CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN GEOPOLITICS IN EURASIA

Abstract

According to Classical Geopolitics Europe is a geographic peninsular region on the western
edge of the Eurasian “World Island”. Europe is aided by its internal geography in bouts of
unification, often imposed through force, and led by the Germans in Mitteleuropa projecting
into the Eurasian Heartland of Russia, and along the Eurasian “Rimland” and its maritime
trade routes and chokepoints. Presently Europe has both integration and disintegration forces
in economics and politics. Current trends could be leading to a German-led superpower in a
multi-polar world, with the potential decline of the United States, and the emergence of other
new civilizational superpowers, such as Asia and Pan Arabia, with nodes of power in the
Eurasian Heartland, along the Eurasian Rimland and its encircling oceanic trade routes.
Europe will have to contend with its internal economic, political, social challenges, and also
solve its resource dependency (especially for oil and gas imports), through continuing vibrant
trade to secure its imports, and maintain exports. Only by the EU amassing its aggregate
ability to deepen unity from within, and project its accumulated power without can it ensure
external international trade. So Europe may then be emboldened to achieve dominance into
the Eurasian Heartland and around the Eurasian Rimland and its maritime trade routes.