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An entirely new form of virtual weaponry is transforming the dynamics of geopolitics. The threat of cyber warfare is not new. The Internet was a product of the Cold War built in the 1960s by US military scientists to protect American communications infrastructure against a Soviet nuclear strike. Nearly a half century later, those threats remain. Today, however, cyber weapons are not only in hands of enemy and rogue states, but are being exploited by isolated individuals ranging from bored teenagers to wild-eyed terrorists. Today the impact of Web 2.0 goes beyond political mobilisation inside countries and digital diplomacy between states. It now includes virtual weaponry that has brought an entirely new form of warfare which is transforming the dynamics of geopolitics. We call this new global reality Geopolitics 2.0, which is –broadly speaking– characterised by three significant shifts: (1) states to individuals; (2) real-world to virtual mobilisation and power; and (3) old media to new media. Forced to react to the impact of these three Geopolitics 2.0 shifts, states are alternatively censoring or deploying Web platforms to achieve their goals and assert their influence –and in some cases, they are doing both–.

This paper reviews recent work concerning the impact of geopolitics on wildlife conservation (and vice versa), and identifies future priorities in conservation geopolitics research. Geopolitics is understood as both: (i) an analytical focus on geopolitical practices, especially concerning the behaviour of countries with respect to territory and national security, and (ii) a set of theories that have been developed to explain and predict those behaviours. We develop a typology of core geopolitical practices of relevance to conservation, including territorial practices of colonisation and the management of migrations and borders, and security practices relating to military, economic, and environmental security. We proceed by identifying research that considers how these practices affect conservation situations and outcomes, noting the recent emergence of conceptual developments such as 'environmental geopolitics' and 'geopolitical ecology' that draw on multiple fields within the social sciences to theorise the links between geopolitics and environmental management. A 'geopolitical perspective' is defined as a focus on geopolitical practices combined with an explicit engagement with geopolitical theory, and we identify areas where this perspective has been, and could be more effectively brought to bear. In conclusion, we suggest four pressing priorities in conservation research to which the geopolitical perspective might contribute: how political and economic differences between countries affect biodiversity outcomes, how geopolitical practices to address those differences might facilitate or frustrate conservation efforts, how national borders and human and wildlife movements might be better managed for the benefit of both, and how conservation strategies might be best selected to suit existing (and future) geopolitical realities.

Critical geopolitics has become one of the most vibrant parts of political geography. However it remains a particularly western way of knowing which has been much less attentive to other traditions of thinking. This paper engages with Pan-Africanism, and specifically the vision of the architect of post-colonial Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, to explore this overlooked contribution to critical engagements with geopoli- tics. Pan-Africanism sought to forge alternative post-colonial worlds to the binary geopolitics of the Cold War and the geopolitical economy of neo-colonialism. The academic division of labour has meant that these ideas have been consigned to African studies rather than being drawn into wider debates around the definitions of key disciplinary concepts. However Nyerere's continental thinking can be seen as a form of geopolitical imagination that challenges dominant neo-realist projections, and which still has much to offer contemporary political geography.

At the beginning of my paper I will explain the concept of "Geopolitics of Energy", this will be done for a quite simple reason, because I want everyone who can sit to read this article to understand more clearly what is at stake, therefore allow them the comprehension of what is being elaborated bellow at first sight. Geopolitics of energy is a concept that relates to policies choosing exporters to implement on importers, is the policy that has an impact on energy consumption, which includes consumer's choice in the geopolitical context, taking into account the economy, foreign policy, the safety of energy, environmental consequences and priorities that carries the energy exporter. This concept permits the understanding of how works the politics that undertakes this initiative taking into account natural resources such as: natural gas and oil. Natural gas and oil are two main resources that produce energy but also two main elements on which arises all the topic in the energetics game. For this paper is used qualitative methodology, through which we were able to accomplish this work. I focused on scientific literature, official publications and reports on energy geopolitics. The main aim has been to show how in this decade, energy security is at the center of geopolitical agenda and has become the focus of numerous political debates. Regarding this point of view, Europe is taking the initiative to create a common energy market within the continent by creating projects, in which Albania appears as a new regional energy potential. Russia, which is aiming to play a role in the international arena, is seeking to position itself geopolitically in "its political weapon", hydrocarbon resources, in particular natural gas resources.

