[MUSIC PLAYING]
KLAUS DODDS: Well,
again, thank you
for the very kind invitation.
And thank you for turning
up during a lunch hour.
My task is to talk to you
about a field and a term that
has enormous and enduring
popularity, and seems,
particularly as I work through
the third edition, which
is coming out next month, to
be ever more topical as I had
to take on, whether
I liked it or not,
Trump's Make America
Great Again, Brexit,
the rise of China, and
countless other things
that I think keep my area
of interest exciting.
Anyway, what I've decided
to do is to try and give you
a whistle stop tour of
geopolitics through 10 images
and then to offer a quick
little case study involving
the Arctic, which I
think, again, it's
not unreasonable
to claim that this
is an area of the world that is
really becoming extraordinarily
important, not least because
it's very hard, I think,
to have a conversation
about climate change
without thinking of the Arctic
and, in particular, thinking
about the fate of ice, and
snow, and the obviously
essential role that it plays in
helping to regulate the Earth's
climate.
However, I thought I'd
start on a map that
may be not very
familiar to many people
unless you have an abiding
interest in geopolitics.
This map was produced
in January 1904
by one of the most famous
British geographers called
Halford Mackinder.
He was actually a member of
parliament for a short time,
director of the London
School of Economics,
and a reader in geography
at Oxford University.
And this map he presented to
the Royal Geographical Society
over 100 odd years
ago purporting
to give what he thought of as
the major cleavages and drivers
that shape global geopolitics.
In a lecture entitled "The
Geographical Pivot of History,"
he argued that actually the
pivot area, this huge area
of the Euro-Asian landmass,
was a key determinant
of world politics.
And he predicted
that, regardless
of future technological
change, and remember
he's talking in 1904
when we're getting
to grips with the
railways, the telegraph,
and, increasingly of course, as
the 20th century would prove,
flight of all kinds of
things, missiles and planes
notwithstanding,
that nonetheless he
said this is the
area of the world you
need to keep a look out for.
About five years earlier,
the term geopolitics
had entered into European
political discourse.
And the timing of all of this,
if you will, from the 1890s
to the start of
the 20th century,
I don't think it's coincidental
in the sense of that Mackinder
was not alone in
trying to make sense
of a world that was undergoing
fundamental state change.
Although he didn't predict the
onset of the First World War
in 1914, he was nonetheless
prescient, I think,
to spot that there
was tension in the air
as imperial powers
were beginning
to rub up against one another.
He didn't use the
term globalization.
But he does talk about a
more intensely felt world.
And actually, if you
read a lot of his work,
I think you can see it as
absolutely anticipating
that term globalization
that really becomes
popularized in the
1980s and 1990s.
Now, this map has had
an enduring popularity.
And one of the
interesting things,
particularly after the fall
or the collapse of the Soviet
Union in the early 1990s, was
Mackinder was discovered again.
And intriguingly, Mackinder
has been translated
not only into
Russian and Chinese
but, increasingly, in Central
Asian languages as well.
Because one of the things that
later writers and commentators
seized upon was the idea
that they found themselves,
as post-Soviet states, in
Mackinder's pivot area.
And the idea, of
course, which excited
a lot of these intellectuals
in places like Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, was
that, actually, they
were going to become even
more important in the future.
So one of the interesting
things about geopolitics
is that it looks backwards
to try and find patterns
that it can then use to go
forwards to try and anticipate
future global politics.
It's a very ambitious
area of study.
It loves maps.
It really enjoys
thinking globally.
And it's often not shy in
making bold predictions.
However, sometimes
that enthusiasm
for being bold, for
using maps, for making
grand pronouncements,
can lead you into areas
that you may not
wish to enter into.
So image two.
On the one hand, you
have Karl Haushofer.
That's the person to the left.
On the right, you
have Rudolf Hess.
One of the problems
geopolitics had
as an area of
intellectual concern
was that, in the 1940s,
American magazines,
American writers and
intellectuals pointed
at geopolitics
and said that they
had been an essential
accomplish to Nazism,
to national socialism, that
Hitler's ideas, for example
of [GERMAN],, living space, was
directly inspired by earlier
geopolitical writing at about
the same time that Mackinder
was talking about the
geographical pivot of history.
Because in Germany
and elsewhere,
other geographers, such as
Ratzel, Friedrich Ratzel,
were writing about the
state as a living organism.
And whenever you talk about
the state as a body or a living
organism, you should,
I think, be concerned,
because then it becomes very
easy, if you're not careful,
to think of other
places, other peoples,
as undesirable, as potentially
fatal to the health
of the state.
So by the 1940s,
geopolitics stood
accused as being not only
intellectually poisonous
but a handmaiden for
national socialism.
And in that period
from the 1940s,
'50s, '60s, and '70s,
very, very few people
in the English
speaking world wanted
to be associated
with geopolitics.
It was seen as, as I say,
poisonous and something
to be avoided.
No self respecting
academic or intellectual
would touch the term.
That was to change, however,
when Henry Kissinger became
increasingly prominent as
a national security advisor
and later US secretary of state.
Kissinger, it's
worth remembering,
has a PhD in 19th century
European imperial rivalries
and was at the thick
of it during the Cold
War in the late '60s, and,
particularly of course,
markedly in the
1970s when he was
busy advising Richard
Nixon about how the United
States might balance their
rivalry with the Soviet Union
with potential
rapprochement with China.
So if you remember the
period, for those of you who
weren't alive at the time,
I was only relatively young
in case you want to age me,
you may remember notable things
such as ping pong diplomacy
as it was called at the time,
really about the United States
trying to reach out to China.
