Geopolitics in the 21st Century Course

Course Philosophy

Three core principles guide this entire curriculum:

1. Geographic Primacy – Geography remains a fundamental, though not deterministic, shaper of state interests and capabilities.

2. Analytical Pluralism – No single theoretical lens can fully capture the complexity of contemporary geopolitical dynamics.

3. Epistemological Reflexivity – All geopolitical analysis is situated within specific historical, cultural, and positional contexts.

Geopolitical outcomes emerge from the interaction of material realities (territory, resources, and technology) and human agency (decisions, narratives, and institutions). Different analytical frameworks illuminate certain dimensions while obscuring others. Analysts must therefore remain conscious that both their chosen theories and their own interpretations are shaped by particular intellectual and geographical standpoints. As a geopolitical analyst, one must constantly ask: What structural and strategic factors explain this development? and, simultaneously, What does this explanation overlook, and from whose perspective?

This course offers a rigorous, multi-layered approach to understanding contemporary geopolitics without privileging any single theoretical tradition or geographical vantage point. It integrates classical geopolitical insights with critical perspectives, materialist analysis with ideational factors, and structural constraints with strategic agency. Through a consistent five-rule analytical framework, students learn to combine empirical precision, actor mapping, theoretical explanation, limitation analysis, and reflexive critique.

Weekly analytical labs and reflexive exercises train students to deconstruct primary sources — maps, policy documents, trade data, and official statements — while examining how power operates across physical domains (maritime, energy, minerals) and emerging domains (digital, informational, climatic). 

The curriculum deliberately incorporates non-Western as well as Western perspectives, ensuring students develop the intellectual flexibility required to assess complex geopolitical issues in an era of multipolarity and rapid technological change.Ultimately, students will master practical tools for producing clear-eyed, policy-relevant geopolitical assessments that acknowledge both the enduring importance of geography and the fluidity of power in the twenty-first century.

MODULE I – Theoretical Foundations and the Multipolar Order

Week 1: Foundations of Contemporary Geopolitics

Week 2: Multipolarity and Great-Power Competition

MODULE II – Resources, Energy, and Economic Power

Week 3: Energy Security and the Geopolitics of Transition

Week 4: Critical Minerals and Supply-Chain Geopolitics

Week 5: Geoeconomics and Economic Statecraft

Module III – Strategic Domains of Competition

Week 6: Maritime Geopolitics and Strategic Chokepoints

Week 7: Nuclear Geopolitics and Strategic Stability

Week 8: Technology, AI, and Digital Geopolitics

MODULE IV – Non-Traditional Threats and Cross-Domain Pressures

Week 9: Climate Change and Environmental Geopolitics

Week 10: Migration, Information Warfare, and Hybrid Competition

MODULE V – Global Order and Geopolitical Futures

Week 11: BRICS, Regional Organisations, and Alternative Orders

Week 12: Geopolitical Futures – Strategic Foresight and Scenario Building

Every week of this 12-week course is structured around four distinct learning pillars to ensure you build theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and critical awareness:

• Lecture: Core concepts, theoretical frameworks, and key debates.

• Workshop: Application of concepts to real-world empirical cases.

• Analytical Lab: Hands-on methodological training and data analysis.

• Reflexive Question: A direct challenge designed to unpack hidden systemic assumptions.

Deep Thinking

• What geopolitical event, shift, or development occurred, and what are the verifiable material facts (territorial, demographic, economic, technological, or military) that define the empirical situation before interpretation begins? (Empirical baseline)

• Which states, coalitions, corporations, or non-state actors made the critical strategic choices, and what structural position did each occupy within the relevant geographic, resource, or economic configuration? (Agential mapping)

• Which theoretical lens (classical geopolitics, critical geopolitics, geoeconomics, or constructivist analysis of strategic narrative) best accounts for the dynamics at work, and what spatial or material assumptions does it rely upon? (Theoretical application)

