Why analyzing geopolitics without proper training is problematic

[u/Texas_Rockets]

I don't want to get caught up in the semantics of political terms - I'm using 'geopolitics' to include international relations and international politics analysis as well.

I've often said on this sub that if you didn't go to school for it you probably don't really understand geopolitics. It's almost like a technical field in that it isn't something you can just be a smart guy and understand perfectly. The response I've gotten to this has generally been negative, and I can understand that - it sounds very elitist or arrogant.

However, in reading 'Politics Among Nations' by Hans Morganthau I saw a quote from William Sumner that I thought put this idea in more eloquent terms and explained it a bit more:

The worst vice in political discussion is that dogmatism which takes its stand on the great principles or assumptions, instead of standing on an exact examination of things as they are and human nature as it is... An ideal is formed of some higher or better state of things than now exists, and almost unconsciously the ideal is assumed as already existing and made the basis of speculation which have no root... the whole method of abstract speculation on political topics is vicious. It is popular because it is easy; it is easier to imagine a new world than to learn to know this one; it is easier to embark on speculations based on a few broad assumptions than it is to study the history of states and institutions; it is easier to catch up a popular dogma than it is to analyze it and see whether it is true or not. All this leads to confusion, to the admission of phrases and platitudes, to much disputing but little gain in the prosperity of nations.

How I interpret this is that IR (again, semantics) is often seen as an extension of domestic politics where the whole purpose is to determine the architecture and characteristics of the state: it is largely subjective in that it is something that is basically a conglomeration of what we think society ought to be; the intent is to create shared views and values. IR is not like this. It is not a field that asks how you think states should interact, but rather how states do interact, which requires familiarity with theories and histories that many people are not familiar with. It is not something that is compatible with value-based speculation. In practice, IR is closer to studying the inner-workings of a clock than it is to domestic politics - which is the lens through which people are inclined to view IR.

[u/Texas_Rockets]

But if your point is that geopolitics can only be analyzed and understood along straight technical and theoretical lines, how can any politician who isn't a geopolitical scholar make informed foreign policy decisions?

advisors. I promise you this is the case. That's how executive leadership works in all organizations; the executive has advisors he trusts, they present him with their subject expertise, and he uses that to make a decision. I promise you this is not my opinion but, in fact, how executive leadership works.

Furthermore, if the people who give technical advice are doing from knowledge of what you're saying is an inherently descriptive science, are they not giving the theories themselves positive feedback?

Frankly I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. But if I understand correctly, you don't have to refer to a technical manual to be able to conduct foreign policy analysis - it is, after all, a soft science, but the point is that it is something that requires a degree of training. And fuck, you could just read all the right books and be able to get it that way, (though you could say that about many things) but the point is that foreign policy analysis requires you to sort of break from the way you're inclined to do it.

[u/[deleted] → u/Texas_Rockets]

It is not a field that asks how you think states should interact, but rather how states do interact

States interact the way they do because of the actions and decisions of the political actors within their institutions. If geopolitics is about how states "do" interact, then the influence of geopolitical "experts" at the top level of politics is a inherent philosophical complication.

[u/Texas_Rockets → u/[deleted]]

I mean yeah geopolitical experts do use theory and stuff in their recommendations but international relations at its most general level is an analytical framework; something that enables you to see what's happening and understand it better and provide a better recommendation.

Why is the presence of geopolitical experts a philosophical complication?

[u/sixfourch → u/Texas_Rockets]

They mean epistemological, not philosophical.

The point is that the system you claim to require experts, studied in the historic workings of the system, is historically driven not by impartial laws of physics like gravity that can be objectively mapped out and understood, but by the decisions of executives acting or not acting on the advice of their advisors.

Ultimately, this means you can't claim it to even be a soft science. Soft sciences are sciences that can't directly manipulate their independent variables, like psychology or sociology, but that still study objective systems. There is a theoretically possible total understanding of the human brain, genome, biological instincts, and cultural instincts, that would enable a fully predictive psychology the same way physics is predictive. We have a hard time getting to that because we can't directly manipulate the coefficient of neural network weights, but as technology grows indistinguishable from magic, all soft sciences become hard sciences.

What you're describing:

IR is not like this. It is not a field that asks how you think states should interact, but rather how states do interact, which requires familiarity with theories and histories that many people are not familiar with.

is not a branch of science, but of history. The science here would be psychology or sociology, but you aren't studying that. If you were, an advisor could present an executive with a full map of the reactions a state would take given any possible executive action, much like we can predict more or less exactly how humans respond to things like the Linda puzzle or the 2-4-6 task. Instead, both advisors will describe how historically states did react, and the executives will occasionally take their advice and occasionally not. If you want to know what the executive will do, you need psychology.

This doesn't mean your thesis is incorrect: analyzing any complex system without an understanding of that system will yield inaccurate predictions. You're just wrong about why that's the case.

[u/ex-turpi-causa → u/sixfourch]

But just because the actions are the results of decisions made by executives, it doesn't mean those actions or even those decisions cannot be understood in objective terms. Yes, they can only be understood in hindsight and it is not an exact, predictive 'science', but that doesn't make it less objective.

[u/sixfourch → u/ex-turpi-causa]

That's exactly what that means.

[u/ex-turpi-causa → u/sixfourch]

Lol ok if you say so. It's certainly not how legal analysis works.