And really one of
the arguments made
was that Kissinger's
vision for Nixon
was a geopolitical one,
that actually he was aware
of Mackinder, that he was
cognizant of the pivot area,
and that he knew that
the United States had
to manage this relationship
between the Soviet Union
and China, which, of
course, was unfolding
on the Euro-Asian landmass.
He confidently used
the term geopolitics.
And that was quite
a departure when
so much of intellectual life in
Britain, America, and elsewhere
didn't want to use the term--
shunned it.
Kissinger brings it back.
Well, there are good
reasons, of course,
why geopolitics, when
it did find favor,
proved to be very
attractive and enduring.
Remember the
detente of the 1970s
gave way to what was
called at the time
the second Cold War, the
return of the intensification
of Cold War rivalries,
when, for example,
the United States and the
Soviet Union in different ways
worried about the
precariousness of near neighbors
and the vulnerability
of entire regions.
You may recall terms like
the domino theory, the idea
that the United States had
to intervene in Vietnam,
because failure to
do so might result
in other countries like Laos,
Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia,
being vulnerable to Soviet
or Chinese backed aggression
or insurrection.
So there's a sense in
which geopolitics provides
a very vivid, powerful
language as well
as a kind of visual
medium through maps
of trying to make sense of
big change in the world.
And so you see a lot of
these kinds of depictions
during the Cold War
that actually the United
States and others have to act.
There's an imperative to act
because the future otherwise
is very, very dire.
Geopolitics, of course,
can be turned upside down.
It's a very, very
dynamic subject.
Before you know it, we're
having to redraw and reimagine
our geopolitical worlds.
Borders, barriers
can come down as they
did in the late 1980s
and early 1990s.
They can also go
up again, as we're
discovering in the current
era when walls, fences,
and barriers are being
restored or even expanded
around the world.
But in November 1989,
of course, citizens
on both sides of the city
of Berlin took to the wall
using whatever they could find
and started to dismantle it.
And we often think
about that as ushering
in the ending of the Cold War.
Maps get redrawn.
The Soviet Union
disappears two years later.
So geopolitics is very
fluid and dynamic.
But also geopolitics,
of course, can
take on very, very particular
hues and dimensions.
Geopolitics is informed
not only by popular culture
but it's also
informed by economics.
So we often, for example,
talk about geoeconomics.
And in the 1990s, such was the
wave of post-Cold War euphoria
that some were even as bold
to suggest that we didn't
need geopolitics anymore.
It was all geoeconomics.
We were going to manage
neoliberal globalization.
Everyone was going to
become a market democracy.
Francis Fukuyama predicted
the end of history.
Richard O'Brien predicted
the end of geography.
I should have been out of a job.
And indeed, I thought I
would be when I started
my academic career in 1994.
People said to me, there's
no need for geopolitics.
Deeply unfashionable.
I thought, let's wait and see.
I think geopolitics
has never gone away.
And indeed, one of the
arguments I want to make to you
is that every time
people meet in Davos it
is an exercise in geopolitics.
It's an exercise in imagining
the world in very particular
ways and thinking about
best how to manage it,
whether it's through market
intervention or certain state
behavior.
But it also, I think, at moments
like this, and hence the image,
geopolitics is
highly choreographed.
It's not just a way of thinking
and speaking about the world.
It's also a way of
performing in the world.
So this kind of
performance, usually
a whole group of white people
from Euro-American states,
is notable as a particular kind
of performance of geopolitics.
More on that in a minute.
I also work on James
Bond, because I
think geopolitics is utterly
rooted in popular culture,
that actually our
ideas of geopolitics
are often formed at an early
formative moment in our lives
through popular culture.
Also through play.
Those of you of a certain
age like me, no doubt,
remember your action man--
your action men.
I had two of them.
I was very blessed
--and the pleasure one
took in imagining all kinds
of Cold War era scenarios.
I also consumed enthusiastically
James Bond movies.
But it's not hard, of course, to
see James Bond movies for what
they are, a very, very
particular imperial male
fantasy figure going to do
what Theresa May might describe
as global Britain, albeit
in a highly profitable way.
Geopolitics can also,
of course, be caught up
in all kinds of other
agendas, some of them
explicitly environmental.
Think about these
kinds of images.
I've deliberately
juxtaposed them
for you, Emma Thompson
and her gang standing
in Svalbard, lamenting
the absence of ice whilst,
on the other hand, we have the
precarious looking polar bear
on a particular ice.
One at least is looking rather
sad, the other mournful.
But geopolitics
is, I think, made
possible through
the environmental,
through the ecological,
because in this sense,
both of those images
are inviting us to act,
to actually do
something to change
the geopolitical situation
or the system of power
that we face ourselves.
One of the things I
also caution you about,
the imagery used here as well
is the often complete absence
of indigenous peoples
who live in the Arctic.
So often it's
charismatic species
like polar bears,
whales, that prefigure
in some of this
ordering of geopolitics.
I'm in Google.
It would seem remiss
of me not to think
a little bit about big data,
social media, and analytics
that go with it.
Surely geopolitics makes itself
felt through social media,
whether it's a
commander in chief who
seems incapable of
resisting the urge
to tweet in the early
hours of the morning
or whether it's the decisions
that we are or are not
able to make when it comes
to accessing the internet is
surely geopolitical.
Last week I was in China.
I don't need to
rehearse, I hope,
that it's rather difficult
to access Google, Twitter,
Bing, or certain kinds of
social media you can access.
You then have to rely on
your virtual private network
to do other things.