Political geography has an established tradition of engaging with religiously-driven geopolitik. However, despite the remarkable growth in professed atheist beliefs in recent decades and the popular expression of an imagined geopolitical binary between secular/atheist and religious societies, the geopolitics of irreligion have received almost no attention among academic practitioners. This paper outlines the core tenets of 'New Atheist'philosophy, before addressing how its key representatives have taken positions on the 'Global War on Terror.' In particular, we critically interrogate the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens and identify a belligerent geopolitical imagination which posits a civilizational clash between an existentially-threatened secular, liberal West with responsibility to use extraordinary violence to protect itself and the world from a backwards oriental Islam. The paper concludes with four possible explanations for the paradox that the New Atheist critique of religion for being violent acts itself as a geopolitical incitement to violence. In so doing, we seek to navigate debates about the nature and purpose of critical geopolitical research given that the historical, intellectual and political contexts in which it was formed have changed.

This study investigates the involvement and employment of the human factor in the theorization process of geopolitical theories. It was aimed to make a theoretical inquiry at the meta-theoretical level by determining the basic research object as the human factor. For this purpose, alternative approaches such as classical and critical forms of geopolitics, postmodern, Marxist political geography theories, and the city geopolitics are examined and the position of the human factor in these theories is investigated. The theoretical framework of this meta-theoretical research process is the paradigms of human geography. In the study, firstly, the classification of human geographical paradigms regarding their approach to the human factor is provided. The paradigms examined and their perceptions of the human factor at the theoretical level have been the basic reference for examining classical and alternative geopolitical theories. In the secondary sense, this study also aims to analyze the paradigms of human geography to introduce new conceptual and methodological tools for political geography and to evaluate alternative developmental trends of geopolitical theories in this direction. This study is specifically concerned with the condition of human factor in the geopolitical literature. The basic and primary texts of geopolitics have been investigated in this respect and heir perception of the human in social sense and the role of the social factors are identified. This thesis deals with meta-theoretical debates and philosophical backgrounds of geopolitical literature and analyzing the major works in terms of epistemology. The structure of the research is architected to provide the required content for philosophical understanding of issues such as human factor, human agency and human-geography relationship in geopolitics. ; KABUL VE ONAY i BİLDİRİM ii YAYIMLAMA VE FİKRİ MÜLKİYET HAKLARI BEYANI iii ETİK BEYAN iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v ÖZET vi ABSTRACT vii TABLE OF THE CONTENTS viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS x LIST OF TABLES xi LIST OF FIGURES xii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 THE HUMAN/NATURE DISTINCTION IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 5 1.1. ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISIM 6 1.2. POSSIBILISM 10 1.3. POSITIVISM AND QUANTITATIVE REVOLUTION 13 1.4. HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY 17 1.5. MARXIST GEOGRAPHY AND CRITICAL TURN 21 1.6. POSTMODERN GEOGRAPHY 24 1.7. CONCLUSION: HUMAN/NATURE INTERACTION AND THE HUMAN FACTOR IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 29 CHAPTER 2 CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS 33 2.1. GEOGRAPHY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 33 2.2. CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS 37 2.2. CONCEPTS OF CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS 38 2.2.1. State 38 2.2.2. Power 39 2.2.3. Territory 41 2.2.4. Boundary/Frontier 43 2.2.5. Cartography and Use of Maps 46 2.3. THOUGHTS AND FIGURES OF CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS 48 2.3.1. Basic Assumptions of Classical Geopolitical Theories 48 2.3.2. Rudolf Kjellén 51 2.3.3. Friedrich Ratzel 53 2.3.4. Halford Mackinder 57 2.3.5. Alfred Thayer Mahan 64 2.3.6. Nicholas Spykman 66 2.4. CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS IN THE COLD WAR 68 2.5. THE AGENT/STRUCTURE PROBLEM IN CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS 74 2.6. CONCLUSION: HUMAN/NATURE INTERACTION AND THE HUMAN FACTOR IN CLASSICAL GEOPOLITICS 76 CHAPTER 3 ALTERNATIVE VIEWS IN GEOPOLITICAL THOUGHT AND CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS 79 3.1. MARXISM AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY 80 3.2. CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS 85 3.3. POSTMODERNISM, URBAN GEOGRAPHY AND THE CITY IN GEOPOLITICAL THOUGHT 89 3.4. CONCLUSION: HUMAN/NATURE INTERACTION AND THE HUMAN FACTOR IN ALTERNATIVE VIEWS AND CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS 97 CONCLUSION 100 BIBLIOGRAPHY 106 APPENDIX 1: ORIGINALITY REPORT 119 APPENDIX 2: ETHICS BOARD WAIVER FORM 119 ; Bu çalışmada, jeopolitik teorilerinin kuramsallaşma sürecinde insan unsurunu nasıl ele aldığı ve içerdiği araştırılmaktadır. Temel araştırma nesnesinin insan unsuru olarak belirlenmesi ile meta-teorik düzeyde bir kuramsal sorgulama yapılması amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaçla klasik ve eleştirel jeopolitik formları, postmodern, Marksist siyasi coğrafya düşünceleri ve şehir jeopolitiği gibi alternatif yaklaşımlar incelenerek bu kuramlarda insan unsurunun konumu araştırılmıştır. Bu meta-teorik araştırma sürecinin teorik çerçevesini beşeri coğrafya paradigmaları oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada öncelikle beşeri coğrafya paradigmalarının insan faktörüne yaklaşımları üzerinden sınıflandırılması sağlanmıştır. Ele alınan paradigmalar ve onların teorik düzeyde insan faktörüne bakışları, klasik ve alternatif jeopolitik teorilerin incelenmesi için temel referans olmuştur. Bu çalışma, ikincil anlamda beşeri coğrafya paradigmalarının ele alınması, buradan siyasi coğrafya için yeni kavramsal ve metodolojik araçlar devşirilmesi ve jeopolitik teorilerin bu doğrultuda alternatif gelişim seyirlerinin değerlendirilmesi amaçlarını da taşımaktadır. Bu çalışma özellikle jeopolitik literatüründe insan faktörünün durumu ile ilgilenmektedir. Jeopolitiğin temel ve birincil metinleri bu açıdan incelenmiş, incelenen teorilerin sosyal anlamda insana bakış açısı ve analizlerinde sosyal faktörlere verdikleri rol tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Jeopolitiğin gelişiminin meta-teorik ve felsefi arka planlar bağlamında incelenmesi ve epistemolojik açıdan analiz edilmesi çalışmanın hedefleri arasındadır. Söz konusu araştırmanın yapısı, jeopolitikte insan faktörü, insan amilliği ve insan-coğrafya ilişkisi gibi hususların felsefi düzeyde kavrananabilmesi için gereken içeriği sağlamak üzere tasarlanmıştır.

The twentieth century witnessed the biggest shift in energy sources the world has perhaps experienced since the use of fire was widespread. In the first twenty-five years of the century, coal was arguably the main source of energy for the industrialized world. The energy needs of large countries could be met entirely by domestic resources or supplemented by sources close by (in the case of Japan). Coal would have continued to be the main source of energy if the discovery of large quantities of oil in southern Russia, the Middle East and, later, in the United States, had not quickly aroused interest in the comparative ease of its extraction and transportation , and its conversion to meet a wide range of needs. What circumstances caused the oil revolution in the mid-fifties? What circumstances led to your availability being placed at the top of national priorities? These questions can be illustrated by statistical references to the increase in energy consumption, starting in 1960 (the year in which the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC) was founded); that year, world energy consumption was of the order of 132 quintillion British Thermal Units (QBTU); ten years later, it was 217 QBTU; five years later, in 1975, it reached about 225 QBTU. In 1990, the 415 QBTU - a three-fold increase in world energy consumption in just thirty years. What was the share of oil (and natural gas) in these increases? In 1960, they accounted for 48 percent of the world's energy consumption. Ten years later, participation had increased to 63 percent; in 1975, it was already 67 percent; and in 1990, even if we assume a large contribution from nuclear energy, the share of oil and natural gas reaches 85 percent. The implications in terms of quantity are impressive. Eight billion barrels of oil consumed worldwide in 1960, 17 billion barrels in 1975, and 30 billion barrels in 1980: an almost four-fold increase in oil and gas consumption. Ten years later, participation had increased to 63 percent; in 1975, it was already 67 ...

Aside from measurements in knots and miles and cubic footage, or quantities of this or that, there is a serious question whether there is much else on the face of the globe about which we today agree unreservedly among ourselves.

