GEOSTRATEGY VS. GEOECONOMY

Abstract

Although the concepts of "geostrategy" and "geoeconomy" are rather old, they have been eclipsed for a long while by the terms "strategy" and "geopolitics", capturing the attention of the general audience just recently, due to the spectacular mutations which occurred in an ever-increasingly turbulent and complex world. Overall, starting with the deepening of the globalisation process, the power elements in international relations are transferred from the political-military side to the commercial-military one. In other words, power is no longer based exclusively on military might and control over a specific territory, larger or smaller (depending on the classical "sphere of influence"), but on the ability and capacity to integrate into the global economy. This study aims to clarify the terminology in this field and highlight the rather complicated relationship between geostrategy and geoeconomy.

Headnote

Although the concepts of "geostrategy" and "geoeconomy" are rather old, they have been eclipsed for a long while by the terms "strategy" and "geopolitics", capturing the attention of the general audience just recently, due to the spectacular mutations which occurred in an ever-increasingly turbulent and complex world. Overall, starting with the deepening of the globalisation process, the power elements in international relations are transferred from the political-military side to the commercial-military one. In other words, power is no longer based exclusively on military might and control over a specific territory, larger or smaller (depending on the classical "sphere of influence"), but on the ability and capacity to integrate into the global economy. This study aims to clarify the terminology in this field and highlight the rather complicated relationship between geostrategy and geoeconomy.

Keywords: geostrategy, geoeconomy, geopolitics, military geography, the territorial-political-military world, the commercial world, hard power, soft power.

General remarks

Although, apparently, the two concepts are relatively new, in fact, they are rather old, especially the Geostrategy one.

The geostrategy concept was mentioned for the first time even before the geopolitics concept: in the year 1846 by the Italian officer Giacomo Durando (in the work Della nazionalita italiana); the geopolitics concept was used for the first time by the Swede Rudolf Kjellén, in 1899.

"I used a word - wrote Durando - which I do not think has been used until today, geostrategy (our highlight), each time I needed to assess the terrain in an abstract fashion and outside the use of organised forces, but naturally always in relation with them. Thus, I speak about the geostrategic and geotactical (our highlight) conditions of Italy and Spain when I study abstractly the terrain's structure and characteristics, but I talk about movements on strategic or tactical operations axes when the subject is that of military operations executed over determined points of the terrain. As a result, I separate through reasoning and for a greater clarity these two ideas which, in fact and in application, are never disjointed."1

Although the notion of geostrategy was also incidentally used by other authors, out of which two Iberians (the Spaniard Manuel Castaños y Montijano and the Portuguese Miranda Cabral), the concept did not impose itself. The explanation could be found in the fact that, in that era, military geography was more spectacular, which turned out in the end to be the precursor of Geostrategy.

The merit for "reinventing" the notion of geostrategy, almost after 100 years since its mentioning by the Italian Giacomo Durando, is reserved to American analyst George B. Cressey, in the work Asia's Lands and Peoples. A Geography of One Third of the Earth and Two-Thirds of its People (1944). Afterwards, more and more analysts looked into this field, some of whom became rather well known names, such as:

- the French: Pierre Célérier ( Géopolitique et géostratégie, 1955), Hervé Coutau-Bégarie (with three papers having the term Géostratégie in the title, dedicated to the following oceans: South Atlantic, 1985, Pacific, 1987 and Indian, 1993, André Vigarié (Géostratégie des océans, 1990, La Mer et la géostratégie des nations, 1995) and René Besnault (Géostratégie de l'Arctique, 1992);

- the Brazilian Golbery do Couto e Silva (Geopolitica e geoestrategia, 1959) and the Argentinean Justo P. Briano (Geopolítica e geostrategia americana, 1966);

- the Americans Saul B. Cohen ( Geography and Politics in a World Divided, 1963), Colin S. Gray (The Geopolitics of Nuclear Era, 1976), John G. Pappageorge (Maintaining the Geostrategic Advantage, 1977), Zbigniew Brzezinski (Game Plan. Geostrategic Framework for the Conduct of the US-Soviet Contest, 1986) and others.

In fact, only because of these American analysts, the name Geostrategy was going to finally win its place.

