Geopolitics For Dummies

Geopolitics is more fascinating than any novel or a movie, but unfortunately a vast majority of people stay away from it. Geopolitics is a mix of foreign policy, history, geography, culture, economics, wars and more. It involves Machiavellian power struggle as well as cooperative, win-win alliances among nations.

Geopolitical interests also include maintaining access to natural resources, controlling strategic regions, securing banking/corporate interests and much more. The darker side of geopolitics involves wars and destruction. Geopolitical experts analyze, contemplate and plan strategies for the long term – many decades into the future. In essence, geopolitics has an enormous influence on the prosperity and the strength of nations.

Naturally, the more powerful a nation, the more significant geopolitics becomes.

Given the importance of geopolitics, one would assume that in a country like America – a superpower with 800 military bases in 140 countries – people will be extremely interested in the subject. However, Americans are awfully apathetic towards foreign policy, world affairs and geopolitics.

Of course, the establishment prefers this apathy and ignorance, so that it can spend trillions of dollars and launch wars without being challenged by the public. It’s no coincidence that the world news on TV shows are 90% about events in the US.

Everything about foreign affairs in the US is boiled down to a Disney version of good versus bad. During the Cold War era (1945-1990), this reductionism was even easier – "we must fight communism." In general, most of the mainstream media coverage of geopolitics is blatant propaganda.

Politicians in the US also play this game very well. Everyone repeats the same talking points, slogans and clichés, and there’s strong bipartisan support for most geopolitical issues, especially military spending, wars and interventions. During presidential campaigns and debates, very little time is given for foreign policy matters.

Apart from the enormous budget that the US military enjoys, the motive to keep the public in the dark is simple: modern geopolitics involves a lot of illegal, immoral and unethical activities. This is especially embarrassing when the credibility and reputation of US foreign policy apparatus is based on naïve narratives.

There are several reasons that the propaganda works so well. One, there’s an innate, evolutionary, tribal fear of enemies in all of us. We don’t want to question our military or intelligence services and appear treasonous. Second, we are driven by greed. If we can conquer Iraq and get hold of their oil, hey, why not? If children in Africa are willing to work on cocoa farms so we can enjoy delicious chocolate, why should we question the arrangement? Third, the mainstream narrative is so compellingly simple and comforting – we are the good guys, fighting the bad ones to make the world a better place – that it’s extremely difficult to challenge it. An aggrandized version of the good guys is we are the greatest country! Who can resist basking in our own exceptionalism?

However, only truth shall set us free. Truth is also far more interesting because of its nuances and complexity. And as we shall discuss in the next chapter, it’s in the self-interest of every American to learn the truth about US and world geopolitics.

Chapter 2: Why Should I Care?

All government policies and decisions affect us in one way or another, and in the short or the long term. When it comes to foreign policy and geopolitics, the impacts are tremendous. Let’s see how.

Fraud, Waste and Abuse

First is the budget for the military-intelligence complex, which runs to about $1 trillion in 2018. That’s US taxpayers’ money; and that affects our national debt, a monstrous problem that threatens our future.

Second, where there’s a lot of money, there’s a lot of corruption and abuse. When money seems to flow like a river, government projects and ideas pop up like weeds. Needless military bases around the world, wars of choice, private military contractors milking the government, and white elephant military projects are all consequences of the unconstrained budgets. (We will discuss this more in details later on in a separate chapter).

Wars

If we aren’t smart, we will continue to be stuck in perpetual wars, which create death, destruction, chaos and more enemies. This is horrible from a humanitarian point of view. From a self-interested point of view, look at all the millions of refugees who have flooded into Europe and the West over the last two decades. We spend trillions of dollars, bomb countries, ruin the lives of hundreds of millions of people, kill a couple of million people, and then accept a couple of millions of refugees. It’s an insane policy.

Alliances for now and the Future

Geopolitics affect our alliances around the world. If our politicians make awful decisions based on faulty judgments, desire to gain short-term political advantages or greed driven by corporate profits, all Americans are adversely affected, even if the consequences aren’t immediately perceived.

US elites have made plenty of unholy alliances in the past – for example, Bin Laden in the 1980s. How did that work out?

The US foreign policy apparatus also has made unnecessary enemies over the decades, hurting American economic and geopolitical interests.

