Ratzel’s Organic Theory of Nation Grow

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Recommended: Impact of the 9/11 attack

According to Ratzel a nation had to grow and especially expand in order to establish living borders that could be subjected to changes over time. This in fact goes back to Ratzel’s Organic theory of nation whereas according to him the nation is a living body that grows and has to be subject at changes in order to sustain itself and compete in the international economy. (Anissimov, 2013)
No geographical dimensions are the limit because Ratzel argued that even though there are boundaries; states succeed in enlarging their life space by incorporating the life-space of defeated or underdeveloped, economically and politically. (Foreign Affairs, 2014) This is exactly what Germany did during the period of the wars that tear the world apart, trying to enlarge its territories by subjugating the geographical neighbours.

The geographical dimension is important because it is through this that a country seeking to ally with one another for personal interests including, for example, primary resources or for power etc..After the 9/11 a lot of things changed because the terrorist attack by members of al Qaeda breach every sort of barriers that could possibly exist between nation-states.
The relevance of the United States was much more enhanced, and the presence of America in world politics gained much more importance.
Ratzel during his studies was much more concentrating just on the land power as opposed to the sea and underestimating the impact of air power in geopolitics, the same fundamental impact that in 2001 changed all with the attack at the World trade centre.

One of the scholars who focused on the relevance of the geographical dimension and on how it shapes the international relations among states was Kaplan.
Kaplan in his article, T...

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...s Sir Halford Mackinder who was not just a great geographer but the father of modern geography.
He in his article, “The Geographical Pivot of History” set and explained the importance that geography has in shaping international relations.
The famous quote that determines the nature of his ideals is: “Man and not nature initiates, but nature in large measures control” (Kaplan, 2009)
According to Mackinder therefore nature understood as geography is thus relevant because even though men are the ones that initiate wars and conflict is still nature that controls everything.
It’s still nature that regulates the decision of one state to take any action; for example focusing on the issue of the sea and the land power. Men set military installations around all the port of the world because the geographical dimension in which they are living could be dangerous for their own

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