We suspect that 2020 will be an equally exciting year in the world of geopolitics, and we hope to be able to continue bringing you insightful and informative articles on those niche and under-examined geopolitical developments that we have tried to accurately capture this year. Finally, this piece tackles India’s social traditions and how some have lost importance, but other new ones have gained traction. If this is the case and January’s election does return Tsai Ing-wen to power, China could well decide the damage has been done and take a harder line in dealing with Hong Kong’s dissenters. Five geopolitical trends to watch … Despite this, the continent remains central to global geopolitics, and has proven largely stable in a way that makes it attractive to international investment in a turbulent world. In fact, Bolsonaro and his Economy Minister have persisted in holding up Chile’s market-focused policy agenda as the blueprint for reforms for Brazil – a plan that appeals less and less to the Brazilian elites after near-unprecedented protests in Santiago prompted the sacking of the entire Chilean Cabinet. Election Year and impeachment politics will have a significant effect on the apolitical services, and may drive some unpredictable military operations. America still too often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. These operations have been on display in Crimea, Moldova, and Montenegro, and have extended even to major democracies such as France the United Kingdom, and the United States. Rojava: An Alternative to Imperialism, Nationalism, and Islamism in the Middle East, Turkey and the West: Fault Lines in a Troubled Alliance, Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism’s Money Masters, The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State, The Counter-Terrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures and Techniques, Blood Year: Islamic State and the Failures of the War on Terror, Libya remains tattered and in a state of turmoil, French and U.S. counterterrorism missions, From Empires to NGOs in the West African Sahel, Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region, Sowing Chaos: Libya in the Wake of Humanitarian Intervention, Security Cooperation in West Africa and the Sahel, Unfinished Revolutions: Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia after the Arab Spring, The Politics of Islam in the Sahel: Between Persuasion and Violence, Russian Engagements: On Libyan Politics and Libyan-Russian Relations, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism, The Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know, Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change, The Killing in the Consulate: The Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi, Oman: Politics and Society in the Qaboos State, Algeria Modern: From Opacity to Complexity, Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring, Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific. Some books are really best-sellers according to The Wall Street Journal, others are written by unknown writers. Despite the abrupt drop in Jihadi terrorism-related deaths in Europe in recent years, Islam and migration-related issues continue to be heavily scrutinised from a security and political perspective, and this year has seen several incidents of far-right, anti-immigrant/islamic violence. Whether this view is correct or not, the continuing use of SOF has raised their profile and, with a public driven to know more about them, have spawned a genre of books written about or even by Special Operators, with varying degrees of accuracy and quality. The herculean economic tasks he has set himself will only grow larger as public patience thins, and Brazil could begin to see more major protests of its own. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s economy has become a bright spot, and all signs point to it continuing to do so. Despite their best efforts to self-advertise, however, they remain fully contained within the more remote parts of Cabo Delgado province, and any support from central Islamic State leadership – to which they swear allegiance – is highly unlikely to grow into genuine operational assistance. It is an excellent primer on the complex subject of foreign affairs, though it does focus more on the present and less on the past. The protest movements in Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq might point to a second Arab Spring movement. Empires were abolished and replaced by a global arrangement enforced by the U.S. Navy. Approaching state strategy and policy from the spatial angle, Jeremy Black argues that just as the perception of power is central to issues of power, so place, and its constraints and relationships, is partly a matter of perception, not merely map coordinates. In the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo, weak Islamic State affiliates have also reared their heads. Simon Schofield – Deputy Editor and Terrorism and CBRN Analyst, Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century (Col Austin Bay). Written with journalistic flare by an author who is not afraid to rustle feathers to get to the truth, this book should be required reading for all students of US foreign policy in the late 20th and 21st centuries. Both Iraq and Syria are fractured and poor after years of brutal conflict, both have a high youth unemployment rate, a dissatisfied population, and poor infrastructure. Prime Minister Mahdi who has agreed to resign as soon as a successor is agreed in order to avoid a political vacuum, has felt the brunt of popular dissatisfaction having failed to solve problems of youth unemployment, corruption, and broken infrastructure. As the Global War on Terror (GWOT) continues towards its second decade, the brunt of the fighting is done by Special Operations Forces (SOF) who are being used as an all-purpose, all-weather solution. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (1) (Politics of Place) (2016) In this New York Times bestseller, an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of […] Stanley Hoffman was also one of my advisers [at Harvard]. Encyclopedia Geopolitica is a collaborative effort to bring you thoughtful insights on world affairs. Permeating throughout the book is the context of President Putin’s strategy to support the separatist movements in the Donbas while attempting to keep Ukraine’s potential allies distracted with internal issues. An understanding of the inner workings of the Gulf States, as well as their own foreign policy dynamics will be extremely useful in 2019: Most interesting of the region’s recent developments has been the slow but steady sense of rapprochement between Israel and several of the Gulf states. US military policy brings a lot of uncertainty heading in to 2020. Blog e-ir.info/category/blogs Facebook fans 39.7K ⋅ Twitter followers 22.6K ⋅ Domain Authority 61 ⋅ Alexa Rank 74.2K View Latest Posts ⋅ Get Email Contact. How events play out in the coming year, and how far Pakistan toes the line of China will confirm or deny these reports. Ukraine and the Art of Strategy (Lawrence Freedman). After a turbulent year of geopolitical shifts, massive social unrest and unprecedented wildfires, the governments of South America – especially those in Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Santiago and La Paz – will be anticipating continued challenges in the months ahead. Across Central & South Asia and Africa, Chinese infrastructure projects continue to develop while little by little, small contingents of Chinese security forces are deployed in force-protection roles, garnering much suspicion along the way. FT readers — what is your favourite book of 2020? Once upon a time, and once again, this region is home to the Great Game, no longer a term for the historians alone. Highly conservative forms of Islam are widespread across the region, and local-issue insurgencies often intertwine themselves with the ideology of jihad. Best in Business 16 New Business Books You Need to Read in 2020 From the battle to be king of meatless meat to entrepreneurs' skirmishes with Amazon … Iraq has far greater issues, in a burgeoning democracy it doesn’t play well to use lethal force against peaceful protests. The freshly-re-elected Government in Maputo has bigger fish to fry, meanwhile, as it attempts to nip in the bud a burgeoning splinter movement from former RENAMO rebels in Sofala. Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us About World Politics (P… Both books show young Western actors on a fracturing stage, and provide a warning to history against the failure to consider that the hardest part of any campaign begins after you have won. Buy Geopolitics books from Waterstones.com today. Any readers wishing to develop their own understanding of why President Putin acts as he does and the effect of Russia’s historic and geographic legacy will enjoy Giles’ insights. 2020 has the potential to be a turbulent domestic year in Russia. The… Author(s): Robert D. Kaplan, Far more than a history of the Silk Roads, this book is truly a revelatory new history of the world, promising to destabilize notions of where we come from and where we are headed next. The biggest story in South Asia for 2019 has been Kashmir, which has seen an abrupt change in the status quo, with far reaching implications. As a renowned scholar in the inter-related fields of law, strategy, and history, Bobbitt’s Terror and Consent is absolutely indispensable in getting to grips with the changing world in which we live at the grand strategic level. West Mosul is still in ruins, Sunnis are still disenfranchised, the Kurds are restive, and the collective sacrifices of the Iraqi people will not easily be forgotten. While there will be continued bilateral military exercises as the US attempts to curry favour with the smaller nations, China will continue to expand throughout Southeast Asia and through the South China Sea. France’s Gilets Jaunes movement have paralysed much of the country on a regular basis, drawing extensive tax concessions and tempering reformist President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to radically reshape the French economy. Author(s): . Through the essays, the book looks at the age-old debate of realpolitik vs principle-based foreign policy as its main theme. With the departure of the ever-resistant UK, Brussels is likely to continue towards building a more integrated European Army in 2020. Follow the topics in this article To understand where Iraq is going you must understand where it has come from. War of a Thousand Deserts Brian DeLay, Yale University Press 2009, 496 pages. Russia is its own entity in the world – neither European nor Asian, neither modern nor ancient. Meanwhile, however, in Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and West Africa, lesser-known insurgencies bubble insidiously, further from the eyes of Western media. Concurrently, Beijing continues to slowly outmanoeuvre Taipei on the international relations stage, chipping away at the island nation’s foreign support. Despite this, 2020 will almost certainly see the group and its ideological offshoots continuing to pose risks globally. His book is the best treatment of the dilemmas you face if you actually try to put your ideals into practice in the world. Guns Germs and Steel book. Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Into the Mainstream? Whilst the region lacks the cultural-historical significance of the Levant for the Islamic State movement, the return of thousands of battle-hardened fighters from the Islamic State, and the aftermath of attempts at establishing regional wilayats will likely continue to place strain on local counter-extremism efforts. Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century, Great Powers, Grand Strategies: The New Game in the South China Sea, The ‘America First’ Endgame: US Financial Warfare, the Coming Global Reset & the Making of Europe, The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century, Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise, Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China’s West, Hong Kong in the Shadow of China: Living with the Leviathan, City of Protest: A Recent History of Dissent in Hong Kong, We Have Been Harmonised: Life in China’s surveillance state, The Trouble with Taiwan: History, the United States and a Rising China, Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy, Strait Rituals: China, Taiwan, and the United States in the Taiwan Strait Crises, China Strategies in the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building along the New Silk Road, Silk Road 2.0: US Strategy toward China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Negotiating Governance on Non-Traditional Security in Southeast Asia and Beyond, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power. He explains what drew him to life in the military, and some of the influences in his life who helped him along the way. Taken as a whole, this number is striking, but taken as a yearly average – around 1,800 globally – it could be described as comparatively insignificant. As the site’s editors, Simon Schofield and I would also like to extend a special thanks to our hardworking analyst team, without whom this would not be possible. He shares some personal errors and doesn’t puff up his victories but humbly highlights that he was merely there to be a connector between his men and higher headquarters, filtered through the lens of the end state of the mission. For its part, the United States’ regional engagement has appeared lacklustre at times, especially at the senior levels. The following are the team’s recommendations of regionally-focused books worth reading to get ahead of the major events and geopolitical movements that we anticipate will shape 2020: Europe in 2019 has continued to experience the increasing stresses of demographic changes and immigration; an issue that has been leveraged heavily by the continent’s political right and continues to influence elections and referendums. From the outset she is against the war, and joins from her UK-based role in the British Council with the intention of doing working in Iraq for a few short months. As the title aptly suggests, the book has three main themes. Understanding the region’s precarious and often ageing monarchies will continue to prove vital in 2020, with several possible opportunities for royal successions throughout the region. At least a quarter of a million people have been killed or injured by suicide attacks since Tsar Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in arguably the first planned suicidal explosion in 1881. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics (2016), 13. Winner of the 2019 ENMISA Distinguished Book Award from the International Studies Association. Lastly, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have overcome their volatile political situations, it now remains to be seen how the countries fare in 2020. On the other side of the continent, in the coastal states of Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo, governments have a more dynamic Islamist threat to consider. For better understanding of the issue, the following are well worth reading: Despite celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, the People’s Republic of China has been dealing with its fair share of problems, none of which seem likely to disappear in 2020. Drawing in part on rare access to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs archives, Khan charts the development of Grand strategy under the Communist party from before the founding of the PRC to the present day. While the expected lambasting of the Trump administration barely shows up, Mattis passes blame around for a generation of conflict. : The Munk Debates (2017), 11. ... What is, in your opinion, the best way to study Geography in relation with Geopolitics? Despite this, 2020 will almost certainly see the group and its ideological offshoots continuing to pose risks globally. The recent withdrawal of the US military from Syrian Rojava has left the Kurdish people – who long played the bloody role of the principal resistance against the Islamic State – vulnerable and betrayed. Browse our list to find excellent book recommendations on the subject. From the stalled-but-ever-bloody war in Yemen to counter Iran-backed Houthi rebels, to their efforts to expand a presence across the Horn of Africa while building up their own military capabilities, the wealthy Gulf States appear to be scrambling to cement their own power in their near abroad. Dr. Grant draws from history when discussing the Baltic States and Chechnya while looking to the present and future to expound on the legal ramifications of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the separatist movements in the Donbas, as well as providing the reader with a strong foundation to understand how international law operates, and how bodies such as the International Court of Justice confront transgressions of the norms of international law. Hulsman explores the concept that, rather than a naturally dangerous political world threatening our stability and safety, it is in fact a strange type of political self-harm that carries the greatest threat. Understanding the mercurial administration of President Trump in terms of both the White House’s geopolitical outlook, and those of individual cabinet members both past and present, will be crucial to anticipating US (and therefore global) geopolitical trajectories in 2020. What often is forgotten are the individuals at the heart of these protests, the men and women whose daily lives are at the forefront of why they choose to demonstrate on the street. The Mission, The Men, and Me (Pete Blaber). But is this order now being supplanted by a new global reality; one defined by the… Author(s): Niall Ferguson, Fareed Zakaria, et al. Mackinder’s theory was later developed further in his book Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction in which he demonstrated prescience by predicting that the Great War will be followed by another great struggle for the dominance of the Heartland.His Heartland theory has since become one of the foundational theories of geopolitics and continues… Author(s): Halford Mackinder, BRAND NEW, Exactly same ISBN as listed, Please double check ISBN