0:02 hi folks we are talking about
0:04 geopolitics in
0:07 supranationalism um and we are on video
0:10 4 of the political geography unit you
0:12 should take a second to set up your
0:14 notes first we're talking about
0:17 geopolitics and geopolitics is the
0:20 interplay among geography politics power
0:23 and international relations and that
0:24 seems really complicated so when you
0:27 think about geopolitics you should ask
0:29 yourself two questions who are the most
0:32 power ful countries in the world and how
0:34 did they become so powerful so we're
0:36 going to go through some geopolitical
0:37 theories about how countries become
0:40 powerful um but it is important to know
0:42 that these theories have solid
0:44 foundations in World War II and the Cold
0:46 War and they have historic
0:49 applications okay so uh the first theory
0:52 is rat cell's organic theory he argues
0:55 that acquiring territory so an expanding
0:58 country that takes over land is
1:00 essential to for a country country to
1:02 survive um he said that a country just
1:05 like a person has a natural lifespan and
1:08 that the only way to continue living as
1:11 a country was to continue acquiring
1:14 territory this Theory becomes popular in
1:19 the 1930s and is used by Hitler um to
1:23 justify Nazi expansion in the 1930s so
1:26 he claimed um that uh the German people
1:30 needed lebano or living space um and so
1:32 that's why he was taking over all of
1:36 Europe and so ratel argued that again um
1:39 countries are just like human beings
1:44 they um need to eat or to take in more
1:47 territory to survive um you need
1:50 nourishment to survive and so that's
1:52 kind of how countries survive is they
1:54 take over
1:56 territory um mackinder's
1:59 heartlander I'm sorry Heartland theory
2:02 is a land base Theory and um mender
2:05 argued that any state that controls this
2:07 area he called the heartland which is
2:08 also considered
2:12 Eurasia could dominate the entire world
2:14 and he argued this in
2:17 1904 and the reason why the Heartland is
2:20 such a great place is number one it has
2:22 a large amount of arable land and he
2:26 says that Eurasia could produce enough
2:29 wheat and other agricultural products to
2:31 sustain a large population so without
2:33 any Imports or exports they could
2:35 sustain themselves from their arable
2:38 land he also argued that there are
2:41 abundant raw materials um in this
2:44 specific Heartland Eurasia and that that
2:47 could help whoever controlled this area
2:50 develop a military and Industrial base
2:52 to kind of conquer everywhere else and
2:55 protect themselves he also argued that
2:58 this area was inaccessible to Sea
3:00 Invasion because
3:04 um the only ocean Coast is um here in
3:06 the north and it's actually um Frozen
3:09 over and he argued that the Heartland
3:12 would be at an advantageous uh position
3:15 for a landbased Invasion from the
3:18 rimland um so the impact of this
3:20 Heartland theory um is seen through
3:23 Hitler and Stalin so Hitler invaded
3:25 Russia um in an attempt to gain this
3:29 Heartland territory and um remember the
3:32 Soviet Union also took over the majority
3:36 of Eastern Europe during the Cold War so
3:38 there are some problems with this Theory
3:40 first of all it severely overestimates
3:43 the power of Eurasia um he did not take
3:46 into account that the interior of
3:50 Eurasia is largely not arable land so
3:53 there's a lot of Frozen patches there
3:56 are deserts as well as extensive and
3:59 dense forestry so um it's not as
4:02 terrible as he claimed it was uh lastly
4:05 he didn't take into account new military
4:09 technology so in the present day uh you
4:12 don't have to have a Navy to invade um
4:14 we have things like ballistic missiles
4:17 airplane Warfare and drones and so the
4:20 big thing here is that um McKinna was
4:22 thinking like an environmental
4:25 determinist right that our environment
4:28 determines our destiny and we know now
4:30 that humans can adapt to their
4:33 environment which is called
4:35 possibilism okay so spikeman is very
4:38 similar to mender um but he comes about
4:39 40 years later in
4:42 1942 and he uses mackinder's ideas to
4:44 create his own theory about world
4:46 domination and he said that forming
4:49 alliances would be necessary to keep
4:51 this Heartland in check so to stop this
4:54 Heartland from expanding and because it
