What are some reliable sources to understand geo politics

[itachi uchiha]

Do u know any website or channel  about  goepolitics which is unbiased or close to being unbiased , which has least amount propaganda.

[TheAlchemist]

https://youtube.com/c/CaspianReport

Usually very well balanced and nuanced analysis. Love this channel

[Tanz]

 Anand Giridharadas points out how wealthy people f things up

Second Thought makes some good content on various topics

 

[BlueOak]

Let's lay a foundation here:
 

The above is not everything, that would be impossible but its worth 15 minutes of your time.

WW1 and WW2

I would say there is not a more comprehensive look at the WW1 and WW2 period than this.

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheGreatWarSeries/playlists

https://www.youtube.com/c/WorldWarTwo/playlists

Which even goes week by week if you want everything from the period, as the people saw it at the time. You can only understand geopolitics if you understand how it all came about and this helps remove/filter modern day bias because you have the history to reference. It has been suggested these are both one period in history, and the more you learn of it the more you can understand that. Like any huge event it shapes everything.

Beyond that for historical, geographical or political I think you are best picking a region to learn about its more indepth history. 

For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eArjf9OzZE

Very generalized European Parties Explained. Some centrist bias but not much.

Light hearted Look at geography:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmmPgObSUPw1HL2lq6H4ffA

Probably will rub some the wrong way but he treats everyone the same from what I can see. 

As a personal example, here it will show you how certain areas of england were romanized but the scottish areas were not, which begins the start of the divide in the UK still lingering here today. Then you can see the many cultures that made up the UK from the start and part of why it developed its view toward culture or foreign nations that it did. You can also seen the beginning of the troubles, between england and ireland, which had many violent episodes even when I was growing up in the 80's. You can see why England doesn't like european hegemony for example by its history, and many wars with france, which were part of the roots behind brexit and never really understood (because few understand the collective psyche of a country or where it came from).
 

The only way to really understand a region and why something exists is to go into its history like this, so pick a region you are interested in and do some research. The videos out there these days can be very short and a fun summary, or very detailed with heavy material.

Edited January 19, 2022 by BlueOak

[itachi uchiha]

@BlueOak @Tanz @TheAlchemist  is reading geo politics on redddit good?. is reddit a good source. of course everything has propoganda and i need to weed out the propoganda. a friend of mine said  reddit is the best place for learning geopolitics

[TheAlchemist]

@itachi uchiha r/geopolitics seems quite solid. Definitely those discussions are on a whole other level of nuance and holism than typical political discussion we see in social media. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by TheAlchemist

[Blackhawk]

On 2022-01-16 at 10:44 AM, TheAlchemist said:

https://youtube.com/c/CaspianReport

Usually very well balanced and nuanced analysis. Love this channel

Their most recent video "Sweden and Finland consider NATO membership" has a few errors and is a bit too pro-Russia.

Their claim: our neutrality saved us from WW2. Truth: Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, USA, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, San Marino, Monaco, Romania, Yugoslavia, Iran, and to relation of WW2: Czechoslovakia, China, and Albania were all neutral countries during WW2 but got invaded anyway.

The reasons why Sweden didn't get invaded was because there was no big reason to invade it, luck, and because we broke our neutrality by helping Hitler.

Their claim: Nato is pushing against Russia. Truth: no it's not. Look at this map, Russia is orange, Nato is green (I wrote the arrows to show where Russia has a border to Nato): 

Their claim: Sweden and Finland joining Nato would jeopardize the safety of Russia. Truth: no it would not. Nato is a defensive alliance against offensive attacks against the Nato-members. It's only for the protection of the member states, self-defense. Sweden and Finland joining Nato would only mean that it gets more difficult for Russia to do their hostile illegal offensive things: invade other countries.

Their claim: Sweden never significantly cut their spending on military after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Truth: Sweden got rid of their military almost entirely.

And any serious good analyzis comes to the conclusion that Sweden and Finland should join Nato. So why didn't they draw that conclusion?

Edited January 19, 2022 by Blackhawk

[Ulax]

If you're wanting to be serious about it, I'd try and get hold of a university's reading list, and start reading academic journals.

[TheAlchemist]

47 minutes ago, Blackhawk said:

Their most recent video "Sweden and Finland consider NATO membership" has a few errors and is a bit too pro-Russia.

Yes, it's not flawless by any means, but generally I think the video provides a nice overview (CaspianReport). There will always be people who feel the analysis is not balanced. Especially in cases where there is some clear personal involvement with one of the actors that is being analyzed.

