The Independent Analytical Center for Geopolitical Studies “Borysfen Intel” affords ground to the analysts generation for expressing their point of view regarding the political, economic, security, information situation in Ukraine and in the world in general, according to their personal geopolitical studies and analyses.
Note that an authors’ point of view
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Iryna Bondaruk
Master of Geography, in 2014 graduated from the Faculty of Geography of
Lviv Franko University,
specialty “Economic and Social Geography”
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A recent analysis of the geopolitical situation in the world requires a profound knowledge of the political and geographical features of the world order. That is why the study of the fundamental political and geographic organization of the modern world is a pressing theme.
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…it is in the capitals that major political factors of each state are concentrated…
It is well known that it is in the capitals that major political factors of each state are concentrated, so the study of the geography of the capitals is important in the context of political-geographical and geopolitical studies. It is generally believed that the capital is the main city of the state, its administrative and political center. There are the supreme bodies of state power and public administration, judiciary, strategic military institutions, embassies and other important public facilities in it. Accordingly, the Capital Region plays a key role in the life, in organization and system of the administrative-territorial structure of any state.
It turns out that capitals of countries are placed on the surface of the earth not in a chaotic way. They form certain geospatial clusters, or combinations. [2] We define the geospatial combination of capitals (GCC) as a separate concentration on a limited area of the capitals of states which are land or maritime neighbors.
Analysis of the situation of capitals globally, shows that there are all in all 23 GCC in the world (Fig. 1). By parts of the world, the picture is as follows.
In Europe there is one combination, which, in turn, is divided into 8 local groups (the schematic map shows major capitals of each group of the European GSS), 10 combinations of capitals are found in Asia (the Near East, Transcaucasia, the Transcaspian, Central Asian, East Asian, GCC of the Persian Gulf region, South Asian, South-East Asian, GCC of the island region of Asia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives), 5 combinations of capitals are in America (North American, North-Latin American, Central-Latin American, South-Latin American), 5 combinations of capitals are in Africa (Northern African, Western African, the Red Sea region GCC, the Eastern and Southern African) and there are 2 Combinations in Australia and Oceania (the GCC of Australia proper, and the GCC of Oceania, with twelve regional capitals).
Each GCC has the main capital, which by its potential ability can influence other capitals of the Combination.
Pic. 1. Geospatial combinations of the capitals of the world. [2]
Geographical situation of capitals and their geospatial combinations is due to the influence of a number of factors, the most important of which are as follows:
The natural-geographical factor. Its influence is evident, since, on the one hand, geoplaces with good natural conditions attract human activity in general and capital functions — in particular, and on the other — deserts and large mountain ranges divide human activity.
The factor of resettlement of the population. This factor is a tendency of occurrence of capitals in places of high concentration of population, population density of the state and a developed system of settlement.
The transportational–geographic factor. It manifests itself in the fact that capital functions tend to geoplaces with convenient internal transport position and good transport links with the outside world.
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The historical-geographic factor. Its effect is expressed in specific historical contexts of the rise of the capital and in the inertia of social and geographical characteristics of capital governmental formations.
The capital of Ukraine — Kyiv — belongs to the European GCC — or, to be exact, to its Eastern European arc of capitals. Geographically the closest to Kiev are the Near East and Transcaucasia Combinations of capitals.
In the context of the global situation, we can say that Ukraine as a whole, and its capital city in particular, have always been in the center of events on the European continent. In fact, we have one of the biggest indicators of centrality in Eurasia, that helps develop business partnerships with other countries.
The American scientist Samuel Huntington (in his work “The Clash of Civilizations”) refers to our state as the territory with “fault lines”, that is, with the so-called boundaries between civilizations. Indeed, the territory of Ukraine is divided into the Greek-Catholic West, belonging to Western civilization, and the Orthodox East, which is part of the Orthodox civilization. Scientists call countries with fault lines broken and believe that such countries may fall apart with their parts' joining their civilization cells. That is why such situation is problematic because modern Ukraine is in the role of the divided periphery. Eastern and south-eastern parts of Ukraine are oriented to Russia, while western and central ones — to Europe.
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While in this state, our country has a fairly limited chances to implement its foreign policy interests, which depend, first of all, on the nature of relations between the West and the East. So, it turns into a “buffer zone”. Such an inter-civilization situation of Ukraine aggravates the conflict and leads to internal split between the East and the West of the state. However, Ukraine's geopolitical position in Central and Eastern Europe also defines its absolutely important role in addressing key economic and political problems of the continent. Geopolitical interests of Ukraine are getting wider, it deepens its cooperation with independent states -former parts of the former Soviet Union, countries of Central and Western Europe, the United States, China and so on. Its military-political contacts are strengthening.
