International security: South China Sea dispute (The Economist)

Banyan

Not littorally Shangri-La

The South China Sea becomes a zone of eternal dispute

Jun 9th 2011 | from the print edition

CHINA and America make the weather in Asia-Pacific security. A year ago, when policy wonks and defence officials gathered in Singapore at the Shangri-La hotel for their annual “dialogue” on the subject, a chill was in the air. Robert Gates, America’s defence secretary, complained about petulant rebuffs from China, which at the time put up a cold front. A hawkish Chinese strategist at the conference was unapologetic, growling that America was “taking the Chinese as the enemy”.

This year, when the dialogue reconvened on June 4th, Singapore was deluged by a succession of tropical downpours, but Mr Gates, on the brink of retirement, was in sunnier mood, praising an improvement in China-US relations. China even honoured the event, organised by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank, by sending its defence minister, Liang Guanglie, for the first time. By the standards of speechifying Chinese soldiers, General Liang was remarkably affable, praising a “co-operative partnership” with America.

Yet the shifts in tone from the blunt to the bland and in posture from finger-pointing to backslapping have not been matched by progress toward solving any of the two countries’ underlying disputes in the region. The biggest concern Taiwan, the Korean peninsula and—which is bound to dominate any forum held in South-East Asia—the South China Sea, where the risks of failing to resolve a mesh of overlapping territorial claims are mounting.

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America is not directly involved. But it has declared a “national interest” in preserving freedom of navigation in the sea. Of the 74,000 vessels, carrying one-third of global seaborne trade, that passed through the Strait of Malacca last year, most also plied the South China Sea. Commerce is not in fact under immediate threat. But America, Mr Gates insisted in Singapore, wants to remain an Asia-Pacific power. Ever twitchy about China’s intentions, South-East Asian countries hope he means it.

Speaking at another annual regional forum, the Asia-Pacific Round-table, in Kuala Lumpur a few days earlier, Admiral Robert Willard, America’s commander in the Pacific, said its navy aimed to maintain a “continuous presence” in the South China Sea. Despite budget constraints, America seems determined to beef up its deployment in the area. China is unlikely to welcome that. Its spokesmen are complaining more loudly about America’s habit of sending surveillance ships close to its shores. In 2009 a nasty row erupted when China harassed one. In Singapore Mr Gates blamed China’s lack of transparency, saying most of the snooping was into “mysteries” rather than “secrets”. China is hardly willing to accept that distinction.

More likely than conflict between the big powers, however, are clashes between China and the smaller claimants to parts of the sea. Of these, Taiwan, still notionally the Republic of China, mirrors the Beijing government’s claim. This seems based on a 1940s map giving China virtually the whole sea, ignoring the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The most belligerent of the other claimants is Vietnam, which says it has sovereignty over both the Paracel Islands, in the northern part of the sea, from which China evicted it in 1974, and the Spratlys, farther south (where the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all have partial claims). On June 5th hundreds joined anti-Chinese protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City provoked by an incident in late May in which a Vietnamese ship exploring for oil and gas had its surveying cables cut by Chinese patrol boats.

Besides a wealth of marine life, the sea is believed to be rich in oil and gas: the “next Persian Gulf” in the words of one excited observer. The countries laying claim to this bounty have all been building up their navies, notably China which this week officially confirmed long-known plans to deploy its first aircraft-carrier. To counter such advances, Vietnam has ordered six Kilo-class submarines from Russia.

In 2002 China and the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations agreed to a “declaration” on a code of conduct for the sea. This is a promise to formalise a code minimising the risk that disputes between fishermen or other users of the sea might escalate into conflict. The code has not emerged. But optimists point to the restraint parties have shown since 2002 in not occupying uninhabited islands or specks of rock (though they have been energetically fortifying the places where they already had a presence). Similarly, some were cheered when China’s most recent statement of its claim did not include the contentious map, and could even be construed as accepting UNCLOS principles.

Douglas Unfairbank

However, China does not inspire confidence. Around the time when the Vietnamese survey ship had its lines cut, the Philippines reported that Chinese vessels had been spotted unloading building material on an uninhabited reef, known as the Amy Douglas Bank, in waters it claims, apparently to build an oil rig. If so, this would undermine the declaration’s one big achievement. “It could be the final nail in its coffin,” says Ian Storey of the Institute for South-East Asian Studies in Singapore, author of a new book on China’s rise and South-East Asian security.

Even if China does not build on the reef, the perception has taken hold that it is intent on picking off the South-East Asian claimants one by one, starting with the Philippines, one of the weakest. No wonder many in the region will have been cheered by Mr Gates’s response to a question about America’s commitment: laying a $100 bet “that five years from now the United States’ influence in this region [will be] as strong if not stronger than it is today.” An even safer bet is that, during that period, hardly any of the plethora of interlocking international disputes in the South China Sea will have been resolved.

Source: The Economist.

International security: Military spending in 2010 (The Economist)

Military spending

Defence costs

Jun 8th 2011, 14:00 by The Economist online

The biggest military spenders

ON JUNE 8th China's top military brass confirmed that the country's first aircraft carrier, a refurbishment of an old Russian carrier, will be ready shortly. Only a handful of nations operate carriers, which are costly to build and maintain. Indeed, Britain has recently decommissioned its sole carrier because of budget pressures. China's defence spending has risen by nearly 200% since 2001 to reach an estimated $119 billion in 2010—though it has remained fairly constant in terms of its share of GDP. America's own budget crisis is prompting tough discussions about its defence spending, which, at nearly $700 billion, is bigger than that of the next 17 countries combined.

Source: The Economist.

Analysis: The new Russian military doctrine: more of the same?

The long-awaited publication of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation [1], signed by President Dmitry Medvedev on 5 February 2010, was the result of years of debate within the Russian military and political establishment. The new Russian strategic perspective was expected with anxiety due to the great changes in the international arena since the last edition of the Military Doctrine of the country, in 2000, including: the resurgence of Russian power; the September 11 attacks and the international terrorism; the wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003); NATO’s expansion toward Russia’s borders (2004); and the August War against Georgia (2008).

The military doctrine of a country is always a very important document, as it outlines and provides a measure of predictability to its security policy. In the case of Russia, where the security issues have historically had great influence in government decisions and in the very formation of Russia’s national identity, the study of the new Military Doctrine allows experts to become familiar with a very relevant aspect of the international insertion of Moscow. Based on the text of the Doctrine, this paper aims to highlight its most representative elements and analyze its possible impacts on Russian foreign policy and Moscow’s relations with its neighbors and major powers.

The Military Doctrine of 2010 [2] starts with general provisions which deal with the purposes of the Doctrine relating to the protection of Russia’s national interests of Russia and with the conceptualization of terms such as risk of war (voennaya opasnost’), military threat (voennaya ugroza), local war (lokal’naya voyna) and large-scale war (krupnomasshtabnaya voyna). The doctrine is divided into three sections: the dangers of war and military threats to the Russian Federation (Articles 7 to 16); military policy of the Russian Federation (Articles 17 to 37), and military and economic security of defense (Articles 38 to 53).

Elements

In the beginning of the section on the dangers of war and military threats to Russia, the Doctrine recognizes that the “[e]xisting architecture of international security, including its international legal mechanisms, does not provide equal security for all states” (Russian Federation 2010). This reveals the perception that, despite being well placed within the international security system, Russia estimates that such system provides even greater protection to other states.

The Doctrine recognizes the waning possibility of a large-scale war being waged against Russia, but notices the persistence of some sources of military threat to the country. The expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) towards Russian borders and the intention to give it global functions appears as the first item of the main external dangers of war to the country mentioned in the document. Another danger cited is the establishment of missile defense systems that “[...] undermine global stability and violate the balance of power [...]” (Russian Federation 2010), in a clear reference to the U.S. project of installing a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. Territorial claims against Russia are also evaluated as an external danger of war – here we can remember the Japanese claim on the Kuril Islands. International terrorism is another item quoted in the external dangers of war by the Doctrine.

The Doctrine demonstrates that Moscow will thoroughly monitor the military-strategic scenario in its Near Abroad. Several passages show that will be considered military dangers and threats to Russia the occurrence of the following situations in the territory of its neighbors: the deployment of military contingents belonging to states and organizations which are alien to the region; the use of military force in violation of international law; the escalation in armed conflicts; the activities of international armed radical groups; and the development of military exercises with provocative purposes.

The document recognizes the growing importance of high-precision weapons, information and control systems and robotics for the conduct of contemporary warfare, including through devices remotely controlled by humans. In this subject, it is worth remembering the Russian acquisition of Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) in 2009, which demonstrates both the willingness of Moscow to modernize its armed forces and the inability of the Russian military-industrial complex to produce certain types of weapons required in the 21^st century warfare.