carefully before ordering…. Alaa al-Aswany’s novel The Yacoubian Building illustrates that very image. Often forgotten when discussing geopolitics is the pervasive effect of international law and how it shapes the actions of political actors. Both states are part of Russia’s “near abroad”—former Soviet republics that are now independent states neighboring Russia. Edwin Tran – Levant Socio-Economics Analyst. With the trade war with China ongoing and an election year ahead, it looks highly unlikely that this year will see any attempts at renewed US leadership in the region. As an independent publication, our writers are volunteers from within the professional geopolitical intelligence community, and referrals like this support our ability to create future content by funding server time and domain fees. GPF is non-ideological, analyzes the world and forecasts the future using geopolitics: political, economic, military and geographic dimensions at the foundation of a nation. Global Geopolitics John Scott – Crime and Insurgency Analyst. I can think of few better on-the-ground primers than Generation Kill and The Unravelling. Cocktails from Hell is a tour de force that examines five of the wars which will be most influential globally, and the smorgasbord of actors and factors coming together which make them so complex. By Liz Cantrell The retreat of Kurdish forces will likely lead to sporadic resurgences of Islamic State-linked violence in 2020, and Turkey’s advance will put its relationship with other NATO powers under strain. If there’s one book that subtly demonstrates the ongoing movements in the Arab world, it’s this one. In Southeast Asia, the collapse of the Levantine Islamic State will likely carry locally-felt ramifications. Despite the regime’s geographical gains and the populace’s war-weariness, Syria is divided, and may simply be a powder keg awaiting a spark. As the year progresses, if more resources and attention is put into this emerging group, it could gradually gain legitimacy on the world stage, and is worth understanding. Election Year and impeachment politics will have a significant effect on the apolitical services, and may drive some unpredictable military operations. While the Russia-Georgia war of 2008 faded from the headlines, the geopolitical contest that created it did not… While the field is expansive and every growing, Sua Sponte is well-written and from a respected writer. While the UAE has long been exploring Israeli arms purchases, and the two states have cautiously seen each other as potential security partners against a resurgent Iran since at least 2009, we are now witnessing increasing levels of diplomatic openness between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv. In this New York Times bestseller, an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers—“fans of geography, history, and politics (and maps) will be enthralled” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram).Maps have a mysterious hold over us. My latest book, ‘A New Silk Road: India, China and The Geopolitics of Asia‘, has a close connection with Siasat.com.In 2020 even as a Covid outbreak began to plague the world, I got into discussions with Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Managing Editor of Siasat.com where I explained to him how China was a major threat to India. All the while, the profiteers of the cities’ parallel and shadow economies will only watch with indifference. Case studies of the rise of the so-called Islamic State, the South… Author(s): Colin Flint, A Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2016Today, nations increasingly carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Geopolitics, he maintains, is as much about ideas and perception as it is about the actual spatial dimensions of power. Permeating throughout the book is the context of President Putin’s strategy to support the separatist movements in the Donbas while attempting to keep Ukraine’s potential allies distracted with internal issues. Understanding the extent and influence of Islamism across the region will be important for understanding the geopolitics of Southeast Asia in 2020: In South Asia, due to Pakistan and India’s prevailing friction, and the ever-rising Chinese superpower across India’s Himalayan frontier, India this year began putting more resources into the the BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand , Nepal and Bhutan) organisation, of which Pakistan is not a member. Picture credit: The Reading Room of the British Museum, by Riccardo Cambiass. The Sahel will likely continue to pose problems in 2020 as the region remains a gateway to the EU for both migrants and terrorist groups. Similar to the cells operating in Mozambique, however, their capabilities are no realistic threat to central governance – even in the midst of an unpredictable Ebola outbreak in the east of the country. Cohen, This new updated edition of Introduction to Geopolitics presents the overarching themes of geopolitical structures and agents in an engaging and accessible manner, which requires no previous knowledge of theory or current affairs. Written by a former Delta Force commander, this piece is part memoir, part self-help book. , the buildup of NATO forces is ongoing, while the Kremlin has responded in kind inside the Kaliningrad oblast and Russia itself. Infusing international relations with the theoretical interventions of fields ranging from new materialism to political theory, Grove shows how political violence is the principal force behind climate change, mass extinction, slavery, genocide, extractive capitalism, and other catastrophes…. If you liked the video - share it with your friends: We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. Blaber’s story seems unremarkable, in a positive way, he seems like any normal American child in suburban America albeit with a slight deviant streak. The following are suggested for an understanding of the region’s geopolitical situation: Algeria, Morocco and other monarchies of the region remain relatively stable after the turbulence that sought to topple them earlier this decade.