The Return of Geopolitics

"Foremost among the countless blessings of war is its power of teaching geography," an old joke goes. Despite technological advances and globalisation, the world order is still framed by stubborn geographical boundaries. Seas, rivers, deserts and mountains continue to shape international politics. Would Russia have acted as it did - either in the past, or the present - had it not been for the vast North European Plain? Would India and China have seen each other in a different light in the absence of the great Himalayas dividing them? And would Sweden have been able co maintain its 200 years of peace, had it not been embedded in a buffer-zone of friendly neighbours? And yet the values we place on geography and resources are, in their turn, also shaped by politics. Vladimir Putin called the break-up of the Soviet Union the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. The faces of geopolitics never went away, but geopolitical discourse has returned co the world stage with a vengeance. The essays in this volume seem from the Engelsberg seminar - The Return of Geopolitics - held between June 9-11, 2016, at Avesta Manor, Sweden.