In order to prevent conflicts, the Doctrine attaches great importance to the cooperation and coordination in security issues within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). NATO was not cited in this part, receiving only a brief mention among the organizations with which Russia will seek to develop relationships.

Concerning the use of nuclear weapons, the Doctrine reserves the right of Russia to use them as a response to an attack with weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical or bacteriological) against the country, as well as in the case of aggression with conventional weapons that threatens the very existence of the Russian state. Here, Moscow has adopted the first-use policy of nuclear weapons and adhered to the doctrine of preemptive nuclear strikes – even though the country has already begun pondering about it in the late 1990’s, after NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia, when the military might of the Atlantic Alliance was greater than Russia’s (Kramnik 2009). According to Russian military commanders, the country will continue to develop and modernize its “nuclear triad”, consisting of land-based ballistic missile systems, nuclear submarines equipped with ballistic missiles and strategic bombers armed with nuclear warheads (RIA Novosti 2010).

However, further details on the Russian nuclear deterrence policy will only be known with the presentation of the Principles of State Nuclear Deterrence Policy to 2020, which were approved together with the Military Doctrine, but have not been released to the public yet.

The Doctrine envisages the use of Russian Armed Forces abroad to protect the interests of Russia and its citizens, among other things, in accordance with international law and Russian federal legislation. In addition, the document ascribes the protection of citizens of the Russian Federation living abroad against armed attacks directed at them as one of the tasks of the Armed Forces in peacetime. As Western analysts suspect, these provisions may give room for a stronger interventionism of the Kremlin in the domestic affairs of states in its Near Abroad – such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine – on the pretext of protecting Russian minorities living in these countries. Indeed, the protection of Russian populations was one of the reasons for Moscow’s military intervention in the August War against Georgia in 2008.

The text also delegates to the Armed Forces the task of combating piracy and ensuring the safety of navigation. In fact, this provision is not more than an acknowledgement of the participation of the Russian Navy in suppressing the activities of Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, by sending a task force of three warships from its Pacific fleet to the region in 2009 (RIA Novosti 2009).

Regarding the organization of the military, the Doctrine aims to transform the Armed Forces in a more efficient and mobile force by optimizing the structures of the three armed branches (Air Force, Army and Navy) and independent troops (airborne troops, space and strategic missile forces), with the use of combined arms units performing similar tasks (RIA Novosti 2010).

In the third section of the document, military and economic security of the defense, great attention is paid to economic and social sustainability of the apparatus of national defense and the role of the military-industrial complex in this matter. After all, putting the recent history of Russia in perspective, one can point to the hypertrophy of the military apparatus as one of the decisive causes for the demise of the Soviet experience.

One of the tasks assigned to the military-industrial complex is “[...] to ensure a strategic presence of Russia on the world market of high-technology products and services” (Russian Federation 2010). In fact, the country has managed to maintain a privileged position in the global arms market, accounting for about 25% of all exports in the sector between 2004 and 2008 – in 2007, Russia exported as much as US$ 7.4 billion in defense equipment (SIPRI 2009).

One of the goals of the military-industrial complex is to improve the system of intergovernmental cooperation in the military field. In this subject, it is worth citing the already extensive military cooperation between Russia and India – whose most prominent project is the development of fifth-generation fighter for the Air Forces of the two countries (Sukhoi/HAL FGFA).

Another objective assigned to the military-industrial complex is to ensure Russia’s technological independence in the development of weapons of strategic importance. However, the recent purchases of the French-made Mistral helicopter carrier and of the aforementioned Israeli-made UAV’s show that Russia will have to overcome obstacles of financial and technical nature in order to fully achieve this objective.

The preservation of state control over the organizations of strategic importance within the military-industrial complex is also a goal mentioned in the Doctrine. In fact, this proposal aims to consolidate the measures taken by former President Vladimir Putin related to the defense industry, with the monopoly on exports of Russian arms granted to the state enterprise Rosoboroneksport and the merger of all Russian aerospace industries under a single cluster (United Aircraft Corporation).

The Doctrine cites the progress on negotiations for the establishment of regional security systems as one of the tasks of Russia in the field of political-military cooperation. Here, we can see Moscow’s interest in deepening regional collective security arrangements under the CSTO and the SCO frameworks, as well as an desire to establish the pan-European Treaty of European Security, which has faced a cool reception in Western Europe.

