Not to dismiss geopolitics altogether as a field of inquiry. But I align with Todd wrt to what a limited hangout it is. When at age 26 he correctly predicted the fall of the SU, he did it on the basis of demography, thus punking the geopolitics "specialists."

The left neglects at its peril the importance of "sovereignty from below."

voilà. Sorry for 3 toots but I'm on an instance that has a 500-character limit, which I support as it (mostly) helps me avoid prolixity. ;-)

And that's why I try to share on this platform things that bring living sociology and political economy to bear on these conflicts like in the Middle East, from ppl committed to emancipatory projects, because my impression is that the public is being served a lot of "geopolitics" that dehumanises what's at play. I think even a lot of ppl on the left get seduced by the playmobil "geopolitics" frameworks (maybe the young male demographic more than others?).

well I think I have a similar impression that the Atlanticist structures and patterns of domination - however understandable their development was in the post-WWII context - are entering into a period of really seismic challenge that raises all kinds of questions for the broader left, and that require we enrich and update our understanding of imperialism but also of what emancipatory projects we need and how to push for them.

Yup.

I share Emmanuel Todd's low esteem for geopolitics as a "social science."

I forget his precise wording but I recall him once saying in a convo w/ Aude Lancelin that he regards geopolitics as a field largely dominated by "grown men who never really got over playing with toy soldiers."

We're seeing a *lot* of that now - ppl with playmobil ideations about how the world works.

Boston Review held an excellent recent webinar which examined the need for Western progressives and humanists to combine their condemnation of imperial violence directed at Iran with principled support for Iranian civil society movements, eschewing vulgar campism.

I particularly appreciated the excellent interventions of the always wonderful Manijeh Moradian of the feminists4jina collective.

full transcript & video replay here: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-war-on-iran-a-conversation/