Ask HN: What books do you recommend for coming up to speed on geopolitics?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35527995

by akeck • 3 years ago

13 18 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

genmud2• 3 years ago

Depends on what region you are looking at / interested in and what your goals are. An equivalent question would be "how do I get into software engineering?".

Geopolitics are a very difficult thing to come up to speed on and the relationships are massively varied, while also constantly changing.

For me, understanding what drives certain countries can help you understand how they might approach problems. You can largely read how they think about it by looking at their policies and PR releases.

I'll give some examples of policy strategies by country:

  - USA: State Department "A foreign policy for the american people" [1]
  - Russia: Aleksandr Dugin "Foundations of Geopolitics" [2]
  - China: Belt and Road Initiative [3]

[1] - https://www.state.gov/a-foreign-policy-for-the-american-peop...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

alephnerd3• 3 years ago

Dugin is bullshit. No one worth their mettle in the IR space cares about it. It's like saying the DoD's policy is based on Zeihan.

Eg. the RAND Corporation (the goto think tank for the US Govt) - "while Dugin is reported to have connections and ties with Russian officials, including the Russian military leadership, and although Russian leaders may cite his work or ideas, it does not appear that he is directly influential in Russian policymaking. He is perhaps best thought of as an extremist provocateur with some limited and peripheral impact than as an influential analyst with a direct impact on policy" (pg 81) [0]

[0] https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/...

genmud2• 3 years ago

Eh, that rand report was back in 2017 and to say that Dugin hasn't directly influenced domestic / international strategy is a bit of a naive take.

Dugin might be bullshit, but many of the things he outlined in his book have been taken to heart by Russian leadership. You can directly observe these fingerprints all over Russian Information Operations (IO).

You say that people in the IR (I assume international relations) space don't care about it, yet if you look at the book in the context of influencing their intelligence and military strategy, it very closely aligns with the approach they have taken. I assume the IR community you are referring to also were the ones yelling that Russia wouldn't re-invade Ukraine because they were dependent on oil money from the EU.

livinglist• 3 years ago

This is really helpful! thx

mattbrewsbytes• 3 years ago

What geo? If you want a historical US perspective there is a book titled American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures by Colin Woodward.

Spoiler alert - many areas of the US have political leanings shaped by the people that originally settled there (and by settled I mean mostly Europeans ousting the original people that were there).

alephnerd3• 3 years ago

Which region? - Indo/Asia-Pacific, MENA, CEE, Western Europe, North America, South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, ASEAN, etc

Also which aspect of policy - business law, military technology, cybersecurity, innovation, economic regulation, internal politics, developmental economics/poverty alleviation, etc

For books/papers, it's best to read content published by members of the top 50 think tanks - https://repository.upenn.edu/think_tanks/

For a lot of regions, you may need regional language fluency (eg. Japanese NatSec people prefer writing in Japanese, Korean NatSec people prefer writing in Korean, PRC NatSec people prefer Mandarin, Russian+Ukrainain NatSec people prefer Russian+German, West+Central Africa excluding Nigera NatSec people prefer French)

ismokedoinks• 3 years ago

Verso has a big collection of pop-leftist books on geopolitics in many different regions.

hackandthink• 3 years ago

It helps learning about history but it takes time.

Ian Kershaw is nice to read and gives a good overview over European history.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/279961/roller-coaster-by-ker...

"In synthesizing and evaluating an enormous body of scholarship, not only on Europe, East and West, but also on the wider world and the globalisation processes that have so deeply affected European history, Ian Kershaw has produced a historical masterpiece."

(Times Literary Supplement)

linhns• 3 years ago

Prisoner of Geography by Tim Marshall

This covers in general every geopolitical important region. After finishing this you can look up deeper materials for regions that interest you.

robsun• 3 years ago

There is also a book published by Tim Marshall in 2021 The Power of Geography. Highly recommend reading these two positions.

BWStearns2• 3 years ago

I suspect you might really mean more generally International Relations, in which case reading intro IR textbooks or history about specific events is probably more informative if your goal is to understand "why do countries do the things they do and what are the 'rules'". Something like https://www.cfr.org/book/world might be a good place to start. It's relatively recent and I just gave it a skim and while it's certainly an American worldview it seems to stay pretty objective and I think it would be a worthwhile introduction.

dragonwriter• 3 years ago

Kind of depends what your foundation in political science, international relations, etc., is. Coming out it from nothing specialized beyond typical university general ed, I’d say Man, the State, and War and Theory of International Politics, both by Kenneth Waltz, which are more foundational IR than geopolitics per se to start with.

kk6mrp• 3 years ago

The Absent Superpower et all by Peter Zeihan. Not sure how much I agree with, but he seems to have a good handle on the topic.

tbihl• 3 years ago

The thing I can't get past with Zeihan is his insistence that the US Navy has everyone outmatched. Seems like China has a larger surface navy, huge shipbuilding capacity, successful employment of that capacity, and rapidly improving systems. Is Zeihan resting his claims on carrier-based aircraft? Differences in training? Is there some gap in killer technology that I'm missing?

hayst4ck• 3 years ago

As with most questions here, the context of your question matters greatly for the answer.

What do you hope to accomplish with your time investment? Why are you asking this question?

beezlebroxxxxxx• 3 years ago

You really need to look at history. Grand narratives have their limitations; niche focuses on specific areas can sometimes lack context or discussions of broader implications; you need to synthesize and compromise between the two approaches to create your own understanding.

You can focus on some trends and areas that have implications for modern geopolitics (at least right now). Pick books or articles on them and then follow whatever interests you:

- The south China sea and surrounding area, especially the debates around the nine-dash line

- The fall of the USSR, complicated because of the number of states but still very important

- The conflict between India and Pakistan

- Post colonial developments in the Arab world (including north Africa) and Sub Saharan Africa, again difficult due to the number of states but still important (some sectarian and ethnic conflicts which seem hyper recent have long histories, often predating colonialism, that had rocket fuel thrown on them in the post colonial environment)

- The rise of Brazil

- American naval superiority in the wake of WWII (this goes nicely with discussions on the south China sea)

- For a particular institution, the history of the WTO can be very eye-opening

As always, read contesting approaches or narratives on a particular topic. Criticism is as important as the original argument.

Ask HN: What books do you recommend for coming up to speed on geopolitics?

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