Geopolitics Foundations II
How great powers claim their neighborhoods, what the grand theories of Huntington and Fukuyama got right and wrong, and how empires, energy, climate, and demography shape the current world order.
18 lessons · about 3 hours
Free for 7 days, cancel anytime. iPhone and Android.
Questions this course answers
- Why do great powers keep claiming special rights over their neighbors?
- How does energy still shape geopolitics in the age of renewables?
- Does the Thucydides Trap mean the United States and China will go to war?
- Was Fukuyama right that liberal democracy won for good?
- Why do empires keep failing in the same ways?
- What replaces the rules-based order if it falls apart?
18 lessons
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1
10 min
Spheres of Influence
Great powers claim special rights over neighbors: the Monroe Doctrine for the United States, the 'near abroad' for Russia, and the Nine-Dash Line for China.
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2
12 min
Energy and Geopolitics
Oil created Saudi Arabia in roughly its current form and still drives Russian foreign policy. The green transition is building a new dependence on China.
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3
12 min
Information and Propaganda
States have shaped narratives since Roman times, and democracies do it too. The digital era added speed and scale, but the method is ancient.
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4
14 min
Intelligence and Statecraft
Intelligence services both collect information and carry out covert action, from the 1953 coup in Iran to the Stuxnet cyberattack and the bin Laden raid.
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5
10 min
Realism vs Liberalism
Realism says great-power competition is essentially permanent. Liberalism says cooperation is possible under the right conditions. Both are useful.
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6
8 min
The Thucydides Trap
In 12 of 16 cases over 500 years, a rising power challenging a ruling one ended in war. Four escaped war. The United States and China are the current case.
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7
9 min
Clash of Civilizations?
Huntington argued in 1993 that civilizations would replace ideologies as the source of conflict. Most wars since have been fought within single civilizations.
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8
10 min
The End of History?
In 1989 Francis Fukuyama argued that liberal democracy had no serious ideological rival left. He later revised the thesis but did not abandon it.
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9
9 min
The Rules-Based Order
After 1945 the United States built an order and chose to live under its rules too. That choice made allies willing partners, and it is now being abandoned.
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10
9 min
International Institutions
The UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO hold the post-1945 world together. The IMF makes emergency loans; the World Bank funds long-term development.
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11
11 min
How Empires Work
Rome, the Mongols, the Ottomans, and Britain show the same pattern: empires fall mainly from internal causes like fiscal exhaustion and succession crises.
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12
12 min
Colonialism and Its Legacy
European powers seized about 84% of the planet's land surface. India's share of global GDP fell from roughly 24% in 1700 to about 4% by 1947.
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13
11 min
Religion and Geopolitics
Secular theory failed to predict the Iranian Revolution, Hindutva, and the Sunni-Shia contest. Most of the world never separated religion from politics.
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14
12 min
Technology and Power
China invented gunpowder, paper, printing, and the compass. Europeans scaled all four. Invention matters less than adoption, and AI is the current test.
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15
11 min
Climate and Civilizations
Climate stress helped cause the Bronze Age collapse, Rome's decline, and the French Revolution. It does not directly cause wars, but it makes them more likely.
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16
12 min
Demography and Power
In 1914 Russia's growing population made German generals feel their window for war was closing. China's collapsing birth rate is reshaping East Asia's balance.
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17
10 min
Failed States and Collapse
Somalia was functioning in 1988. Libya had Africa's highest development index in 2010. States fail when specific shocks hit identifiable weaknesses.
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18
6 min
The World Order Today
The American-led order is still standing but visibly cracking. De-dollarization is real but slow. No one yet knows what comes next.
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.
- 6 to 14 minutes a lesson
- Three questions after each lesson
- 167 flashcards for this course