4:57 is so powerful no individual country
5:00 could contain it by itself um so he
5:03 argued that if there were alliances
5:04 created in this
5:08 rimland um that they could control the
5:11 sea around the Heartland and kind of
5:15 absorb and take over this Heartland um
5:19 kind of trapping it um he had an impact
5:22 as well because um spikeman really
5:26 impacted the growth of military um
5:28 organizations during the Cold War like
5:33 NATO um um so the idea was um the
5:36 containment policy which is to uh
5:38 contain the spread of Communism coming
5:40 from the Soviet Union so the United
5:43 States actually use spikeman
5:47 Theory um the next idea is the shatter
5:50 belt Theory uh this was in 1950 and Saul
5:53 Cohen um came up with this idea of the
5:55 shatter belt
5:57 um which I'm going to explain to you but
5:59 first let me explain how he replaced
6:02 these terminologies um the Heartland he
6:04 calls the pivot area and he called the
6:07 rimland the inner Crescent in the rest
6:09 of the world he considered called the
6:12 outer Crescent and so he argued that
6:15 cold war conflicts are going to occur
6:18 within this inner Crescent and they are
6:22 going to occur in geopolitically Weak
6:25 States and these geopolitically weak
6:29 states are called shatter belts so a
6:31 shatter belt is a state or group of
6:34 states that exist within some type of
6:37 competition between larger States and so
6:41 examples of this are during World War II
6:43 Russia and Germany both fought over
6:46 Poland so Poland would be considered a
6:48 shatter belt other shatter belts that
6:51 happened um during the Cold War um are
6:55 Eastern European States um remember that
6:57 there was a war in Korea as well as
7:00 Vietnam during the Cold War
7:02 so this leads us to the Cold War
7:04 policies of containment in the Domino
7:06 Theory remember containment is just the
7:09 idea of containing the spread of
7:12 Communism from expanding politically and
7:16 militarily and so this is the idea that
7:19 um military organizations have to stop
7:21 that and this is how some of these
7:23 conflicts break out in the shatter belts
7:25 um the
7:28 second um Theory here the Domino Theory
7:30 is that if one state Falls to Communism
7:32 then their neighbors might fall to
7:36 Communism as well um so both of these US
7:40 policies were severely influenced by the
7:42 previous theories that we just talked
7:46 about so wallerstein is the last um
7:48 geopolitical theorist that you need to
7:51 know he wrote in the 1970s and he argued
7:55 that there is a global order and he
7:57 called it the world economy you can see
8:01 right here and the world economy was
8:04 based on a colonial history that this
8:07 world economy was created among states
8:09 because they had huge differences in
8:13 economic and political wealth due to
8:16 colonialism um and so he argued that the
8:19 economy is broken up into three
8:21 different tiers that first tier is
8:24 called the core this is countries that
8:27 have high levels of Education High
8:30 salaries a lot of Technology
8:32 and they generate a lot of wealth and
8:35 they contribute to the world economy so
8:37 examples of these um states are the
8:41 United States western Europe Japan
8:45 Australia the periphery states are where
8:48 there are lower levels of Education low
8:50 salaries less technology um and they
8:54 generate less wealth uh than those core
8:58 um countries and so examples of um
9:01 periphery countries are like subsaharan
9:04 Africa um some of Southwest Asia and
9:07 Southeast Asia the semi- periphery is in
9:10 this middle position um it's places
9:12 where the core and the periphery are
9:15 both occurring at the same time and so
9:19 the idea is um the semi-
9:24 periphery is exploited by the core um so
9:26 the core is better off than the semi-
9:28 periphery but they also take advantage
9:31 of those periphery States themselves and
9:33 so you can see here the periphery is
9:35 contributing cheap labor and raw
9:38 materials um to the semi periphery but
9:40 the semi- periphery is also taking in
9:43 these high profits in consumption Goods
9:45 so it's kind of like a middle ground and
9:47 so examples of these countries are like
9:50 China India Brazil
9:54 Mexico and so um when you think about
9:55 this you can think about the core
9:58 countries um being most developed the
10:01 periphery countries being the developing
