Originally posted here: https://the-world-live.quora.com/Clash-of-Geographies
The World Economic Forum came out with this assessment stating we are entering a multipolar world. And they are correct but I disagree with how they specifically see that.
Please take the 5 minutes to read this article:
The collision of these 3 geographies is creating a new world order
I’m also going to poach the map:
I’m uncertain where the WEF writer thinks there is a clash going on between the geographies of Eurasia, Indo-Pacific, and the Arctic. Because the reality is these three regions are connected to each other and they are not clashing. Certainly there are clashes of ideas and ideals within these regions and across these regions in the form of economic sanctions, conflict, and simply deciding what is the next step to take based the influences around you. A recent example on this blog was the post on the interest in and opposition to Moldovan unification with Romania Moldovan protests for Romanian unification: The ties that kind of bind.
And this lack of connectivity between these regions is troubling because any geographer worth their salt would tell you: No region stands alone.
Let’s take the Arctic for example. While brevity brings inaccuracies, and this piece is brief, there is more going on here and things are described that are not occurring. One point the article raises is the Russians nationalized Arctic shipping, except that is overly broad. Simply put, hydrocarbon shipment in the Arctic was nationalized in December of 2017, but exceptions were carved out for foreign flagged vessels and these exceptions allow Novatek to operate with their fleet of foreign flagged vessels
“an exception was made to the bill stating that agreements for foreign-registered vessels signed before 1 February 2018 will be allowed to proceed. In addition, the new law defined the Northern Sea Route as the stretch of the Russian Arctic coast between the Novaya Zemlya and the Bering Strait but excluded Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, two major Arctic ports.” New Regulations For Shipping In Russia’s Arctic: The Case of Novatek | Frontera
Which means in turn, that while these restrictions exist they are for a specific area and specific class of shipping. May it increase and/or change in the future? Absolutely but we’re not seeing that at this time. For clarity here is a map describing the area:
The two green arrows define the the Russian vessels only zone (which includes the grandfathered vessels) and the pins are major Arctic ports. If we compare this crude map to the one above showing the belt and road concepts we see those oil and gas terminals in the Russian Far East are outside of the exclusion zone. Further, the Western ports will be reloading facilities where icebreaker tankers can deposit their loads and return to Yamal or LNG-2 and the conventional tankers of any flag can distribute to points West and South.
Also note this map:
Northern Sea Route Information Office
Note those red lines heading south from the Arctic coast in the Russian interior? They are ship and barge AIS tracks carrying raw materials to the coast. Now is this Arctic? Eurasian? Both?
Obviously it’s both. Just like the proposed economic corridor from Kashgar to Gwadar bridges from Eurasia to the Indo-Pacific.
So why delineate? Without knowing the author, I suppose they subscribe to a regional mindset but fail to realize regions are not hard lines on a map but shaded zones that blend into each other. And when dealing with movement across regions it’s hard to look at them in isolation. Which means while there are 3 “geographies” there really is one with 3 subsets. And when you focus on those subsets you always have to at least mention for the non experts in the audience what the connections are, because we humans love our categorizations and patterns to make sense of the world.
But the world is more complex than that and humans themselves can be massive chaotic factors that effect the shape and organization of the world. Sure, China seems to be pursuing a program of soft power expansion with more serious long term goals but we must actually understand how this is applied across space and how these subsets merge to make a whole.
Schwartz Spatial 