The Threat of Geopolitics to International Relations: Obsession with the Heartland
Geopolitics, both in name, and in its application via geostrategy, is a controversial area of international relations. Although the practice of obtaining resources is as old as Mankind, the word came into its own with the imperial policies of the great powers in the nineteenth century, was used to justify world wars, went into decline, but was ‘taken to America’ and then re-exported to Europe after the last war by the likes of Henry Kissinger. Nowadays, the term is used unconsciously by politicians obsessed with power, often to justify war. This book tears apart the simplistic thinking of geopolitics, and proposes its replacement with the authors’ own method of ‘geohistory’, a method based on recognising that at the base of any analysis and evaluation of the international situation lie human characteristics.
William Mallinson is Professor of Political Ideas and Institutions at Guglielmo Marconi University, Italy, and a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. He is a former Member of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service who left to study for, and was awarded, his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Department of International History. Following a period in business as European Public Affairs Manager at ITT’s European Headquarters in Brussels, and then the Digital Equipment Corporation in Geneva, he turned his attention to the academic world, playing a pivotal role in introducing Britain’s first Honours degree in Public Relations. Since 1994, when he was awarded a Greek Government scholarship, he has been perusing British Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Prime Minister’s Office and Cabinet archives, under the general rubric of Anglo-Greek relations during the Cold War, including Cyprus. He has also published several articles in the press, has been interviewed by BBC World, Russia Today and Russia Channel One, and spoken at numerous conferences. He has undertaken corporate consultancy projects, and is an occasional Lecturer at the Greek National Defence School, particularly on Britain and Russia/USSR. His publications include Public Lies and Private Truths (2000); Portrait of an Ambassador (1998); Cyprus: A Modern History (2005, 2009, 2010, 2012); Partition through Foreign Aggression (2010); Cyprus, Diplomatic History and the Clash of Theory in International Relations (2010); and The FCO, Hegemonolingualism, and the End of Britain’s Freedom (2014, 2016), among others.
Zoran Ristic is a Research Associate at the International Security Forum in Cyprus. He graduated from King’s College London, where he focused on the political economy of war and conflict, the intersection of politics and business interests, and the invasion of Iraq. He completed his MSc at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he covered determinants of foreign direct investments, corporate governance, and determinants and risks to investments in conflict zones. His publications include “The Balkans: Geopolitics on a Small Scale” in South Slav Journal (2010).
"This book by William Mallinson and Zoran Ristic is a great attempt to get into the core of geopolitics, to analyse the roots and history of its evolution both as a term, as a strategy, as an ideologisation and, using the title, as an ‘obsession’. Armed with systemic knowledge of history and incisive language, the authors try to deconstruct the very meaning of geopolitics and show its real nature."
Pavel Kanevskiy Professor of Political Science, Associate Dean, Faculty of Sociology, Lomonosov Moscow State University
"[T]his book is certainly thought-provoking ... [and begins] with a delightful reckoning with International Relations theory and its unhelpful reduction of complex realities to monocausal explanations."
Professor Beatrice Heuser Chair in International Relations, University of Reading International Affairs, 93:3 (2017)
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