And there's a thriving
industry in China
helping you to do that.
I also want to reinforce
that geopolitics
is part of the everyday
and deeply, deeply personal
and felt. So whether we're
female, male, black, white,
gay, straight,
geopolitics sticks to us
if you will in very, very
different kinds of ways.
So I've deliberately used here
an image of Black Lives Matters
from the United States to raise
the troubling issue about how,
for example, the war
on terror is conducted
in some parts of
the world whilst
in other parts of
the world citizens
such as the
African-American community
are reminding other
citizens that they
have felt terrorized for
centuries, not just a month
or a decade or two.
So geopolitics is what feminists
would remind us intersectional.
There is absolutely no
one singular geopolitics.
Very quickly to finish
off, a quick case study.
When I'm not talking about
geopolitics more generally,
I tend to focus on
the colder parts
of the world, particularly
the Arctic and the Antarctic.
And some of the more
recent work I've
done has been looking
at arctic geopolitics,
or what is specifically
geopolitical about the Arctic.
And so I wrote a book
with a co-author called
"The Scramble For The Poles."
And then our newest
one is coming out
this month called "The Arctic,
What Everyone Needs to Know,"
which I'm slightly
worried about,
because there's an
awful lot to know.
And I'm not sure
I've captured it all.
So I'm expecting the criticisms
to come left, right, and center
about how much I've
had to leave out.
Anyway, why is the Arctic
interesting geopolitically?
Well, one of the things
that I think really
helped transform the Arctic
as a geopolitical space
was a very, very particular
act in August 2007.
For those of you can
recall, a Russian flag
was raised gently
deposited at the bottom
of the central Arctic Ocean.
And the flag was made of
titanium, so it's rust proof,
and presumably, whether
we like it or not,
will endure in the coming
years, possibly centuries.
But the key thing
to bear in mind
is that the flag was Russian.
Had the flag been
the United Nations,
had the flag been the United
Kingdom, on the one hand,
we might have thought about
the place differently.
On the other hand, we
would have laughed.
But it was a Russian
flag and the person
you see before you is
Author Chilingarov, a very
distinguished Russian
oceanographer who
was responsible for piloting
the submersible that traveled
many thousands of
feet under the water
and depositing the said flag.
And he came to
Moscone and elsewhere
with a photograph of the flag
and said the Arctic is ours.
On hearing that,
Canada, Denmark,
and others responded
badly in the sense of they
found it rather
troubling assertion
that the Russian flag had been
planted on a part of the world
that they also thought
might be potentially theirs.
So what followed, of course,
was an inevitable geopolitical
tussle between Canada,
Russia and Denmark
through, of course, the kingdom
of Denmark, which is Greenland,
all vying the North Pole,
the central Arctic Ocean,
and thinking it is theirs.
And you couldn't get a
more fundamental expression
of geopolitics, a kind
of struggle, a rivalry,
over a territory that is
so remote, that is probably
devoid of natural resources,
but nonetheless is
hugely symbolically important.
Everybody, at least
those three states,
wants to say the North
Pole belongs to them.
On the other hand, of
course, on hearing this news
that the Russian state
possibly had ambitions
to claim ownership over
subterranean territory
that very, very few people
have visited let alone seen,
indigenous peoples around
the Arctic gathered
and produce an Inuit
declaration on sovereignty,
reminding settler
colonial states,
Denmark, Canada, and Russia,
that the Arctic was not
exclusively theirs,
that actually
indigenous peoples had lived
in the Arctic for millennia
well before those three
states were created.
I would suggest to you
that what you have here is
an indigenous geopolitics,
a very, very different way
of thinking about
the world, and a one
that is actively challenging the
hegemony of the nation state to
divide the world up into
particular kinds of ways.
But that won't stop those nation
states, AKA coastal states.
New maps are being produced
of the Arctic as we speak.
On the one hand, on
the left hand side,
the rather garish set of colors,
what you see there-- just
imagine the colors.
Don't worry about the detail--
is coastal states--
Canada, Norway, the United
States, Russia, Denmark--
thinking that the Arctic
Ocean belongs to them.
And all those colors represent
their particular interests
in extending their
rights over the seabed.
And on the other hand, you
have a more traditional
oceanographic
physical geography,
if you will, of
the Arctic Ocean,
that is being mapped ever more
intensely both by militaries
eager, almost as if there
was a return to the Cold War
to make sure they
properly understand
this underwater space, but also
scientists desperately trying
to work out what on earth is
going on in the central Arctic
Ocean, because the sea ice
just keeps disappearing.
And we know disappearing
sea ice is bad news.
So we're trying
to find out more.
And such is the state
of change in the Arctic.
And the warming can not
be underestimated quite
how dramatic it is.
Sea ice is disappearing.
And if sea ice
disappears, what follows?
Well, what follows
is more open water.
And what follows
from open water is
that more people, more states,
corporations, and others
think that you can do things
there that previously you
might not have thought about
because the sea ice was
blocking your interests.
So for the first
time, we are having
to invent a new term to
take into account the scale
or change in the Arctic.
10 years ago, we didn't talk
about the central Arctic Ocean.
We now do so.
And we've just recently
signed an agreement
where we are trying to set
up a framework for regulating
potentially commercial fishing
in the central Arctic Ocean,
That would have been absolutely
unthinkable to Halford
Mackinder when he was writing
about the geographical pivot
of history.
And when, if you can recall
back, you may not have seen it,
he said in his map or
he described in his map
the Arctic is simply an icy sea.