• What does this explanation fail to capture — whether excluded actors, non-material dimensions, or geopolitical imaginaries that do not originate in Western strategic traditions and therefore fall outside the framework's field of vision? (Analytical limitation)

• How would this development appear from a different geographical vantage point — from the periphery rather than the great power centre, from a state that experiences geography as constraint rather than advantage, or from a regional tradition that maps the world differently? (Reflexive critique)

Learning Outcomes

• Integrate material and ideational analysis across multiple theoretical traditions: Evaluate contemporary geopolitical developments by combining geographical, resource, technological, and institutional factors with ideational and historical dimensions, deploying classical geopolitics, critical geopolitics, geoeconomics, and constructivist frameworks, and clearly articulating what each reveals and what it leaves out.

• Deploy strategic deconstruction and practical methodological tools: Critically analyse maps, national security strategies, resource contracts, and official statements to identify embedded spatial assumptions and strategic intent, while applying supply-chain mapping, chokepoint analysis, sanctions evaluation, scenario planning, and OSINT techniques to empirical cases.

• Conduct reflexive and comparative analysis across power levels and geographical traditions: Examine how great powers, middle powers, and Global South actors respond differently to identical geopolitical pressures, and explicitly recognise the situated nature of all geopolitical theories, critiquing assumptions embedded in Western-centric frameworks and non-Western alternatives with equal rigour.

• Produce professional-grade geopolitical assessments: Formulate rigorous, evidence-based strategic analyses structured around the five-rule framework — empirical baseline, agential mapping, theoretical explanation, limitation analysis, and reflexive critique while remaining conscious of the analyst's own positional assumptions.

Assessment

Assessment 1: Geopolitical Analysis (35% | 2,500 words)
Students select one contemporary geopolitical development (a territorial dispute, a resource competition, a sanctions architecture, a strategic partnership, or a major realignment of great power relations) and produce a sustained analytical assessment structured around the five-rule framework. The analysis must establish the material facts of the case and map the key actors and their structural positions; deploy at least two competing theoretical lenses drawn from classical geopolitics, critical geopolitics, geoeconomics, or constructivist analysis of strategic narrative, articulating clearly what each reveals and what it conceals; and apply at least one practical instrument from the Analytical Labs, such as a comparative power matrix, supply-chain mapping, or cartographic deconstruction, where relevant to the chosen case. The analysis must conclude with a reflexive assessment of how the development appears from a non-Western or peripheral geographical standpoint rather than from a great power vantage point. Submission Deadline: End of Week 7.

Assessment 2: Capstone Geopolitical Risk and Foresight Report (55% | 5,000–6,000 words)
The primary summative assessment for this course is a comprehensive geopolitical risk and foresight report focused on an active contemporary flashpoint selected from the approved case list. The report must map the multi-causal drivers of the case across geographic, resource-based, economic, and ideational dimensions; construct a data-driven account of the key actors and their structural positions; and develop three internally coherent and mutually exclusive scenarios for the evolution of the flashpoint over the next decade. The analysis must deploy at least two theoretical frameworks explicitly, apply two practical methodological instruments to ground the empirical argument, and include a dedicated section critiquing Western-centric assumptions through critical geopolitics, Global IR, or decolonial frameworks. All five rules of the analytical framework must be evident throughout. Submission Deadline: Sunday of Week 14 (Formal Assessment Period, following the conclusion of Week 12 teaching).

Assessment 3: Seminar Participation and Analytical Engagement (10% | Ongoing)
Participation is assessed continuously throughout the semester. Marks reflect the quality and consistency of engagement across three interconnected dimensions: contribution to seminar and workshop discussions, demonstrating the ability to apply theoretical concepts to empirical cases and to challenge competing interpretations with reasoned argument; performance in the weekly Analytical Labs, showing growing proficiency in applying course methodologies to live data and case material; and conduct in simulation and debate exercises, including the willingness to defend positions under adversarial questioning, respond to new evidence, and revise conclusions accordingly. Attendance is a prerequisite for participation credit, but marks are awarded for the quality and intellectual rigour of engagement rather than for the volume of contribution.

