GEOPOLITICS QUARTERLY
Year:2006 | Volume:2 | Issue:2 (4)|Papers Count:6

Territory is one of the essential pillars of political geography. Nevertheless, there are a lot of discussion about dissubjectivity and unimportance of territory at the age of globalization. The discourses about deterritorialization have attracted the academic and scientific groups so much that some believe that Globalization equals deterritorialization.This essay using a neo-realism approach has tried to analyze the process of Globalization having territorial vision. In other words, while it does not deny exterritorial and transnational processes but it put emphasis on reterritorialization of various phenomenon and processes at the age of globalization .The assumption is that territory and boundary are not to be obliterated, although their functions have changed. Likewise, it is believed in this paper that because the needs of human beings to variety and geography, territory will remain and globalization and transnationalization can not diminish its role and situation in the communal human life.

In the beginning of 21th century, the request for natural gas has the highest growth. Most economical progress of India has caused that needing it to energy and natural gas is increasing. Between varieties of choices for gas import, Indian government choosing land gas pipeline of Iran – India. Therefore transiting gas pipeline through Pakistan territory is a necessity. But there is problem that, whether economical cooperations of three states of India, Pakistan and Iran in project of gas pipeline, can resolve geopolitics conflicts to the economical benefits? For reply to the problem, in this research has been used descriptive - analytic method. The results of the research have confirmed that geopolitical and geoeconomical aims of India, Pakistan and Iran in land pipeline project is not equal and economical cooperations can not resolve geopolitics conflicts of between three states. Therefore insecurity is the biggest challenge for gas pipeline in Pakistan territory.

The entire capabilities of any state could be defined as its national power. Measuring national power has generated much controversy and debate in academic circles. The purpose of this research is twofold, firstly to evaluate the important variables that impact national power, secondly designing a model that measures the national power of the states. Different variables were categorized into nine factors including: political, astrospace, transnational, cultural, social, scientific, military, territorial and economic. The Delphi and factor analysis methods have been used to evaluate the variables were employed. The subsequent index which resulted from the above-mentioned calculations ranked all nation states according to their national power. Hence geopolitical weight of every state could be attained from this ranking.

The emerging process of globalization, which itself is shaped by unprecedented alterations in universal communications and information-based transformations that are experiencing immense growth, have transformed communal human life. No consensus on the concept of globalization has been reached nearly three decades since the start of the process of globalization. Adherents to differing schools of thought have not been able to define the process of globalization from the local and global vantage points. Some overemphasize the harmonization trait of globalization to envisage realization of a fictional globe inline with their political wishes; others are stuck in small local spheres resisting/denying globalization. Defining and in depth elaborations on the local-global discourse in international trends and new features in locals (urban-rural) relations in domestic realm would result in a theoretical framework that will better capture the geographic complexity of our world.

There are a variety of complex and dynamic factors that shape foreign policy orientations. Among these factors, perceptions/misperceptions about national interests along with geopolitical position have essential roles in shaping foreign policy. This article examines how the geopolitics of Lebanon shaped Syria's foreign policy towards Lebanon during 1975-1990 Civil War in Lebanon. It maintains that the Lebanese Civil War jeopardized Syria's national interests, while it accorded Syria a unique venue to influence domestic and regional issues. Lebanon’s position in the Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the presences of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees, led Israel to invade Lebanon in order to dismantle Palestinian armed groups. Subsequently, the interventions of both regional and international powers in Lebanon became Lebanon’s prime geopolitical significance, which forced Syria to intervene militarily in Lebanon in order to maintain Syrian national interests.