Maps and geoploitics

1. Maps and Geopolitics
 How far is the Indonesian border from
India?
 Which countries border India?
 Which is India's farthest western point?

2. Maps and Geopolitics
 Maps (as defined by French geographer
Yves Lacoste)
– Central referent of geography
– An instrument of power
– Designed and motivated by practical
(political and military)
– Way of representing space
– Facilitates domination and control

3. Maps and Geopolitics
 War, maps and geography form a
powerful variables related to one another
 Leading cartographic publisher:
– Rand and McNally
 Magazine: National Geographic (Now TV
also)

4. Maps and Geopolitics
 Advantages of maps for military:
– Lines of supply
– Topographic advantages
– Modes of advancement
– Possible retreat
 Mackinder's maps had geopolitical
significance, particularly for central Asian
countries like Uzbekistan

5. Maps and Geopolitics
 Others interest in Central and Middle-
east Asia is because of th resources and
strategic territorial advantage
 Territory is believed to be an instrument
of peace and good boundaries were
therefore essential in the promotion of
order and stability
– But, right to choose the state (principle
of self determination) proved to be
complicated

6. Maps and Geopolitics
 New maps popularized by movies,
newspapers and magazines
 New polar centered maps reduced the
geographical distance between US and
Russia
– Russia was moving closer to US
through Cuba
– An almost Third World war prevented
by Kennedy, after Russia agreed to
move the missiles out of Cuba

7. Maps and Geopolitics
 Mackinder Role:
– Global time/space compression
• Imposition of standard time
• Invention of radio
• Consolidation of railways
– Expressed that countries such as
Britain has to achieve efficiency in the
existing colonies rather than acquiring
new territories
– Insisted on expanding land based

8. Maps and Geopolitics
 Mackinder's Pivot Area (next slide) and
Heartland theory
 Bowman's maps after 1st
World War to
create new geopolitical boundaries of
Europe:
– Supported by regional specialists:
Franco-German border, Austria-
Hungary, Poland, Russia,Balkan states
and Far East

9. MackinderMackinder

10. Maps and Geopolitics
 Maps and Nazi Germany:
– After the 1919 Peace Conference, a
'Greater Germany' map was produced
to retain German Empire, Austria and
parts of Czechoslovakia
– Widely reproduced in newspapers,
magazines, posters, postcards and
school atlases

13. Polar Centered Map
 Richard Harrison of CIA advised US to
look at polar centered map to assess the
cold war situation
 Better able to represent relative distance
and proximity
 Emphasized new way of thinking about
distances in terms of flying hours
 Sense of time-space compression began

14. Polar Centered Map

15. Polar Centered Map
 US deployed Distance Early Warning
(DEW) radar systems from Alska through
Canada to Greenland and Iceland to
detect incoming USSR bombers and
missiles
– 63 stations stretched over 10000 km
 US launched CORONA satellite in 1958
for geographical intelligence

16. The New Pentagon Map
 Thomas Barnett (Consultant to Pentagon
and faculty member of US Naval War
College) published a post 9/11 map in
2003
 This map identifies, world is divided as:
– Funtioning Core (who share American
values)
– Non-integrating gap (Who do not share
American values)