Submission, Formatting Requirements and Academic Integrity

• All written work must be submitted as a PDF file, regardless of the word processor used.

• Use font at 12 points Aptos or Arial. Pages must be numbered. Include your name, student number, course name, assignment title, and word count on the first page; a separate cover page is not required.

• The word count stated in the assignment brief is a guide to scope and depth, not a rigid threshold. Work within 10% of the stated count in either direction. The word count covers the main body of the text, including in-text citations, but excludes the reference list, any tables or figures, and any appendices.

• All written work must follow APA 7th edition throughout. In-text citations use the author-date format: (Yergin, 2020) or Yergin (2020) argues that… For direct quotations, include the page number: (Yergin, 2020, p. 47). The reference list appears at the end of the document, ordered alphabetically by surname. Do not use footnotes for references; footnotes may be used sparingly for substantive clarifications that would otherwise interrupt the argument.

• Formal policies on academic integrity and the use of AI tools vary by institution and will be communicated where applicable. The question beneath those policies does not change: Is the goal to understand, or simply to appear to have understood? A qualification obtained without the knowledge it is meant to represent is a transaction, not an education, and it shortchanges the holder as much as anyone else. I invest genuine effort in connecting students to scholarship, practitioners, and professional networks that extend well beyond any syllabus. Whether that investment meets a reciprocal commitment is, in the end, a question of character rather than compliance.

Literature

• Criekemans, D. (2021). Geopolitics and international relations: Grounding world politics anew. Brill.

• Davidsen, P. (2026). Geopolitics, the state, and political science: Contextualizing Rudolf Kjellén, founder of geopolitics. Routledge.

• Legg, S., & Jazeel, T. (Eds.). (2025). Subaltern geographies. Oxford University Press.

• Mandaville, P. (2023). The geopolitics of religious soft power: How states use religion in foreign policy. Oxford University Press.

• Marshall, T. (2025). The prisoners of geography: Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics. Rowman & Littlefield.

• Short, J. R. (2022). Geopolitics: Making sense of a changing world. Rowman & Littlefield.

• Tsang, S., & Cheung, O. (2026). China's global strategy under Xi Jinping. Oxford University Press.

Research articles do not appear in the bibliography above. This is intentional. Each week, students are expected to identify a peer-reviewed article relevant to that week’s topic, bring it to the seminar, and share it with the group. The lecturer contributes selections alongside the class. This practice develops independent literature-searching habits, exposes the seminar to a wider range of scholarly perspectives than any fixed reading list could provide, and keeps the course in sustained contact with current debates in the field.

Course Structure and Content

MODULE I – Theoretical Foundations and the Multipolar Order

Week 1: Foundations of Contemporary Geopolitics

Core Question: How should we understand geopolitics in an era where power extends beyond territory and military force?

Topics: Classical and critical geopolitics; geopolitical imagination; geography, networks, and flows; territory versus connectivity.

Analytical Lab: Compare competing geopolitical maps of Eurasia, the Indo-Pacific, and the Arctic to identify how cartography shapes strategic thinking.

Reflexive Question: Do maps represent an objective geopolitical reality, or do they actively help create it?

Additional Literature 

• Dodds, K. (2019). Geopolitics: A very short introduction (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

• Kaplan, R. D. (2012). The revenge of geography: What the map tells us about coming conflicts and the battle against fate. Random House.

• Ó Tuathail, G. (1996). Critical geopolitics: The politics of writing global space. University of Minnesota Press.

Week 2: Multipolarity and Great-Power Competition

Core Question: Is the international system entering a new era of multipolarity?

Topics: US–China rivalry; Russian revisionism; the rise of middle and regional powers; balance of power dynamics in the post-liberal era.