Political Geography 30 (2011) 169-172. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.01.001 ; Received by publisher: 0000-01-01 ; Harvest Date: 2016-01-04 12:23:08 ; DOI:10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.01.001 ; Page Range: 169-172

There is growing awareness that the distribution of IMF facilities may not be influenced only by the economic needs of the borrowers. This paper focuses on the fact that the IMF may favour geopolitically important countries in the distribution of IMF loans, differentiating between concessional and nonconcessional facilities. To carry out the empirical analysis, we construct a new database that compiles proxies for geopolitical importance for 107 IMF countries over 1990–2003, focusing on emerging and developing economies. We use a factor analysis to capture the common underlying characteristic of countries' geopolitical importance as well as a potential analysis since we also want to account for the geographical situation of the loan recipients. While controlling for economic and political determinants, our results show that geopolitical factors influence notably lending decisions when loans are nonconcessional, whereas results are less robust and in opposite direction for concessional loans. This study provides empirical support to the view that geopolitical considerations are an important factor in shaping IMF lending decisions, potentially affecting the institution's effectiveness and credibility.

The rise of digital information communication technology has major implications for how states wield coercive power beyond their territorial borders through the extraterritorial geographies of data flows. In examining the geopolitics of data, transnational surveillance, and jurisdiction, this collection makes a significant contribution to the field of global internet governance. It shows how the internet is a forum for geopolitical struggle with states weaponising jurisdiction and exerting power beyond their own borders directly, and via infrastructures owned and operated by transnational technology companies. These dynamics challenge existing conceptual and theoretical categories of contemporary law across the fields of international relations, criminology, and digital media, and raise urgent questions about if and how individual rights can be protected in an era of ubiquitous transnational surveillance conducted by private companies and governments alike.

The events in Ukraine are in the thick of actuality, at the crossroads of East and West. From a buffer zone it has become an acute space of exhibition of Russia's interests, on one side, and of the European Union's, on the other side. As the EU does not have a unique army or a strong political leadership, the presence - as major actors - of NATO and the United States of America is necessary. Huge geostrategic, military, economic, politic, cultural, social and even religious interests are involved. As a neighbour state, member of the EU and NATO, Romania is directly concerned by the present deployments. We wonder if its foreign politics is an appropriate one. Moreover, great stakes aim at the statehood and independence of the Republic of Moldova, but also at the status of the Romanians living in the Cernowits region. Thus, we try to analyse what will happen in Ukraine and with the actors involved, in general. There are several possible scenarios, among which: the success of the elections and the stabilization of Ukraine in integrum; the federation, with the preservation of the frontiers or with the amputation of these ones; Russia's conquest of the country, taking into account EU's demonstrated incapacities; a war that can dangerously escalate; the maintenance of a grey situation, whre the two camps explore each other, sanction each other, but not too drastically, elections and referendums are organized, weapons are pacing around, threats are teething, but nothing important is decided, not even a new cold war. The title hints to everyon's weaknesses (is Ukraine a selfsustainable state?), but especially to EU's, the geopolitical objectives of which are in complete disagreement with its means. That is why, in a short term, Russia can win. But in a medium and long term.

Geopolitical and geostrategic thinking is experiencing a comeback in times of dwindling resources and growing insecurity in politics, raising the question of what is understood by geopolitics and geostrategy in the 21st century and how this is reflected in practice. In the past, the focus was mainly on land control, today an integrated geostrategic approach dominates with the factors space (land and sea) and time (resources and demography). After an introduction to the theory the geostrategic practice will be shown.

In a period of increasing geopolitical insecurity and economic instability this title provides an authoritative yet accessible commentary on debates on capitalism and globalization in the wake of the financial crisis.

The Asia-Pacific has become the Indo-Pacific region as the US, Japan, Australia and India have decided to join forces and scale-up their political, economic and security cooperation. The message coming from Washington, Tokyo, Canberra and New Delhi is clear: China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is no longer the only game in town and Beijing's policymakers better get ready for fierce competition. Japan's ongoing and future "quality infrastructure" policies and investments in the Indo-Pacific in particular make it very clear that Tokyo wants a (much) bigger slice of the pie of infrastructure investments in the region. China's territorial expansionism in the South China Sea and its increasing interests and presence in countries in South Asia have done their share to help the four aforesaid countries expand their security and defence ties. Beijing, of course, smells containment in all of this and it probably has a point. Who will have the upper hand in shaping and defining Asian security and providing developing South and Southeast Asia with badly-needed infrastructure: the US and Japan together with its allies or the increasingly assertive and uncompromising China and its Belt and Road Initiative?