A revolution in military geopolitics?

This paper looks into the recent discussions within the US military community of a coming or current ‘revolution in military affairs’ (RMA) which is said to imply fundamental changes in military geopolitical imaginations and practices (military geopolitics). In a first step, an account of the rhetorical and the conceptual part of the discourse of the RMA is conducted. In a second step, the proclaimed RMA is situated within a wider cumulative technological and organizational development in warfare after the Second World War. In a third step, special attention is given to geopolitical incongruities or contradictions apparent within the discourse of the RMA, and between the rhetorical part of the RMA and more conventional geopolitical practices and imaginations. In a conclusion, the promise of an actor–network approach in further investigations of contemporary techno-geopolitical discourses and practices is spoken for.     

Towards a geopolitics of atheism: Critical geopolitics post the ‘War on Terror’

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.     

‘Lost in Thailand’: the popular geopolitics of film-induced tourism in northern Thailand

The recent blockbuster hit ‘Lost in Thailand’ had more than USD $200 million in ticket sales in China in 2012, and quickly became the nation’s highest-grossing homegrown film ever. Set in northern Thailand, the film has since contributed to the prodigious growth of Chinese tourism in the region. Among other experiences, film-induced tourism in northern Thailand includes the re-enactment of scenes from the film on university campuses, in temples and around the city of Chiang Mai. These intertextual performances have made headlines in national and international media for how they reflect various articulations of cultural dissonance. This paper draws on structured interviews among Thai residents and Chinese tourists, as well as a discourse analysis of English- and Thai-language media reports to argue that popular responses to the impact of film-induced tourism in the region are strongly embedded in historical and contemporary Sino-Thai political-economic relations and corollary geopolitical imaginaries of place. These imaginaries are frequently reconstituted through the ambivalent economies of tourism encounters. This paper contributes to emerging research on how geopolitical assemblages are co-constituted by a range of popular discourses, tourism practices, media engagements, and political-economic relations and how they inform popular geopolitical experience of and in place.     

Lost in conceptualization: Reading the “new Cold War” with critical geopolitics

Focusing on the debates on energy security in Germany, this paper analyzes the structure, logic, and circulation of the “new Cold War” as a geopolitical narrative. We use the literature in critical geopolitics to analyze the conceptual implications of an apparent dissociation between the media and governmental stance toward the new Cold War and its embedded geopolitical logic. The relationship between the “kind” of geopolitics inherent in the new Cold War and the different “forms” in which it circulates suggests a blurring of boundaries between all such geopolitical forms, through multiple crossings-over between institutions, textual genres, and circulating actors. The media presence of the New Cold War also highlights the ambiguity of the “popular” in popular geopolitics, which is further refracted on other geopolitical forms which share its characteristics. This not only makes imperative the more precise formulation of key conceptual categories such as popular or banal geopolitics, but also calls into question the link between the state and particular geopolitical logics, as well as the relationship between the mass media and geopolitics.     

Geopolitics at the margins? Reconsidering genealogies of critical geopolitics

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 geopolitics. 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.     

Have you heard the one about the disappearing ice? Recasting Arctic geopolitics

This article unpacks the discourse of Arctic geopolitics evident in the space-making practices of a wide variety of actors and institutions, offering an exploration of the ways in which the Arctic is emerging as a space of and for geopolitics. Tracing the well-aired story of Arctic geopolitics through neo-realist readings of climate change, the melting of polar ice, increasing competition for resources and so on, two kinds of spatial ordering are identified as being entwined in orthodox Arctic geopolitics. The first has to do with Arctic space as such, and its open, indeterminate nature in particular. The perceived openness of Arctic space enables it to become a space of masculinist fantasy and adventure, which is mirrored in contemporary accounts of Arctic geopolitics. It is suggested that this is entwined with and nourishes the second ordering of Arctic space in terms of state-building and international relations. The working out of these spatial orderings in recent interventions in Arctic geopolitics is explored via three examples (two Arctic exhibitions in London, the Russian Polar expedition of 2007 and ’sovereignty patrols’ by Canadian Rangers). In conclusion, the article presents avenues for further critical research on Arctic geopolitics that emphasizes embodiment, the resolutely (trans)local, and a commitment to the everyday.     