1. Geostrategy

As in the case of Geopolitics, in Geostrategy there are certain assessments, contradictory definitions, more or less restrictive approaches. Geostrategy is considered to be a science or a scientific discipline , either a theory or only a phenomenon or method. Some people reduce it towards the point it merges with military Geography, while others see it as being equivalent to Geopolitics or only a branch of it. We consider it an independent scientific discipline and define it as follows: all of the means chosen/implemented in order to arm or on the contrary defuse an existing or soon to occur conflicting situation of any nature (political, military, economic, ideological etc.). With regards to the means, these differ depending on the nature of the conflicting situation and register a certain degree of spatial and especially temporal variability (a changing reality, usually in a very short timeframe).

Another thing to add would be that both Geostrategy and Geopolitics encapsulate an important geographical component: if Geopolitics mentions what needs to be won and preserved, Geostrategy says whether or not this is possible, how and with what, focusing on the decisive points of spatial configuration.

"There has always existed a territorial stake - highlights a specialist in the field -, a certain configuration of the theatre of operations, exploited by the actor that knew it best. This (n.n. the territorial stake) is a constant which we can find in all historical eras and which continues to produce effects despite of the prodigious evolution of the means of communication"2.

The great variety of geostrategic points stands out: straits, channels, mountain passes, valleys and mountain and hilly peaks etc. The terrain's characteristics influence, as we know, the placement of the types of military operations: terrain, the weapon of the least equipped, can annihilate technical superiority; this was felt by the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Russians in Afghanistan.

We can also include here the victory of the Moldovan ruler Stefan cel Mare over the army of Constantinople's conqueror, the Sultan Mehmet II at Vaslui, on January 10th 1475, with significant European echoes, Pope Sixt IV calling him an "Athlete of Christ". The Moldovan army, having only 40 000 troops (mostly peasants) and 20 cannons defeated the invading Turkish-Wallachian armies that had 120 000 troops and a large number of cannons.

The essential mutations in the contemporary world have also extended and complicated the area of geopolitical confrontations. Together with an older, but always new, issue of the spheres of interest and influence, we are witnessing a heating up of older or newer rivalries, both economical and ethnical in nature, between states, as well as within various state factions.

In many cases, the stakes of the game do not target territorial claims as such, but rivalries of power, having a territorial projection on large spaces, transnational (economic, political, military communities), but also on more reduced spaces, within states, or even on narrower territories such as the urban (Los Angeles, USA) or even rural ones (Costesti, Romania).

The issues of conflicts and, implicitly, of chosen geostrategies vary greatly: from an unified state to a federal state, from a state which just managed to come out of a state of dependency to a former colonial power. Power rivalries and the study of force ratios can also target other situations, such as: relations between ethnic or religious minorities and the majority of population; conflicts between the aboriginal population and immigrants.

In an order of such high complexity, geostrategy is, thus, linked to the increase in complexity of the society's evolution itself. It is about the diffusion of strategies in an ever more complex environment, increasingly less noticeable, in which military victory can be accompanied by a political defeat - the war in Algeria being a relevant example. Sometimes the military weapon can prove useless against the economic one - as demonstrated by the oil crisis in 1973.

Thus, we arrive to Geoeconomy.

2. Geoeconomy

For several millennia, the policy of force, the pre-eminence of military power prevailed in international relations. Even currently, the differences between the countries in the world are set, mainly, based on their ability "to wage war", although not in classical terms (number of soldiers, tanks etc.) but modern ones (medium or long-range missiles, Space based support points etc.).

However, together with the deepening of the globalisation process, power elements in international relations are transferred from the political-military side to the commercial-cultural side. That is why we talk about geoeconomy and geoculture, the commercial blocks and civilization areas becoming a sort of "identity cards" of the modern world. Unfortunately, this meaning is overloaded and even exploited by some analysis like Samuel Huntington with his "civilizations cleavage".

Obviously, today power is no longer based exclusively on military might and control over a specific territory, larger or smaller (depending on the classical "sphere of influence"), but on the ability and capacity to integrate into the global economy. An analyst in this field, the American Richard Rosecrance says that after the First World War the planet was divided into two distinct entities:

* on the one hand, the territorial-political-military world based on the principle of maximising the state's sovereignty and increase the level of autarchy, respectively the Soviet model;

* on the other hand, the commercial world based on mutual growth of commercial benefits and on being integrated in a free, global market, thus the Western model.