Looking at geopolitical situations like this requires taking a certain type of birds-eye view, which is very difficult to do, when our home countries are involved. For me also in this case that you're talking about, since I am from Finland. 

We should acknowledge that it's especially difficult for us to take the Russian perspective on all this. What matters is not if Russia is somehow objectively being threatened, but whether or not Russia as an entity and the people in power in Russia feel they are being cornered or pressured in some way. Very minor shifts in power can be detrimental in games of geopolitics. We should also be aware that while the media in our countries is not straight out propaganda by any means, it is still biased in subtle ways and feeds into narratives that the population wants to hear, such as a simplistic dichotomy of West=good guys, Russia=bad guys, or victim narratoves about the West (which may or may not be true). It's clear that NATO is also wanting to survive and spread, and it seems Russia feels threatened by that, Russia interprets that countries are being subtly pushed to join NATO. And that NATO is not simply a defence alliance, but also has been getting involved in other countries wars. Which is clearly the case in many ways. 

It would also be an underestimation to think that Russia wouldn't be aware that provocations like this will increase Nato support in Sweden and Finland. The game being played in these situations is very complex, so I don't think we can simply state that joining Nato is the obviously best choice based on some collection of facts, there might be a lot of things in play, for example information that intelligence agencies might hold that isn't public that is affecting the policies regarding that. 

Notice I'm not saying joining NATO would be bad, just trying to point out some complexities regarding this situation. Some different perspectives to consider that might not come intuitively to people like us living next to Russia. 

[Blackhawk]

@TheAlchemist My parents are from Finland. But they moved to Sweden and made me in Sweden. I have swedish-finnish citizenship and I can speak finnish. 

 

The current Russian leadership is a autocracy/dictatorship, and we (west) is democracy.

So, Russia is bad, and west is good.

It's important to not think that both sides are equally bad/good. Because then we have already lost, because then you have lowered yourself down to dictatorship level. Not only physical borders must be defended, also our values and minds must be defended. 

It's kind of wrong to say that "Nato wants to expand". Nato is getting bigger because democratic countries wants security and contribute to defend democracy by joining Nato.

It's not a complex question. It's easy as hell. Sweden and Finland should join Nato. There's no cons with a membership.

[Blackhawk]

@TheAlchemist

"Mr. Putin has flaunted a modernized and more muscular military. But he lacks the economic strength and overall might to openly confront NATO, the European Union or the United States. Instead, he has invested heavily in a program of “weaponized” information, using a variety of means to sow doubt and division. The goal is to weaken cohesion among member states, stir discord in their domestic politics and blunt opposition to Russia."

"Disinformation is regarded as an important aspect of Russian military doctrine, and it is being directed at political debates in target countries with far greater sophistication and volume than in the past.
The flow of misleading and inaccurate stories is so strong that both NATO and the European Union have established special offices to identify and refute disinformation, particularly claims emanating from Russia."

"Wilhelm Unge, a spokesman for the Swedish Security Service, said this year when presenting the agency’s annual report. “We mean everything from internet trolls to propaganda and misinformation spread by media companies like RT and Sputnik,” he said."

“The role of nonmilitary means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown, and, in many cases, they have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness,” Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces, wrote in 2013."

“The data show how public opinion is changing thanks to the disinformation on those outlets,” said Jakub Janda, the think tank’s deputy director for public and political affairs. “They try to look like a regular media outlet even if they have a hidden agenda.”

“If you can persuade a person, you don’t need to kill him.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/29/world/europe/russia-sweden-disinformation.html

Edited January 19, 2022 by Blackhawk

[BlueOak]

8 hours ago, itachi uchiha said:

@BlueOak @Tanz @TheAlchemist  is reading geo politics on redddit good?. is reddit a good source. of course everything has propoganda and i need to weed out the propoganda. a friend of mine said  reddit is the best place for learning geopolitics

I feel the only way to straighten out propoganda is to understand the history of the region and then by definition the history of the powers that have influence in the region. Otherwise what can happen is you'll get swept up in one perspective, someone who will really sound like they know what they are talking about, and perhaps they do, but if you take too much information from one source, it is difficult not to align yourself with that perspective entirely. If you've got the grounding inside of why things are how they are, and why the people involved are doing what they are doing, then you are more grounded to make up your own mind.

Edited January 19, 2022 by BlueOak