What exactly do we mean when we say the word geopolitics?

Definition of geopolitics: have we reached consensus about the meaning of this concept? From the most narrow meaning, close to geography with a little bit of politics, to being a synonym of international relations, available literature offers a vast array of contents.

Has there been an inventor of the word? How did this word appear in the literature related to international relations?

Several scholars have recognized a Swede Rudolph Kjellen as the author who coined the word geopolitics and somehow began the construction of this new field of knowledge.

Nevertheless some authors trace it back to Aristotle, to identify what we could signal as the most ancient historical background of the discipline, quoting different scholars about the importance of geography vis-à-vis city-states, kingdoms and later, nation-states.

But I think there is broad consensus that Kjellen, Ratzel, Mahan and some years later Mackinder (1904), were the “founding fathers” of geopolitics as a specific field of study within the wider area of international relations.

The definition of geopolitics by Oxford Dictionary is the following: “politics, especially international relations, as influenced by geographical factors.” Size and position are paramount among other geographical factors. Geography is constant, even if influenced by scientific and technological advances.

For the purpose of this article, I am going to follow this definition, that could be considered a narrow or classic one, and that clearly means that geopolitics and international relations are not synonyms at all.

Here I am choosing the classic definition of geopolitics, although most of the literature over the last decades has used geopolitics and international relations nearly as synonyms. In fact, there are several courses that are taught nowadays in universities in the Western world that use the concept geopolitics to actually mean international relations.

Once we have settled the precise meaning of this concept for the purpose of this article, we should take a brief look at the history of geopolitics, which mostly relates to teachings, ideas and events that happened during the 20th and 21st centuries.

There is general consensus among historians and international relations scholars that Friedrich Ratzel, author of “Political Geography” in 1897, was the inspiration for Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen, who is considered the father of the word “geopolitics” coined in 1899. Kjellen considered geopolitics as the “theory of the state as a geographical organism or phenomenon.”

However it was an Englishman, Halford Mackinder, who developed a theory about geopolitics in an essay delivered to the Royal Geographical Society on January 25th, 1904. His paper was titled “The Geographical Pivot of History”. Mackinder was in fact signalling the north-central area of Eurasia as this geographical pivot. He named this region the “Heartland” and stated that the power that dominated the Heartland would dominate Eurasia and consequently the world.

Nevertheless, Mackinder was not a preacher of geopolitical determinism even if he considered geographical conditions of the utmost importance for the capabilities of states. Population, economic development, military organization, fire power and government strength and determination, were also considered in order to assess the balance of power among nations.

From then on, all the writings and teachings about geopolitics would speculate around land, sea and air power and the ability of each state to control their access to them, and to project power through land, sea and air.

Somehow from this very beginning, geopolitics was closely related to the idea of power projection; the advancement of each state capability at increasing its strength by means of a proper use of its geopolitical advantages.

History gave strong backing to Mackinder’s theory. The invasion of Russia by Napoleon, as well as World War I and later World War II were to a great extent fought to establish preeminence in Mackinder’s Heartland. But none of the three attempts at ruling the Heartland was successful. Nevertheless, as a consequence of the Second World War, during the so-called Cold War, Mackinder’s worst geopolitical nightmare would come true. One nation, the Soviet Union, would rule the Heartland for nearly four decades.

The great paradox was that this historical fact became a strong argument for those who belittled the importance of geopolitics within the wider field of international relations. Several scholars argued that even with the worst case scenario becoming real — the Soviet Union controlling the Heartland — Mackinder’s predictions of world control did not materialize. Consequently, the scientific aspirations of geopolitics were badly hurt, or to say the least, the limitations of geopolitical theories were clearly exposed.

In early 19th century, the crossing of the Andes by General San Martin, from Argentina to Chile, with an army of five thousand soldiers, supplies, artillery, etc. to join the Chilean patriots and defeat the Spanish army granting freedom to Chile and later to Peru, was another rebuff to geopolitics. The Andes are a huge natural frontier. Nobody could imagine that an entire army could defy the basics of geopolitical thinking and overcome what was considered an un-surmountable geographical barrier, even more so at the beginning of 19th century.

