The radical geopolitics of US foreign policy: Geopolitical and geoeconomic logics of power

Abstract

This article presents a version of geopolitics termed “radical geopolitics,” which is critical, political economic, and concerned with investigating the “why” (the causes) of policy and political events, without neglecting the “how” (the way they unfold). In particular, it examines the relative importance of the geopolitical and geoeconomic factors that drive policy. It seeks to address questions which have been neglected by current approaches in geopolitics, a number of which fail to incorporate political economy or to identify the fundamental reasons behind policy. Inspired by revisionist Cold War historiography, it modifies and reformulates David Harvey's logics of power into a “geoeconomic logic” and a “geopolitical logic” through which postwar American foreign policy may be interpreted. The former logic arises out of capitalism's tendency to expand geographically and the latter out of politicians' need to maintain credibility internationally as well as from pressures generated by domestic public opinion. A discussion of the Vietnam War illustrates the approach and criticizes Harvey's account of postwar American foreign policy, which he claims is the product of political and economic forces that sometimes display “outright antagonism.” On the contrary, it is advanced that their oppositions are tactical, but not fundamental, and that it is mostly the geoeconomic logic that has driven postwar American foreign policy. The conclusion illustrates the relevance of a radical geopolitics approach to post-Cold War events through a discussion of the current Iranian crisis.