Because the US is such a dominant power, most countries try their best to avoid a confrontation with us. What does that mean? When we have an open animosity with a country, it most likely means that globalists have made extreme demands on that country and have pushed it into a corner. While some countries like Iraq, Libya, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela have openly challenged the US diktat, others like Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan and Myanmar are quietly shifting their allegiances to China. We are also potentially entering a new Cold War against both Russia and China at the same time, which is a terrible idea.

The more hostility we face around the world, the worse off we are.

Thus we can see that geopolitics is too important to let a few arrogant Washington elites – living inside echo chambers – chart the course of the US and even the world.

Chapter 3: Geography and Destiny

The role of geopolitics is largely determined by the size, the location and the natural resources of a country.

For some really small and poor countries, geopolitics plays almost no role. This can be a blessing and a curse – they don’t have to take sides in global politics and they won’t get bombed; however, at the same time, they stay underdeveloped and/or weak.

Trade Routes

Some small countries, because of their geographical location, become an important player in global politics. For example, consider how shipping routes have made Malaysia a strategically important country. 100,000 ships and 25% of world’s traded goods pass through the Strait of Malacca.

Thus it’s no wonder that both the US and China try hard to influence Malaysia and its establishment. One of the US strategies to contain China was to shut off this choke point in case of a US-China war. (Yes, countries have to think about such scenarios).

So, guess what China did? It found an alternate escape routes to the Indian Ocean through Myanmar. Shut me out in Malaysia? I can still get my oil from Africa and the Middle East!

Thus, suddenly, an erstwhile ignored Myanmar suddenly became quite an important country!

Myanmar suddenly was infused with investments from the West as well as China, and its GDP skyrocketed!

Just to be on the safe side, China also developed a second alternative route to the Indian Ocean through Pakistan. This also served the purpose of encircling India, which China sees as potential adversary in a decade or two (although the two countries try hard to get along for now).

Pakistan, of course, welcomed China with open arms, since the US did a 180 degree flip-flop with its South East Asian policies. All through the Cold War, India was aligned with the USSR, and Pakistan was allied with the US. Starting in the 1990s, the US befriended India for several reasons – one, as a source of cheap, smart, well educated labor; second, as an ally to counter-balance China.

So, now China is investing billions of dollars on infrastructure projects in Pakistan. That’s another example of a unique geographical location being a blessing.

However, great geographic location doesn’t always guarantee peace and prosperity. Somalia and Yemen are in the critical juncture of trade routes in the Red Sea, and both countries are torn apart with civil war and terrorism. It takes extremely smart politicians in small countries to navigate geopolitics and negotiate with countries who have far more power.

Right next to Somalia is Djibouti, which seems to have found the balance. This tiny country allows military bases of the US, France, Italy and even China.

The biggest example of trade route politics in that region is, of course, Egypt, which has the Suez Canal. Because of the importance of the canal, Egypt has always been the target of colonial powers (British, French) and later the US. When Egypt tried to nationalize the Suez Canal in 1956, war ensued! Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt. Later, the US and the UK supported Muslim Brotherhood to weaken and overthrow nationalist/secular Egyptian leaders.

Now, the US uses military aid and other deep state tools to control Egypt. Wikileaks emails show how Soros and USAID played a major role in the so-called Arab Spring uprising which led to the overthrow of dictator Mubarak in 2011. He was our buddy for 30 years, but geopolitical wizards in Washington and Tel Aviv decided to change things around in the Middle East (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria were all targeted at the same time).

As Egypt demonstrates, sometimes a strategic trade route is a curse!

Then there is Sri Lanka, a tiny country south of India, that happens to be quite critical in China’s plan for string of pears – seaports along the shipping trade route. When China wanted to secure a seaport, it laid the classic debt trap, which involves loans for lavish projects which don’t generate much revenue. (Also, the project funding ends up making the local politicians very rich). Later when Sri Lanka couldn’t make payments, China got a lease on the seaport for 99 years. Now, this isn’t too terrible – there was no war or destruction; and China-Sri Lanka relations are still great.

When Countries are Bridges and Buffers

Turkey

Turkey became an important country because of its strategic location that links Europe to the Middle East. This was why the Roman/Byzantine Empire chose Constantinople (now Istanbul) as its capital. Later on, Turkey had borders with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, thus making Turkey even more strategic.

After WW1, the Ottoman Empire dissolved and modern Turkey became very pro-west, thanks to its founder Ataturk. In the 1950s, Turkey joined NATO; and, in 1961, the US installed nuclear missiles in Turkey, which led to the USSR installing missile in Cuba as retaliation (hence the Cuban Missile Crisis).

