Hey guys! Anyone else feeling excited about Vanguard?
PLEASE COME TO THIS CLASS! Hopefully it will be a great time this week, but this class will set the stage for the rest of the year. The information you will learn this week is crucial to understanding many of the things we will discuss later in the year. Even if you don’t plan on coming to many of my classes, PLEASE AT LEAST COME TO THIS ONE.
Now that I’ve said that we can begin.
Before we get into discussing today’s major wars, we first need to understand the things that make the Geo-political world go round:
- The quest for national security
- Military cooperation
- World trade
- Oil
When you look through the blog it may look like a lot of work, and I admit that there is going to be a lot of new information this week, but most of the links I have will only take a few minutes to look at. Just stick with me for this week, once you have this information the rest of the year will be a whole lot easier and more enjoyable.
This week you’ll need to print and fill out this spreadsheet; I will give you the information you need later in the blog. Next you need to print out a world map, make sure that it has relatively up-to-date borders. Here’s the link to both
That being said, let’s get into our first sub-topic: The Quest for National Security.
Every country in the world is trying to maintain the security of their position on the world stage, and there are several ways that countries choose to do that; one of the most popular ways is through military preparedness.
Assignment: Check out this website and take the top 32 on the list, and copy them into your printed out spreadsheet.
The second way to maintain security is through military cooperation. Often times keeping good relations with your neighbors is a more effective way to prevent possible wars than by beefing up your military. One of the best ways to do this is by forming alliances. You may have heard of a few famous alliances before like NATO or the Warsaw Pact; there are a few others that are less well known, but play a major roles in today’s world events.
Assignment: Take the map you printed out and mark the countries that belong to the following major alliances.
- NATO
- SCO
- Arab League
- ASEAN
Now we are going to shift to a different element of national security: global trade. Every nation in the world has certain necessities that need to be filled to keep their country running smoothly. Many of these things are the products and utilities we use every day, like food, water, electricity, gas, etc. However every country can’t simply manufacture everything it’s citizens need within their own borders, even if they have enough land area to do so. Notice how almost all of the products we buy at the store have a label that says ‘Made in China’. Each country has things that they specialize in, Japan is known for their car manufacturing, Taiwan makes nearly all of the world’s micro-chips that power our electronics, and China makes basically everything else. So instead of trying to make everything themselves, countries will buy and sell to each other. This is called Global Trade.
Assignment: Look up the definition of Import and Export, Next, watch this video. He talks about 4 major maritime choke points, mark these on your world map. Also, there are a few other places that he didn’t mention in the video. Look up another maritime choke point and study it for about 20 minutes. You don’t need to prepare a presentation, just get a basic understanding of where it is, what countries rely on it, and what could potentially restrict passage through it. If one doesn’t come to mind you can either google it or you can ask me for some suggestions.
While global trade is an integral part of Geo-politics, there is one element of global trade that trumps basically all others, and that is oil. Oil, natural gas, and coal are the most important natural resources in the world, and they control nearly every countries’ foreign policy. Countries like China, Japan, and Korea are historically barren of any kind of oil and natural gas, meaning they have to buy from other countries to fill the energy needs of their massive populations; these are called ‘Net importers‘. Other countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Venezuela have massive amounts of oil and gas, so they can sell to countries who don’t have enough of their own; these are called ‘Net exporters‘. Some countries sell so much oil abroad, that it can cover all of their expenses, even if they didn’t collect taxes; We call these ‘Petrol States‘.
Assignment: Look at the following links, and copy the top 10 from each list onto your spreadsheet. It looks like a lot, but you only need to spend a few minutes on each.
- Oil Production
- Oil Consumption
- Proven Oil Reserves
- Gas Production
- Gas Consumption
- Proven Gas Reserves
- Coal Production
- Coal Consumption
- Proven Coal Reserves
If you have any questions or would like any tips about any part of the blog, feel free to text me at 385-450-0914.