So it is no exaggeration
to say that we really
are having to talk about
a new kind of North pole.
And I'll end on
that note because I
hope that's just giving you
a real sense that geopolitics
is a portmanteau word, geo
referring to the earth,
the writing of the earth, and
politics really concerning
itself with the struggle for
power, resources, territory.
And that's why the two
are brought together.
And you see in the Arctic
geopolitics writ large.
Thanks very much.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER 1: Klaus,
thank you very much.
Any questions from
the audience, please?
AUDIENCE: Sorry to yell,
so-- no the speech,
that was very, very short.
AUDIENCE: Gosh.
So excuse me.
The picture of the
flag on the bottom
of the ocean, what's the
difference between that
and say Japan, or the US, or
New Zealand going and planting
one in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean
and claiming that to be theirs?
I mean, they're both oceans.
Is there a difference
in the Arctic Ocean
that makes it, I
don't know, somehow
in some way
reasonable to do that?
KLAUS DODDS: Well,
that's a great question.
I mean, I think the
first thing to say
is that whenever a flag is
planted anywhere on the Earth's
surface, it's not
unreasonable, I think,
to tie it into a longer history
of colonialism and imperialism.
I mean there is a very,
very rich tradition--
and I don't mean rich
and necessarily good.
I mean just rich in
an awful lot of it--
of flags being planted in
various kinds of places.
Edmund Hillary does it on the
top of Everest, for example.
We know that.
I think what's
interesting about flag
planting at the
bottom of oceans--
and you're absolutely right.
This is not unique to Russia.
The Chinese did it, for
example, in the South China Sea.
Spain did it, for example,
in the territorial waters
of Gibraltar.
You flag plant because
you usually want
to make some kind of statement.
And it would not matter unless
it was caught on film or image.
If you can't see the flag
planting, then it's pointless.
So I think what's so important
is when Chilingarov is holding
the photograph, it's
as if to say, we did it
and we have the evidence.
Now I think in both cases what's
important is what we're saying
is at the moment is what I would
describe as ocean grabbing,
that coastal states
are investing millions
of dollars, rubles, krone,
pounds, you name it,
to map the seabed.
And they're doing so because
international law gives them,
in a sense, the right
to do so in order
to generate what are called
more sovereign rights
over the seabed.
It's a very technical,
scientific, logistically
expensive process.
But that's what they're doing.
So when the Russians did
that, they were throwing down
the gauntlet and saying, I
think, to Canada and Denmark,
we think the North
Pole, if you will,
or the central Arctic
Ocean, is ours.
We dare you.
Well, that's exactly what
Canada and Denmark did.
They spent millions and millions
of pounds of dollars and krone
mapping the seabed.
So when I showed you that map
of that oceanographic physical
geography map, in a
curious sort of way,
all this flag planting
empowered by law
is leading to ever greater
mapping of the world's oceans.
That may actually be quite
useful scientifically,
environmentally, but is also
being powered by geopolitics.
People want territory.
And they want resources.
AUDIENCE: OK.
Speaking of flags that
have been planted,
I'm thinking about
the one that was
planted on the Moon surface.
And until a couple
of decades ago,
it seemed like geopolitics
extended outside of Earth
going into space
and then it kind of
died as an area of conflict.
So it'd be good to hear
a couple of words about
that and if you see that
becoming a new area of conflict
in the future.
KLAUS DODDS: Yes.
No.
It's a very important point.
I'm sorry.
With my 10 images,
I kept us on Earth.
But I could have easily
gone into outer space, Mars,
the Moon, and elsewhere.
I mean I think the key
thing to bear in mind
is when the Americans planted a
flag on the Moon in July 1969,
they weren't
necessarily claiming
the Moon for the United States.
One of the interesting
things about flags
is they work in intriguing ways.
So you remember Neil
Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin were talking about
taking steps of mankind
but nonetheless
planted a US flag,
and not a United Nations
flag, or maybe they
didn't have to plant a flag
but they chose to plant a flag.
We can see the flag as a
really ambiguous signifier.
Now, in the aftermath
of that event,
we then had international
legal intervention
through things like the
Moon Treaty, the Outer Space
Treaty that have tried to
create this idea of these space
as being a common
heritage of mankind.
In other words, they should not
be colonized by nation states.
Complicating all
of that, I think,
is the rise of high
net individuals
who can easily
imagine themselves
as future presidents
of Mars given half
the chance or, on
the other hand,
we've seen the space
race massively expanded.
And notably, of course,
countries like India and China
and the Europeans
have become more
prominent in the
exploration of space.
China has made it
very, very clear
it has ambitious plans for space
in the next 10 to 15 years.
So I think the idea of space
being the final frontier,
if you will, is really
worth looking at carefully.
Space has never stopped
being a frontier.
But what I think that
happens is that it tends
to go through amplifications.
So interest drops off.
I think you're going to see
it go on an upward trajectory
from here after.
So we can, I think, talk about
an outer space geopolitics
for sure, and
indeed we should do.
I think what's happening at the
moment is there's a tendency
now to go ever deeper,
if you will, to the ocean
seabirds to drill
deeper than ever before,
but also to go out beyond Earth.
And I think this is coinciding
with a particular anthropogenic
moment when we're actually
once again thinking about,
as we did the 1970s,
the limits to Earth.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thanks for coming
and talking to us.
It's very interesting.
My question is do
you think there
will be a struggle at some
point for the resources
we have on the planet Earth?
For example, I'm from Brazil.
And we have a bigger
part of the Amazon.
And I feel like in
the future people will
be like from all over the world,
you have lots of freshwater.