Analytical Lab: Build a comparative power matrix across military, economic, demographic, and technological dimensions using current strategic indices.

Reflexive Question: Does multipolarity promise greater systemic stability, or does it inherently generate greater instability?

Additional Literature 

• Acharya, A. (2018). The end of American world order (2nd ed.). Polity.

• Brands, H. (2026). The Eurasian century: Hot wars, cold wars, and the making of the modern world. W. W. Norton.

• Cooley, A., & Nexon, D. (2020). Exit from hegemony: The unravelling of the American global order. Oxford University Press.

• Kassab, H. S. (2022). Globalization, multipolarity and great power competition. Routledge.

• Kissinger, H. (2014). World order. Penguin.

• Mearsheimer, J. J. (2019). The great delusion: Liberal dreams and international realities. Yale University Press.

• Sciutto, J. (2024). The return of great powers: Russia, China, and the next world war. Dutton.

MODULE II – Resources, Energy, and Economic Power

Week 3: Energy Security and the Geopolitics of Transition

Core Question: How is the structural shift from fossil fuels to renewables reshaping global power hierarchies?

Topics: Oil and gas geopolitics; Japan’s energy vulnerability; Gulf states' diversification strategies; Central Asian pipeline corridors; hydrogen and transition tensions.

Analytical Lab: Map energy import dependencies and primary transit vulnerabilities for the EU, China, Japan, and India.

Reflexive Question: Will the green transition reduce global geopolitical competition, or will it merely transform its parameters?

Additional Literature 

• Balmaceda, M. M. (2021). Russian energy chains: The remaking of technopolitics from Siberia to Ukraine to the European Union. Columbia University Press.

• Bradshaw, M., & Boersma, T. (Eds.). (2020). The geopolitics of energy. Routledge.

• Goldthau, A., & Witte, J. M. (Eds.). (2010). Global energy governance: The new rules of the game. Brookings Institution Press.

• Högselius, P. (2019). Energy and geopolitics. Routledge.

• Scholten, D. (Ed.). (2023). Handbook on the geopolitics of the energy transition. Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Smil, V. (2017). Energy and civilization: A history (2nd ed.). MIT Press.

• Yergin, D. (2020). The new map: Energy, climate, and the clash of nations. Penguin.

Week 4: Critical Minerals and Supply-Chain Geopolitics

Core Question: Who controls the extraction, processing, and distribution of resources essential to the green and digital economies?

Topics: Rare earth elements, lithium, and cobalt supply chains; weaponised vulnerabilities; resource nationalism; near-shoring and friend-shoring diversification strategies.

Analytical Lab: Construct a detailed supply-chain dependencies map for high-capacity batteries, advanced semiconductors, or solar photovoltaic panels.

Reflexive Question: Is the transition to green technologies creating new forms of structural dependency and post-colonial exploitation?

Additional Literature 

• Conway, E. (2025). Material world: The six raw materials that shape modern civilization. Random House.

• Humphreys, D. (2015). The remaking of the mining industry. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Kalantzakos, S. (2020). China and the geopolitics of rare earths. Oxford University Press.

• Kara, S. (2024). Cobalt red: How the blood of the Congo powers our lives. St. Martin’s Griffin.

• Pitron, G. (2020). The rare metals war: The dark side of clean energy and digital technologies. Scribe Publications.

• Rickards, J. (2022). Sold out: How broken supply chains, surging inflation, and political instability will sink the global economy. Penguin.

Week 5: Geoeconomics and Economic Statecraft

Core Question: Under what structural conditions does economic interdependence transform into decisive geopolitical leverage?

Topics: Multilateral and unilateral sanctions regimes; technology export controls; economic coercion and defensive hedging; industrial policy revival; strategic deployment of sovereign wealth funds.

Analytical Lab: Analyse a specific contemporary sanctions architecture (e.g., Russia, Iran, or North Korea) for strategic effectiveness and unintended systemic consequences.

