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The foundation of and justification for the revision of an very important conceptual paradigm that, for decades past, have had a reputation for being the basic premise in the history of geopolitics as a (sub)discipline of (political) geographyare explored in the paper. It is classical Mackinder-Spykman’s dichotomy of the Eurasian mainland into the heartland and the rimland. Since humankind is a witness to undisputed climatic changes and global warming, which also manifests very intensively through the process of the melting of Arctic ice, the author of the paper explores whether the current retreating of ice from the Arctic annuls or at least relativizes the foundation of Halford John Mackinder’s concept of the heartland as a Eurasian ‘strategic fortress’ of its own kind, which inter alia owes the status it has to the existence of the white barrier (eternal ice) in the extreme north of the planet Earth. This dilemma gives rise to the next that is related to the familiar thesis of the American geopolitician Nicholas John Spykman of the crucial importance of the Eurasian rimland in the global competition of the great powers. If the Arctic Ocean stays without ice for the largest part of the yearone day, should in that case the northern mainland of the Russian Federation also be perceived as the rimland in the meaning as devised by Spykman? The author explores what the scope, content and meaning of the notions of heartland and rimland could be at all if the global warming trends present so far continued. So, the paper questions and critically perceives the two maybe most important (hypo)theses in the history of geopolitics, whose authors were Mackinder and Spykman, in the context of far-reaching climatic changes. Apart from this, the author of the paper proves/refutes the justification for the (hypo)thesis of the division of geopolitics into the so-called classical (i.e. ice) and post-ice (i.e. that which becomes relevant after a partial or maybe even full retreat of ice from the Arctic). At the very end of the paper, again in the context of the mentioned changes, the author points to the ever-increasing significance that is being assigned to the ‘population’ factor in geopolitics. Namely, even if climatic changes and the warming process were developing according to the scenario which is the best for man, we may yet pose a question of the possibility of the exploitation of all the potentials of the Arctic Basin in a situation when, with some rare exceptions, the northern hemisphere’s population does not increase, i.e. when it stagnates or even falls in numbers.

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The author uses Mahan’s sea power concept in order to determine its contemporary geopolitical significance compared to land power. The main thesis of the paper is that international relations – after a century long dominance of land power – are entering a new era of primary significance of sea power, due a rivalry of China and the United States, which is predestined to be mostly maritime. This is the consequence of contemporary globalization, which made biggest world economies dependent on uninterrupted sea commerce, as well as of the unique geopolitical position of China, which neither faces important land challenges, nor can pose them. Arms race and changes in maritime strategies show that the competition at sea between the U.S. and China has already started. Which direction and tempo it shall take depends on whether the U.S. abandons its hegemonic policy in favour of a defensive one, and adequately uses sea power in service of the latter.

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At the time when geopolitics, after its half a century long downfal, is reemerging and returning to the focus of academic considerations, varaities of contemporary geopolitical thought is observed almost exclusively through the prism of two entrenched positions: classical and critical geopolitics. With such oversimplification, geopolitics may loose much, demanding observation, understandment and requestioning of thoughts by those authors that cannot be simply labeled as either classical or critical. In a desire to contribute to the overcoming of such oversimplifications, this paper observes the geopolitical though of Saul Bernard Cohen in the light of determining its contemporary relevance. Starting from the question whether his thoughts are obsolete or underutilized, the paper provides an overview of authors that influenced Cohen, observation of the evolution of his geopolitical thoughts through seven decade long career, and the conceptual matrix he developed. Labeling Cohen’s thought as a specific geopolitical approach, rather than a general theory, the paper identifies the limitations of his approach with which the discrepancy between the possibilities it provides and the lack of its usage in contemporary geopolitical literature are explained. Yet, this paper points to the existence of considerations within Cohen’s opus which can serve as the foundation for overcoming the limitations of his geopolitical approach, concluding that, because of such possibilities, Cohen’s geopolitical thought is to a greater extent underutilized then it is obsolete.

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Italy is one of the countries that developed a particular geopolitical thought in the first half of the 20th century, and it was abruptly ended with the fall of the fascist regime in Rome. The revival of geopolitics opened the question of the characteristics of this discipline in contemporary Italy. The author asks two research questions: 1) whether there is continuity with the old school, and if yes, in what measure? 2) What were the characteristics of Italian geopolitics in its formative period until 1943? The text has four chapters. The introductory part explains the context in which geopolitical thought in the Apennines arises in interaction with scientific and social-political changes in Europe and globally. The second part follows the roots, evolution, and conclusion of the geopolitical thought until 1943. The third chapter has two parts in which the author depicts the context in which geopolitics emerges again. In this part, the main authors, reviews and web sites are presented and analysed. In the concluding part of the text, the author defines three main lines of geopolitical thought in Italy. He clearly distinguishes between those who have a clear line of continuity with Massi and Roletto – the old school – and those who have adopted different frameworks.

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The paper is aimed at making geopolitical studies and neoclassical geopolitics equivalent. In this sense, the objectives are conceptual and operational, comprising an original definition of geopolitical studies, and the explanation of the neoclassical geopolitics model and its variables: systemic stimuli, the geopolitical agent’s perceptions and capacities, and foreign policy outcomes (primarily the geopolitical design). Therefore, the problem at stake is to tie up several theoretical and methodological contributions into a solid new geopolitical model, in the limits of the phenomenological and soft positivist sphere. Two sections constituted the structure of this qualitative paper: 1) formulation of a chain of theoretical fundaments in geopolitical studies, and 2) description of a group of methodological steps that a geopolitical study can use. The research advances a) a new definition of geopolitical studies, b) explains the concept of geomisguidance, c) frames and unwraps Ratzel’s concept of Raumsinn, and d) ultimately systematises and assesses geopolitical studies’ literature of different languages with respect to theory and methodology. All these findings were oriented to the practical aspect of the operationalisation of geopolitical studies, presenting the compact conclusion that the analysis of location is not enough for a grand vision of geopolitical studies as an international relations approach.