Doctrine’s articles 50 and 51 regarding the tasks and the main priorities of the political-military cooperation clearly show the Russian perception of “concentric circles” of alliances around them (Belarus, CSTO, CIS and CST):

(i) the closest one, with Belarus, involves the coordination in the development of the national armed forces and the use of military infrastructure;

(ii) within the CSTO, aims to the creation of a collective force to ensure common defense;

(iii) within the CIS, seeks to guarantee regional security and to conduct peace operations, and

(iv) within the SCO, recommends the coordination of efforts against possible security threats to the common area and the creation of a legal basis for the organization.

The final clause of the Doctrine states that its content can be corrected due to changes in the character of military threats to Russia and to the conditions of the country’s development. This prediction of adaptability to the Doctrine demonstrates that the Russian authorities responsible for the document are sensitive to the dynamic changes in the nature of contemporary military conflicts, in which the classic conventional war between states coexists with the fourth generation of wars involving non-state actors.

The innovations of the Military Doctrine of 2010 compared to its predecessor were the explicit identification of threats – particularly the placement of NATO as the first in the list of major external dangers of war – and allies, the provision ascribing the right to use troops abroad to protect Russian citizens and the inclusion of the fight against piracy on the list of tasks of the Russian Armed Forces (Saradzhyan 2010).

Conclusion

A document as fundamental as this has two facets: orientation of the Armed Forces in the domestic stage and foreign consumption. It is important to remember that the text of the Doctrine is full of messages carefully targeted to specific audiences (states, organizations etc.). First, the very date of its publication (February 5) is quite symbolic, as it coincided with the beginning of the 46th Munich Security Conference, dedicated to the future of international and European security (Russia Today 2010). Throughout the text, there are frequent references to cooperation with the CSTO, the SCO and the CIS – organizations where Moscow’s influence is considerable – while passages on the rapprochement with NATO are much more scarce. This inspired the reaction of Christopher Bryant (Bryant 2010), the British minister for European Affairs, who said that:

NATO has no intent against Russia. I don’t think any Russian soldier has been involved or will be involved in any action against NATO, whereas, you know, Russians have died from international terrorism. There have been many incidents in the last few years. So, I would challenge Russia and say: no, you are wrong on this.

For Marcel de Haas (de Haas 2010), the explicit reference to NATO’s expansion as a threat and the implicit reference to the missile shield the United States plans to install in Eastern Europe are all running against the core of Obama’s “reset policy” (perezagruska) toward Russia. For de Haas and Richard Weitz (Weitz 2010), the references to NATO show that the new Doctrine reaffirms old Cold War values. This arguments, however, lacks substance since Russia only makes such references to the Atlantic Alliance because it is reacting to a concrete geopolitical situation in which NATO – certainly a product of the Cold War – is approaching its military infrastructure toward Russia’s borders, causing concern in the Kremlin. If NATO’s rhetoric is of partnership and mutual trust with Russia, how to justify its expansion to the East, causing annoyance to its Russian counterparts?

According to the military commentator Ilya Kramnik (Kramnik 2009), the new Doctrine reflects the gradual movement of Russia toward Western standards of military force employment and the abandonment of the ideological aspects that made up the military doctrine of the Soviet Union.

The more assertive content of the Doctrine must be understood as a product of the process of Russia’s resurgence as a power with global reach, characterized by a foreign policy more affirmative of Russian national interests, the recovery of its economy and higher spending on the defense sector – there are plans to increase the current budget of US$ 40 billion by 50% over the next three years (RIA Novosti 2010). The increase in military spending is much more an intention to resume investments in the Russian military infrastructure, which was abandoned in the 1990s, than a movement of militarization for the adoption of interventionist and expansionist policies in the international stage, as argued by some analysts.

Moreover, the content of the Doctrine can also be seen as a post facto legitimization of Russia’s role in the August War against Georgia in 2008 and of other initiatives adopted by Moscow in the field of international security in the period between 2000 and 2010.

Bruno Quadros e Quadros is a student of International Relations at Centro Universitário Curitiba (UniCuritiba), Brazil

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NOTES

[1] Hereinafter referred to as “Military Doctrine” or “Doctrine”.