In 1924, German author Karl Haushofer established the “Journal of Geopolitics” and borrowed the concept “Lebensraum”, meaning living space, from Ratzell. This idea would certainly evolve into the nazi concept of “Lebensraum” and in its expansionist approach to international politics, that was one of nazism’s main trade marks. Haushofer would try to upgrade the importance of geopolitics so that it would be considered nearly a science with a strong geographical content. The marriage between geography and a living organism, as the basis of this concept of geopolitics, would produce a sort of “expansionist determinism” based on geography as well as ideology.

Haushofer was broadening Ratzel’s idea that a nation-state was an organism that in order to survive in good health had an internal unstoppable need to grow. By developing this sort of geographical Darwinism, Ratzel and later Haushofer considered that the struggle for space was inherent to the states. Expansionism was in a way an inevitable consequence of that concept.

From Haushofer’s point of view, Germany, Italy and Japan were more restricted in their capabilities for lacking enough territory. They had to expand in order to survive. The “Journal of Geopolitics” once and again would emphasize that strong nation-states as Germany had to expand towards Europe and Africa, that were their natural spheres of influence and useful suppliers of strategic natural resources. Haushofer and his colleagues provided nazi ideology with a geopolitical basis with expansionism as its natural consequence.

In Haushofer’s terms, Lebensraum was the right and duty of a nation to provide ample space and resources to all its people. He proposed the idea of “Pan-Regions”: each one of them would have a dominating power. Pan-America (United States), Pan-Asia (Japan) and Euro-Africa under German leadership. He also advocated an alliance between Germany and Russia. Haushofer even defended the concept of “dynamic frontiers” and considered the duty of a stronger state to expand at the expense of a weaker one. Needless to say, Haushofer’s ideas played a significant role in the construction of nazi expansionist ideology.

Therefore, it was inevitable that this concept of geopolitics, basically meaning expansionism, would become closely related to the nazi invasions that caused the Second World War.

The end of the war brought the near demise of geopolitics as a field of study, because it was not easy at all to separate it from nazi-geopolitics which had became nearly its best known and consequently its worst possible content.

Mackinder and Haushofer both stressed the importance of land as the main element of their geopolitical approach.

The maritime geopolitical perspective had been first studied by Alfred T.Mahan in 1890. “The Influence of Sea Power upon history” written by Mahan, explained that world supremacy would be in the hands of those nations that controlled the seas.

It is very interesting to note that in Mahan’s thinking, international trade had a very important place. The seas were not only viewed as the place through which power was projected and lands conquered, but also as the means to connect the states through a peaceful yet essential activity that could reach the farthest areas of the world. Trade was mostly transported by sea and the huge size of the seas in comparison to land-masses, gave countries with sea access a great advantage over those that were land-locked or with geographical limitations to access the open seas.

Mackinder’s point of view grew following the evolution of international politics, especially both World Wars. In 1943 he introduced the concept of “Midland Basin” which included a “bridgehead in France, an aerodrome in the United Kingdom and an agricultural and industrial reserve in Canada and the United States”. He considered that this Midland Basin could compete — thanks to its geographical weight and natural resources — with the Heartland located in Eurasia.

Mackinder was actually worried that after the Second World War, the Soviet Union would emerge as “the greatest land power on the globe”.

By the end of World War II the importance of air power was clearly established and threatened to minimize some of the concepts cherished by classical geopolitics. It was the beginning of missile technology and the nuclear bomb. Both types of weapons would also have great impact upon geopolitical thinking in the following decades.

Another American author, Nicholas Spykman, took advantage of some concepts that had already been introduced by Mahan and Mackinder. His proposal was somehow a response to Mackinder because he thought the English scholar had over-emphasized the importance of the Heartland.

Spykman considered that the most strategic area of the world was the rim of the Heartland, the “inner crescent” in Mackinder’s words. That area surrounding the Heartland had more resources, wealth and better access to the seas linking the whole area. Even considering the importance of the Rimland, Spykman strongly emphasized the importance of sea power which connected all the Rimland powers. China, South East Asia, India, the Middle East and Western Europe were within the Rimland. Outside the Rimland were the so-called off-shore islands, namely the United Kingdom, Japan, Africa, Australia and the United States.

Somehow modifying Mackinder’s point of view, Spykman considered that the power that controlled the Rimland ruled Eurasia and who ruled Eurasia would control the world.

