The geographic bases of foreign policy

Abstract

Foreign policy is linked to the vital space of the State, wherein it has developed; the first duty of the State being its maintenance and expansion if possible. Simultaneously, within the State a policy that allows the capacity to be self-sufficient (autarchy) must be defined. Demographic pressure urges Germany and Japan to increase their vital space by necessity, in contrast with the great space availability in the old and new colonial powers; thus, a smart foreign policy in Germany should search for an alliance with Japan ―without disregarding one with Russia―. Centrifugal tendencies in Germany are associated to different vital space experiences in its component parts that make some of its leaders underestimate the territorial losses occurred in the wake of the First World War. Geopolitics must be, above all, a tool to construct an effective foreign policy that must be transmitted onto the people in order to secure the construction of the State.