According to Yves Lacoste’s now classic definition, geopolitics is “the study of rivalries between powers for land”. As for “Europe”, a hand-down from Ancient Greek, it customarily designates the region of the world that stretches from the north-eastern seaboards of the Atlantic Ocean to the western part of Russia. Reports by international organisations are thus often based on a geographical analysis that distinguishes this vast region of 23,061,000 km2, i.e. 17.2% of the landmass, including Russia, given that the country’s vast territory forms a single state and is a single player in the geopolitical arena.
Yet geopolitics has no choice but to take into account the twofold nature of Russia, both European and Asian. European Russia is home to a very large majority of the nation’s population, and is where the large centres of geopolitical decision lie. It has the country’s millionaire cities, and interacts busily with the countries to the west via a range of air, sea, and rail networks and via hydrocarbons.

Hence the book’s sub-title “From the Atlantic to the Urals”, as we shall only pay passing attention to geopolitical relations between Russia and the three bordering Asian regions : West, South Central and East Asia.
It will focus particularly on the fact that, since the geopolitical concepts of Western and Eastern Europe melted away with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, a regional organisation, entitled, as a result of a series of treaties “European Union”, today accounts for the majority of European nations, more precisely 28 out of 44.
Addressing the geopolitics of Europe thus involves considering both the parameters of Europe as a whole and those of the European Union in particular. In the different chapters of this book and according to the themes we develop, we shall therefore be turning our attention to either Europe, including Russia, or the European Union, since one of the major geopolitical issues in Europe is to examine what this regional organisation actually is and where its future lies.

1 – A Singular Geographical Space

Manuscrit clos en 2015.
Gérard-François Dumont, Pierre Verluise, « The Geopolitics of Europe. From the Atlantic to the Urals », (translation Alan Fell), Diploweb.com 2016-2017. ISBN : 979-10-92676-09-9.

Copyright 2016-2017-Dumont-Verluise/Diploweb.

Table of contents

1 – A Singular Geographical Space
2 – Europe from Division to Reunification (1947-2004). The Story and the Sub-text
3 – Since 2005, Europe in Doubt
4 – The European Union, an Original Multipolar system
5 – The Geopolitics of the Union in the Eyes of the Law and the Budget
6 – Internal Geopolitical Contradictions
7 – The Geopolitical Implications of Demographic Change in Europe
8 – Is the European Union a Power ?
9 – Europe is not just the EU
10 – Is Russia European or Asian ? The contradictions of Russia
11 – The Geopolitical Horizons of the European Union
12 – Europe’s Challenges in the Crystal Ball
Conclusion
Bibliography

Manuscrit clos en 2015.
Gérard-François Dumont, Pierre Verluise, « The Geopolitics of Europe. From the Atlantic to the Urals », (translation Alan Fell),Diploweb.com 2016-2017. ISBN : 979-10-92676-09-9.

Copyright 2016-2017-Dumont-Verluise/Diploweb.