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The Geostrategy of France(1648-2009)

The location of France is both adjacent to land and sea, therefore France¡¦s geopolitical expansion could follow two directions of land and sea. Regarding sea expansion path, France established colonies in North America and West Indies by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, across the Mediterranean France could expand her geopolitical influence to North Africa, Middle East, Rea Sea, India Ocean and the South China Sea. France also established colonies in Africa, India and Indochina. Regarding land expansion path, North European plain is best way for conquer European continent. The ideal scenario for France is expanding sea power and land power altogether by suppressing main competitors. However, France¡¦s foreign policy needs to be considered with international system and European geopolitics. The geostrategy of France evolved under such historical context.
This dissertation applies classical geopolitical approach, includes concepts of geography, geopolitics and geostrategy, to depict the changes of France¡¦s geopolitics and geostrategy for a long time. The study¡¦s deductive logic accords with following points. First of all, location of France constructed her proto-type geostrategy as well as dual expansion by sea and land; secondly, in the situation that other European powers formed anti-France alliance, France practiced and revised her targets of geostrategy; thirdly, revisiting geopolitical meaning of France¡¦s revised geostrategy, the study tries to find out geopolitical change and unchanged; finally, the study clarifies key effect factors through historical facts of evolution of France¡¦s geostrategy.
In sum, this dissertation concludes the geostrategy of France as following: (1) France¡¦s territory is the base of expansion by land and sea; it¡¦s also the condition restricting French sea power. In other words, the location of France constructs her geostrategy pro and con; (2) France practices policy of ¡§balance of power¡¨, preventing from new state building nearby area, and being the balancer of big powers; (3) After French revolution, geopolitics, not ideology, is still the main consideration of France¡¦s foreign policy; (4) Germany unification impacts French geopolitics, suppressing Germany is key geostrategy of France until now; (5) Controlling whole world without European empire is the attribute of European geopolitics.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0204110-080927
Date04 February 2010
CreatorsLee, Cheng-Hung
ContributorsWen-cheng Lin, Jia-hsi Weng, Marion Chyun-yang Wang, Tung-chieh Tsai, Hsin-chih Chen, I-jen Tseng
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0204110-080927
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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