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  • Essay / Ratzel's Organic Theory of Growing a Nation - 1027

    According to Ratzel, a nation had to grow and especially expand in order to establish living boundaries that could be subject to change over time. This actually goes back to Ratzel's organic theory of the nation, where according to him the nation is a living body that grows and must be subjected to changes in order to maintain itself and be competitive in the international economy. (Anissimov, 2013) No geographical dimension constitutes a limitation, as Ratzel argued that although there are boundaries; States succeed in expanding their living space by integrating the living space of the defeated or underdeveloped, economically and politically. (Foreign Affairs, 2014) This is exactly what Germany did during the period of wars tearing the world apart, trying to expand its territories by enslaving its geographical neighbors. The geographical dimension is important because it is through it that a country seeking to ally with each other for personal interests, including, for example, primary resources or for power, etc. After September 11, a lot of things changed because the terrorist attack carried out by members of Al-Qaeda broke down all kinds of barriers that might exist between nations. -States. The relevance of the United States has been strengthened much more and America's presence in world politics has gained much more importance. Ratzel, during his studies, focused much more solely on land power rather than the sea and underestimated the impact of military power. air power in geopolitics, the same fundamental impact that changed everything in 2001 with the attack on the World Trade Center. One of the scholars who focused on the relevance of the geographic dimension and how it shapes international relations between states was Kaplan. in his article, T...... in the middle of the article...... it is Sir Halford Mackinder who was not only a great geographer but the father of modern geography. He in his article, “The Geographic Pivot of History” defined and explained the importance of geography in shaping international relations. The famous quote that determines the nature of his ideals is: “Man and not nature initiates, but nature controls to great extents” (Kaplan, 2009). According to Mackinder, nature has understood because geography is therefore relevant because even if it is men who start wars and conflicts, it is still nature which controls everything. It is always nature that regulates a state's decision to take any action; for example by focusing on the question of the sea and land power. Men are setting up military installations in all the ports of the world because the geographic dimension in which they live could be dangerous for themselves.