geopolitics

Study of the relationship between geographical factors and the political aspects of states. The significance of geopolitics was recognized by ancient and modern historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Montesquieu, Buckle, Taine, and Treitschke.

For a long time the study of geopolitics was unfashionable, largely owing to its historical association with fascism. Geopolitics was developed into an attempt to justify German aspirations to Lebensraum in the period between the two world wars. Geopolitik in the hands of Professor Gen K Haushofer became a part of a national German ideology, rather than a science.