The effect of geopolitical position on national strategy. A case study: South-east of Iran

A major part of national strategy of the countries is contingent upon their geopolitical position. Each position can have its own geopolitical codes by which a country can take some measurements to make policies and also formulate the strategies. Considering these codes can determine the geopolitical weight of a country in its composite spatial-geographical structure and order and arrangements of geopolitical system underlying the world. Due to their geographical location, United State (USA) and Russia selected land strategy or sea strategy. The lack of consideration of the former Union of Soviet Social Republics (USSR) to geopolitical codes arising from the geographical location caused that during 1957-1979, this country besides bearing heavy costs to penetrate the sea borders was finally collapsed. Thus, considering the geographical position is of great importance in its appropriate formulating of the strategies. Iran is the only single wall country between land and sea powers and due to its geographical location in Rimland margin, it's been into the center of attention of political geography theorists; and in various periods had various roles as passage, borderline and penetration region. The southeast of Iran is one of the important geography locations in Iran as it linked Iran to geopolitical structures of some areas as Indian Ocean, southern and Southeast Asia and high sea. This coastal region is of great importance as it gives Iran the opportunity to select policy making in related sea and land strategic fields. The present study investigated geopolitical position of Iran namely in the southeast region and also it answered the following questions:1- What is the effect of Iran geopolitical position on national strategy of Iran?
2- What are the strategies of geopolitical codes of southeast region in Iran?
The main hypothesis of the study is mostly based on the fact that the taken strategy selected by Iran in south east region was not in accordance with the geopolitical and geo-economic potentials of the region and didn’t have the required effect in national power production of Iran. The present study determined the effect of geographical space and place in formulating strategy which is based on geopolitical views, and as the present study has got a subjective-objective design, the methodology of the study is based on Experientialism school and descriptive-analytic research method. It can be said that geopolitical codes of Iran due to the geographical position of south east of Iran at local, regional and global levels are as followings:•To be a passage way country at international level and linking geostrategic land and sea fields, eastern Asia and geopolitical structures of Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Indian ocean, Caspian sea, APEC and southwest of Asia to each other.
•The investment on navy and also being included in the position of powerful navy countries
•Taking marine strategy and associated economic policy making.
•Absorbing domestic and foreign investments to take out southeast region from geopolitical isolation and development of commercial-industrial free zone infrastructures of Chabahar to improve their geoeconomic position.
Geopolitical opportunities as were mentioned along the strategies based on above codes are including:1- Making Iran as powerful in the field of seafaring and sea and improving the navy power of the country.
2- Chabahar harbor is turned onto an important and international harbor to present various services to international countries in the form of using fuel, repair and maintenance, equipment and construction of different kinds of ships and creation of geopolitical dependency of the countries in the region to these services.
3- Coverage and providing the required system for sea transportation of other countries
4- Making north-south road as active
5- Improving the role of Iran in the regional convergence
6- Changing Iran to a stable passageway country
7- To have the strategic depth and increase the military power and control and supervision role of these coasts to Persian Gulf and also extend it to its opening.
8- The creation of the suitable path to transfer inter-continental energy to the market of south east of Asia and also the reduction of dependency on Persian Gulf.
9- The preparation of the ground to have an access to the countries that are surrounded in land to the high water
10- The construction of international airports for the aim of having access to the various countries
11- The development of Tourism industry
The results of the study showed that the associated authorities didn’t understand the importance of geopolitical codes of southeast of Iran. Maybe, one of the relevant reasons is the weakness of economic infrastructures in the region. It seems that five-year plans in Iran are not executed completely in this field. To avoid geopolitical challenge, Iran should consider south region potentials and capacities after finishing oil reservoir. South east of Iran can be turned into an effective national and regional land and by absorbing foreign investment can be improved to an economic and population developed region. The development of transportation system, advanced technology and economic centralization caused that the deserted areas of this region are also used efficiently. Iran should improve south-north path, south and east roads with the support of energy trading. These approaches in Iran national strategy cause that Iran can be turned into its real position as passageway region linking geostrategic and geopolitical regions and the result is the a move toward specialized convergence and stable development of Iran. Islamic Republic of Iran in its strategic policy making in upstream documents considered its geographical position and regional conditions and in the first stage of its strategy is attempted to achieve the first rank in various fields. What is considered as a weakness is that unfortunately this view is not considered in five-year plans and the geo-economics view to these regions is not considered.