Kyiv's close enough location to other groups of the European GCC and their potential, can also provide good prospects for the development of Ukraine as a whole. These include: further integration and cooperation along the axes of the groups; development of extraterritoriality, Ukraine's own global subjectivity and competitiveness; transition to a culture of active consuming of innovations, etc.
As the capitals of the world are closely linked with the surrounding social — geographical environment, and form a kind of geopolitical pattern, their connection with macro-regionalization of the Earth into civilizations is very interesting. We have analyzed the correspondence between geospatial combinations of capitals and civilizations according to Huntington [1]. Samuel Huntington in his “Clash of Civilizations” defines 9 (nine) world civilizations (Pic. 2). He defines a civilization as the highest cultural formation, combining people on the basis of self-identity and commonness of cultural elements such as language, religion, customs and such like.
Pic. 2. S. Huntington's World Civilizations
Analyzing the relation between geospatial combinations of capitals with civilizations (Table 1), it can be concluded that there is no exact mutual matching between them. However, interestingly, there is a group belonging of certain geospatial combinations of capitals to certain areas of civilizations. So, we can speak of partial compliance of these two regional structures. It is also worth noting that the most common civilizations in GCC are the Islamic and Western ones. And the East Asian, South Asian and South-Eastern Asian civilizations GCC are characterized by the greatest variability of civilizations within each Combination.
In recent decades, there has been an intensive process of globalization, respectively, the interdependence of States will grow in different aspects such as: political; economic; cultural; social and others. Such interdependence can take place both within the GCCs, and between them, respectively, with different geopolitical consequences.
Table 1
Correspondence between Geospatial Combinations of Capitals and Civilizations according to S. Huntington
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The capital is the main city of a state and, as a rule, all geopolitical processes and decisions are taking place in it. Therefore, the actual uniting the capitals into an organized GCC can have quite a great influence on the geopolitics in general. The politico-geographical position of Geospatial Combinations of Capitals defines their relationship with other surrounding Combinations that can serve as a good basis for various geopolitical coalitions, economic cooperation, social development, organization of transport and logistics activities. Creation of new coalitions based on common interests with good organization will make it possible to expand the influence of states in the political arena, and to synergistically increase their development in general. And vice versa — the difference in the interests can greatly complicate the process of developing compromises on urgent issues of cooperation and serve as a source of new geopolitical and geo-economic conflicts. That is, the GCC themselves are a factor shaping the modern geopolitical picture of the world.
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The new geopolitical architecture of the 21st century has a complex system of world relations, which largely refute geopolitical schemes of the past. Geopolitical centers are the states or regions with important strategic location that have relevant resources, but are forced to defend themselves against the encroachments of geostrategic players seeking a redistribution of property. Each GCC has major capitals, different from other capitals by the combination of their relations, economic and social characteristics and the level of development. If we are talking about the major centers of geopolitics on the world stage, then such, surely, are the following states with their capitals: USA, India, China, Russia, Japan, Britain, Germany and France. Therefore, the most important GCCs in the current geopolitical map can be called the European and East Asian, as they include several geopolitical centers. These GCCs can compete with the North American Combination with the USA as the modern “center of power” (by A. Butler and Z. Brzezinski).
Sometimes in its desire to gain autonomy, power, to strengthen its position in the geo-political map leads to the emergence of conflicts, which, in turn, are a major destabilizing factor. Such conflicts may arise, both within states and between states. Within the framework of GCCs the most conflictive are Transcaspian (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan), the Near East (Israel, Lebanon, Syria), at the moment very conflictive is the African continent with conflicts in the Northern Africa and its East African GCC.
In general we can state that in each of the Combinations, there are certain “hot spots”. The most prosperous regions currently may be considered North American, Australia and Oceania, and until recently, European. The study and knowledge of the GCC may be important for future research, as it allows to understand the political influence of many countries and their groups on other groups, and to help the development of international cooperation for the sake of prevention of various geopolitical conflicts.
Literature:
1. Samuel P. Huntington “The Clash of Civilizations”. Moscow: "Publishing AST", 2003.
2. Hrytsevych V. S., Maidanskyi I. T. Geospatial Combinations of Capital Cities of the World / Geopolitics and Ecogeodynamics of regions. Science magazine. Volume 10 Issue 2. — Simferopol, Tavria Vernadsky University, 2014. — P. 108-113.