In the second half of the 20th century, the number of countries in the second category has rapidly increased, while the others were doomed to fail.

At the beginning of the current century, a new category of states appeared - the states that witnessed a large economic dynamic in a short timeframe, in comparison with the already famous ones -, respectively the emerging economies. The BRICS group is already emblematical, which at first was only BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), while the current formula dates back to 2010, when South Africa joined. Thus were nominated the countries which in the first decade of this millennium greatly exceeded the economical growth rates of developed countries (USA, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain and other Western Europe countries), irrespective of the other countries undergoing development. It is no less true that these emerging economies are either great powers (Russia, China), or regional powers (Brazil, India and South Africa), India having already a large number of power assets. Meanwhile, many other countries from South-East Asia (Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia etc.), a region which has lately been the most dynamic in the world, affirmed themselves in the same spirit.

Nevertheless, this does not stop here. It is well known that, since the second half of the last century (with a deepening of the phenomenon in the last decades), the global political and economical scene gravitated towards a power mix, where the ever present state was joined by new actors (among which mainly associations/ regional blocks like the European Union and large corporations/multinational companies). In fact, this does not automatically mean, as it was rumoured, the replacing of the state-centred world. Practically, we are witnessing the simultaneous existence of the two worlds as the American analyst James N. Rosenau refers to: "The Universe of global politics is formed on two interacting worlds: a world with multiple decision centres, with various actors, relatively equal and a state-centred world, in which the national actors are still essential".3

One can say that currently but also in the near future, despite the new actors, some of which very strong, the games on the global scene, it would appear, are and will be made by the great powers4 that know how to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the other newly joined actors. We have already a relevant recent example regarding the battle to split the global market, basically the main element of Geoeconomy, which is the radical change in hierarchy of the great powers with regards to economic force: in 2014, for the first time in history, China had the largest GDP (for purchasing power parity), of 18 090 bn.$, overtaking the USA (17 350 bn.$), who reigned supreme for more than 100 years. And in third place we find India (7 411 bn.$), overtaking Japan (4 767 bn.$), who used to occupy this position until several years ago.

Coming back to the theoretical part, according to some analysts Geoeconomy is a "discipline at the border between economic sciences and geography (more precisely, economic geography). Geoeconomy studies the relationship between the trinomial space-politics-economy, the interaction and interdependency between politics, economy and geography (...). In many ways, geoeconomy interferes with geopolitics, the boundary between the two disciplines being rather fluid"5.

Unfortunately, frequently enough the concept of geoeconomy is used, only in Romania, as a synonym of economic geography, being considered a shrinkage of the two terms: geo and economy. In fact, economic geography focuses mainly on studying the dynamic of economic spaces and analysing the changing economic map, not on the balance of power generated by economic competition on a macro-economic level.

In this context, we would like to remind that, just as in the case of Geostrategy, the concept is not a very new one. We can find it in the form of ecopolitics from the Swede Rudolf Kjéllén (the one who "baptised" Geopolitics in 1899) in the work "State as a form of life" (1916), but did not manage to establish itself. Nine years later it is used as such, Geoeconomy, by the German geopolitican Arthur Dix. However, in what regards its essence, geoeconomy was defined long before the mentioning of the term geostrategy by Durando, respectively in 1840, by the German economist Friedrich List, in the work "The national system of political economy".

The beginning of the 21st century strengthens the assessment that technological development and capital accumulation are very important factors in defining the main actors on the global scene, more important than the classical ones, such as area, population, army etc. This should mean a shift from a long historical period in which one more powerful country after another crowned themselves masters of the world, towards a more mature one, an open world, characterised by strong and unlimited commercial exchanges, bi and multilateral relationships, alliances (but not military in nature), competitive advantages etc., but also by a new type of foreign policy - and the associated diplomacy - which would lead to a continental and intercontinental balance which is stable and long-lasting. The traditional policy of expansion and influence translated from conquering new territories (either in a colonial meaning by taking over territories in the New World, or by imposing a protectorate over weaker countries) to exercising a more hidden and subtle control, almost imperceptible, but decisive.