You have this massive forest.
So it doesn't belong
to this nation.
And I think there will be
a new struggle basically.
They're resources.
They belong to
everyone on the planet.
We should share it.
Do you see that coming?
It's like the struggle
for the space.
You know, outer space
belongs to everybody.
We need to explore it.
They're doing it
now with the ocean.
Are they going to do that with
the other resources as well?
KLAUS DODDS: So I think that's
a really excellent question,
because I think
it's so complicated.
So, for example, in
your own country,
you could, quite
reasonably I think,
point to a kind of
indigenous geopolitics.
And you could say,
well, you know,
when the military came
into power in the 1960s,
for example, there
was lots of interest
in militarizing and securitizing
the Brazilian Amazon.
And there was this idea that
part of the reason why Brasilia
moves to where
it's established is
it's this idea that Brazil
has to move westwards,
that the Amazon is a frontier.
And it has to be filled,
because if it's not filled,
the neighboring states are
going to take advantage,
possibly inspired by communist
Cuba and the Soviet Union.
Well, if we talk
about resource wars,
indigenous peoples have
been bearing the brunt
of resource wars for centuries.
So this is nothing new.
There is a long and,
I'm afraid, continuing
history of dispossession.
On the other hand
though, if you're
asking a more general question,
which is about humanity and how
we manage the
world's resources, I
think legal concepts like the
common heritage of mankind
were an attempt to
go some of that way.
And we're also seeing a
growing appetite for things
like marine protected areas.
Fundamentally though,
what we have is
a paradox is how do we manage
life with a 7.5 billion
population that's going to
rise to 10, possibly 12,
in a world where also we're
divided into 200 nation states
that we know make
no ecological sense.
And that's our challenge.
And then if we want to try
and inculcate and encourage
a cosmopolitan
geopolitics where we think
of ourselves as a humanity, as
we do, for example-- as we're
encouraged do through
the Anthropocene
to think of human beings
as a geological force is
the argument.
My worry is that in doing
that you quickly wash over,
literally whitewash you might
say, colonialism, imperialism,
inequality.
And what do we say to the
citizens of Brazil who go,
as they did in the
1990s, stop telling us
that we have to protect the
Amazon for the sake of humanity
and the earth's ecologies.
You know, it feels like a
kind of neocolonialism that
just doesn't give
up, that you're
bullying us into doing things.
Because Brazil, if you
will, modern Brazil
has been blessed with high
levels of biodiversity.
So I think there's
enormous suspicion
of those kinds of arguments.
And I the Paris court--
I mean there's no way around it.
You know, there's
a lot of discussion
that needs to happen which
is fundamentally rooted
in inequality, I think.
There's no easy answer.
You know, it's all very well
for people like me to go,
oh, we all need to
be cosmopolitan.
Yeah.
Well, that's fine.
But actually, it doesn't really
deal with the complex realities
of Earth.
AUDIENCE: You've
talked, at times,
about international efforts
to create legal frameworks
around the Moon.
I think there are
international treaties around,
law of the sea, that
type of thing as well.
And, obviously, the
U.N. Has, at times,
tried to make diktats
about conflicts.
As a geo-politician,
how successful
do you think
international cooperation,
international laws
have been, or will be,
at preventing nation state
interests from overriding them.
KLAUS DODDS: Thank you, that's
a really good question as well.
Because we do have
some stunning examples,
I think, of where
things go well.
So, for example, I think
the Antarctic Treaty of 1959
is a remarkable achievement
in creating the world's
first nuclear-free zone and
demilitarizing a continent,
and trying, I think, and
succeeding, more or less,
in making peace and science
sort of the primary drivers
of activity.
Where it's had
difficulty, I think,
is dealing with
commercial drivers.
So, for example, when
fishing intervenes,
or when the specter of mining
intervened in the 1980s, then,
suddenly, those
principles seemed
a little bit more fragile.
The law of the sea which was
negotiated in the 70s and 80s
is also, I think, a remarkable
attempt to try and balance
exploitation, rights
of coastal states
with the rights of non-coastal
states and conservation.
And I think what you see
in international law is
both success and failure.
But that success and
failure is, in a sense,
representative of
wider humanity.
That we are struggling to
balance these competing
demands.
We know, for example, we
should be eating less meat
and adopting a more
vegetarian diet.
But, on the other hand,
we're also dealing with,
not only growing
demand and liking
for meat, but also
powerful industries
and corporations that also
help to generate things.
Well, law and geopolitics
are no different.
You've got these
different stakeholders
and different pressures.
So I think, if you go back
to marine-protected areas
for a second, there's a
classic case of where you're
trying to meet both agendas.
And in the southern ocean, at
the moment, on the one hand,
we want to create
marine-protected areas
like the Ross Sea.
But on the other
hand, we've only
been able to get
agreement on that
because we've also acknowledged
that these marine-protected
areas are subject to review.
We've just had one in
the central Arctic Ocean.
A sort of agreement, a
moratorium, on fishing.
And here's the really
interesting thing.
Some of the parties
to that agreement
wanted that moratorium to last
for only three or four years.
Some of the other parties
wanted the moratorium to last 30
to 40 years.
In the end, they compromise
and they agree on 16 years.
That has got no ecological
basis whatsoever.
It is an utterly
arbitrary figure
that was absolutely
plucked out of thin air
as a gesture of consensus.
I'm not going to tell you which
country wanted four years.
But I don't think you would
have to think terribly hard who
might have just
gone for four years
and who might have gone for
30 or 40 years, once you
know the 10 signatories.
