Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
U4, Video #4: Geopolitics and Supranationalism | Brittany Pavely | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: U4, Video #4: Geopolitics and Supranationalism
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
This content explores geopolitical theories that explain how countries gain and maintain power, and then introduces supranationalism as a modern form of international cooperation where states pool sovereignty for common goals.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
hi folks we are talking about
geopolitics in
supranationalism um and we are on video
4 of the political geography unit you
should take a second to set up your
notes first we're talking about
geopolitics and geopolitics is the
interplay among geography politics power
and international relations and that
seems really complicated so when you
think about geopolitics you should ask
yourself two questions who are the most
power ful countries in the world and how
did they become so powerful so we're
going to go through some geopolitical
theories about how countries become
powerful um but it is important to know
that these theories have solid
foundations in World War II and the Cold
War and they have historic
applications okay so uh the first theory
is rat cell's organic theory he argues
that acquiring territory so an expanding
country that takes over land is
essential to for a country country to
survive um he said that a country just
like a person has a natural lifespan and
that the only way to continue living as
a country was to continue acquiring
territory this Theory becomes popular in
the 1930s and is used by Hitler um to
justify Nazi expansion in the 1930s so
he claimed um that uh the German people
needed lebano or living space um and so
that's why he was taking over all of
Europe and so ratel argued that again um
countries are just like human beings
they um need to eat or to take in more
territory to survive um you need
nourishment to survive and so that's
kind of how countries survive is they
take over
territory um mackinder's
heartlander I'm sorry Heartland theory
is a land base Theory and um mender
argued that any state that controls this
area he called the heartland which is
also considered
Eurasia could dominate the entire world
and he argued this in
1904 and the reason why the Heartland is
such a great place is number one it has
a large amount of arable land and he
says that Eurasia could produce enough
wheat and other agricultural products to
sustain a large population so without
any Imports or exports they could
sustain themselves from their arable
land he also argued that there are
abundant raw materials um in this
specific Heartland Eurasia and that that
could help whoever controlled this area
develop a military and Industrial base
to kind of conquer everywhere else and
protect themselves he also argued that
this area was inaccessible to Sea
Invasion because
um the only ocean Coast is um here in
the north and it's actually um Frozen
over and he argued that the Heartland
would be at an advantageous uh position
for a landbased Invasion from the
rimland um so the impact of this
Heartland theory um is seen through
Hitler and Stalin so Hitler invaded
Russia um in an attempt to gain this
Heartland territory and um remember the
Soviet Union also took over the majority
of Eastern Europe during the Cold War so
there are some problems with this Theory
first of all it severely overestimates
the power of Eurasia um he did not take
into account that the interior of
Eurasia is largely not arable land so
there's a lot of Frozen patches there
are deserts as well as extensive and
dense forestry so um it's not as
terrible as he claimed it was uh lastly
he didn't take into account new military
technology so in the present day uh you
don't have to have a Navy to invade um
we have things like ballistic missiles
airplane Warfare and drones and so the
big thing here is that um McKinna was
thinking like an environmental
determinist right that our environment
determines our destiny and we know now
that humans can adapt to their
environment which is called
possibilism okay so spikeman is very
similar to mender um but he comes about
40 years later in
1942 and he uses mackinder's ideas to
create his own theory about world
domination and he said that forming
alliances would be necessary to keep
this Heartland in check so to stop this
Heartland from expanding and because it
is so powerful no individual country
could contain it by itself um so he
argued that if there were alliances
created in this
rimland um that they could control the
sea around the Heartland and kind of
absorb and take over this Heartland um
kind of trapping it um he had an impact
as well because um spikeman really
impacted the growth of military um
organizations during the Cold War like
NATO um um so the idea was um the
containment policy which is to uh
contain the spread of Communism coming
from the Soviet Union so the United
States actually use spikeman
Theory um the next idea is the shatter
belt Theory uh this was in 1950 and Saul
Cohen um came up with this idea of the
shatter belt
um which I'm going to explain to you but
first let me explain how he replaced
these terminologies um the Heartland he
calls the pivot area and he called the
rimland the inner Crescent in the rest
of the world he considered called the
outer Crescent and so he argued that
cold war conflicts are going to occur
within this inner Crescent and they are
going to occur in geopolitically Weak
States and these geopolitically weak
states are called shatter belts so a
shatter belt is a state or group of
states that exist within some type of
competition between larger States and so
examples of this are during World War II
Russia and Germany both fought over
Poland so Poland would be considered a
shatter belt other shatter belts that
happened um during the Cold War um are
Eastern European States um remember that
there was a war in Korea as well as
Vietnam during the Cold War
so this leads us to the Cold War
policies of containment in the Domino
Theory remember containment is just the