In the context of the discussions about geoeconomy, we also have to mention the economic warfare. Many analysts consider that the most terrible war taking place currently across the planet is not the one that leads to death and injuries (armed warfare), but the war of economies, or more precisely economic warfare, which results from the economic conflicting state and is part of what we can call continuous or permanent war. If the Prussian general von Clausewitz defined war as a continuation of politics with violent means, more precisely a violent method of shaping a policy into the world around, some contemporary strategists claim that war is not a continuation of politics, but its finale since weapons do not continue political dialogue, but rather come into play when and where this dialogue ends.

Economic warfare was in fact always present, from Sun Tzu (in The Art of War) and Kautilya (Arthashastra) and almost all doctrines and forms of expression of medieval, modern and contemporary military art contain aspects of this kind of war. Thus, in modern times, during the Cold War, the United States of America put in place a strategy called containment against the Soviet colossus which in essence was a strategy of economic warfare. This type of war implies a complex belligerency and multiple strategies, most of which are indirect strategies that flow through the political, but especially through the financial components and aim at conquering markets and achieving domination of resources.

A natural question is born: is it that simple the road from a world of military conflicts to one of economic competition? Are great powers like the United States and Russia, old powers like (Great Britain, France, Germany) and emerging powers (China, Japan, India and others) renouncing so easily to the "right" to impose rules on the international scene? It is difficult to provide a straightforward answer to such questions, especially when the hope to shift from hard power (so characteristic to humanity) to soft power was shattered lately by events such as those in the Caucasus (Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh), Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, Middle East (Islamic State, the Syrian civil war etc.), the possible thawing of conflicts in the South China Sea etc.

There are also optimist analysts, such as the Romanian-born American Edward Nicolae Lutwak (geostrategist and international relations specialist) who believes that we must and can achieve a predominance of the economic over the political.According to him, expressing adversarial attitudes of states should be done more and more with the help of the "economic weapon". Besides, Lutwak is one of the founders of Geoeconomy. It is thus symptomatic the dispute he had with Bill Clinton, the American president claiming that, in any confrontation, there is a winner and a loser, while Lutwak contradicted him and claimed that both entities can be winners giving as an example the competition between Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola.

Conclusions

Putting the two concepts in antithesis leads to the following conclusions:

* Although apparently new, Geostrategy and Geoeconomy are rather old concepts, the first being mentioned in 1846 (by the Italian Giacomo Durando), while the second in 1925 (by the German geopolitician Arthur Dix; but under the form of ecopolitics since 1916 by the Swede Rudolf Kjellén).

* Often confused with Geopolitics, Geostrategy proves to be an independent scientific discipline. Conversely, both embed a significant geographical component: if Geopolitics says what must be won and preserved, Geostrategy says if this is possible, how and with what, focusing on the decisive points of spatial configuration.

* With the deepening of the globalisation process, the power elements in international relations are transferred from the political-military side towards the commercial-cultural side, bringing into discussion Geoeconomy and Geoculture. Geoeconomy mainly refers to the ability and capacity to integrate in the global economy.

* Despite of the power mix, which is an often discussion topic, the sharing of the global market, which is Geoeconomy's backbone, is still being done by the great powers, the recent changes in the global hierarchy of economic powers proving the point: China overtaking the USA for the first place, India in third pushing Japan in fourth position.

Footnote

1 Apud Ferucio Botti, "Le concept de géostratégie et son application à la nation italienne dans les théories du général Durando", in Stratégique, 58, 1995-2, p. 129.

2 Hervé Coutau-Bégarie, Traité de Géostratégie , 6eme édition, Paris, Edition Economica, 2008, p. 759.

3 James N. Rosenau, Turbulenta în politica mondiala. O teorie a schimbarii si continuitatii, Editura Academiei, Bucuresti, 1994, p. XVIII.

4 See also: Mircea Malita, Între razboi si pace , Editura C.H. Beck, Bucuresti, 2007 and Jocuri pe scena lumii, Editura C.H. Beck, Bucuresti, 2007; Paul Kennedy, Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, Fontana Press, Glasgow, 1994; Pierre Lorrain, L'incroyable alliance Russie - États-Unis, Édition du Rocher, Paris, 2002; Zbiegniew Brzezinski, Triada geostrategica, Editura Historia, Bucuresti s.a., 2006.

5 Oleg Serebrian, Dictionar de geopolitica , Iasi, Editura Polirom, 2006, p. 103.

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