Preface<br > Why should an edilor， labor leader， businessman， or Member of Congress<br > address himself to so arcane and forbidding a subject as "geopolitics"? To<br > many ears， the term connotes the jingoism of a bygone era. Modern man，<br > animated by concerns about racism and human rights， finds it distasteful to<br > contemplate raw politics， seapower， and economic warfare. (How much<br > more pleasant to pacify the jungle of national sovereignties with cultural<br > exchanges and protest marches against breeder reactors.)<br > But even a mild Social Democrat like Helmut Schmidt has warned that we<br > face， in the coming decade， a "struggle for the world product." Already，<br > ignorant gunboats may clash by night over access to fish protein and offshore<br > oil， The age of detente is shading into the era of the resource war， as Soviet<br > policy presumably seeks to seal off mineral-rich Africa from the United<br > States， Japan， and the EEC， And the Strait of Hormuz may involve us in a<br > war sooner--and for more valid reason--than the Panama Canal; for， in this<br > case， geography is energy， energy is economics， economics is security， and<br > security is "geopolitics."<br >i In The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era， Colin S. Gray explo~s the often<br > overlooked relation of geographical setting and physical power to inter-<br > national politics. Through geopolitical analysis， he argues， it is possible to<br > understand trends and historical continuities， and approach the security<br > problems of the West within a global framework. In this context， he<br > examines the roots and dynamic fianctioning of Soviet conflict strategy， and<br > stresses the global policy implications for the United States and its allies of<br > the Soviet military build-up of the 1970s.<br > The current shift of relative power and influence to the Soviet Union is<br > es~cially alarming when viewed in geopolitical perspective. Drawing from<br > concepts contained in the classic literature of geopolitics， Gray concentrates<br >