Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History

This volume examines geopolitics by looking at the interaction between geography, strategy and history.

This book addresses three interrelated questions: why does the geographical scope of political objectives and subsequent strategy of states change? How do these changes occur? Over what period of time do these changes occur? The theories of Sir Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman are examined in order to provide an analytical narrative for five case studies, four historical and one contemporary. Taken together they offer the prospect of converting descriptions of historical change into analytic explanations, thereby highlighting the importance of a number of commonly overlooked variables. In addition, the case studies will illuminate the challenges that states face when attempting to change the scope of their foreign policy and geo-strategy in response to shifts in the geopolitical reality. This book breaks new ground in seeking to provide a way to understand why and how the geographical scope of political objectives and subsequent strategy both expands and contracts.

This book will be of much interest to students of geopolitics, strategic studies, military history, and international relations.

Geoffrey Sloan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading, UK. Formerly he was Head of the Strategic Studies and International Affairs Department at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Defence Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford.