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Traditional Space vs. Cyberspace: The Changing Role of Geography

in Current International Politics
- STEVEN L. SPIEGEL -

After the world cold war, there were two forces that attacked each other, namely
the unity of globalization and the impact of the breakdown of nationalism and
geographical conflict. In traditional country times, they often get weaknesses and
experience fraud in the fields of technology, economics and social. Now what happens
when viewed from this book, attacks from two directions have begun to disappear, at
the highest level system, now geography and technology have a new collaboration
where the impact of reducing the role of geography is not too much influence. During
the cold war they consistently used the bipolar system where they also could take over
other territories, gain more power, and what is happening now with the new system is
more interesting to its technology, global communication and information changes. In
this article also mentioned that we must remain cautious because even though the
virtual space has mastered, geopolitics is still continuing, terrorists, missiles that are shot
over long distances can still occur and that is a matter of ongoing geographical reality.
There are 3 types of countries that each have their own systems and they help overcome
the contradictory patterns of world politics today.

1) High-technology States

The current international system is seen from the competition of technological

advancements, such as the twenty-first century seen from the use of microchip politics,
computers, satellite communications, biotechnology, robotics, microelectronics,
telecommunications and information technology and semiconductors, and now more
economic competition emphasized compared to military competition. It also involves
attacking the internal parts of a country compared to seizing an area. This technological
advancement has long been replacing the population, region and natural resources as
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the status of the development or progress of a country. The developed countries are
now seen from how sophisticated the technology their country has created. Countries
such as the US, Canada, western Europe, Japan, Australia and some new industrial
countries in Asia such as South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore all compete with each
other to create highly sophisticated technology. But over time, this progress can affect
relations between countries, and this tends to worsen if each of these countries
competes with each other and later there will be battles through technology such as
trade wars as well and no more military influence. This situation is very fatal if there has
been an arms trade and military separation, to trade arms for nationalist countries like
Iraq who are always willing to use this opportunity to fight neighboring countries even
with their own people.

2) Nationalistic States
There are still countries in the world that adhere to this nineteenth century style,
namely nationalistic politics. The conflict here is in the form of religious, ideological
and racial conflicts that still occur and dominate a region. Culturally, economically and
socially it is still organized by the old model of social and economic development. In a
country that adheres to nationalism it still cares deeply about poverty, corruption, ethnic
tension, territorial disputes, etc. In many cases there are two triggers, namely external
and internal, externally for example the case of African Sub-Saharan in the form of
ethnic and colonial borders, then internally is the inhibition of social stability and
economic growth. These cases of poverty to hunger are widespread and occur in almost
all African regions. In addition to regional borders, conflicts often occur due to ancient
ethnicity and religious differences. As happened in Israel, there was an attack on Israel
carried out by its Arab neighbors who did not recognize Israel as a state, and also Iraq-
Iran which was triggered by the Persians - Arabs and also Sunni-Shiites. There was also
a civil war in Lebanon for sixteen years.
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3) Transitional States
This system is the most unstable, there are many ongoing tensions in terms of
technical and scientific fields that are impressive. Things that cause their instability are
often economic, social and political. Their country uses the method of democracy, as
we can see one example of its country is Russia and Indonesia, they experience a mass
of tensions when in transition move towards greater democracy, but Indonesia
experiences an internal conflict that is when there is a conflict from East Timor. When
high-tech countries have reached globalization, the transition state is still in a state of
turmoil to progress to the next stage, and the professionalist state of the country is not
yet nearing pre-globalization. Some countries are divided due to the high globalization,
even Taiwan itself is still not recognized as an independent state, even though Taiwan
is a twenty-first century country whose condition in the nineteenth century.

The Role of Military Power in the New Era

War cannot be eradicated from life, war still remains a fact of life for every
country. But for industrialized countries, developed countries, many people think that
war is no longer too useful, for countries that are twenty-one, war has risks high level
to destroy competitiveness in the economy, social, etc. In the end, developed countries
use their technology more to overcome, and also minimize the occurrence of a war. For
nineteenth-century countries, namely the nationalistic state and their transition, they
still use the military especially in the war which often controls the territory. Examples
of nineteenth century war are Iraq to Iran, then there are Africa and the Balkans. For
the transition state of the military's role in the event of a threat at the border region, it
becomes more to its geographical separation such as Russia, India and China.

Three Tiers in Coexistence

If the level of the state is in isolation, politics at every level of the state has its
own way of working in accordance with the country itself. But because of globalization,
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it makes the risk of inflation not possible. These three levels of countries must interact
with each other in order to create political balance among them. Coexistence in space
and time makes the role of geography in international politics. For example, high-tech
countries are vulnerable to disturbances such as illegal immigration, cyber attacks,
terrorism, etc. Then there are also transition countries that are afraid of separatists from
neighboring countries. These disputes often beat those who want to advance to
globalization and achieve higher technological progress. These methods make the
nationalistic state succeed in making the transition state to the level of their country.
Moreover, transitional or high-tech countries can poison nationalistic state relations.

The New Geographical Rules

The role of the region in the globalization country is not too important with the
advancement of technology, those who can transfer large funds with just one click on
the mouse, and can also communicate freely anywhere anytime without the need for
transportation to convey information. At present the US has a huge global reach,
followed by European, Japanese, Russian and Chinese countries. which allows them to
invest anywhere. But only the United States can broadly develop its communication
technology throughout the world, and no other country has the power of the United
States. Because countries other than the US have a range of certain regions.

The Danger of Stressing Only One Tier

This section emphasizes that we should not look at the international system of
the country from one side only, analyze from one level only, but must be from all three
levels. What Thomas Friedman and Robert Kaplan did they focused on one level and
so did Friedman's globalization camp. Thomas saw the side of how sophisticated
globalization is today and its technological advances, Robert focused on misery and the
lagging of the country, Friedman's camp looked at the third perspective, the transition
state. Analysts focus on transition countries that when they have reached a high level
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of technology, countries will automatically achieve peace and cooperation, they will
pursue the interests of those who have been left behind by utilizing their new strengths.
According to Samuel Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' economic growth and
globalization creates more political instability than peace, international conflict will
continue to threaten conflict between major countries. One of the realist analysts of
international relations mentions that the post-world war one is one of the consequences
of a continuing major state conflict triggered by a transitional state. Friedman promotes
a world where globalization can be achieved by all countries. For Kaplan a nationalistic
conflict can bring everyone with him. According to Huntington, international politics
can turn into a bipolar and multipolar cold war. From this all can be concluded that
each level can have an impact on each other. If the nationalist and the transition to join
them, they can also be mutually constructive and can increase and they will certainly
have an impact on high-tech countries to be better. But about geography, geographical
conflict may not be able to be separated from our lives. So what will be done next is to
increase the cooperation of the international system and its globalization to be balanced
and mutually constructive.