Decades of cooperation between the United States and its Middle Eastern partners have come to a turning point. The 2008 Shale Revolution has brought the United States heretofore unknown scale of energy independece. The Revolution has created an unprecedented increase in United States' unconventional cost-effectively extractable energy reserves. It is estimated that within next two decades the United States should change from net importer of hydrocarbons to net exporter. There is a lot of speculation, whether due to possible energy independece, the foreign policy towards its Middle Eastern partners would change and whether the United States would isolate itself. Aim of this work is to explore the impact of the Shale Revolution on energy security of the United States and its implications for future geopolitics towards the Middle East. The main question to be explored is whether it would change United States' geopolitics at all and if yes, how would it look like. Since domestic oil prices are based on global energy prices and since Middle Eastern partners are unique in their capability of supplying global energy markets with large quantities of oil in the long run, even after the Shale Revolution it will be essential for the United States to continue its cooperation with its Middle Eastern partners....

The thesis applies the neomedieval theoretical framework on the contemporary political map of the world. The thesis argues, that the contemporary international politics cannot be understood by an application of the unified geopolitical setting and that the key divergencies in the geopolitical environment play a crucial role for the actors operating in different regions. As an outcome of the theoretical works dealing with the selected theory, a three-world model is being presented dividing the political map among these settings - Durable Disorder (defined by networking and privatization), Westphalian System (defined by a dominant position of strong centralized state), and Chaotic Anarchy (lacking stable political power and control over means of violence). This model is consequently applied on the global political map with the consequent analysis of the strategies of different actors located inside specific environments and mutual interactions of these three worlds.

The presented master's thesis titled The Power Rivalry between China and India: Managing the Buffer Zone between the Two States examines the strategic behaviour of China and India with respect to the buffer zone located around their common border. In recent years, it is possible to observe a higher intensity or tension in the mutual relations of China and India on both the regional, as well as global level. In regard to China and India, the buffer zone located near their common border is a distinctive factor of strategic importance that influences the dynamics within mutual Sino-Indian relations. The main pillars of the analysis of China's and India's policy towards each other and towards the common buffer zone present in the thesis are offensive and defensive realism in combination with the geopolitics of buffer zones. From the analytical point of view, the thesis divided into two parts. The first part of the analysis focuses on the common Sino-Indian border and adjacent areas, and whether it is possible to characterized them as the buffer zone. The second part concentrates specifically on China and India and their policies, not just towards each other, but towards the buffer zone as well. Regional interactions of China and India are analysed especially from the perspective of offensive and...

This study analyses the strengths and limitations of Turkey on its way to becoming a regional power in the Middle East. Using the major theories of International Relations (Realism and Liberalism), the study presents the definition and main criteria of the term of regional power. The key purpose of this study is to examine if today's Turkey meets the requirements of being a recognized regional leader. The paper examines the period under the governance of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) which has started in 2002 and continues since then. During these 17 years, Turkey has gone through 3 distinct stages; Recovery from the internal political and economic crisis, ascendancy to a regional power level in the Middle East region and the decline phase which came as a result of failures in internal and external affairs. In order to understand the position of Turkey in the region and its regional influence during this period Turkish economic and military power capabilities are thoroughly analyzed and compared to the same statistical indicators of other Middle East countries. Moreover, the paper also analyses the foreign policy of Turkey towards the regional actors and the level of its recognition as a major power by international players. The study confirms that Turkey has lost its status as a regional...

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In recent decades the EU has become more dependent on Russia for gas. At the same time, there were several geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine that disrupted gas relations and thus put dependence under pressure. This research aimed to analyse the relationship between geopolitical conflicts and dependency. By placing the relationship in the light of the theory of interdependency and the asymmetry theory, a new view was given to this exciting relationship. This problem was approached using an abductive research method, the singular case study. As a result of this, the geopolitical conflicts of Ukraine are used to interpret the relationship between geopolitical conflict and dependency. Trade, dependency and sanctions were the main variables analysed. The analysis shows a crucial link between actors’ economic and political interests and their influence on dependency. In addition, the change of dependency after the geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine was remarkable. Moreover, these changed in a negative sense. It can be concluded that there is indeed a link between the geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine and the gas dependency of the EU on Russia. More research has to be done to generalise this connection to other cases, and more

This work aims to fill the gap in the civil scientific agenda by offering its own, two- stage version of a systemic, dynamic, and interdisciplinary analysis of the developments in the Arctic transborder region; by fixing the region"s southern border at the Arctic Circle, adjusting to the premises of new geopolitics, using systemic modeling, and viewing geostrategic analysis as an obligatory academic contribution to the "art" of statecraft.The first stage of analysis is inductive, descriptive, and static. It defines the Arctic region as a system of five geostrategic action spaces, physical space (S1), military space (S2), economic space (S3), demographic space (S4), and information space (S5). After defining essential elements of the physical environment, social network analysis is applied on four human-constructed geostrategic spaces (S2-S5) - i.e. the basic networks of relationship (links) between the key actors (nodes) are created. Matrices of symmetrical relationships for military space (S2), economic space (S3), and demographic space (S4) are constructed to demonstrate the links" intensity. In order to illustrate the fact that changes in one action space ultimately transform other spaces, ten possible channels of inter-space affection are illustrated. The second stage of analysis is deductive,...

The submitted diploma thesis focuses on the role of Russian federation within the post-communist area. The thesis describes the development of the Russian foreign policy, with regard to the post-soviet area, from the disintegration of the Soviet Union to the present. The attention is paid to the idea of the eurasianism and atlantism , which became the most popular in the Russian foreign policy. The other part of the thesis presents the detailed analysis of the development of the Russian federation's relations with the other states and its degree of influence of alternative actors. The greatest attention is paid to the situation in the Caucasus and Central Asia, because in these areas is the most noticeable influence of alternative actors.

With the end of Cold War Turkey found itself in power vacuum created by the fall of Soviet Union. American-Turkish relations at that time lowered its priority-status and 90s in general are perceived as a "lost decade" for the relations. During that time, traditional secular parties in Turkey experienced a loss on electorate. Therefore space emerged for a new party which will respect (at least partly) democratic rules and at the same time will be based on Muslim traditions. The party was AKP lead by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Almost simultaneously George W. Bush became the President of the United States and both countries started to cooperate closely especially after 9/11 attacks. Although the AKP supports fighting terrorism (Turkey has problems with Kurdish terrorism) and Turkey supported Afghan mission, relations of both countries started deteriorating soon. Turkish stances towards Iraq War, together with bad communication by political elites of both countries lead to colder bilateral relations. Turkish approach towards foreign policy in the region is one of the leading factors for the quality of relations. During the past decade, Turkey tried "zero-problem" policy with its neighbors, which was not always feasible and led to little success. With Barack Obama taking the office the relations started...

The work deals with the geopolitical evaluation of the development in Latin America through local geopolitical production of Spanish-speaking countries. The aim is to draw attention to the missing voice of Latin America in the global arena at the beginning of the 21st century. The thesis focuses firstly on the formulation of examined hypotheses and the definition of the studied area, and clarifies basic concepts and definitions. After the theoretical introduction and familiarization with the key concepts, the thesis moves into the area of Latin America where the thesis introduces the geopolitical development from both theoretical and practical point of view. The thesis aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current geopolitical dynamics of the region. According to the established hypothesis, it aspires to either refute or confirm whether Latin America is able to deal with several internal problems and establish itself in the international system at the beginning of the millennium.