Relational spaces and the geopolitics of community participation in two Tasmanian local governments: a case for agonistic pluralism?

The 'success' of sustainability is often premised on public participation and consensus among members of diverse communities. An analysis of two experiments in participatory governance in Tasmania underpinned by explicit commitments to sustainability and by tacit investments in deliberative democracy allows detailed reflection on claims about the efficacy of deliberative democracy, and encourages speculation about whether and to what extent an alternative model of agonistic pluralism may better accommodate conflicts in communities wrestling with resource use and distribution.     

The question of ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics: Querying the ‘child soldier’ in the ‘war on terror’

After two decades of scholarship on ‘critical geopolitics’, the question of whether it is largely a discursive critique of prevailing knowledge production and geopolitical texts or critique with an implicit, normative politics of its own remains open. These positions are not incommensurate, and much scholarship on critical geopolitics does both. This paper analyzes critical geopoliticians' concern with this question in the present historical moment and probes the possibility of a post-foundational ethic as the basis for ‘the political’ in critical geopolitics and beyond. Empirically, this paper explores these theoretical tensions within ‘critical geopolitics’ by tracing the disparate fates of two young men, both child soldiers at the time of their capture. ‘Child soldier’ is an unstable category subject to geopolitical valence and stigma during the ‘war on terror’. The deployment of extra-legal tactics and spaces of violence, such as those faced by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, point to the rise of biopolitics combined with geopolitics, illustrating the intersection of sovereignty and governmentality as important political fodder for critical geopolitics two decades after its inception. The stories of Canadian Omar Khadr, one of the youngest prisoners at Guantanamo and the only citizen of a Western state still held there, and Ismael Beah, a rehabilitated soldier who fought as a boy from Sierra Leone, illustrate too how geographical imagination strongly shapes access to provisions of international law and the victimized status of ‘child soldier’ in particular.     

Pressurised pastoralism in South Gobi, Mongolia: what is the role of drought?

The desert-steppe region of southern Mongolia is susceptible to drought and extreme winter weather ( dzud ) that in combination form Mongolia's worst natural hazard. Low precipitation and high climatic variability in this dryland environment impact the landscape and affect pastoralism, the dominant rural lifestyle. Using the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI), this paper identifies drought occurrence in South Gobi Province, Mongolia. It then examines the relationship of drought with climate factors, interaction with vegetation (derived from Normalised Difference Vegetation Index - NDVI - data), and local human and livestock populations, and the dzuds of 1999–2001. Results show that drought is recurrent in the region, reaching extreme intensity most recently in 2005–2006. In contrast with the prevailing concept of drought impacting dzuds , the study did not find a connection between drought and dzud in South Gobi Province. Though repeated events, these natural hazards occur independently in the region. Climatic variables show increasing temperatures (>1°C), fluctuating precipitation patterns and a decline in vegetation cover. The principal long-term correlation of drought is with human population rather than natural factors, dzud or livestock numbers.     

Enabling persistent presence? Performing the embodied geopolitics of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle assemblage

Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are being increasingly used to provide surveillance and attack capabilities within war zones. At the heart of much of the rhetoric about these aircraft is their supposed ability to enable persistent presence across the battlespace. They are also unique in that they actively distance the aircrew from the aircraft. This paper seeks to question whether this claim to persistent presence can be justified and considers the implications of the distancing of pilot from machine in this. In order to achieve this, the paper focuses upon conceptualising UAVs as assemblages, composed of both human and machine elements. It uses firsthand accounts from a Royal Air Force Reaper UAV aircrew as a basis to analyse the ways in which the deployment of these aircraft in Afghanistan is changing the ways that war is experienced by aerial combatants. It does this through the utilisation of a feminist, embodied geopolitics, refiguring it from a concern with victims of war to argue for its use to understand the micro-scale of how the humans within these UAV assemblages experience combat. This paper thus focuses upon the extent to which the Reaper UAV achieves a persistent presence through analysis of its supposed more-than-human loitering and vision abilities, and the limitations associated with the requirement for a human-in-the loop. The paper contends that although UAVs like the Reaper change the geopolitics of combat, the continuing requirement for the human element of the assemblage restricts their ability to provide persistent presence.     

Sustainable cities—who put the civil into civilisation?

