Imagine you are a Foreign Minister. Myths of Geopolitics

Guide to make sense of geopolitics with history, part one

Dear Imaginary Minister

Welcome to my guide to making sense of geopolitics with history.

In this guide I share seven lessons on thinking independently with history about the puzzling world of geopolitics.

I learned these lessons the hard way – over 40 years advising governments and reading many scholarly histories.

But I want to make the lessons easier and quicker for you – in the form of the briefings that I used to write for Government Ministers.

If you think independently about world affairs, and are curious about the world as it is, then this guide will help you. You will be able to dive deeply into the big issues of geopolitics and history with calm and confidence.

Imagine you are a Foreign Minister…

I invite you to play a small role-play game. Imagine that you have just been appointed the Foreign Minister of a medium sized country. Let's say it's Australia, where I come from.

Suddenly, your judgements about the world really matter. You need to put yourself in the shoes of other leaders around the world. You need to think independently, empathetically, and responsibly about the world as it is. You do not just sound off about “geopolitics.”  You make decisions that affect the world.

So, what do you do? You can't just rely on theories. You need to know what really happened. How did countries come to be the way they are? How do they think? Why do they act the way they do?

For that reason, for generations and generations, foreign ministers, leaders of states, diplomats, people interested in geopolitics have turned to history to try to understand the real world as it is. They don’t become historians; but they do puzzle out the world with some history.

If you play this small role-play game, it can change your mindset and motivation to understand the geopolitical world more clearly. There are three benefits.

1. It helps you see the real world as it is; see what really happened more clearly.

2. It enables you to think more independently. You don't just have to rely on theories about things or news about things. You can make your own judgment.

3. You develop what some people call “strategic empathy”. I prefer to call it, simply, empathy.

You learn to put yourself in the position of another country so that you can make sensible decisions about them. and deal with them in a mutually respectful way.

This guide is your briefing on a puzzling world

If you were the Foreign Minister of a small country, on your very first day in office, a government official would come to you and give you a briefing about the world as it is. The briefing pack would tell you what the hot issues are that will hit your desk. The briefing would not tell you what to think – you are the decision-maker after all! But it would show you what you will need to think about to make wise decisions.

I spent most of my 30-year career in government writing those kinds of briefings. So let me guide you towards making sense of the geopolitical world.

What is in the guide to geopolitics and history?

In this guide I introduce you to key lessons of geopolitics and history. I won't overload you with information. I have distilled three decades into seven short briefings.

The guide contains seven briefings to help you make wise judgments about geopolitics. Each briefing:

• focuses on three or four essential points.

• is supported by a short video in which I explain the issues less formally.

• provides you an exercise to practice the skill of thinking intelligently about geopolitics with history

• offers you my curated list of top reading to dive more deeply into the issues.

How I will deliver the guide to subscribers

I am providing the first part of the guide on myths of geopolitics this week.

Over the next three weeks, I will release two briefings per week on Wednesday.

The schedule is:

• 24 July - Introduction and 1. Myths of Geopolitics (all subscribers)

• 31 July - 2. Geography and 3. International Politics (paid subscribers)

• 7 August - 4. Power Factors and 5. Power Players (paid subscribers)

• 14 August - 6. Great Power Narratives & 7. Globalisation (paid subscribers)

Here is the first briefing on myths of geopolitics. Free subscribers have full access to this lesson. If you are a full subscriber, you will have access to all seven briefings.

By becoming a paid subscriber, you will immediately receive the full value of your subscription back in this special guide to geopolitics and history.

If you want to purchase the full guide independently you can do so here for $100 (AUD).

Briefing One: Myths of Geopolitics

TOPIC: MYTHS OF GEOPOLITICS

Key takeaway

1.       Learn to identify three common myths about geopolitics and history, and to begin to question the assumptions of these myths.

Background

2.      We are all story-tellers, and even the most rigorous science is based on metaphors. Geopolitical analysis is no different. Common theories are based on old stories and assumptions that have been changed by history. By using history well, you can think more flexibly about the world as it really is today.

Issues

1.       Three historical myths are common in geopolitical analyses:

a.      Geopolitics is a struggle for control between Eurasia or continental powers and Atlantic or oceanic powers (e.g. Halford Mackinder)

b.      Geopolitics is a clash of civilizations that are essentially defined by religious affiliation (e.g. Samuel Huntington)

c.      Geopolitics moves through history in definable cycles of the rise and fall of empires or big trends (e.g. Peter Turchin)

2.      The idea that the laws of geography and history define a global struggle between continental powers and oceanic powers was set out by Halford Mackinder in 1904. He defined it as a struggle for control of the “World Island” of Eurasia. The idea was included in US strategy. Some advocates of the multipolar world, such as Alexander Dugin or Pepe Escobar, have also adopted it.

3.      Many define geopolitics as a clash of civilizations, which are defined primarily by religious affiliation. The idea follows the American political scientist Samuel Huntington’s book written after the end of the Cold War. He argued the ideological conflict between capitalism and communism would be replaced by a clash of civilizations (e.g West, Islam, Orthodox). The idea can reappear in the idea that some nations are “civilization-states”.

4.      The third common myth is that history moves in cycles. For example, some argue empires rise and fall over a cycle of 250 years. The Russian-American complexity scientist Peter Turchin set out a cyclical view of history based on data in End Times. Another popular idea is that there is a “fourth turning” every 80 years when social systems experience crisis.

5.      These myths are neither entirely wrong nor reliably true. They are powerful myths because they contain some truths. They are myths that are wrong, but in interesting and emotionally compelling ways. They are like old habits that have served us, but lead us astray.

6.      The key skill for you to develop is to identify when these myths are like old thinking habits that no longer serve you. In those cases, they obscure how the world really is, and give analysts a false sense of certainty.

How to do it

7.       You can develop this skill – and take the first step to think independently for yourself - by doing these actions:

a.      Tune in to the ‘grand narrative’ of geopolitical commentators and identify when and how they repeat these stories

b.      Question the assumptions of these ‘grand narratives’

c.      Spot the differences between historical myth and current reality.

How to practice this skill

8.      An optional exercise for you to deepen this skill is to read the original myths in the books listed below. Ask yourself some questions about the assumptions of these writers, and whether they match your experience of the world. Then compare their stories with some quality and recent world histories.

How to learn more (reading and data sources)

9.      The three key texts to identify these common myths are.

a.      Mackinder, Geographical Pivot of History (1904)

b.      Huntington, Clash of Civilizations and remaking of world order (1994)

c.      Turchin, End Times: elites, counter-elites, and the path of political disintegration (2023)

10.  Quality history books that help you probe assumptions about history, geopolitics, and specifically Eurasia, are:

a.      Peter Frankopan, Silk Roads (2015) and New Silk Roads (2018)

b.      Marie Favereau, The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (2021)

c.      John Darwin, After Tamerlane: the Rise and Fall of Global Empires 1400-2000 (2007)