And interestingly,
by the way, this
is a Brexit point, of the
signatories is the European
Union, to that agreement.
So if we do leave
the European Union,
then, actually, it's
an interesting point
about whether Britain would
become a new signatory
to that agreement.
Or whether anybody would
have us as a new signatory
to that agreement.
All of that's a moot point.
But it's just to
make the thing that,
again, geopolitics changes.
I'm very conscious as the
fifth man to ask a question.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
And yet, all my students
who study geopolitics
are often women.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
Thanks so much for coming in.
I was just wondering
if you thought
enough was being done to
protect small or poor countries
for maintaining their own kind
of sovereignty on their land
when faced with the economic
power of other big countries.
I asked only because I
spent the last year in Laos,
and I was struck by how
much of the infrastructure
was increasingly owned
and run by Chinese.
I'm sure through sort of
proper legal agreements.
But they felt
somewhat vulnerable.
KLAUS DODDS: It's a
really important point.
I think one of the
things that Brexit
reminds us of is
that sovereignty
is a very powerful myth.
And no country in the world,
including the United States,
has ever enjoyed
complete sovereignty.
And what you see
around the world,
particularly when smaller
states enter into relations
with countries like China
through the Belt and Road
initiative, for example.
And Laos would be a really
good example of this.
It's that Laos enters into
these agreements knowing
perfectly well that
there's a kind of what
I would call a sovereignty
bargaining going on.
But what Laos has
off also discovered
is that, and it's
true of, I think,
a lot of trade
agreements, is that they
produce both intended and
unintended consequences.
So, for example, you know if you
enter an agreement with China,
for example, with rubber
production, it will then
have knock on consequences
for how, for example,
you organize rural life.
Or how agricultural
systems change and shift.
Zimbabwe discovered
this when it entered
into economic
relationships with China.
One of the interesting things
that actually happened,
and the Chinese were
very worried about this,
was it generated,
actually, expressions
of anti-Chinese racism in
some of these countries.
Because, actually, people, at
one stage, were thinking this
is a really welcome
investment opportunity.
And then it shifts to
resentment and anger.
So I think one of the
interesting things
about geopolitics as well
is it's also about moods.
And those moods can
be about anxiety,
they can be about fear.
They can be about hope, dread.
And anxiety and
fear, I think, is
what you might have
seen or felt in Laos.
Because, actually,
you realize that you
are doing a deal
with a country that
is incredibly upfront about
the kinds of relationships
it wishes to have.
And when China talks about
a Belt and Road initiative.
And when China talks about
Silk Roads, you know,
China doesn't just have
one Silk Road in mind.
It doesn't just have
two Silk Roads in mind.
It has probably about six
or seven Silk Roads in mind.
And they are going to
stretch and extend all
over the Euro-Asian landmass.
They are going to extend across
Africa and Latin America.
This is a global project.
So I think what
you heard in Laos,
you're going to hear in many
other parts of the world.
But remember this, that the
Laos government did agreements
with China.
It wasn't as if China
said, right, that's it,
we're not listening to you.
We're just making
these relationships.
And I think we have to be
very careful about that.
Don't take the agency away
from small states entirely.
I think I would have
far more sympathy
for low-lying small states that
face inundation from sea level
change or sea level rise.
That's something that's
really very difficult
to deal with and confront.
But in other cases,
these are bargains.
These are pacts.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
As a woman who
studied geopolitics
and international
relations, I felt compelled
to also ask a question.
Being aware there are
so many conflicts and so
many military conflicts
around the world,
and of course we
discussed that dichotomy
between geopolitics and your
economy, what else should--
needs to happen for
any of the conflicts,
whether in Africa, Middle
East, or anywhere else,
to be resolved?
Do you see any kind
of positive news
coming in from those conflicts?
KLAUS DODDS: Well, I think we
should take heart in the sense
that we have examples of
where peacekeeping and peace
initiatives can and do work.
In my experience traveling the
world, most of the conversation
I end up having,
where peace actually
takes a hold and a grip,
is often through every day
locally-driven initiatives
that work, for example,
with cross-border communities.
And where things
like culture, trade,
begin to replace militaries,
security barriers
and militarization
more generally.
What I think is really tough
at the moment is that there are
many, many parts of the world--
the Middle East would
be a very grand example,
in all the worst kind of ways--
of where, actually, parties
have every incentive
not to seek peace.
I don't need to rehearse
all those parties,
but there is an awful lot
going on where, actually,
geopolitical rivalries suit
both regional and extra-regional
actors.
And that's incredibly tough.
Because what we do know--
and for example,
the Yemen really
illustrates this
incredibly well.
Tens of thousands
of people have died.
Two to three million people,
I think have been internally
and externally displaced.
You move on to other parts
of the world like Syria,
for example.
These are incredibly,
incredibly depressing stories
where geopolitical schisms are
being amplified and made worse
by all kinds of decisions.
Whether it's about
supplying military weapons,
or whether it's by using
inflammatory rhetoric
and having all kinds of
ambitions, both regional,
as I say, and global.
So I think you're
absolutely right.
One of the challenges we face
in the field of geopolitics
is to retain a sense
of hope in humanity.
That actually things
like peace, justice,
ethics don't disappear from
our auditing of geopolitics.
Because it's incredibly easy
just to focus on grievance,
inequality, hardship.
But on the other hand, we
have to talk about those
because then there's
a danger, as they
say, we forget
ongoing injustices
and inequalities and violence.
And I think that's why I showed
you the image of Black Lives
Matters, to make the point
that geopolitics is not always
about the world outside
the nation-state.
