The Dictionary of Human Geography

scripts and the far from imaginative death and
destruction they inspire or help legitimate; the
second relates to how such destructive conse-
quences relate to thecreative destruction
ofglobalizationandneo-liberalism; and
the third concerns the reciprocal influence of
these economic mediations on the ongoing ar-
ticulation of new neo-liberal geopolitical
scripts that emphasizeeconomic integration
over Cold War containment.
Geographical scholarship on the ‘war
on terror’ has connected critical geopolitical
concerns about the US President Bush admin-
istration’s fear-mongering with all three ques-
tions about the ties between geopolitics and
real world relations. Derek Gregory (2004b)
has shown how in Afghanistan and Iraq the
people construed by the ‘war on terror’ script
as the enemy have suffered lethal conse-
quences as a result of the ‘god-tricks’ of long-
distance geopolitical representations. He also
has continued to argue in this way that the
geopolitics has constructed spaces of excep-
tion (seeexception, spaces of) and legal van-
ishing points, where huge numbers of people
are treated as outcasts from humanity and
the tenuous protections of internationallaw
(Gregory, 2007). Focusing, by contrast, on
the arrogance of the American exceptionalism
that has helped create these spaces of excep-
tion, recent reflections on the ties between
American imperialism and neo-liberalism
have highlighted how the relationship is also
highly contradictory. For example, geopolit-
ical strategies about building American dom-
inance over themiddle eastand itsoilspigots
exist in uneasy tension with ongoing interests
in maintaining transnational business,class
harmony and support for the dollar against
the backcloth of rising concerns about Ameri-
can indebtedness to East Asian and OPEC
owners of US bonds (Smith, N., 2003c;
Harvey, 2004b). These economic contexts in
which geopolitical scripts are developed and
implemented have further been found to be
changing the nature of the scripts themselves,
leading to a neo-liberal geopolitics (Roberts,
Secord and Sparke, 2003) which, with its dis-
tinctly economic emphases on globalization
and connection over isolation and contain-
ment, has also been called ‘geoeconomics’
(Sparke, 2005). ms

Geopolitik Aschoolofpolitical geography,
and specificallygeopolitics, disseminated in
inter-war Germany by the geographer and
military officer Karl Haushofer (1869–1946)
and the journalZeitschrift fu ̈r Geopolitik(1922–

44). The term in fact originated with the

Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen,

whose ideas, along with Ratzel’s organic the-

ory of thestate, provided a spurious rationale

to justify German expansionism (Parker,

1985: see alsoanthropogeography;lebens-

raum). AlthoughGeopolitik was associated

with Hitler’s Nazi Party, however, there were

important differences. Whereas Geopolitik

was influenced by the significance of natural

laws in its understanding of social and politi-

cal life (cf.darwinism), National Socialism

saw societies as determined by biological in-

heritance and was both predicated on and

powered byracism(Bassin, 1987a: see also

fascism). The term is often used to portray

Geopolitikas a purely German phenomenon,

but it should be noted that the British geog-

rapher Sir Halford Mackinder also made ref-

erence to organic or natural understandings of

state and society. cf

Suggested reading

Bassin, Newman, Reuber and Agnew (2004).

geostrategic realms The largest-scale

division of theglobein Cohen’s (2003) geo-

politics of the world system. Large enough to

be of global significance, geostrategic realms

serve the interests of the powers that dominate

them. Held together by trading, cultural and

military connections, they change as economic

and military forces evolve. Reflecting long-

standing concerns with land and seapower

ingeopoliticalthinking, three geostrategic

realms have been identified: the Atlantic and

Pacific trade-dependent Maritime realm; the

Eurasian Continental Russian Heartland

realm; and the mixed Continental Maritime

East Asia realm. The intellectual or practical

significance of Cohen’s typology is far from

straightforward, but the US military has devel-

oped its own geostrategic division of the world,

the practical significance of which is only too

clear (see Morrissey, 2008b). Different ‘unified

combatant commands’ are assigned to different

world regions:

US Africa Command (all of Africa except

Egypt);

US Central Command (middle east and

Central Asia);

US European Command (centred on Europe,

including Russia);

US Pacific Command (including Australia,

and South and South East Asia)

US Northern Command (North Africa)

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GEOPOLITIK