فصلنامه بین المللی ژئوپلیتیک
سال هفدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 63، پاییز 1400)

Intrduction:

Iran and France have different dimensions of geopolitical challenge and are constantly trying to make each other passive and seize opportunities by infiltrating the disputed spaces. The present study tries to address these challenges, which are an obstacle to the advancement of bilateral relations from a geopolitical perspective from 1978 until the signing of the Borjam Agreement in 2015 at the national (Iran and France), regional (Southwest Asia) and global levels

This research is descriptive-analytic in terms of method and is applied in terms of its purpose. Depending on the type of subject matter, data gathering procedure is based on library findings such as books, articles, magazines, newspapers, websites, statistics, and also field findings including questionnaire. The sample size was 100 experts in the fields of political geography and geopolitics, international relations and political science.

3-1- Challenges of Iran-France relations at the national level The first level of variables affecting the bilateral relations between Iran and France should be considered at the national level, especially the national interests, needs and mental privileges of policymakers of the two countries. At this level, change in national needs, the conditions of the internal environment and the mental environment of policy makers can play a decisive role in bilateral orientations and the type of interactions and challenges of relations between the two countries.3-2- Challenges of Iran-France relations at the regional level The Middle East region, and especially the Persian Gulf region, constitutes a level of analysis of the bilateral behaviors of Iran and France, the variables which have been strongly influential in bilateral relations. This region has always been considered by foreign powers and this affects Iran's relations with other countries, including France.3-3- Challenges of Iran-France relations at the global level The most important and challenging issue in Iran-France relations at the global level is Iran-US relations and its coercive policies towards Iran.

Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Iran and France relations have gone through many ups and downs, and due to national, regional and global developments, the emergence of new variables and developments in the Middle East and Iran, it is less common that these relations have stability and trend. Iran has historically had relations with France for hundreds of years, and in many historical periods, the process and nature of reciprocal relations between the two governments have played a key role in shaping Iran's internal developments and regional developments and sometimes global relations. Nevertheless, France's position in the international system, as well as Iran's regional and geopolitical position, along with its many capabilities and capacities in creating regional stability and security, energy security, counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics, have led to have relation with Iran. Iran Always have had a vital place and importance for France

Intrduction:

Over the past 70 years, settlements have been the source of the formation of the geography and space of occupation and the invasion and domination of the territories of the occupied territories of the West Bank of Palestine by the Israeli regime. A large number of settlers with intellectual, political, ethnic, racial, etc. tendencies established communities in the West Bank who come from 100 different countries and speak in 78 different languages and dialects. The settlers, through their material and spiritual functions, have gained an effective presence in the structure of Israeli power and have enhanced its geopolitical weight and play a role as a major player in the domestic and international arena of Israel. The Israeli regime has provided settlers with financial, welfare, and special facilities, as well as freedom of action. The settlers gradually had functions and demands, the fulfillment of which had a negative impact on the security of the Jews living inside Israel. The question arises here is that “is settlement building a spatial trap for Israel?” The findings of the study show that the function of settlement construction since 2000 has not been to ensure the security of the Zionist regime and has weakened the security of the Israeli regime, which can be considered as a spatial trap.

This research is based on descriptive-analytic method and is done by collecting information and reviewing documents.

The settlements in the West Bank are an island with a number of settlers who have been forced to come together without any strangeness in culture, race, nationality, ethnicity. Anti-security functions of settlers in the West Bank, such as the freedom to carry weapons for settlers, and any settler who has completed a basic military training, can obtain the necessary weapons permits. The settlers have freedom of action in all respects, and the Israeli cabinet pays special attention to them, such as: inequality and discrimination, free housing, free education, lucrative business, separate legal regime, enactment of taste laws, unrestricted access to water, freedom of action in building and community development, violent and harassing acts, etc. Having financial facilities, welfare, special facilities and with freedom of action are illegal. Over the past two decades, settlers have had demands and actions that have had a negative impact on the security of Jews living inside Israel. The actions and functions of these settlements (Mafia Network) in political, economic, social, cultural, security and military dimensions has weakened the security of the Israeli.

The process of demands and demands and anti-security measures of the settlers from the last two decades until now have affected the national security of Israel and the Zionist community to such an extent that the Israeli society has doubled the costs of settlement in various areas of its life. The continuation of this process has also left Israel with a suffocating population in the occupied territories, which has had and continues to have dire consequences in the international arena and in international forums against Israel. The dimensions of the consequences affected by the functioning of the settlements have thus overshadowed the national security of the Israeli regime. That the inhabitants of Israel feel themselves victims of the policies of the settlers. The available findings showed that the consequences of these settlements have threatened Israeli security in various dimensions. Which shows that this regime is trapped in a self-made spatial trap called settlements

Chabahar as a deep-sea port is located near the Oman Sea. Chabahar’s location is very important for many countries such as India. India and Iran in 2003 singed the “New Delhi Declaration”. The declaration was about a lot of issues like investment, South-North Corridor and trade. One of the most important issues in this declaration was India and Iran’s plan for developing the Chabahar port. But after two decades, the Chabahar agreement in 2016 was signed and ratified, though after two years the progress has been very slow. In short, despite Iran and India's willingness to develop the Chabahar port, their cooperation in this port has had its ups and downs and has not yet reached a definite end. With this introduction, the question is that, given the delay in the development of Chabahar port, what are the obstacles to cooperation between the two countries, and what are the goals of Iran and India for the development of the Chabahar port and whether the goals of the two countries are overlapped. So, the main question of the paper is that what are the main reasons for delaying India's investment project in Chabahar (from 2003 to 2019) and what is the prospect of cooperation between the two countries in Chabahar port?