Reflexive Question: Can economic coercion reliably achieve long-term strategic objectives without undermining the sender's own institutional power?

Additional Literature 

• Aggarwal, V. K., & Cheung, T. M. (Eds.). (2025). The Oxford handbook of geoeconomics and economic statecraft. Oxford University Press.

• Baldwin, D. A. (2020). Economic statecraft. Princeton University Press.

• Blackwill, R. D., & Harris, J. M. (2016). War by other means: Geoeconomics and statecraft. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

• Dong, J. (2023). Chinese statecraft in a changing world: Demystifying enduring traditions and dynamic constraints. Springer.

• Farrell, H., & Newman, A. L. (2023). Underground empire: How America weaponized the world economy. Allen Lane.

• Mahbubani, K. (2024). Living the Asian century: An undiplomatic memoir. PublicAffairs.

MODULE III – Strategic Domains of Competition

Week 6: Maritime Geopolitics and Strategic Chokepoints

Core Question: Why do maritime spaces and legal jurisdictions remain central to global power projection and trade security?

Topics: Sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea; the opening of Arctic transit corridors; security of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb; the diplomacy of freedom of navigation operations.

Analytical Lab: Conduct an operational vulnerability assessment of international shipping corridors passing through a major maritime chokepoint.

Reflexive Question: Who fundamentally benefits from the current maritime legal order, and whose security concerns does it peripheralise?

Additional Literature 

• Bueger, C., & Edmunds, T. (2024). Understanding maritime security. Oxford University Press.

• Calder, K. E. (2025). Eurasian maritime geopolitics: The United States and China in an age of Indo-Pacific transformation. Brookings Institution Press.

• Fishman, E. (2025). Chokepoints: American power in the age of economic warfare. Penguin.

• Hayton, B. (2014). The South China Sea: The struggle for power in Asia. Yale University Press.

• Kraska, J., & Yang, H. (Eds.). (2023). Peaceful management of maritime disputes. Routledge.

• Poling, G. B. (2022). On dangerous ground: America’s century in the South China Sea. Oxford University Press.

• Stavridis, J. G. (2018). Sea power: The history and geopolitics of the world’s oceans. Penguin.

Week 7: Nuclear Geopolitics and Strategic Stability

Core Question: Can deterrence models remain stable within an increasingly fragmented, multipolar nuclear environment?

Topics: Nuclear deterrence theory and contemporary arms control decay; the proliferation profiles of Iran and North Korea; nuclear safety and regional ambitions in Africa and the Middle East.

Analytical Lab: Evaluate a recent nuclear-alert or latency crisis utilizing classical deterrence frameworks to trace escalatory and de-escalatory choices.

Reflexive Question: Do nuclear weapons genuinely prevent large-scale systemic warfare, or do they merely postpone conflict while multiplying its catastrophic risks?

Additional Literature 

• Albright, D., & Burkhard, S. (2023). Iran’s perilous pursuit of nuclear weapons. Institute for Science and International Security.

• Herzog, S., Arceneaux, G. D., & Petrovics, A. F. W. (2025). Atomic backfires: When nuclear policies fail. MIT Press.

• Narang, V. (2014). Nuclear strategy in the modern era: Regional powers and international conflict. Princeton University Press.

• Plokhy, S. (2022). Nuclear folly: A history of the Cuban missile crisis. W. W. Norton.

• Plokhy, S. (2023). Atoms and ashes: A global history of nuclear disasters. W. W. Norton.

• Rublee, M. R. (2009). Nonproliferation norms: Why states choose nuclear restraint. University of Georgia Press.

Week 8: Technology, AI, and Digital Geopolitics

Core Question: Is technological supremacy superseding territorial control as the primary source of contemporary geopolitical power?

Topics: Artificial intelligence and automated command systems; high-end semiconductor manufacturing and lithography cartels; offensive cyber operations; data sovereignty and localisation initiatives; technological decoupling trends.

