Geostrategy

Geostrategy, a subfield of geopolitics, is a type of foreign policy guided principally by geographical factors[1] as they inform, constrain, or affect political and military planning. As with all strategies, geostrategy is concerned with matching means to ends[2][3][4][5][6] Strategy is as intertwined with geography as geography is with nationhood, or as Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan state it, "[geography is] the mother of strategy."[7]

Geostrategists, as distinct from geopoliticians, approach geopolitics from a nationalist point of view. Geostrategies are relevant principally to the context in which they were devised: the strategist's nation, the historically rooted national impulses,[8] the strength of the country's resources, the scope of the country's goals, the political geography of the time period, and the technological factors that affect military, political, economic, and cultural engagement. Geostrategy can function prescriptively, advocating foreign policy based on geographic and historical factors, analytically, describing how foreign policy is shaped by geography and history, or predictively, projecting a country's future foreign policy decisions and outcomes.

Many geostrategists are also geographers, specializing in subfields of geography, such as human geography, political geography, economic geography, cultural geography, military geography, and strategic geography. Geostrategy is most closely related to strategic geography.

Especially following World War II, some scholars divide geostrategy into two schools: the uniquely German organic state theory; and, the broader Anglo-American geostrategies.[9][10][11]

  1. ^ Dr. Cabral Abel Couto (1988). Elementos de Estratégia. Vol I. Instituto Altos Estudos Militares, Lisboa.
  2. ^ Dr. John Garafano (5–9 July 2004). "Alternate Security Strategies: The Strategic Feasibility of Various Notions of Security" (PDF). International Peace Research Foundation. Retrieved 2006-05-19. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ Report of the Secretary General (20 April 2001). "No exit without strategy: Security Council decision-making and the closure or transition of United Nations peacekeeping operations" (PDF). S/2001/394. United Nations Security Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-01-13. Retrieved 2006-05-19. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Col. David J. Andre (Autumn 1995). "The Art of War—Part, Present, Future" (PDF). Joint Force Quarterly: 129. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2004-11-14. Retrieved 2005-05-19.
  5. ^ Philip Babcock Gove, ed. (September 1961). Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press. strategy: the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological, and military forces of a nation or group of nations to afford the maximum support to adopted policies in peace and war
  6. ^ Gaddis, John Lewis (1982). Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security policy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-503097-6. The process by which ends are related to means, intentions to capabilities, objectives to resources.
  7. ^ Gray, Colin S.; Geoffrey Sloan (November 30, 1999). Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy. London and Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-7146-8053-8.
  8. ^ "Brzezinski Institute on Geostrategy". Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved 31 March 2021.
  9. ^ Hillen, John; Michael P. Noonan (Autumn 1998). "The Geopolitics of NATO Enlargement". Parameters. XXVIII (3): 21–34. Retrieved 2006-12-22.
  10. ^ Tyner, JA (1998). "The Geopolitics of Eugenics and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans". Antipode. 30 (3): 251–269. Bibcode:1998Antip..30..251T. doi:10.1111/1467-8330.00077. ... is often divided into two main schools: the organic state branch and the geostrategy branch ...
  11. ^ Russell, Greg (2006). "Theodore Roosevelt, geopolitics, and cosmopolitan ideals". Review of International Studies. 32 (3): 541–559. doi:10.1017/S0260210506007157. S2CID 145259554. Geopolitics, broadly defined, may actually be seen as two distinct schools that comprise the organic state theory and geostrategy.