Geopolitics Foundations
Geopolitics is the study of how geography, power, and resources shape what states actually do. These 12 lessons cover chokepoints, where countries come from, the balance of power, soft power, nuclear deterrence, sanctions, proxy wars, alliances, and how wars start.
12 lessons · about 1.5 hours
Free for 7 days, cancel anytime. iPhone and Android.
Questions this course answers
- Why does geography still shape what countries do in the age of technology?
- How can eight narrow waterways disrupt the global economy?
- Why doesn't a balance of power between states prevent war?
- How have nuclear weapons prevented World War III for eighty years?
- Why do sanctions so often fail to change a country's behavior?
- Why do wars keep defying the plans of the leaders who start them?
Twelve lessons
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1
5 min
What Is Geopolitics?
Geopolitics studies how geography, power, and resources shape what states actually do. It affects daily life, from fuel and food prices to tech stocks.
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2
6 min
Geography as Destiny
Russia sits on a flat plain with no natural defenses and has been invaded from the west five times in 500 years. The map explains more than people think.
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3
8 min
The Eight Chokepoints
About 60% of the world's sea cargo passes through eight narrow waterways, most under 40 km wide. A single missile or stuck ship can disrupt trade worldwide.
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4
6 min
Where Do Countries Come From?
The nation-state is barely 375 years old, invented in Europe to end a religious war. Almost every modern conflict is an argument about who gets to be a country.
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5
7 min
The Balance of Power
When one state grows too powerful, the others combine against it. Thucydides saw this in 431 BC, and Churchill called it England's 400-year foreign policy.
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6
6 min
Unipolar, Bipolar, Multipolar
Polarity is the number of great powers in the world. The Cold War had two and the 1990s had one. The number shapes how stable an era is and how wars start.
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7
8 min
Hard Power and Soft Power
Joseph Nye divided power into hard power, which coerces, and soft power, which attracts. Hollywood, Harvard, and Silicon Valley give the US soft power.
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8
9 min
Nuclear Deterrence and MAD
For eighty years the United States and its great-power rivals have not fought each other directly. Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, explains why.
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9
9 min
How Sanctions Work (and Why They Often Don't)
Sanctions can collapse currencies and lock people out of the global economy. The US uses them most often because the dollar dominates world finance.
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10
9 min
Proxy Wars
States have used proxy forces for centuries. Since 1945, nuclear weapons have made proxy war the main way great powers compete with each other.
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11
10 min
How Alliances Work
Alliances struggle with under-spending members and fears of abandonment. NATO has been called 'in crisis' almost continuously since 1960, yet it persists.
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12
12 min
How Wars Start
Miscalculation, escalation spirals, and bargaining failures start most wars. The same patterns produced World War I in 1914 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Lessons you can finish in one sitting.
Each lesson tells one part of the story and explains why it happened, with maps, images and quotes from the sources. A few questions at the end check that it stuck, and the key facts go into the course's flashcards.
- 5 to 12 minutes a lesson
- Three questions after each lesson
- 104 flashcards for this course