[2] The analysis was based on the original document in Russian and English translations were made freely by the author. Since references to the content of the Military Doctrine are very frequent in this paper, we will only write references in parentheses (in the Chicago format) in cases of direct quote from the original text of the Doctrine.

REFERENCES

Bryant, Christopher. “Our intent towards Russia is entirely peaceful”. Interfax. 17 Feb 2010. http://www.interfax-news.com/interview.asp?id=147631 (accessed Feb 20, 2010).

de Haas, Marcel. “Cold War Military Doctrine.” The Moscow Times. 11 Feb 2010. http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/cold-war-military-doctrine/399496.html (accessed Feb 21, 2010).

Russian Federation. “Voennaya doktrina Rossiyskoy Federatsii” [“Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation”], 2010. Moscow, 2010.

Kramnik, Ilya. “Who should fear Russia’s new military doctrine?”. RIA Novosti. 23 Oct 2009. http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20091023/156567212.html (accessed Feb 20, 2010).

RIA Novosti. “Russian warships sail to Horn of Africa on anti-piracy mission”. RIA Novosti. 29 Mar 2009. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090329/120789018.html (accessed Feb 21, 2010).

RIA Novosti. “Russian president approves new military doctrine”. RIA Novosti. 05 Feb 2010. http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20100205/157785368.html (accessed Feb 20, 2010).

Russia Today. “Russia’s new military doctrine approved”. Russia Today. 05 Feb 2010. http://rt.com/Politics/2010-02-05/russia-military-doctrine-approved.html (accessed Feb 21, 2010).

Saradzhyan, Simon. “Nuclear ‘Constraint’ in Russia”. International Relations and Security Network (ISN). 16 Feb 2010. http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?lng=en&id=112745 (accessed Feb 20, 2010).

SIPRI. 2009. SIPRI Yearbook 2009: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Stockholm: SIPRI. http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2009/files/SIPRIYB09summary.pdf.

Weitz, Richard. “Global Insights: Russia’s New Military Doctrine reaffirms Old Values”. World Politics Review. 09 Feb 2010. http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=5094 (accessed Feb 21, 2010).

Source: e-International Relations.

Sugestões de leituras sobre Geopolítica (Foreign Affairs)

What to Read on Geopolitics

Summary: An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on geopolitics.

GEOFFREY SLOAN is Director of the Graduate Institute for Political and International Studies at the University of Reading.

Theorizing about the relationship between geography and security is one of the oldest and most central themes of Western political science. Modern geopolitical thinking appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, differing from its predecessors in its emphasis on technological change and global systems of power. In vogue before and through the world wars, geopolitics fell out of favor by the second half of the century, accused of everything from environmental determinism to simplistic binary categorization. Today, however, the subject is undergoing a revival -- perhaps based on the recognition that global political changes in the twenty-first century may stem not simply from human culture and institutions but also the geographical environment.

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. By A. T. Mahan. Little, Brown, 1890.

Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan was a U.S. naval officer who became world famous for his geopolitical theorizing. The core of Mahan's thesis rested on the relationship between the political control of the sea and the impact of a powerful navy on a state's foreign policy. From these two factors, Mahan attempted to predict the role that naval power would play in U.S. foreign policy. In its heyday, the book was lauded in the United Kingdom and elsewhere; Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered a copy placed in the wardroom of every ship in the Imperial German navy. Although much criticized today, Mahan's work can be credited with uncovering the essential elements of sea power and demonstrating that there are important economic prerequisites for possessing a navy. He provided a rationale for the turn-of-the-century transition of the U.S. Navy from a brown-water force to one that could project and sustain power globally.

Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction. By Halford J. Mackinder. Henry Holt, 1919.

Mackinder: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft. By W. H. Parker. Oxford University Press, 1982.

Halford Mackinder was the British founding father of modern geopolitics. In 1904, he described an area roughly contiguous with today's Russian Federation as the "eternal geographical pivot of history." In this book, 15 years later, he coined the terms "Heartland" to describe that space and "World Island" to refer to the joint landmass of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mackinder argued that geography conditions political and strategic outcomes without rigidly determining them, and that geography, demography, and economic success are interrelated. The key to future peace, he claimed, lay in resolving the relationship between the German and Slavic peoples in Eastern Europe. He summed up his theory in an unforgettable catechism: "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; who rules the World Island commands the World." W. H. Parker's biography provides insight into the polymath that Mackinder was and an overview of his diverse and accomplished career. More can be found on Mackinder and his legacy at www.mackinderforum.org.