It can also feel very,
very everyday embodied,
as we would say.
And very much part of
your day to day reality.
So when the United States
talks about a war on terror,
I can understand
why black folks go,
we feel like we've
been facing a war
on terror for the last
couple hundred years.
I think we have to have
those honest conversations.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
I'm just curious.
I think, obviously,
humans kind of
have this currency bias
where we think of our time
as being different in some way.
So I'm just curious
if you think,
relatively speaking to history,
is this a relatively unstable
time geopolitically?
And, if so, what do you see
as the most exacerbating
destabilizing forces
that are at work?
KLAUS DODDS: I think,
on the one hand,
it would not be unreasonable
to say that we have never
had it so good, to channel
my inner Harald MacMillan.
In the sense of that, in
a lot of the indicators
like global life
expectancy, health,
humanity appears to be in
relatively good health.
So I think that that's
one obvious caveat.
I think there's a tendency
of every generation
to think that they live
in interesting times,
to channel somebody else.
And I think what we
kind of have here is
a very interesting
debate going on
that you can see, in terms
of public intellectuals
like Steven Pinker making an
argument about that actually
we're in relatively good
good health in terms
of, for example,
levels of violence.
My point is that,
depending on where you are,
those levels of
violence, of course
are either ongoing and endemic.
Talk to, as I have done,
aboriginal women in Canada,
the violence is ongoing.
They don't see any
generational shift.
But on the other hand,
factor in other parts
of the world like
Syria, for example,
that have been absolutely
catastrophically hit
by really awful
civil war, then it
feels like, I'm quite certain,
that generationally this
is unprecedented.
I think what we're really
coming up against, however, is
a growing recognition
that not only is
this is this violence
enduring-- in other words
that we can identify
periods when
there has been, for example,
fewer deaths due to violence.
Yes we can do that.
But nonetheless there is a kind
of ongoing noose, if you will,
to violence.
But I think what we're
also coming up against,
which is I think
the real kicker,
is there is a sense of
this anthropogenic moment.
That actually not
only is it shocking
that we still have
levels of human violence
in some parts of the world
that is truly eye-watering.
But I think we're
coming to terms
with an ecological
violence that actually,
over a really remarkably
short period of time,
we appear to be jeopardizing
the fate of the earth.
And I think it's
that, I would say,
is probably, ultimately, the
most troubling aspect of all
of this.
And the reason
why it's troubling
is because, also, those
very communities are often
borne the brunt of a
very human violence
unlikely to be hit a
second time with climate
change-related violence.
And that violence
can be, for example,
being a climate
change refugee, which
we're going to see more
of, not less, I suspect.
But it also might
mean, when you're
asked to be resilient,
for example, you
have to ask yourself, well,
what kind of resources
does a community
or an individual
have to be resilient?
And that's very
unevenly distributed.
So I think one of the
jobs of geopolitics
is to constantly remind
people that there
is no collective
vulnerability here.
It's very, very
unequally shared.
And I think, depending on
who you are, where you are,
your views about these
broader trends, I suspect,
will be very different.
That's my point at
its most simplest.
AUDIENCE: My question is,
in an increasingly connected
and complicated world,
do you see states
as surviving as the main
actors within politics?
Do you see some kind of
viable alternative examples
of non-state actors, or
some kind of pan-humanism,
in the next 50 years or so?
KLAUS DODDS: Really
good question.
I think, on the one
hand, the connectedness
of the networks, if I can put
it in a rather clumsy term,
but that most of us experience
and, no doubt, enjoy
is enabling us, of course, to
hollow out the state anyway.
I think we're all
doing a terrific job
at hollowing out the state,
destroying the state.
I think we're doing that, for
example, in our purchasing
patterns.
We're terrifically good
seeking all kinds of things
from around the world at the
cheapest price or the most
accessible manner.
We're terrifically
good at generating
transnational cosmopolitan
relationships.
I don't have a Facebook account.
But presumably some of you do.
No doubt, you're very,
very good at generating
intercontinental relationships.
You might be sending
your money to families
all around the world.
You know, you're
finding ways to work
within and beyond
the nation state.
So I think the nation state
is responding to that.
And indeed, you can
see the European Union
as a very, very
particular experiment
in terms of trying to
collectivize the state.
And clearly, in
this country, we're
having an interesting
conversation
about what we think about
that collectivization.
Do I think the nation
state will last?
No, I don't think it will last.
I think it'd be utter conceit
of the most extraordinary manner
to think that the nation state
will survive indefinitely.
I'm quite certain
there were many people,
at one stage, who thought the
British Empire would last.
But that's where, actually,
the longer perspective
does help us remind us
that actually things
have often a shelf life.
Are we all quite as enthusiastic
about liberal democracy
as we once were?
Well, one of the
interesting things
about the rise of
populism and nativism
is that actually you're
getting these very, very
competing different
understandings of politics
in the state.
And we're seeing it on
our own country, as well.
So I actually think we're
having a national conversation
about the future of
the nation state.
Do we expect the United
Kingdom to be united?
I'd be very surprised if we
could still talk about a United
Kingdom in 10 years time.
I'm not saying it's impossible,
but I'd be very surprised.
So I think, in a sense, we're
seeing it before our eyes.
That the nation state,
if it does survive,
is going to mutate.
I mean, I sometimes think
London really should just
declare independence and
admit we're Singapore
and get on with it.
Because the city of London
has also hollowed out
the nation state.
It's done it beautifully
in the last 30 or 40 years.
And of course,
what we thought was
national governments thought
there were some really clever
bargaining going on here.