Being an American scholar, he thought that the United States should try to prevent any single power from controlling the Rimland. Perhaps NATO, created in 1949, as well as CENTO and SEATO, had in Spykman’s writings one of their ideologists, as he had said “that the first line of defense of the United States lies in the preservation of a balance of power in Europe and Asia”.

The American scholar Saul Cohen introduced in 1964 the concept of “geo-strategic regions”, that in order to be considered as such, should have global reach and influence. He defined that a geopolitical region is a subdivision of a geo-strategic region. Here he stresses two concepts, “contiguity of location” and “complementarities of resources” as landmarks of the geopolitical regions. Then Cohen specifies the existence of two geo-strategic regions, “Trade-Dependent Maritime World” and “Eurasian Continental World”. The U.S. is the core power in the former and Russia in the latter. China and Europe are the second powers in both geo-strategic regions.

It must be taken into consideration that his book “Geography and Politics in a divided world” was published in London in 1964, therefore the relative position of both Russia and China were ranked accordingly to the power reality of that time.

Yet his concept of “contiguity of location”, important for the definition of geopolitical regions will be covered later on in this article, because it will become central to the relationship between economic integration and geopolitics.

Shortly after Second World War, geopolitics was totally discredited. Most scholars considered geopolitics nothing but a biased and distorted geographical justification for nazi expansionism. Even Mackinder’s ideas, presented at the demise of British imperial power, were viewed as a far cry from a declining British Empire. In fact, Mackinder believed that the possibility of an alliance between Germany and Russia, thus reigning unimpeded over the Heartland, would stand at that time as the most terrible danger for Great Britain.

It was also a time when technological military progress, specially the atomic and hydrogen bombs, the ICBM’s and the conquest of outer space and the moon, spread a much shared belief that geography as the basis of military capabilities was a concept of the past rendering “classical geopolitics” obsolete.

It is important to underline that classical geopolitical authors have all been deeply influenced by the historical and ideological facts of the history they lived through. Mahan, Mackinder, Haushofer and Spykman, just to name four of the most famous, were highly influenced by their countries national interests, ideologies and alliances at differents moments in time.

Geopolitics was widely critized as being nothing but alleged geographical determinism. In my view, the truth of the matter is that geopolitics, much more than being geographical determinism of any sort, showed the “geo-needs” of each nation’s interests, at a certain point in history.

Immediately after Second World War, Spykman’s Rimland was useful raw material for George Kennan’s “containment” proposals. Both the “long telegram” and “Mr.X” article in Foreign Affairs, widely considered as the founding writings that first laid out the main characteristics of the policy of “containment”, resemble Spykman’s geopolitical thinking.

Cold war geopolitics was dominated in western countries by the doctrine of “containment”. Some scholars argued that the Cold War period, no matter how important its ideological contents were, was founded on geopolitical facts.

However there was in the United States an interesting scholar who albeit being in solitude, was highly critical of this strategy. James Burnham wrote several books stating that containment was — for the United States -a good recipe for defeat. In his view it was impossible to achieve victory in the Cold War through the strategy of containment. Ronald Reagan’s policies in the 80’s bear a clear resemblance to Burnham’s ideas, who basically proposed an offensive strategy to undermine Soviet power. In 1983, Reagan presented the “Presidential Medal of Freedom” to James Burnham. In a paper published in 1945, he argued that the Soviet Union’s goal was to dominate the Eurasian landmass, somehow a reminder of Mackinder’s “bête noire”.

In 1976, the publication of the book “La géographie ça sert d’abord à faire la guerre” by French famous geographer Ives Lacoste, who also founded that same year the magazine “Herodote” about geography and geopolitics, gave new impulse to the study of geopolitics from a different perspective. Lacoste had published before “Les pays sous-développés” (1959) and “Géographie du sous-développement”(1965). He studied the relations between geography and under-development from the point of view of the so-called, at that time, Third World countries. Somehow he comes to the rescue of geopolitics from a marxist perspective after years of neglect, because most European scholars, as I have already mentioned, considered geopolitics a nazi invention to justify expansionism.

Geopolitics, as such, vanished during the 1964–1980 period. In 1963 Saul Cohen’s book, “Geography and Politics in a World divided” was published. This book may have signalled the beginning of this period of neglected geopolitics, at least in the United States. Nevertheless, even if elements of geopolitical thinking were used in the issues being discussed at the time, the discipline itself was practically not recognized as an independent or significant field of study.