idea of containing the spread of
Communism from expanding politically and
militarily and so this is the idea that
um military organizations have to stop
that and this is how some of these
conflicts break out in the shatter belts
um the
second um Theory here the Domino Theory
is that if one state Falls to Communism
then their neighbors might fall to
Communism as well um so both of these US
policies were severely influenced by the
previous theories that we just talked
about so wallerstein is the last um
geopolitical theorist that you need to
know he wrote in the 1970s and he argued
that there is a global order and he
called it the world economy you can see
right here and the world economy was
based on a colonial history that this
world economy was created among states
because they had huge differences in
economic and political wealth due to
colonialism um and so he argued that the
economy is broken up into three
different tiers that first tier is
called the core this is countries that
have high levels of Education High
salaries a lot of Technology
and they generate a lot of wealth and
they contribute to the world economy so
examples of these um states are the
United States western Europe Japan
Australia the periphery states are where
there are lower levels of Education low
salaries less technology um and they
generate less wealth uh than those core
um countries and so examples of um
periphery countries are like subsaharan
Africa um some of Southwest Asia and
Southeast Asia the semi- periphery is in
this middle position um it's places
where the core and the periphery are
both occurring at the same time and so
the idea is um the semi-
periphery is exploited by the core um so
the core is better off than the semi-
periphery but they also take advantage
of those periphery States themselves and
so you can see here the periphery is
contributing cheap labor and raw
materials um to the semi periphery but
the semi- periphery is also taking in
these high profits in consumption Goods
so it's kind of like a middle ground and
so examples of these countries are like
China India Brazil
Mexico and so um when you think about
this you can think about the core
countries um being most developed the
periphery countries being the developing
countries and the semi peripheries being
somewhere in
between okay super
nationalism um super nationalism is um
when we see an increased amount of
cooperation among states um so there are
like some Global or Regional centripedal
forces um bringing States together and
the official definition of superal
supranationalism is an organization of
three or more states that come together
um to pursue common goals these common
goals can be military goals economic
goals or environmental goals and so um
states do have to give up some of their
sovereignty they have to give up some of
the say um in what they do but there are
benefits to being a part of these
organizations there's actually been
research done that shows that
participation in supernational organizations
organizations
is so helpful to the people who are
actually in the organization and that
being left out can have serious negative
consequences and so on a global scale an
example of a supernational organization
is the United Nations and on a regional
scale uh the European
Union so the foundations of
supernational ism come from the United
States specifically woodro Wilson um
after World War I woodro Wilson um
proposed the League of Nations which was
an assoc iation of countries um a Global
Alliance to help prevent any future war
from ever happening again um the US
actually never even joined this League
of Nations and it collapsed um right
before World War II began however it did
lead to the creation of the United
Nations which is still around today um
and some countries or I'm sorry some
geographers consider it the most
important Global
organization so the United Nations is a
global scale example of a supernational
organization there are 193 members and
their intentions or the purpose of this
organization is to promote International
cooperation and in a few different
Realms um the UN addresses Global
economic problems they promote human
rights um they provide and promote um
humanitarian relief and they also um
have an international court of justice
so settling disputes between nations um
so participation actually commits these
different countries to um act a certain
way um and when States violate those
rules or those standards there can be
Collective action taken against them and
so this is the biggest and and the most
Global example a regional example is the
EU um and this is an economic organization
organization
um and it's actually considered one of
the world's leading superpowers um
because it turned Europe into the
world's wealthiest market so the task of
the EU is to promote development within
member states through economic and
political cooperation as of now there
are 28 members um and several more
European countries have applied for
membership so what's important to know
is that the European Union the countries
who are um members are connected and
there is free movement of people Goods
services and capital free movement of
people Goods services and capital and so
the first thing that promotes that is
that all of the EU countries um use the
euro a common
currency secondly the free movement of
people is allowed because there are open
borders in the European Union which
means you don't have to show a Passport
or go through any border Crossing
process when you go between countries um
in addition to that there's open
immigration from all EU member
states um what allows the free movement
of goods is that there aren't any taxes
or tariffs that are charged on goods or
services that cross borders so by
eliminating these fees um European
businesses have a leg up because they
can save money and become more
competitive on a global
scale um so another example of Regional
supernational organizations are NAFTA um
which is the North American Free Trade Agreement
Agreement
OPEC um which is um the organization of
petroleum exporting countries and the
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