Analytical Lab: Map and assess the localized geopolitical risks facing the global advanced semiconductor supply chain infrastructure.

Reflexive Question: Who is currently authorized to write the regulatory norms governing emerging technologies, and who is structurally excluded?

Additional Literature 

• Dunn Cavelty, M. (2024). Politics of cyber-security. Routledge.

• Greenberg, A. (2019). Sandworm: A new era of cyberwar and the hunt for the Kremlin’s most dangerous hackers. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

• Kaplan, F. M. (2016). Dark territory: The secret history of cyber war. Simon & Schuster.

• Lee, K.-F. (2018). AI superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the new world order. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

• Lindsay, J. R. (2025). Age of deception: Cybersecurity as secret statecraft. Cornell University Press.

• Miller, C. (2022). Chip war: The fight for the world’s most critical technology. Scribner.

• Segal, A. (2016). The hacked world order: How nations fight, trade, maneuver, and manipulate in the digital age. PublicAffairs.

• Wang, D. (2025). Breakneck: China’s quest to engineer the future. W. W. Norton.

MODULE IV – Non-Traditional Threats and Cross-Domain Pressures

Week 9: Climate Change and Environmental Geopolitics

Core Question: In what ways does climate change structurally reshape the parameters of strategic competition among states?

Topics: Climate security as a threat multiplier; transboundary water disputes across major river basins (e.g., Nile, Mekong); Arctic ecological transformation; environmental resource scarcity and institutional failure.

Analytical Lab: Construct a comprehensive climate-security risk profile for a highly vulnerable transboundary region or resource corridor.

Reflexive Question: Should climate change be analyzed primarily as an external, environmental threat multiplier or as an internal outgrowth of modern geopolitical architecture?

Additional Literature 

• Chasek, P., Downie, D. L., & Allan, J. I. (2025). Global environmental politics. Routledge.

• Dalby, S. (2020). Anthropocene geopolitics: Globalization, security, sustainability. University of Ottawa Press.

• Dryzek, J. S. (2022). The politics of the earth: Environmental discourses. Oxford University Press.

• Floyd, R., & Matthew, R. (Eds.). (2025). Environmental security. Routledge.

• Hauger, J. S., & Mizo, R. (Eds.). (2026). Climate change, national security and geopolitics. Routledge.

• Heininen, L., & Exner-Pirot, H. (Eds.). (2020). Climate change and Arctic security: Searching for a paradigm shift. Palgrave Macmillan.

• Lang, M., Manahan, M. A., & Bringel, B. (Eds.). (2024). The geopolitics of green colonialism. Pluto Press.

• O’Lear, S. (2020). A research agenda for environmental geopolitics. Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Pincus, R., & Ali, S. H. (Eds.). (2020). Diplomacy on ice: Energy and the environment in the Arctic. Yale University Press.

• Toal, G. (2024). Oceans rise empires fall. Oxford University Press.

Week 10: Migration, Information Warfare, and Hybrid Competition

Core Question: How do state actors systematically manipulate non-military, societal flows to achieve traditional geopolitical objectives?

Topics: Instrumentalised and weaponised migration vectors (e.g., the Belarus–Poland border, Mediterranean routes); automated disinformation; hybrid warfare doctrines; strategic narrative power and perception management.

Analytical Lab: Conduct a targeted media or discourse analysis of competing state-sponsored narratives regarding an active international political crisis.

Reflexive Question: What objective analytical criteria distinguish legitimate public diplomacy and soft power from unacceptable state interference and cognitive manipulation?

Additional Literature 

• Chomsky, A. (2022). Central America's forgotten history. Beacon Press.

• Cohen, R. (2021). Migration. André Deutsch.

• Galeotti, M. (2019). Russian political war: Moving beyond the hybrid. Routledge.

• Greenhill, K. M. (2010). Weapons of mass migration: Forced displacement, coercion, and foreign policy. Cornell University Press.

• Hanlon, B., & Vicino, T. J. (2026). Global migration: The basics. Routledge.