Some time had to elapse until Z.Brezinski’s “Game Plan” (1986) and Colin Gray’s “The Geopolitics of Superpower” (1988), reintroduced the concept of geopolitics in foreign policy analysis.

Three main historical facts helped geopolitics return to the main discussions of international relations: Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy; the disintegration of the Soviet Union together with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-emergence of China to become the second world power.

Together with these historical events, a great confusion quickly developed among scholars, universities, think tanks and diplomats, that were either practitioners or studied foreign policy. It was, according to my point of view, a “great synonym confusion”, meaning the use of the word “geopolitics” taken as a synonym of “international relations”. The end of the Cold War, witnessed the resurrection of the study of geopolitics, encompassing issues related to international relations, foreign policy, international economy, etc. It wasn’t a resurrection of “classical geopolitics”: rather this had to do with major changes in the international balance of power, explained thanks to the “synonym confusion”, in terms of geopolitical concepts.

The word geopolitics, especially when used to refer to the competition for power among nations, has been employed very often. Even today, we repeatedly find the concept geopolitics in specialized newspapers, any time there is any power struggle — mainly among nations — involved. Perhaps to understand the real meaning for the word geopolitics in late 20th and early 21st centuries, we have to go back to Hans Morgenthau’s classic book, “Politics among nations: the struggle for power and peace” (1948). Morgenthau proposed “realism” as the fundamental approach to understand international relations. His main concept was “interest defined in terms of power”.

Therefore, when nowadays the word geopolitics is being used, what it signifies most of the times is competition for power, mainly among nations, in Hans Morgenthau’s terms.

The extraordinary economic growth of China, the reunification of Germany and the independence of the former Soviet republics, meant a great rebalancing of international relations with classic geopolitical contents, but it did not bring about a renaissance of “classical geopolitics” as a central field of study.

Apart from what I here refer to as a “synonym confusion”, the post cold-war period saw another meaning for geopolitics, which I would like to name as “geopolitics of special brands”, where we find as one of its most significant examples, the “geopolitics of natural resources”. A great emphasis was put on oil, gas, rare earth minerals, iron ore, agricultural products, gold, copper, etc. Somehow it was a geopolitical approach that was a by-product of peace among nations and of power competition through economic and technological means.

Oil was the traditional king of this geopolitical approach, but in this last decade, rare earth minerals have also gained great importance in the consideration of scholars.

The last decade also witnessed one of the major changes ever seen in this “geopolitics of natural resources”, with the sudden and huge development of the shale-oil and gas revolution in the United States, that modified the relative power of some areas of the world, that happened to be of the utmost importance as suppliers of oil. The combination of technology, abundant venture capital and geography, brought about a major change in the geopolitics of oil.

Another important feature of this “geopolitics of special brands” is “demography”. Classical geopolitics already considered the importance of population, its location, numbers and capabilities. But the great leap in humanity’s numbers took place between 1970 and 2010, surging from approximately 3.6 billion to nearly 7 billion people. Perhaps the main impact of this unique jump in human population is related to geo-economics and the urgent need to feed more than 3 billion new mouths in this period. But it also had an impact in terms of classical geopolitics, modifying the relative power of nations that were the most affected by this phenomenon.

Geo-strategy could also be considered within the scope of “geopolitics of special brands” because it has a very precise meaning related to military planning and the use of force.

After man’s landing on the moon, the acceleration of scientific and technological discoveries has greatly transformed the importance of geopolitics. Globalization, economic interdependence and an ongoing revolution in science and technology, are the most important culprits of these modifications of “classical geopolitics.”

Several scholars consider that the speed of scientific and technological development in every field, but especially in the military one, has rendered the usefulness of geopolitics to explain most facts of international relations, especially those about power, quasi-obsolete. According to these opinions, when there are already several companies figuring out if it is possible to extract natural resources from the moon, it appears to be rather out of fashion to feel worried about “classical geopolitics”.

A similar point of view was expressed by Edward Luttwak in an article published in “The National Interest”in 1990 titled “From geopolitics to economics”. This author says that military methods are being displaced by the methods of the business world.