But property markets, money
flows, languages spoken
tell you that London
is a global city.
And I think many, many
Londoners probably feel
more affinity to elsewhere.
Exactly what Theresa
May was trying
to get at in a slightly
clumsy sort of way.
But she was kind of recognizing
that citizenship and identity
politics are just so much more
complicated than simply mapping
neatly onto nation states.
Any of you from mixed
backgrounds, for example?
I am.
You know, I've always had three
countries in my everyday life--
Britain Austria
and South Africa.
I've had multiple
languages in my house.
So trying to pin me down
as a British citizen
is quite tricky.
And I think that matters a
lot as well in terms of that
identity politics and how
these things map on a don't.
AUDIENCE: Thank you very much.
Your talk was very interesting.
In regards to
territorial changes,
I'm concerned about
Eastern Europe,
because I'm coming
from Moldova, which is
a very small ex-Soviet country.
And we all saw what happened
to Crimea not so long ago.
And now, I heard recently
on TV that Georgia
has said that, if Brexit must
leave the European Union,
we don't mind taking the place.
I was wondering, shall we expect
such a aggressive reaction
from Russia in regards to
Georgia's claiming they want
to be part of European Union?
Because I think that Eastern
Europe is not very stable,
in I would say, most
small countries that
are surrounding Russia.
So what are your
thoughts on this?
KLAUS DODDS: Well, I think we
should take very seriously what
President Putin says.
And, of course, the whole
flag planting moment--
if I take you back there
to answer your question--
occurred in 2007.
About the same time,
President Putin
said that the greatest
geopolitical catastrophe
in his lifetime was the
ending of the Soviet Union.
And, as you know, Russians also
speak about the near-abroad.
And it has a slightly
ambiguous meaning.
But I think it's quite
clear that Russia
sees your country of origin
and others as part of it's,
in a classic geopolitical
term, sphere of influence.
Now, that is also
a problematic term.
Because what exactly
does influence mean?
Because to a lot of
citizens in eastern Europe,
including the Baltics
as well, influence often
means destabilization.
It often means interference.
And it often means
cultivating an enduring
sense of fear and anxiety.
And I think it's no accident
that many Eastern European
states, as well
as Nordic states,
reacted with alarm to
the annexation of Crimea.
And we know, for
example, Ukraine
provides a sobering
story of when
a country wants
to gravitate more
closely towards the
European and NATO
and then also faces a very, very
large neighbor that does not
want to see Ukraine gravitate
towards the EU and NATO.
From Russia's point of view, if
I can try and channel the view
from the Kremlin, I
might say to myself,
if I was sitting there,
since 1991, let's
just think what's happened.
We collapsed.
We try to embrace
market economics,
a bit of a disaster for many,
many citizens, although others
got fabulously wealthy.
Some of that hot
money goes to the city
of London and elsewhere,
and doing all kinds of work
through property and elsewhere.
In the meantime, eastern
and central Europe,
that used to be part of
the Warsaw Pact, is no more
and is now safely enveloped
in the European and NATO.
And what's left?
A few countries like
Moldova, Belarus,
for example, that are kind
of not quite there yet.
Then you factor in, you
have the war with Georgia,
where of course,
the Russians then
started to occupy and
expand their influence
in the autonomous region.
Ongoing conflicts in
various parts of Russia,
in a place like
Chechnya, for example.
It's a pretty disturbing
view from your point of view,
possibly.
But from Russia's
point of view, it's
part of the push back against
what they would see European
Union and NATO opportunism.
The other thing as
well to bear in mind
is Russia was absolutely
furious about what
happened in Libya in 2011,
where it felt like it
was tricked by the NATO powers.
So there's a lot of, I
think, anger and resentment,
but also determination to
restore Russia's great power
status.
And what I worry about is that
those Eastern European states,
I'm afraid, are very, very
much on the front line.
And I don't have to
tell you, but the use
of asymmetric
warfare is one thing,
but the digital, the
cyber, has proven
an incredibly productive
way of trying to network
that sphere of influence.
And that's deeply,
deeply disconcerting.
Hence the reason why
British troops were
sent to Estonia, for example.
So I think Moldova is
in a really, really
difficult position.
And I think the other thing
that a lot of NATO countries
and eastern and central
Europe will look upon
with immense concern
is, what does it take
to trigger an Article V moment?
In other words,
what does it take
to trigger a collective
defense response?
And at the moment you're
managing your anxiety and fear,
you have a president
of the United States
who does not appear to
be as signed up to NATO
as his predecessors were.
Deeply disconcerting.
And does anybody think in
eastern and central Europe
that, if the United
States is not involved,
it's going to end well?
The other thing to bear in
mind, and you will know this,
of course, I'm sure, but in
eastern and central Europe
a really major day
of celebration--
here's a bit of everyday
geopolitics for you--
is what is called NATO day.
It's a big, big deal in places
like the Czech Republic.
People really do fly NATO
flags, posters, flags.
It is an immense
moment of celebration.
So ditto with the
European Union.
I mean, you will see these
flags fluttering everywhere.
It really is that important.
So yes, I don't think--
NATO's in a bind in terms of
expanding the membership when
you've also got a
commander in chief,
as I said earlier,
who is proving
a little bit ambivalent.
Whose mind might be more
preoccupied on Iran,
for example, than
southeast Europe.
SPEAKER 1: I think
we're out of time now.
But, Klaus, thank you
so much for coming in,
and really enjoyed your talk.
Thank you.
KLAUS DODDS: Thank
you very much.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]
