RIZKA KHAIRANI 071012079

[GEOPOLITIK DAN GEOSTRATEGI]

WHAT IS GEOPOLITICS? Nowadays, the decision making process of foreign and domestic policies have become more trnaparant from the earlier days. A lot of factors are analyzed, which some believe to significantly contribute and affect the final result. Geopolitics is a subject closely related to the ways in which nation states display their power and policies. Early geopolitical writings and the contemporary ones has its roots in the distinction between the nature directed and nature limited man. What differentiates contemporary writings to the modern ones is the different concept of geography itself. (Kristof: 1960: 16) There are two significant pre-modern writers: Aristotle and Jean Bodin. Aristotle considered the natural environment from two points of view, its impact on the human character and its implication for the economic and military necessities of the ideal state. The environment then molds human preferences and characters. Bodins thought, though still derived from Aristotle, believe of fixed human nature but goes onto saying that the lack of uniformity is caused by environmental influences. He believes the existence of different regimes is caused by different preferences in different environments. He teaches that nature does not only limit our capacity to do certain things but also determines our will to do these things (Kristof: 1960: 18) The contemporary geopolitical schools abandoned the idea of environment can solely determine the nature of human beings, but looked at how the environment can influence the nature of human. They combined geopolitics with certain other ideas and theories; this went so far as making the subject have a determinative character. Thus it has been difficult in getting an objective view of what geopolitics are. Geopolitics is a war casualty, it has been used and misused by strategists and expansionists of all shades beginning with Mahan and Roosevelt and ending with Hitler and Tojo (Kristoff, 1960: 20). In conventional academic understandings, geopolitics concerns the geography of international politics, particularly the relationship between the physical environment and the conduct of foreign policy (Mirheidar & Afzali & Moradi, 2010: 1). While Rudolf Kjelln, viewed that geopolitics is the spatial analysis of a state in terms of geography, politics, society and economy for the purpose of determining its stake in the evolving world order, thereby deciding its role in both power sharing as well as power balancing and as the theory of the

RIZKA KHAIRANI 071012079

[GEOPOLITIK DAN GEOSTRATEGI]

state as a geographic organism or phenomenon in space, that is, as a land, territory, area or most spatially as a country (Faisal. 2010; Murray 2008). Although according to Kristof, it is premature to define geopolitics at this point because there is no universally accepted definition of geography itself. Although he did try give a definition of geopolitics as the study of political phenomena in their spatial relationship with and dependence upon and influence on east as well as on all those cultural factors which constitute the subject matter of human geography (Kristof, 1960: 34). In the late nineteenth century, Fredrick Ratzel proposed the Organic State Theory which emphasized that a state needs space and resources like living organisms. It is a theory that holds all components of the state grow together into one body which has a life of its own. (Kristoff, 1960: 21). Thus, the Organic State Theory contributed to the development of geopolitical discourses by reflecting the following underlying tendencies a) focus on territorial expansion as a tool for strengthening state diplomacy, b) emphasis on survival through statesponsored imperialism and not mutual coexistence through interdependence among states, and, c) developing confluence of trade and interstate relations where it was not the trade which largely influenced interstate relations but vice-versa (Faisal, 2010). Afterwards Kjellen, in his most important work on geopolitics staaten som Lifsform (1916 and 1924), developed the theory of quasi organic theory or the concept of the state as an organism engaged in an inevitable struggle for survival, hence he conceived states as not as legal bodies but as powers (Kristoff, 1960). Most scholars then viewed that Kjellens stress on the power struggle and the depiction of the role of morals and law is precisely due to the fact that he thinks of politics as being guided by men and their passions. Mackinder formulated the Heartland Theory and divided the world into two regions: World Island and, Periphery and termed the core of the World Island as Heartland. The Heartland theory reflected that resource determines the international trading position of a state, the power a state have is determined on the basis of its resource endowments, and accessibility in trade and transport is the key to polarization of the world (Faisal, 2010). Moreover, the geopolitical discourse was further extended by Karl Haushofer, was contemporary of Ratzel and Mackinder where he stressed that the real issue was political and moral, not geographical (Kristof, 1960: 31).

RIZKA KHAIRANI 071012079

[GEOPOLITIK DAN GEOSTRATEGI]

There is often some misunderstanding of the difference between geopolitics and political geography. According to Kristof, there are not any fundemental differences either in the method or in the fields of study, he then later writes that the only real differences is in the emphasis in the focus of attention. Political geography qua geography tends to focus its attention on the geographical phenomena; it gives a political interpretation and studies the political aspects of geographic phenomena. Geopolitics qua politics, on the contrary, tends to focus on the political phenomena and attempts to give a geographical interpretation and study the geographical aspects of these phenomena (Kristof, 1960: 36). Geopolitics is a rapidly evolving subject dating as far as Aristotle. It is the study that focuses on the interactions between man and nature and whether or not the latter is significant to its counterpart in the notion. There is basically no significant difference between geopolitics and political geography other than the focus of the subject.

Reference Ahmed, Faisal. 2010. From Resource to Trade Diplomacy Revealing the Hierarchical Nature of Geopolitics. The Romanian Economic Journal D, Mirheidar & R, Afzali & E, Moradi. 2010. Geopolitics from a New Perspective: Decentralizing Power / Knowledge. Human Geography Research Quarterly. Kristof, Ladis KD. 1960. The Origin and Evolution of Geopolitics in Journal of Conflict Resolution (4) 1, page 15-51