Abstract

How do we define civilisation? Who created the conditions for the quality of life we now enjoy? Who have been the greatest civilisers? What are our key life support systems and who provides the skills which create them? What do we want from our urban environment and who can give it to us? Are our cities in the prime of life, or are they geriatric? Are they sustainable? These and other challenges are considered and addressed in this review of the infrastructure of modern society and of the choices we face as we embrace the twenty-first century, with the emphasis on the urban environment.     

The invasion of Iraq: what are the morals of the story?

It is uncontroversial that the invasion and occupation of Iraq involved the following errors: the misinterpretation of intelligence; the underestimation of the number of troops requisite for law and order; the disbanding of the Iraqi army; and indiscriminate debaathification of the civil service. The first error was one of imagination rather than virtue; the others were caused by ‘callousness”, impatience, and consequent imprudence. These vices were partly responsible for massive civilian casualties, which many wrongly assume to teach the fundamentally erroneous character of the invasion. Nonetheless, we should beware such moral flaws in tomorrow's policy‐makers and renounce the managerial mentality that fosters them. Another lesson is that, in so far as nation‐rebuilding requires substantial and long‐term commitments, it must command the support of the nation‐builder's domestic electorate; and to do that, it must be able to justify itself in terms of the national interest. From this we should not infer the further lesson that morality's reach into foreign policy is limited, since, according to Thomist ethics, the pursuit of the national interest can itself be moral. Finally, one lesson that we should not learn from Iraq is never again to violate the letter of international law and intervene militarily in a sovereign state without Security Council authorization. The law's authority can be undermined as much by the UN's failure to enforce it, as by states taking it into their own hands. It is seriously problematic that the current international legal system denies the right of individual states to use military force unilaterally except in self‐defence, while reserving the enforcement of international law to a body, whose capacity to act is hamstrung by the right of veto. Given this situation, military intervention without Security Council authorization could be morally justified on certain conditions.     

Chinese in Rabaul —1921 to 1942: Normal practices,or containing the yellow Peril? ∗

Abstract

Chinese men were brought to New Guinea initially by the German New Guinea Company as labourers on plantations. The climate, harsh working conditions and disease reduced their numbers drastically. The sporadic flow of labourers soon stopped, but Chinese were brought to New Guinea by the Company and — later — by the German Administration as artisans and domestic servants. Most returned to China but some remained to become small traders. Hard work and determination to succeed saw many become a threat to European, enterprises. The German and subsequently Australian Administrations were urged to restrict their entry and control their enterprises. At the same time European attitudes prevalent in Southeast Asian colonies were transplanted to New Guinea. Chinese were seen as desirable, if not essential, but were kept at a social level between local villagers and the colonisers. Their status was clearly shown when European, but not Chinese, women and children were evacuated at the threat of Japanese invasion. Many suffered unspeakable treatment by the Japanese and their abandonment by Australia rankled throughout the post‐war years.     

“Where can we put our homes?” Gypsies and Travelers in the English Green Belt

For the past few centuries, anti-nomadic legislation has attempted to settle nomads who traveled throughout England and elsewhere in Europe, as their mobilities challenged the sedentarist goals of modern nation states. As recently as 1994, the nomadic way of life was effectively criminalized in England and Wales, revealing the unbalanced power relations between Gypsies and Travelers and the state. This article will examine and highlight the agency and spatialities of resistance of nomadic Gypsy and Traveler groups in England who are struggling for the recognition of their right to legally inhabit caravan sites in areas such as Green Belt land. The selection of places in the Green Belt for their homes offers another contested landscape that runs counter to the typical understanding of Gypsies and Travelers residing in marginalized places due to discrimination or wanting to remain unnoticed. By drawing from Gypsies and Travelers' own narratives, this article documents how they navigate through policies designed to constrain them.     

‘The next link in the chain’: children,agri-cultural practices and the family farm

This article contributes to knowledge of children's geographies by considering the micro-geographies and associated identities of children on family farms. Through focussing on farm practices, and drawing on evidence from the Peak District (UK) it examines how farm children are placed within, and ostensibly adhere to, discourses of the family farm. It moves on to investigate how such identities are far from static and explores the discursive strategies taken by children in shaping their own identities and forging new trajectories as the often pivotal ‘next link in the chain’ on these farms.