2.6 Thinking Critically About Geopolitics

We are going to examine the topic of "Geopolitics" as an exercise in applying our frameworks for critical analysis. Political geography is a sub-discipline of human geography and geopolitics is a sub-area of political geography. A number of political geographers including Gearóid Ó Tauthail (Gerard Toal in English), Simon Dalby, John Agnew, and Paul Routledge have applied the previously discussed concepts to geopolitics, resulting in a specific approach known as "Critical Geopolitics." We are going to use the textbook The Geopolitics Reader 2^nd Edition to examine this topic.

As you read Toal's General Introduction addressing "Thinking Critically about Geopolitics," do some critical thinking and ask yourself:

• How does the author's approach compare with Painter's ideas both in terms of use of the conceptual ideas of discourse, etc., and his ideas concerning politics?
• On page five, the author notes that some may charge that the Reader is biased and unbalanced. He then addresses the charge in an interesting way. Why would the author bring this up? What are his background and his agenda in writing this book? (Note that Gerard Toal wrote the seminal work in the field entitled Critical Geopolitics and is a major scholar pioneering this approach.)
• What are the implications of the insights from the critical geopolitics approach for the definition, organization, and applications of geospatial intelligence?