Strategic geography

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Strategic geography is concerned with the control of, or access to, spatial areas that affect the security and prosperity of nations. Spatial areas that concern strategic geography change with human needs and development. This field is a subset of human geography, itself a subset of the more general study of geography. It is also related to geostrategy.

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Strategic geography is that branch of science, which deals with the study of spatial areas that affect the security and prosperity of a nation.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human geography</span> Study of cultures, communities, and activities of peoples of the world

Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which is studied in schools are urban sprawl, and urban redevelopment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social interactions and the environment through qualitative and quantitative methods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographer</span> Scholar whose area of study is geography

A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" and the Greek suffix, "graphy", meaning "description", so a geographer is someone who studies the earth. The word "geography" is a Middle French word that is believed to have been first used in 1540.

Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: de facto independent states with limited international recognition and relations between sub-national geopolitical entities, such as the federated states that make up a federation, confederation, or a quasi-federal system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-Pacific</span> Biogeographic marine region of Earth

The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Halford Mackinder</span> English geographer, academic and politician, 1861-1947

Sir Halford John Mackinder was an English geographer, academic and politician, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of both geopolitics and geostrategy. He was the first Principal of University Extension College, Reading from 1892 to 1903, and Director of the London School of Economics from 1903 to 1908. While continuing his academic career part-time, he was also the Member of Parliament for Glasgow Camlachie from 1910 to 1922. From 1923, he was Professor of Geography at the London School of Economics.

This page is a list of geography topics.

Geostrategy, a subfield of geopolitics, is a type of foreign policy guided principally by geographical factors as they inform, constrain, or affect political and military planning. As with all strategies, geostrategy is concerned with matching means to ends Strategy is as intertwined with geography as geography is with nationhood, or as Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan state it, "[geography is] the mother of strategy."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas J. Spykman</span> American political scientist, 1893-1943

Nicholas John Spykman was an American political scientist who was Professor of International Relations at Yale University from 1928 until his death in 1943. He was one of the founders of the classical realist school in American foreign policy, transmitting Eastern European political thought to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Military geography</span>

Military geography is a sub-field of geography that is used by the military, as well as academics and politicians, to understand the geopolitical sphere through the military lens. To accomplish these ends, military geographers consider topics from geopolitics to physical locations’ influences on military operations and the cultural and economic impacts of a military presence. On a tactical level, a military geographer might put together the terrain and the drainage system below the surface, so a unit is not at a disadvantage if the enemy uses the drainage system to ambush it, especially in urban warfare. On a strategic level, an emerging field of strategic and military geography seeks to understand the changing human and biophysical environments that alter the security and military domains. Climate change, for example, is adding and multiplying the complexity of military strategy, planning and training. Emerging responsibilities for the military to be involved in: protection of civilian populations, women and ethnic groups; provision of humanitarian aid and disaster response (HADR); new technology and domains of training and operations, such as in cybergeography, make military geography a dynamic frontier.

If a general desired to be a successful actor in the great drama of war, his first duty is to study carefully the theater of operations so that he may see clearly the relative advantages and disadvantages it presents for himself and his enemies.

Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, political geography adopts a three-scale structure with the study of the state at the centre, the study of international relations above it, and the study of localities below it. The primary concerns of the subdiscipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International security</span> Measures taken by states and international organizations to ensure mutual safety and survival

International security is a term which refers to the measures taken by states and international organizations, such as the United Nations, European Union, and others, to ensure mutual survival and safety. These measures include military action and diplomatic agreements such as treaties and conventions. International and national security are invariably linked. International security is national security or state security in the global arena.

The basic concept behind critical geopolitics is that intellectuals of statecraft construct ideas about places; these ideas have influence and reinforce their political behaviors and policy choices, and these ideas affect how people process their own notions of places and politics.

<i>The Grand Chessboard</i> 1997 book by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) is one of the major works of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski graduated with a PhD from Harvard University in 1953 and became Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University. He was later the United States National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981, under the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

In behavioral geography, a mental map is a person's point-of-view perception of their area of interaction. Although this kind of subject matter would seem most likely to be studied by fields in the social sciences, this particular subject is most often studied by modern-day geographers. They study it to determine subjective qualities from the public such as personal preference and practical uses of geography like driving directions.

Techno-nationalism is a way of understanding how technology affects the society and culture of a nation. One common example is the use of technology to advance nationalist agendas, with the goal of promoting connectedness and a stronger national identity. As noted by Alex Capri, the rise of techno-nationalist approaches has precipitated a US-China race to promote ideological values through the reshaping of institutions and standards. This idea establishes the belief that the success of a nation can be determined by how well that nation innovates and diffuses technology across its people. Technological nationalists believe that the presence of national R&D efforts, and the effectiveness of these efforts, are key drivers to the overall growth, sustainability, and prosperity of a nation. Techno-nationalism is an increasingly dominant approach in governance that links a nation’s technological capabilities and self-sufficiency to its state security, economic prosperity, and social stability. It is a response to a new era of global systemic competition between differing ideologies of economic development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurasia</span> Combined landmasses of Europe and Asia

Eurasia is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, physiographically, Eurasia is a single continent. The concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity, but their borders are arbitrary and have historically been subject to change. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and the two are sometimes combined to describe the largest contiguous landmass on Earth, Afro-Eurasia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of geography</span> Hierarchical outline list of articles related to geography

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to geography:

The social sciences are the sciences concerned with societies, human behaviour, and social relationships.

Sarah E. Mendelson is an American diplomat and served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Mendelson was confirmed by the Senate on October 8, 2015, and sworn into her post on October 15, 2015. Mendelson was recently named Distinguished Service Professor and head of Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College's program in Washington, D.C.

Geostrategy in Taiwan refers to the foreign relations of Taiwan in the context of the geography of Taiwan. Taiwan is an island country in East Asia, while it is also located at the center of the first island chain and commands the busy traffic of Taiwan Strait and Bashi Channel.