The US military-security complex was very close to Turkey’s military for decades. Whenever Turkey’s politicians stepped out of the line, Turkey’s military would stage a coup and bring in a pro-US guy. This went on for a long time until Erdogan came into power, purged all the institutions and consolidated his dictatorship.

In all likelihood, the CIA tried to staged a coup against Erdogan in 2016, but failed. Now, Turkey is slowly stepping into the Russia-China-Iran orbit, while still remaining in NATO. Erdogan is helping Russia by allowing pipelines and is even buying Russia’s S-400 anti-missile defense system to the dismay of the US government.

The US is trying to punish Turkey in many covert ways — by attacking Turkey’s currency, convicting a Turkish businessman (linked to Erdogan, of course) of money laundering, threatening to not sell F-35 fighter jets, and imposing some sanctions for manufactured reasons. This is probably a bad idea, but it’s the default thinking of Washington elites.

Ukraine

If Turkey handles the two sides pretty well, Ukraine’s pro-US government has been playing geopolitics all wrong. Sandwiched between Europe and Russia, the economically underdeveloped Ukraine should be playing neutral. Furthermore, Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire for about 300 years and almost half of its people speak Russian fluently. And there’s no way that Russia is going to give up its control of Black Sea and Crimea, which would be a geopolitical, economic and military suicide. US geopolitical mastermind Brzezinski even said in his book — The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives — that without control over the Black Sea, Russia will cease to be an empire.

Furthermore, starting in the 1990s, US officials have openly said that we should bring Ukraine into NATO, which will mean missile defense systems and US/NATO military on the Russian border. Of course, this is an existential threat for Russia.

Ignoring all the ramifications of such blatant provocation, the pro-US Neocon oligarchs of Ukraine pulled a fast one in 2014 and illegally overthrew the democratically elected president. Now the country is stuck in a semi-frozen civil war where the eastern half has declared independence and wants to join Russia.

Really dumb geopolitics play.

Deadly Geographic Location

Sometimes the geographic location of a country is an immense curse – case in point, Afghanistan. Being adjacent to China, Iran, India (and former Soviet Union) … Afghanistan is a valuable piece in the geopolitical chessboard.

In the 1950s and ‘60s, Afghanistan stayed neutral and welcomed both the USSR and the USA. This led to enormous prosperity and the country came to be known as the Paris of Central Asia.

Then, in the 1970s, the two superpowers started to fight for domination over the country, which split the Afghan elites and the politicians. Soon there were coups and counter-coups.

We all know what happened next: the US created the Mujahedeen, encouraged opium cultivation and used Afghans as expendable, proxy tools against the Soviet Union. While the US achieved its goal of defeating the Soviet Union, the result for Afghanistan was total destruction of the economy and the rise of religious extremism. Forty years later, not a week goes by without suicide bombing or terrorist attacks, and opium production is at record levels. Taliban now controls about half of the country and ISIS has established a foothold as well.

In the war on terror in Afghanistan since 2002, the US has spent more than $800 billion – a totally ridiculous amount, considering that Afghanistan’s combined GDP over those 16 years is about $200 billion!

The real geopolitical motives of the US now are (1) To have a presence in a strategic location in South/Central Asia (2) To have military bases that can be used against Iran and China in the future (3) To disrupt China’s Belt and Road Initiative and other pipeline projects, and (4) To potentially extract minerals in the future (valued at more than $1 trillion).

The geopolitical overlords don’t mind the terrorism and chaos at all, since that’s the perfect excuse for the military bases. If there’s peace and prosperity, the US/NATO soldiers would have to pack and leave.

US private contractors and Afghan elites also make enormous profits from the annual budget of $50 billion or so for the US military bases in that poverty-stricken country. And you can bet that a lot of the money from opium/heroin is siphoned off for dark projects in the West.

Arab Countries and Israel

Thanks to anti-Semitism in Europe, Jewish elites started planning a country of their own in the late 19th century. This Zionist movement lobbied the British government during WWI and got the promise of Israel in the near future – this was the famous Balfour Declaration, a letter that the UK foreign minister wrote to Lord Rothschild. (Some claim that the Zionist movement got this deal in return for bringing the US into WWI).

Regardless, a whole bunch of Jews come into Palestine, kick out a couple of