Critical geopolitics – An Overview
Francisco Javier Gómez Buendía
In this text the author affirms the power of geopolitics and why they are important,
stating that geopolitics are concerned with the spatial and territorial dimensions of
power and international relations that emerged in the colonial capitals and centers of
learning of the late nineteenth-century Great Power, but we must not forget that this
started to be considered in colonial times, where the geographical position of this
colonies would change strategic aspects of certain countries. A good example is Cuba,
which as a very interesting territory holds a lot of geopolitical meaning that Spain, and
later US and USSR, which we can specially see in the Missile Crisis for example.
The 19th century was the time in which the concept of Geopolitics became important
and institutionalized, which means people started to study it in universities and
governments started to refer to the concept, which, as we said before, originated from
the colonial expansionism of the West.
With the geopolitical gaze of the West, looking at the world map became a source of
opportunities for them, mentioning territories that could be strategic or beneficial for
the colonizing powers. We should understand that the term geopolitical gaze means how
someone looks at the world through the geographical conditions.
In terms of the Cartesian Perspective, we can say that it comes form the philosophy of
Descartes, and it poses an interesting statement saying that there is an objective reality
outside of human perception: Reality exists even if we are not able to see it. The idea of
Descartes Dualism of the separation of the mind and the physical world can be translated
into the distinction between the intellectual and physical part of International Relations.
The text also mentions Rationalism and Methodical doubts in order to doubt your beliefs
until only those which are true remain. Questioning these beliefs is very useful, as there
are some values that have been instigated to us because of education or media that
might not be true, but the opinion that strategies of other countries generated in the
international population. He also mentions detachment from the conflicts in order to
view them as objectively as possible.
Regarding my opinion, I think I have a quite troubled perspective, since I do not believe
that the geopolitical gaze cannot be really objective when every single person that has
this thought is inevitably culturally or nationally biased. Apart from this, I would say that
the 19th Century is a very important century for out modern society that has shaped how
we see Geopolitcs as an academic concept, but I think the roots of Geopolitics lay down
much earlier in history, with the Roman empire for example. To finish, I would like to
mention that while the Cartesian method has been suitable for understanding a world
defined by physical distances, it might not be as applicable to the current global context.
Here, power is also exercised through digital means, where cyber warfare, social media
influence, and international trade agreements create a geopolitical reality that cannot
be represented by traditional maps.
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