La geopolitica classica: le concezioni strategiche mondiali.

Classic Geopolitics: Global Strategic Conceptions. Geopolitics, both as it developed in the period between the two World Wars and as it is today, is strongly linked to the so-called Global Strategic Conceptions as they have been conceived by Mahan and Ratzel (Geopolitics of the Sea) and by Mackinder and Spykman (Geopolitics Formal Models). The article will give an interpretation of the theoretical schemes designed by the four authors. The intellectual reference of Mahan and Ratzel’s reflections was the economic and political British power. By interpreting the British political action they wanted to support and push their governments to include a strong "Sea Power" providing a solid tool for a politics of power and conquest. The entire planet seen as a stage for the action of great powers led by the determinism of "geographical causation in universal history” is at the core of Mackinder and Spykman’s theories. In these visions the planet is represented as a schematic place of the diplomatic and strategic relations of international politics. It is at stake in the struggle between human communities (barbarian hordes in the past, and the states today); it is the context of the clash between the continental powers (based on closed-minded, possessive attitudes related to conquest) and the maritime powers (based on open-minded, adventurous attitudes connected to trade and commerce).