• Jordan, D., Kiras, J. D., Lonsdale, D. J., Speller, I., Tuck, C., & Walton, C. D. (2026). Understanding modern warfare. Cambridge University Press.

• Rid, T. (2020). Active measures: The secret history of disinformation and political warfare. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

MODULE V – Global Order and Geopolitical Futures

Week 11: BRICS, Regional Organisations, and Alternative Orders

Core Question: To what extent are alternative institutional platforms transforming the fundamental rules of global governance?

Topics: The enlargement and financial mechanisms of the BRICS bloc; the security mandates of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO); the peace and security architecture of the African Union; structural blockages within the United Nations Security Council.

Analytical Lab: Compare the official declarations, institutional visions, and security charters of a Western-led multi-state body against an alternative regional institution.

Reflexive Question: Do emerging, non-Western multilateral platforms genuinely challenge global power hierarchies, or do they reproduce existing forms of domestic domination?

Additional Literature 

• Acharya, A. (2018). The end of American world order (2nd ed.). Polity.

• Anand, P., Fennell, S., & Comim, F. (2020). Handbook of BRICS and emerging economies. Oxford University Press.

• Bremmer, I. (2012). Every nation for itself: Winners and losers in a G-Zero world. Portfolio.

• Cooper, A. F. (2016). The BRICS: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

• Gänzle, S., Wunderlich, J.-U., & Hofelich, T. (2026). Exiting regional organisations. De Gruyter.

• Liu, Z. Z., & Papa, M. (2022). Can BRICS de-dollarize the global financial system? Cambridge University Press.

• Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.

• Stuenkel, O. (2016). Post-Western world: How emerging powers are remaking global order. Polity.

Week 12: Geopolitical Futures – Strategic Foresight and Scenario Building

Core Question: What plausible structural variants of world order might emerge by 2035, and what key triggers will determine their path?

Topics: Scenario planning and foresight methodologies; systemic decoupling versus fragmented regionalisation; technology blocks; forecasting alternatives to the global rule-bound order.

Analytical Lab: Develop four structurally consistent, multi-variable scenarios tracking the potential evolutionary trajectories of a major geopolitical flashpoint over the next decade.

Reflexive Question: How do the unstated ideological and structural assumptions embedded within our future projections actively limit our understanding of present-day developments?

Additional Literature 

• Allison, G. T. (2017). Destined for war: Can America and China escape Thucydides's trap? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

• Brands, H. (2026). Geopolitics of AI. Johns Hopkins University Press.

• Burrows, M. J. (2014). The future, declassified: Predicting the world of 2025 and beyond. St. Martin’s Press.

• Dalio, R. (2021). Principles for dealing with the changing world order. Simon & Schuster.

• Grieco, J., Ikenberry, G. J., & Mastanduno, M. (2026). Introduction to international relations. Bloomsbury Academic.

• Kissinger, H. (2014). World order. Penguin.

• Mearsheimer, J. J., & Walt, S. M. (2008). The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

• National Intelligence Council. (2021). Global trends 2040: A more contested world. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

• Pillsbury, M. (2016). The hundred-year marathon: China’s secret strategy to replace America as the global superpower. St. Martin’s Griffin.

• Ping, J., Hayes, A., & McCormick, B. (2025). Chinese international relations theory. Routledge.

• Wa Thiong’o, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. J. Currey.

*** This course is designed to be adaptable. The weekly structure, assessment components, and reading load can be adjusted to suit the requirements of a particular higher education institution or the context of individual tutoring, and can be scaled to meet the demands of bachelor’s and master’s degree students alike. The analytical framework and intellectual ambitions of the course remain constant; the format is a starting point, not a constraint.

Updated – June 2026

I have done my utmost to ensure everything is correct, but if you spot any mistakes, please let me know, as I am only human after all. Additionally, if you have a recommendation for another excellent book that could enhance this course, please do share your suggestions.

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