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The paper shows the development of critical geopolitics from its conceptualisation by O Tuathail, Dalby and Routledge at the end of the last century up to its critics and development of phenomena that influenced the self-evolution of discipline. The first goal of this research is the analysis of the main thesis from the abovementioned authors in order to test them on contemporary examples. The second goal is consisted of the contemporary phenomena analysis, from the media critique to a wider societal critique, as well as their influence on the self-evolution of the discipline, especially in the area of popular geopolitics. This review streams towards the state of the art analysis, defining and positioning this (inter)discipline in frames of old/new geopolitics, international relations, and human geography. The main thesis is that contemporary phenomena (as a cause) narrowed down the focus of research areas in some scientific fields, while in others it made unavoidable to skip interdisciplinary perspective both in theoretical as well as in methodological sense. The critics of classical geopolitics developed three directions for research: as a part of critical geopolitics as self-contained discipline and numerous subdisciplines or even disciplines (e.g., popular geopolitics); as critiques of newly developed neoclassical theories and schools in international relations; and as interdisciplinary attempts that highlights research on contemporary phenomena and criticise all so far developed methods and tools as nonadequate for research in such a complex world of the present challenges.

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The paper discusses the general features of the theoretical, epistemological, and methodological framework of a feminist approach in the early 21st-century Geopolitics with the aim to discover how its proponents challenge the established “truths” of (neo)classical geopolitics and make innovative interventions to “repair” and improve the knowledge produced in critical geopolitics. Being the most recent offspring of geopolitical knowledge that emerged only three decades ago, feminist geopolitics provoked an immediate backlash from the colleagues from the mainstream political geography in terms of recognising its disciplinary position. The author gives an overview of the body of a significant feminist geopolitical work drawn up based on a selected batch of most important international journals and edited volumes published since 2001. The author argues that the contribution of theoretical, epistemological and methodological insights of feminist geopolitics should be located in counterbalancing of the rigidity of the discipline mainstream, and in insisting on the analysis of the intersections of the public (state, global) and the private/intimate (body, home), interrelatedness of embodied life practices and abstract/bureaucratic geopolitical projects, as well as on the introduction of post-positivist methodological approaches and techniques. The paper systemises the most important feminist research questions, and particularly legitimate topics of the day, which were ignored or missed by the mainstream geopolitical research. The author concludes that the feminist approach still remains a dissident body of knowledge within the geopolitical thought, but with an emancipatory potential in creating theoretical and political space in which to articulate a more responsive notion of geopolitics – taken both as knowledge and practice – that might address victimisation of marginalised population entangled in imperial projects.

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Research of geopolitical phenomena and processes is being characterized by the scholarly tendency to opt for qualitative research strategies with the complementary use of descriptive statistical methods. The states’ behaviour within the international system in the manner of conducting their geopolitical code has not been the subject of significant quantitative interest in academic thought over the last decades of the 20th century. A massive emergence of datasets as instruments of quantification, which index geopolitical phenomena, has been accompanied by the rise of quantitative geopolitical studies at the end of the last century. This paper aims to present the current situation in academic discourse related to the review of the most used quantitative methods in the study of geopolitical phenomena and to analyze the interpretation of the findings of such research. The key advantage of quantifying geopolitical phenomena is also their biggest problem – the data sources diversity used to quantify different phenomena results in many inconsistencies, ranging from research practices, research methods and techniques to the interpretation of statistical findings. Based on the review of existing literature regarding the shatterbelt concept and insights into some of the individual quantitative research, the author preliminary defines three research stages in the quantification of geopolitics and concludes the quantitative approach is underdeveloped in the study of this scientific discipline. In addition, existing data collection and collection methods and techniques are not sufficiently systematic or uniform, but provide a fruitful basis for considering long-term processes taking place in a particular geographical area.

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The paper reviews the main approaches towards the study of the geopolitics of outer space and presents some main issues to be tackled in the future. Geopolitics, as an approach towards the analysis of international politics, generally discusses the impact of geography on the political processes. Throughout history, approaches to analyse the impact of different types of terrain or different types of environment (sea, air, land) on the conduct of political activity were developed. It was only in the 1990s when Everett Dolman applied the geopolitical approach to the outer space domain. Since then, many approaches to the issue were developed, and the stream known as astropolitics became an important stream of academic thought. The author analyses some physical characteristics necessary for the understanding of the domainʼs mechanisms and then presents some important streams of thought inside the geopolitical thinking. The analysis focuses on the issues of actorness, the relations between space powers, technological progress, the introduction of space weapons, utilisation of natural resources, and sustainability of space operations. The author concludes that with foreseeable technological progress in the future, the outer space domain will become more relevant for both academia and practitioners in their approach to international politics, requiring deeper understanding of how processes in this domain can impact political events and relations.

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Geopolitical conceptions also have an “energy dimension“, just as energy security can and must be considered in the context of geopolitics. The twenty-first century remains a century of fossil fuel use. It should be expected that the share of coal in the total energy balance will decline, but also that the share of natural gas use will increase. Political decisions and international relations as a whole will be correlated with the geographical distribution of oil and natural gas sources and routes of the strategic pipelines. This paper discusses this issue in five chapters. The first is introductory, explaining the definitions of energy security and geopolitics. The second chapter is devoted to explaining the importance of energy issues for political relations, and the third presents the geographical distribution of energy sources and reserves. The geopolitics of energy security with some examples from contemporary international relations is described in Chapter Four, while the last part of the paper deals with concluding considerations.