I’m back baby!
Happy 2024, young explorers and happy drinkers! It has been a while since I held myself accountable to write here. This has mostly been due to the fact that I struggle to find topics to write about in politics. It is just so vast! So after many hours of intense research and proper due diligence, by which I mean assisting in as many end-of-year drinking sessions and coming out of Dry January, 'oooow I missed you, you sweet brown bastard (referring to whiskey)' catchups. I have decided to rebrand Boozelitics into the discovery of Geopolitics as opposed to politics as a whole. Fear not, the boozy side of our intellectual discourses will remain a central piece to our discoveries.
This comes with setting myself new targets around reading more respectable academia on the topic (benching for 100KG, I mean 1 hour a day…Sorry, been to the gym a lot lately, what can I say…). Followed by one hour of amateur writing on a good day. Hopefully, this will mean higher-quality writing and more factual backups to my extremely witty jokes! This also means getting a piece out a week might be overstretching, at least at the beginning. It remains my major goal with this to have a piece you guys can read around a cozy fireplace on Sunday with your poison of choice and a better understanding of what is happening in the world, explained by a 5-year-old with ADHD and stomach cramps from all the laughing, right?!
So without further ado, what is Geopolitics, and what does it mean to me? Spoiler: there will be much more about me than good ol’ pal Geo here.
Coined by Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén at the turn of the 20th century and rapidly spread out throughout World Wars 1 & 2. It was used to designate the geographic influences on power dynamics in international relations. In contemporary discourse, however, it has become widely employed as a loose term in general international politics.
A beautiful way to understand and dissect the fundamentals of geopolitics is understanding the imperatives and constraints of nations-states - a sovereign polity governed and represented by a community of citizens who identify themselves as a nation, combining principles of state and national sovereignty to legitimise its rule over a defined territory and its population. Described by Geopolitical Futures, these include geography, politics, economics, military, technology, and culture. These will all be referenced later when introducing these to real-life events.
Another notable definition comes from Senior Lecturer at Wales, Evan Graham, who stated that geopolitics at the level of international relations represents the studying of foreign policy to predict international behaviors through certain variables such as area studies, climate, topography (structure of the land), demography (population), and natural resources. Which, when you think about it, is quite similar to the above if we assume demography encompasses culture, economics, politics, and culture?
Looks like all the smart people in the room cannot agree on a definition, and this is a classic trend in what often overcomplicates the answers people are looking for on what actually represents geopolitics. This is the fun bit, right? Read as much as you can, create your understanding of it, and apply. Some differences overall but clear commonality in how they represent geopolitics. All the above makes sense to me right? Internal voice wishing to mansplain intellectually while having some fun kicking in, 3,2,1. I fucking love potatoes and whiskey. However, sadly, my garden in London (if you can call that, basically 2 meters squared of concrete) represents my nation-state but is too small or lacks the resources to produce both potatoes and whiskey. And as we know, my nation-state needs both. However, I realise my neighbor Sue has potatoes, jackpot! I ask for 20% of her potato production for access to the street through my 2 meters square of concrete; she needs that access as she has a car, and it makes her life easier. It’s been 6 months, and now I have a lot of potatoes but still no whiskey, and have not become so desperate as to make vodka, am I right? So I give half my potatoes over to a gun maker (weird neighbor in front, Jack), and I rob the liquor closet of my upstairs neighbor Lucy. I know, sounds like a lot, but I fucking love potatoes and whiskey. This is a disgusting oversimplification of the real world, and I do want to take these lines to clarify that all the statements above are for educational purposes, and I do not trade potatoes to rob my neighbor Lucy’s whiskey cabinet.
From the above and previous articles, you will start to understand it’s all about having fun in the process of understanding this beautiful concept, all the while 'dumbifying' concepts that are often overcomplicated for no reason. I promise this will have some more backbone as we go through these articles as the ultimate goal is to accurately understand what is going on and give my awkward ass some content for future dinner parties.
In 2024, we saw a rise in interest in geopolitics. I mean, look at the state of the world: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, the everlasting competition between China and the US, climate change, and a post-Covid-19 globalised world. It only seems fitting my whiskey and I jump on the bandwagon, doesn’t it? However, the more I think about it, geopolitics was always there really. I mean, in my case, my young naivete and eternal chasing from the next party were never paying close attention to it. When I did find some time to do some research, it always revolved around things such as 'how to talk to girls', 'how do I convince my parents to buy the play station', and 'will humans ever colonize Mars?'. We are getting somewhere with that last one.
Overall, there have been some sparks of interest in foreign affairs from a younger age, especially when I think about the fact that I wanted to join the British Cavalry, become a diplomat, and move to a 'high-risk' region. An unfortunate rugby injury that left my knee shattered meant that I had to turn my childhood wishes of going pro on the badass foreign landscape scene, to drinking and spilling the beans on what my unintellectual perspective believes the world is doing.
There is, however, some consolation in knowing that maybe this blog can simplify geopolitics enough for a younger spirit to pick up the dream and make this world somewhat a better place.
Stay curious and see you soon!
James-Alexander