I've been down that road before, and trust me geopolitical theories are a dead end. Nobody can predict anything, and almost everything written is just an elaborate justification for why whatever is happening today was inevitable. It is disappointing to realize but armchair HN comments are the best you can hope for in this area, as they have the advantage of not being as long to read.
That’s a far more sweeping and far less supported statement than the one you’ve been demanding citations for, don’t you think? Besides, unless you’re a peofessional commenting on your field, then you’re matching armchair with armchair, without even the benefit of being able to point to existing theories supporting your view.
Gesturing at a body of academic work will only move the discussion forwards if everyone already likes it from past experiences or trusts it implicitly, which might be true for chemistry but is not so true for polsci!
That’s true, and as a debate it’s not very fertile ground. On the other hand if we all go into this with an eye on sharing perspective rather than changing minds, it could be edifying. I’m pretty skeptical of political science theories, but they can be very compelling even as they lack the rigor of a true science. Moreover, the people who lead us definitely ascribe to these theories and this “science” and understanding their mindset has to have some value.
Besides, even if the conclusions can only have the strength of guesses and inferences, or just demonstrating historical patterns that can have value.
>but they can be very compelling even as they lack the rigor of a true science
That's really the heart of the problem. As any good salesman knows, there are many ways to convince someone that don't involve demonstrating your case, and many of them appear rational. This "scientific rigor" thing isn't just a cultural gatekeeping mechanism, it was built up over a centuries-long slow realization that the natural emotion of being convinced has to do with the truth in only the rarest of cases. The feeling that you're learning something is seriously intoxicating, and it turns out that it is just as prone to leading you astray as any other feeling. Geopolitical theory is always compelling; and it's just as compelling on every side of every argument, to the point where it's clear that it won't actually help you determine which side is right. That's because, along with a few other fields that I won't drag in to this, it is essentially the crystalized art of activating the human feeling of being compelled.
That’s a far more sweeping and far less supported statement than the one you’ve been demanding citations for, don’t you think? Besides, unless you’re a peofessional commenting on your field, then you’re matching armchair with armchair, without even the benefit of being able to point to existing theories supporting your view.