Geopolitics Needs to Make a Couple of Distinctions

Means and Ends, State and society

First out for this substack is a series of posts related to nature of geopolitics.

For a libertarian, Geopolitics is a curious and somewhat artificial animal, since it is a concept that wouldn’t exist as such in a free market, i.e. without any State intervention. Indeed, geopolitics is intrinsically linked to the nation-state with its monopoly of political power over a defined geography.

Geopolitical discourse usually conflates considerations that should really be kept apart. There are two ways this happens: first, in its lack of distinction between means and ends, and second, in its lack of distinction between State and society. As a result of these two all-too-common amalgamations, geopolitical analysis is strongly associated with State action. 

The first distinction - between means and ends - relates to the fact that geopolitics is concerned not only with the strategic interests of nations but also with the ways in which these interests can be tactically achieved. There is seldom enough appreciation in geopolitical thinking, for the fundamental differences between strategy and tactics; in other words, between geopolitical interests and the realisation of these geopolitical interests. Questions related to “what?” and questions related to “how?” should require two different approaches in geopolitical study; not least since the latter, not the former, can lead to government action.

Though it is true that to some extent ends and means cannot be entirely dissociated from each other because they influence one another, nevertheless the distinction between the geopolitical interests themselves and their realisation seems both logical and necessary from a political point of view.

Semantics are of course very important in this regard. For instance, the use of the terms “goals” and “objectives” in connection with a geopolitical strategy should perhaps be avoided because these terms already contain a certain idea of execution. A better term to use is “interests,” which has a more passive connotation; it does not imply any form of action.

The second distinction - between State and society - is that geopolitics often conflates the interests of the government with the interests of the population. In reality, as libertarian have well understood, there is fundamental difference between the two, even in the so-called “liberal democracies.” However, experts in geopolitics and specialists in international relations often fail to recognise, or tend to disregard, this divergence of interests between the State and society.

Geopolitical analysis is usually Statist in nature, based on the assumption that the interests of the “nation” are the interests of the country's political and financial decision-makers. It is a foreign version of “What is good for GM is good for America”; namely, what is good for the Military-Industrial Complex in Afghanistan must be good for the US population.

This is obviously not only a problem of semantics; such a position is problematic, to say the least, in a political system that calls itself representative.

It is necessary to develop these points; this will be done in the next posts. First, the question of geopolitical interests and their realisation will be reviewed. After that, the distinction between the interests of the State and the interests of society will be discussed in more depth. It will then be possible to draw a general conclusion about the problematic nature of geopolitics.