It is my point of view that world peace has moved a good part of competition among nations from war to the field of economics, but the military race — especially its scientific and technological aspects — is more present than ever. In other words, peace has not banished competition. It has just partially moved it to other areas, mainly of economic content. But unfortunately, the arms race remains unstoppable.

As we live in a world that so far has only local wars, the arms race remains hidden in laboratories, and secret research centers, out of sight from the human eye. It is just hidden, but it does exist more than ever.

Another author that tried to assess the true relevance of “classical geopolitics” was Mackubin Thomas Owens. He gave an answer to this matter in his article “In Defense of Classical Geopolitics” published in the U.S.Naval College Review in 1999. This author’s defense of the continuing importance of geography is in my view rather strong.

Lately Robert D.Kaplan has published two books, “Revenge of Geography” in 2013 and “The Return of Marco Polo’s World” in 2018. As the former title clearly shows, he argues about the survival of geography as an unavoidable fact in current international relations.

Economics, science and technology have had a great impact on international relations by modifying the scope of geopolitics, but nevertheless it is impossible to understand international relations without geography. Even if there happens to be any consensus among scholars and practitioners of international relations about this diminished role of classical geopolitics, it is important to underline that geography still matters.

“Classical geopolitics” is too narrow a concept to explain competition for power in international relations, but geography is too important not to be included as one of the main factors badly needed to explain foreign policy.

Geography continues to be the field where the game of international power is played even if it is now wider, since outer space is already a part of it and the seas have somehow expanded through economic zones and continental platforms. But science and technology, especially military technology, have clearly — as I have already mentioned — modified the influence of geography in the international struggle for power.

Needless to say, this brief paper that inquires into the actual meaning and use of the word geopolitics nowadays, does not attempt to review all the authors that have made contributions to this field of study, but only to mention some of the most well known.

What can we say about the survival of “classical geopolitics” in the year 2018?

It is my view that, even if modified, it is rather difficult to deny the survival of “classical geopolitics”. The great “game changers” are science and technology. They have had a huge impact on “classical geopolitics”. Location, distance, contiguity, lands and seas, even outer space, all of them have been greatly transformed by science and technology. Distances have shrunk. Science and technology have both changed classic concerns and assessments, especially from the power projection standpoint.

New military doctrines, also known as geo-strategies, have modified the geographical significance of strategic geographies. They have surely changed the importance that Mahan, Mackinder, Haushofer, Spykman and other authors gave to certain areas of the globe, but they have not belittled “classical geopolitical thinking” as a necessary tool that helps to understand international relations.

“Classical geopolitics”, in this modified sense, is very much alive, only that now, because of science and technology, it is even more dangerous than ever because of nuclear proliferation and the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), missiles, stealth technologies and an assorted array of new weapons of which we are not very much aware, yet.

I have already mentioned Edward Luttwak’s point of view that has had several followers. They flourished after the fall of the Berlin Wall and were much too impressed by the strength of globalization. They thought that international competition had been transferred to the economic arena. “Geo-economics”, instead of the struggle for power within a geopolitical context.

Globalization, encompassing free trade, capital flows, and intra-industry-trade, were some of the new catchwords that explained this new world. Some authors stressed economic integration while others added fragmentation to the globalization phenomenon. In short, all of them geo-economics issues.

Bearing in mind Karl von Clausewitz’s over-cited aphorism that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”, some scholars have contended that geo-economics is the continuation of geopolitics by other means. Geoeconomics, even being of the utmost importance, has not replaced “classical geopolitics”, in its 21st century modified meaning. That is so, in spite of what is now a world mainly dedicated to achieving economic growth, where war is drastically diminished in comparison to humanity’s history.

The existence of geo-economics is certainly not new. Since the Roman Empire onwards, but especially after Columbus discovery of the so-called New World, competition among nations has always had an important economic content.

But it is with current massive globalization that geo-economics has reached an unprecedented level of importance in world history.

In 2012, Hillary Clinton, then United States Secretary of State, said that “the connection between economic power and global influence explains why the United States is placing economics at the heart of our own foreign policy”.

Trade being as old as humanity gained a geo-economic perspective after second World War through economic agreements in the form of free trade agreements, customs unions, and economic unions.

