geopolitics

[luka]

anyone into mountain ranges, coastal plains, warm water ports, oil pipelines etc?
the great chessboard, aleksander dugin, Zbigniew Brzezinski. backwards hill peoples and so on

 

[luka]

i remember craner indignantly telling vim it doesnt matter anymore the world is one smooth space but vim loves his cool topographical maps and irreducible geographical features

 

[luka]

the russia surrounded thread starts with woebot posting a map of russia surrounded that is very eloquent. then theres all the underwater cables and so on, deep-sea sabotage operations, divers with knives held between their teeth

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I read someone once talking about their first history lecture at Harvard. The professor just chalked one large circle and three small circles next to it and said "if these were countries what would be their politics to each other?"

 

[mixed_biscuits]

So I guess the first salient geopolitical feature is area.

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

i remember craner indignantly telling vim it doesnt matter anymore the world is one smooth space but vim loves his cool topographical maps and irreducible geographical features

Surely it was the other way round?

 

[luka]

no. vim is really into geopolitics these days. he was saying that the ukraine invasion made sense in terms of geopolitics, or that it was even justifable on those terms. and craner wasn't having it he said there is no geopolitics.

 

[luka]

So I guess the first salient geopolitical feature is area.

area is important but it also depends on what it is comprised of. what grows there. what shape it is. what the borders are. whether you can reach the sea. energy reserves. minerals. crop yields. what population it can carry.

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

no. vim is really into geopolitics these days. he was saying that the ukraine invasion made sense in terms of geopolitics, or that it was even justifable on those terms. and craner wasn't having it he said there is no geopolitics.

The world as one smooth space sounds very D&G though, which is more Vim's thing than Craner's.

 

[luka]

i made that line up though. it was embellishment.

 

[luka]

we could track it down i guess. its when the invasion first happened and craner was scolding vim cos vim was trying to see it from putins perspective sort of thing

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

anyone into mountain ranges, coastal plains, warm water ports, oil pipelines etc?
the great chessboard, aleksander dugin, Zbigniew Brzezinski. backwards hill peoples and so on

A lot's made of Afghanistan's geography being one of its greatest weapons. The graveyard of empires.

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

i remember craner indignantly telling vim it doesnt matter anymore the world is one smooth space but vim loves his cool topographical maps and irreducible geographical features

That would be one of the dreams of technology, I suppose. The creation of that one smooth space. Frictionless trade, transport and communcation. The elimination of geography.

 

[luka]

and drones. drones dont need to march over mountain and thru bogs and that. they do need operating bases though.

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

This is the problem with seeing the world only through the prism of economics. You miss out ideas, ideologies, passions, hatreds, cosmic visions, fate, chance, tragedy and victory. Putin is finished. Tyranny has overplayed its hand. This is the narrative of history.

I'm sure there's room for geography in this and that Craner isn't one of those smooth space men.

 

[luka]

I'm sure there's room for geography in this and that Craner isn't one of those smooth space men.

i think he bridles at the idea that geography is destiny. he likes to cling on to the notion of individual agency. men making decisions. whereas theres a snse with geopolitics that the land forces states into taking the actions that they take. that there is an inevitability about the invasion of ukraine that is determined by its position on the map.

 

[luka]

by the same logic the us has to end up in posession of greenland

 

[ver$hy ver$h]

There's a lot of talk of the various effects of Britain being an island, both in material terms and psychologically, ideologically, etc. It's quite convincing.

 

[luka]

yeah its obviously been the central fact of our history

 

[luka]

even more so after the discovery of the americas