Geopolitics and Geostrategy I Winter semester 2022/2023

Michael Romancov (michael.romancov@fsv.cuni.cz)

Teaching methods: Based on the decision of the Rector of Charles University, the management of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Institute of Political Science, lectures in this year's semester will be organized in a hybrid form. Students enrolled in the standard mode of study must attend classes in person, those enrolled in an online form online. Online teaching will be streamed in MS Teams. All lectures will be recorded and stored in MS Teams classrooms for 20 days. Students do not have to be online at the time of the lecture, but it is their duty to familiarize themselves with its contents from the recording.

The main goal of the course is to acquaint students with the historical development of geopolitical thinking and with the main representatives of important geopolitical schools. Theoretical concepts will be interpreted in a broad historical-political context that will provide insight into how and why the development of geopolitical thinking was linked to the place and time in which the individual authors created. All geopolitical theories were conditioned by the time and place of their origin. Authors who operated within countries/powers satisfied with the distribution of power (powers maintaining the status quo) pursued different goals and needs than powers that sought change (powers changing the status quo). Emphasis will be placed on the issue of distribution of power in space, which was, is, and will be conditioned by the level of communication systems, military and economic capabilities.

An indicative list of discussed topics (attention, these are not individual lectures, but units that will be discussed)

1. What is geopolitics. The relationship between geopolitics and geography.

2. Tellurocracy and thalassocracy

3. Rise of the West; great powers in the system of international relations.

4. European system of international relations at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Napoleonic wars.

5. The European powers seize the world.

6. Changes in the power structure of Europe, the Crimean War, the unification of Germany and Italy.

7. The Civil War in the USA and the gradual growth of American power; transcontinental railways, the Suez and Panama Canals.

8. Germany - dissatisfied power, challenger of the existing status quo; the birth of the German geopolitical school.

9. USA - dissatisfied power, non-participating observer; geopolitics by A. T. Mahan.

10. Britain - a saturated power, an effort to maintain the existing status quo; geopolitics by H. J. Mackinder.

11. World War I and the transformation of the global system from a geopolitical point of view. The second version of Mackinder's theory.

12. League of Nations; interwar distribution of power in the world. Geopolitics of air by G. Douhet.

13. World War II, the starting position and goals of the powers from a geopolitical point of view.

Basic recommended literature:

Kennedy, Paul (1988): The Rise and Fall of Great Empires. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. Hyman Unwin, London.

Mearsheimer, John (2001): The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W. W. Norton and Co., New York.