[MUSIC] Now let's come back to history and let's try to use some instruments of critical geopolitics in practice. Let's start with the period of imperialism when the European states more and more often struggled with each other for relative efficiency, for resources. The times when in the world there was no more empty space and geopolitics was actually used by scientists and politicians to find sort of scientific justification of this struggle. Many representatives of critical geopolitics like well known to us see that in the times of imperialism's the first geo-politicians used their knowledge in order to justify claims of their conflicts. Obviously, they were patriots of their countries. They were trying to find scientific constructions in order to explain that it is not their goal but rather something logic in their foreign policy activity to always expand, to always conquer new territories, new people. They try to make geopolitics as a science in order to deeply ties itself to make this imperialism or other aggression against other countries something normal. And as a result these signs was taken by some politicians and this is how this view, this foreign policy which was mainly driven by people who try to achieve glory, who try to gain your resources and to bring power to their own country was if not legalize then justified by some sort of scientific law. One of the first and probably one of the best examples here is Sir Halford Mackinder. On the one hand, he was geographer which contributed significantly to his worldview. On the other hand, however, he lived in the time very difficult for geographers. It was harder and harder to find new places to discover and therefore Halford Mackinder decided to describe such a situation in the following terms. That the world became a closed space of interaction between countries and therefore geography should also change. Geography should not be directed on exploration of new terrorism, but rather it should be focused on assistance to the state of how to compete with other nations for resources, for strategic position and so on. Unsurprisingly being focused on this competition in his theory he ignored some factors, which we probably wouldn't nowadays. For example, he didn't account the United States as one of the old powers because he perceived competition between imperial states as something traditional originating from competition between the European countries. And he did not consider air power is something valuable in this geopolitical competition, which also tells us that his geopolitical world view was very significantly influenced by his own personality and his past experience. Another good example is Alfred Mahan from the United States who advocated usage of sea power in foreign policy for his own country. It wasn't the situation when Alfred Mahan wrote something that was used later by politicians in order to absolutely change foreign policy of the United States and put it in a different direction. However, it was also hard to see that Alfred Mahan tried to describe objective reality rather he looked at foreign policy that was already implemented by the United States, meaning strengthening its fleet and using its naval power to compete with other countries in the world. And decided to advocate the usage of this sea power in other words to justify and to tell that it is the most appropriate instrument instead of objectively studying the origins and the main instruments of international competition. Which also with the usage of instruments of critical geopolitics tells us that it wasn't a theory of objective reality but rather it was a theory influenced by personality and by certain aims of Alfred Mahan. Now let's look at academic career of another gepolitician German Friedrich Ratzel. While Sir Halfor Mackinda was a geographer when he started to develop his geopolitical ideas and concepts, Friedrich Ratzel started his academic career with doctorate in theology and he was very interested in issues of migration. If we use critical geopolitics here to study his academic career and his academic background, we can conclude that it all significantly influenced his worldview and the concepts that he developed. Friedrich Ratzel considered the state as a living organism which in order to survive and especially to be successful should always expand. Therefore he thought he believed that Germany is such a living organism to be successful should expand its borders, which actually resulted in his recommendation to be successful Germany should join the race for living space or in German lebensraum. Actually German geopolitical school in the times of traditional geopolitics in the first half of the 20th century prior to the Second World War is probably a perfect example to be deconstructed with the instruments of critical geopolitics. Let's continue this topic and look for a while at Rudolf Kjellen. He wasn't German he was Swedish, but his books, his naturalist views of this state as organism which were very similar to the views of Friedrich Ratzel and his explanation of natural origins of foreign policy of states were very popular in Germany. His books were published in Germany many times. And by the way, one of the latest additions was even edited by the well known to us Karl Haushofer. We Know Karl Haushofer as a founder of German geopolitics as academic discipline as long as he brought it to the university. He taught it at the university and he also established the so-called zeitschrift fur geopolitic or journal of geopolitics. So here we deal with form of geopolitics with Karl Haushofer and some other scientist, German scientists as representatives of academic community who produce these geopolitical ideas. On the one hand we remember that Karl Haushofer took a lot from ideas of Friedrich Ratzel, Rudolf Kjellen, to introduce his own concepts. On the other hand we shouldn't forget that Karl Haushofer served as a military officer in the German army during the First World War and obviously this fact also influence his gepolitical views and brought sort of expansionism into his geopolitical concepts, which was added to the previous rather expansionist ideas of Friedrich Ratzel and the concept of [FOREIGN] living space with Germany should expand. If we move from formal geopolitics to practical geopolitics, we should definitely mention that Karl Haushofer was ahead such enticed with German geopolitician in the times of Nazi Germany. And of course, those politicians took a lot from his geopolitical concepts in order to justify or to formulate foreign policy of the United Germany to make it expansionist or at least to justify its expansionism. Unsurprisingly Gerard when he described German geopolitical school called it a spatialization of the imperialist desire of the small community of militaristic males who felt Germany was castrated by the Versailles Treaty. In other words, German geopoliticians academic representatives of geopolitical school desired [FOREIGN] they desired to review the results of the First World War and used geopolitical ideas to justify this revision. [MUSIC]
