Geopolitics, from Greek Γη (earth) and Πολιτική (politics) in broad terms, is a theory that describes the relation between politics and territory whether on local or international scale.

It comprises the art and practice of analysing, proscribing, forecasting, and the using of political power over a given territory. Specifically, is a method of foreign policy analysis, which seeks to understand, explain and predict international political behaviour primarily in terms of geographical variables. Those geographical variables generally are: geographic location of the country or countries in question, size of the countries involved, climate of the region the countries are in, topography of the region, demography, natural resources available in the territory, technological development. Traditionally, the term has applied primarily to the impact of geography on politics (and likewise), but its usage has evolved over the past century to encompass wider connotations.

In the abstract, geopolitics traditionally indicates the links and causal relationships between political power and geographic space; in concrete terms it is often seen as a body of thought assaying specific strategic prescriptions based on the relative importance of land power and sea power in world history. The geopolitical tradition had some consistent concerns, like the geopolitical correlates of power in world politics, the identification of international core areas, and the relationships between naval and terrestrial capabilities.

Stephen William Van Evera (born 10 November 1948) is a professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in International Relations. His research includes the U.S. foreign and national security policy and causes and prevention of war. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Van Evera received his A.B. in government from Harvard and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. During the 1980s he was managing editor of the journal International Security.

Van Evera is the author of Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Cornell, 1999). He has also co edited Nuclear Diplomacy and Crisis Management (1990), Soviet Military Policy (1989), and The Star Wars Controversy (1986).

Van Evera is considered a defensive realist, which is a branch of structural realism.

In Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict, Van Evera proposed Offense-Defense theory, which attempts to discern what factors increase the likelihood of war. Van Evera states three main hypotheses: 1. War will be more common in periods when conquest is easy, or is believed easy, than in other periods. 2. States that have, or believe they have, large offensive opportunities or defensive vulnerabilities will initiate and fight more wars than other states. 3. Actual examples of true imbalances are rare and explain only a moderate amount of history. However, false perceptions of these factors are common and thus explain a great deal of history.

Gwynne Dyer, OC (born April 17, 1943) is a London-based independent Canadian journalist, syndicated columnist and military historian.

Dyer was born in St. John's, Newfoundland and joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve at the age of sixteen. While still in the naval reserve, he obtained a BA in History from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1963; an MA in Military History from Rice University, Houston, Texas, in 1966; and a PhD in Military and Middle Eastern History at King's College London in 1973. Dyer served in the Canadian, American, and British naval reserves. He was employed as a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 1973-77. In 1973 he began writing articles for leading London newspapers on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and soon decided to abandon academic life for a full-time career in journalism. In 2010, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Ian Bremmer (born November 12, 1969) is an American political scientist specializing in US foreign policy, states in transition, and global political risk. He is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm, and a professor at Columbia University. Eurasia Group provides financial, corporate, and government clients with information and insight on how political developments move markets. Bremmer is of Armenian and German descent.

Bremmer has authored/published eight books, including the national bestsellers Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World (Portfolio, May 2012), which details risks and opportunities in a world without global leadership, and The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations (Portfolio, May 2010), which describes the global phenomenon of state capitalism and its implications for economics and politics. He also wrote The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall (Simon & Schuster, 2006), selected by The Economist as one of the best books of 2006.

Michael T. Klare is a Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, whose department is located at Hampshire College, defense correspondent of The Nation magazine, and author of Resource Wars and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan). Klare also teaches at Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Klare also serves on the boards of directors of Human Rights Watch, and the Arms Control Association. He is a regular contributor to many publications including The Nation, TomDispatch, Mother Jones, and is a frequent columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. He also was the narrator of the movie, Blood and Oil which was produced by the Media Education Foundation.

He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

In November 2005, Klare alleged that a major factor motivating the George W. Bush administration to attack Iraq would be its desire to distract attention from domestic political difficulties and to increase popularity for the President. US popular support for Bush increased by about 10% when the US invaded Iraq in 2003 and only dropped back to its previous level several months later.