America's Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power. By Nicholas J. Spykman. Harcourt Brace, 1942.

Like Mackinder, Nicholas Spykman was driven by the desire to describe, prescribe, and predict. His 1942 book represented a systematic attempt to apply geopolitics to the American case. He stressed the importance of a global balance-of-power policy, with the United States acting as the balancer -- a role that could be played only if the United States maintained a margin of superiority around the Eurasian littoral, or "rimland," keeping the Soviet Union penned up inside. "Because of the inadequacy of the Arctic Coast as an outlet to the ocean," he wrote, "the great heartland can find access to the sea only by routes that cross the encircling mountain barrier and border zone beyond. The only exit routes are through the Baltic and Black Seas and by the overland routes through the North German plain between the Scandinavian massif and the Carpathians." Spykman's book caught the moment when the geographical scope of U.S. grand strategy was expanding to a global scale. He argued that a postwar return to isolationism was unwise, and his geopolitical perspective provided a rationale for a U.S. commitment to maintaining an equilibrium of power on the Eurasian continent.

Great Powers and Geopolitical Change. By Jakub J. Grygiel. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Jakub Grygiel's book uses historical case studies to analyze how great powers have responded to such dramatic geopolitical changes as the discovery of new trade routes and continents. He finds that the great powers' success or failure was shaped in part by the location of resources, the layout of trade networks, and the stability of state boundaries. According to Grygiel, a country's strategic response to geography remains one of the most salient factors in establishing and maintaining power in the international arena, as states can increase and maintain their positions of power by pursuing a geostrategy that focuses on controlling resources and lines of communication.

Geopolitics, Geography, and Strategy. Edited by Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan. Routledge, 1999.

The diverse contributions in this collection cover everything from Mahan, Mackinder, and other theorists to subjects such as the influence of weather during the "age of sail," geography in the space age, and the renewed popularity of geopolitics in post-Soviet Russia. Taken together, the chapters underline the point that geography is the mother of strategy, setting the conditions for attack and defense on land, on sea, and even in the air.

COMENTÁRIOS DO URBI ET ORBI:

Ao contrário do que pregavam o institucionalismo liberal e os entusiastas do "fim da História" dos anos 1990, as considerações geopolíticas continuam bem vivas nas mentes dos policymakers e dos analistas internacionais. Como entender a queda de braço entre a OTAN e a Rússia em torno de diversos temas (a adesão de Geórgia e Ucrânia à Aliança Atlântica, o escudo antimísseis norte-americano no Leste europeu etc.)? Como apreender o significado do Quirguistão para o esforço de guerra de Washington no Afeganistão? Ou a nova "corrida para a África" em busca de mercados e recursos naturais? Somente a Geopolítica pode nos fornecer instrumentais para a análise dessas questões. Atestado disso é a persistência de termos como "esferas de influência", "linhas de suprimento", "multipolaridade" em discursos, textos acadêmicos e matérias de imprensa.

O autor desse syllabus elenca alguns dos clássicos da Geopolítica -- as obras de Alfred Mahan, Halford Mackinder e Nicholas Spykman são citadas, muito embora o igualmente importante Karl Haushofer tenha sido preterido nessa lista --, juntamente com reinterpretações e sínteses contemporâneas sobre o assunto. Em última análise, o que devemos assinalar é que a importância de tais autores não reside tanto no seu rigor acadêmico, mas sobretudo no fato de todos eles terem sido estafetas das potências que representavam. O fio condutor de tais textos é o dever-ser, a recomendação de políticas que determinado Estado deve tomar para conter as ameaças detectadas, resultado da proximidade -- promiscuidade, diriam os mais críticos -- que esses e outros autores tiveram com o poder. No Brasil, a obra geopolítica de Golbery do Couto e Silva, considerado a "eminência parda" do regime militar brasileiro, é o maior exemplo disso, já que ela teve considerável influência na formulação da política externa americanista de Castello Branco.

Para os que quiserem se aprofundar no assunto, nós do Urbi et Orbi recomendamos aos leitores a revista italiana Eurasia (especializada nos temas da Geopolítica) e as publicações do CENEGRI (Centro de Estudos em Geopolítica e Relações Internacionais).

Adaptado de Foreign Affairs.

Foto: Mapa de Fred W. Rose.