to have two years to have a national dialogue on the question: What should our future be in order to live within the resources that we have and to have a good future for everybody? And out of this two years of dialogue from coast to coast, with political leaders, and leaders in all aspects of life, we're gonna try to come down to some kind of a reasonable policy statement that we'll use for guidance.
MAX FRAAD WOLFF, ECONOMIST: It's hard to figure out to what extent global economic change is planned and strategized and to what extent it sort of emerges as a trend that we who do economics impose on a chaos. Honestly, even though it's more frightening, there's no one driving the train. Okay? We're all on the train, the train is moving fast, and we're not even sure where the rails start and stop. Even though it might be disappointing because some people think in terms more of conspiracy and cabal, I think that it's more chaotic and in some ways more frightening than that. So unfortunately saying: ‘How will we survive it? How do we handle it? How do we see it?‘ is difficult because it becomes hard to sustain the 'we.' Different interests, different benefits, different costs.
WILLIAM R. CATTON, PROF. EMERITUS OF SOCIOLOGY: There was a time when human populations were virtually unaware that they were increasing, when the increase was not noticeable within a lifespan. Now it's not only noticeable, but it's appalling. There are 3 times as many people on this planet now as there were when they launched me. And this is the first time that that's ever been possible for people to say that. And we've also, in addition to becoming more numerous, we have become more voracious, by developing all this technology that makes use of energy from fossil fuels as well as from moving air and moving water, and so on. So that we have in effect changed ourselves from one kind of species into another. Homo Sapiens is the name that was given to our species by Linnaeus: man the wise, ostensibly. I think we've been converted to a new kind of species that I call Homo Colossus because we are no longer just this little two-legged mammal, but with it's own muscle power can do things. We have all this machinery that can use the power from fossil fuels in great quantities to do things that our own bodily apparatus could never have done, or that even large numbers of us together couldn't quite do. So we are colossal in our impact.
JASON BRADFORD, EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGIST: How do you know what you know? Most people know what they know based upon what their culture has taught them overtime, unquestioning. And then there are people who actually have to study the raw data, and they are trained as scientists to have their belief system based upon evidence, and when that contradicts generations of belief, they're just like: ‘Hear no evil, see no evil. Please, get out of my face, I can't handle this.‘ There has never been a time when all these civilizations around the world are essentially linked up through resource exchange in this globalized free trade system that in the short-term gives us amazing economic growth, but in the long term makes us incredibly vulnerable to any shortfall in those resources, to political instability with any trade partner, and so we spend massive amounts in terms of militarization to make sure that all these people keep trading with us. We set up gigantic banking frameworks and global trade agreements to say: ‘You better keep trading with us.‘ And that all has a huge cost too. The bureaucracy has a huge cost. So this added complexity has diminishing returns, and at some point we're actually gonna need to simplify our management, and localize our management, and make sure that we realign our population, both in its size and its location, with the biological carrying capacity of the planet. I have kids. I want peace on earth. I want all good things. And yet I found that people that also want those things unable to realize that we're all a huge part of this problem.
(Also available streaming [75] via the PSU Library (Kanopy Films))
Summary and Final Tasks
Summary
You should now be able to:
- consider the ways humans interact with the environment;
- describe the concept of the Anthropocene;
- explain how a new geopolitics has emerged within the Anthropocene;
- evaluate the causes of resource conflicts; and
- consider the interplay between territorial and network geopolitics in resource conflicts.
Reminder - Complete all of the Lesson 11 tasks!
You have reached the end of Lesson 11! Double-check the Lesson 11 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 12.