10:03 countries and the semi peripheries being
10:05 somewhere in
10:07 between okay super
10:11 nationalism um super nationalism is um
10:14 when we see an increased amount of
10:17 cooperation among states um so there are
10:19 like some Global or Regional centripedal
10:23 forces um bringing States together and
10:26 the official definition of superal
10:28 supranationalism is an organization of
10:32 three or more states that come together
10:36 um to pursue common goals these common
10:39 goals can be military goals economic
10:43 goals or environmental goals and so um
10:46 states do have to give up some of their
10:47 sovereignty they have to give up some of
10:51 the say um in what they do but there are
10:53 benefits to being a part of these
10:55 organizations there's actually been
10:56 research done that shows that
10:58 participation in supernational organizations
10:59 organizations
11:02 is so helpful to the people who are
11:04 actually in the organization and that
11:06 being left out can have serious negative
11:09 consequences and so on a global scale an
11:11 example of a supernational organization
11:14 is the United Nations and on a regional
11:16 scale uh the European
11:18 Union so the foundations of
11:20 supernational ism come from the United
11:23 States specifically woodro Wilson um
11:26 after World War I woodro Wilson um
11:28 proposed the League of Nations which was
11:31 an assoc iation of countries um a Global
11:34 Alliance to help prevent any future war
11:37 from ever happening again um the US
11:39 actually never even joined this League
11:42 of Nations and it collapsed um right
11:46 before World War II began however it did
11:48 lead to the creation of the United
11:51 Nations which is still around today um
11:53 and some countries or I'm sorry some
11:55 geographers consider it the most
11:57 important Global
12:00 organization so the United Nations is a
12:03 global scale example of a supernational
12:07 organization there are 193 members and
12:10 their intentions or the purpose of this
12:12 organization is to promote International
12:15 cooperation and in a few different
12:18 Realms um the UN addresses Global
12:22 economic problems they promote human
12:26 rights um they provide and promote um
12:29 humanitarian relief and they also um
12:31 have an international court of justice
12:35 so settling disputes between nations um
12:37 so participation actually commits these
12:40 different countries to um act a certain
12:43 way um and when States violate those
12:46 rules or those standards there can be
12:48 Collective action taken against them and
12:51 so this is the biggest and and the most
12:54 Global example a regional example is the
12:58 EU um and this is an economic organization
12:59 organization
13:01 um and it's actually considered one of
13:04 the world's leading superpowers um
13:06 because it turned Europe into the
13:09 world's wealthiest market so the task of
13:11 the EU is to promote development within
13:13 member states through economic and
13:15 political cooperation as of now there
13:18 are 28 members um and several more
13:20 European countries have applied for
13:22 membership so what's important to know
13:26 is that the European Union the countries
13:29 who are um members are connected and
13:33 there is free movement of people Goods
13:37 services and capital free movement of
13:42 people Goods services and capital and so
13:44 the first thing that promotes that is
13:47 that all of the EU countries um use the
13:49 euro a common
13:51 currency secondly the free movement of
13:53 people is allowed because there are open
13:55 borders in the European Union which
13:57 means you don't have to show a Passport
13:59 or go through any border Crossing
14:02 process when you go between countries um
14:04 in addition to that there's open
14:06 immigration from all EU member
14:09 states um what allows the free movement
14:11 of goods is that there aren't any taxes
14:14 or tariffs that are charged on goods or
14:16 services that cross borders so by
14:19 eliminating these fees um European
14:21 businesses have a leg up because they
14:24 can save money and become more
14:26 competitive on a global
14:30 scale um so another example of Regional
14:33 supernational organizations are NAFTA um
14:35 which is the North American Free Trade Agreement
14:37 Agreement
14:41 OPEC um which is um the organization of
14:43 petroleum exporting countries and the
