George Friedman’s Thoughts: Geopolitical Determinism

Having written a great deal on space and enchantment, it is time to come down to earth. I want to return to the central thesis of geopolitics as I practice it: the idea of geopolitical determinism. I differ from other people who write on geopolitics in two senses. While I regard geography as a fundamental determinant in human behavior, I don’t regard it as being the sole determinant. For me, Greek philosophy is pivotal in defining what it means to be human. I am not sure that Plato or Aristotle could have written in any place but Greece, or at any time other than they did. But regardless of that question, we are all, in the global civilization that has emerged, shaped to some extent by them as by the highest moments of all civilization. But this could not have come about without the European imposition of a global system on the world, so we are back to geopolitics. My point here is that geopolitics is far more complex and subtle than simply the physical reality of the globe, but also that the subtlety of the world constantly circles back to that physical reality. More controversial is that I’m a […]