Power & Mackinder

This week we learned about states and their power. Some states are more powerful than others (obviously). Most of the powerful states are powerful because they control the bait to the weak “fish” states of the world. Sorry that sounds terrible but it’s true. If everyone was powerful then there wouldn’t be a balance. There has to be a weak state in order to have a strong one. So-called ties are useless and don’t last long because of things like the security dilemma. The United States has power due to our military and technological advances for example.

            I really enjoyed studying geopolitics. I feel like its interesting to see where the power lies and why people have that power.  Power can come from having natural resources like oil or the right crops. Water even makes a state more powerful. Personally if I had to choose how I’d achieve power it would be by having water.

I would prefer having water over having something like oil any day. Granted, I know that the most money would immediately come from oil but it’s too easy to have a corrupted government with an unhappy population. I want my “99%” to be happy so they don’t rise up against me. I need to sustain and uphold my reign of power. Besides, having a lot of trade can’t be all that bad. It’s really easy to trade when you’re surrounded by water like England is.

If I wasn’t able to have water I would then try to have something that was surrounded by mountains, that way I would have guaranteed security. It’s one of the reasons why Switzerland was able to remain neutral during WWII.

Mackinder talks about why states control what they do and who has the most power. He essentially goes into the topic of geopolitics. I went on the Internet to find out more information on this guy and not much to my surprise he’s a Sir and he’s considered to be one of the founding fathers of geopolitics and geostrategy. He died around the time WWII was ending so his final days were watching his home and the whole world really going through a massive change which must have influenced the way he thought.