Foreign policy considerations and trade advantages for the parties involved, as well as several economic policy arguments, were very important in the decision process to build economic integration agreements.

Economic integration agreements — free trade agreements, customs unions and economic unions — feature lots of economic and political reasons that prompt governments to pursue these projects. The political and economic history of the countries involved, has also played an important role in encouraging decision-makers to develop these projects. They have typically loosened free trade restrictions and facilitated the movement of capital and people.

But geopolitics, in its most classic way including location, contiguity, connectivity and size, has proved to be paramount in most of the current integration economic agreements. Geography has been the key element, the foundation on which economic integration agreements have been built.

Let’s take a look at the German Customs Union (1834 Zollverein), European Union, NAFTA, Mercosur, Pacific Alliance, Eurasian Economic Union and now China’s huge project called “OBOR”. The “One Belt, One Road” program launched by China in 2013 has a strong geographical basis connecting China with Eurasia, the Middle East and Europe itself. It bears a geographical similarity with the ancient “Silk Road” trading route that gave its name to this initiative. Even if it should not be characterized within the above mentioned models of integration, its huge array of infrastructure and investment proposals is also strongly supported by its geographical content.

These economic agreements have their main foundation in geography. Especially in “contiguity of location”. That is why physical infrastructure as well as energy connectivity, are central to the above mentioned economic integration projects.

The “Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership” and the ASEAN, as well as the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership” — currently under negotiations -, are not exactly sustained on “contiguity of location”. Yet it must be highlighted that most of these member countries share a clear “geographical proximity”.

No matter how different these attempts at integration are, they all have the common central characteristic of being built upon geographical contiguity or at least, geographical proximity. It is in this sense that “classical geopolitics” plays a new and fundamental role in supporting economic integration.

The book “The Rise of the Trading State”, by Richard Rosecrance (1986), was right in its argument that international economic agreements would reduce the incentives to go to war, but exaggerated in its belief that they could replace other means of power competition. He appears to give too much credit to geo-economic capabilities to avert war.

Geo-economics, as the main tool for achieving power, has had great importance in the international arena, with globalization as the driving force since the beginning of the 1990’s up to now. Nowadays, geo-economics has added to its vast array of tools, others like protectionism, subsidies, economic sanctions and the weakening of the international economic multilateral system.

Another perspective on the importance of geo-economics is presented by Dani Rodrik who explained in the year 2002 that accumulation and productivity can be considered as the proximate determinants of growth. But its deeper determinants are geography (natural resources, location, climate), integration (which includes market size, international trade, etc.) and institutions.

It is necessary to stress that peace is the great pre-condition for geo-economics to thrive. No matter how bitter geo-economic competition may be, or how harsh tools like sanctions, punitive tariffs or theft of intellectual property may look, they are all peaceful means for competition among nations. By far, much better than any kind of armed conflict.

The biggest threat for the survival of our civilization and of humanity is nuclear and WMD proliferation. Mutual assured destruction worked well during the Cold War. Nobody knows how the current situation can evolve, what may happen having several countries in possession of WMD — especially nuclear bombs — while some others are tempted to acquire them. Nowadays, having them is not a technological problem; it is just a political decision. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is increasingly becoming a more fragile deterrent to having the bomb.

Nuclear proliferation and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are humanity’s worst nightmare.

Finally Guillermo Hunt concludes, I propose the following ideas as the main conclusions for this paper:

• • “classical geopolitics” continues to play an important role in international relations, even if modified by science and technology.

• • “classical geopolitics” — especially location, contiguity, proximity, connectivity, and size -, plays a fundamental role in international relations as the main foundation for economic integration agreements.

• • “geopolitics” as a concept, has been used to refer to several matters related to international relations, in what I have named a “great synonym confusion”.

• • “special brands geopolitics” is a concept I have coined to refer to the use of some classical geopolitical ideas for very specific matters, like natural resources, population or military strategy (geo-strategy), that were widespread in international relations literature during the late 20th and early 21st

• • “geo-economics” is a field of study related to “classical geopolitics”, closely intertwined in the case of economic integration agreements, but it has also some aspects that could be considered within the general concept of “special brands geopolitics”.

• when current literature uses the word “geopolitics”, most of the time it means competition for power among nations, in Hans Morgenthau’s terms.

Guillermo Hunt- Argentine Ambassador