By applying a conceptual as well as theoretical framework using the geopolitics and geo-economics literature, the research is mainly based on a descriptive-analytic method. The data gathering procedure is based on library findings and interviews.

From the geo-economic aspect, Iran and India have common goals. Both countries want to use Chabahar port as a commercial and transit hub. India seeks to facilitate its access to central Asia and Afghanistan’s markets and resources, and Iran has been trying to attract FDI and access to more markets. On the other hand, conflicting geopolitical goals seems to be a main hindrance for India and Iran’s cooperation in Chabahar port. Iran is trying to use the port as a tool to confront the US in the region. India as other partner wants to use the port against China and Pakistan. Iran does not want to strain its relation with China and Pakistan, and India has good relation with the US and two countries in some areas have strategic cooperation. From Iran’s aspect, it does not want to use its port against its real friends. For Iran, China and Pakistan are good friends in the South and East Asia and thus wants to develop its relationship with them. In this regard, we cannot see a tangible accomplishment in the near future for both countries in Chabahar port.

If India and Iran don’t change their view of Chabahar from a geopolitical to a geo-economical port, we possibly will not see any progress in their cooperation in Chabahar port in near future. They should use Chabahar as an economic tool to increase economic interactions in Central, South and West Asia. Iran needs to invite other states like South Korea and Japan to invest in the port. And at the end, Iran should increase economic choices for countries that participate in the port like India and Afghanistan

Due to the importance of the capital in the element of political structure of space with its function and political-administrative identity, its developments have an irreplaceable role in the geopolitics of the country and the region. Currently, social capital has become one of the most important and widely used concepts in the field of social studies. Recent economic and sociological research shows that social capital also affects key economic, political, and social variables. The present study examines the relationship between social capital and the level of people's expectations of the authorities. This research is based on Putnam's theory of social capital and the Nina research model. The main issue that we seek to investigate in this study is “what effect the increase in people's expectations of the authorities has on their social capital”. The main hypothesis that we are trying to test in this research is that in the city of Tehran, the more people expect from the authorities, the lower the social capital and their trust in the authorities, which is the most important part of social capital. The statistical population of the research in the present report includes all citizens over 20 years of age who have been selected through random sampling with size-appropriate classification. The statistical population of the study consists of all people over 20 years old living in Tehran, the sample size is estimated 384 people based on Cochran's formula. In this study, we seek to examine the relationship between social capital and the level of people's expectations of the authorities. Increasing expectations will have negative consequences for the country if it is not accompanied by an increase in efficiency or is faster than efficiency. Also, the choice of Tehran as a statistical community is due to the importance and impact that the capital of a country could have. Definitions in the field of social capital are many and varied, while thinkers such as Bourdieu and Coleman focus their approaches on social capital at the level of individuals and families, Putnam examines this concept as a large-scale asset. Bourdieu, for example, emphasizes that social capital is a set of potential or actual resources linked to sustainable network ownership and assets with more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual and mutual acquaintances and awareness. In other words, social capital is formed from social obligations and relationships between members of a group. In the present study, the theoretical framework was selected based on the theories of Putnam and Joseph Nye, which is discussed in detail in the main text of the report. Increasing expectations will have negative consequences for the country if it is not accompanied by an increase in efficiency or is faster than efficiency. This effect is so significant that Alexei Dotokuil points to the rise in expectations of the French Revolution, arguing that the rise in expectations of the French people, although accompanied by a relative increase in welfare, was due to the fact that it was faster than the growth of welfare in society. It led to a revolution in the country. The unreasonable increase of expectations in the society has very bad consequences to the extent that it can question the legitimacy of the system and undermine the people's trust in the authorities. If such a thing happens, even the positive actions of the authorities will not be seen by the people, and other crises will be created, especially the crisis of legitimacy in the society. Expectations are also more concerned with the psychological and mental dimension of human beings, which has a direct effect on it and then can have indirect and practical consequences in society.

Transformation and dynamics in different scientific concepts are one of the main factors in science development. In the meantime, the field of cross-border studies, which is one of the major areas studied in the field of political geography and other related fields such as political science, international relations, etc., is no exception and the movement and dynamics caused introduction of new concepts or highlighting or diminishing of concepts, redefinition etc. in this field of study according to changes and developments. Understanding these changes in the field of frontier studies and in any other field is a matter of scientific necessity, though there are numerous shortcomings and deficiencies in this area. One of the concepts in the field of border studies is the concept of border area. The present study attempts to analyze this important issue as far as possible and to provide more understandable conceptualization and acceptable parameters for the border region.

The present study is applied and the method of study is descriptive-analytic. In the present study, it has been attempted to recognize the concept of boundary zone and to identify and analyze its shaping parameters for future studies. For this purpose, by referring to library data (books, articles and journals related to the subject), the conceptualization of the boundary zone has been investigated and in the second step the parameters affecting the concept of boundary zone have been summarized in 8 dimensions (defense-security, legal-structural, actors, historical, political-sovereign, cultural-social, economic, territorial), and in order to prioritize the criteria and sub- ANP Hierarchical Analysis Model is used.

Border regions are one of the strategic points of each country, with increasing emphasis on the interplay between actors and geographical linkages. Since there is no single definition of border area and most people confuse the concept of border area with the border line, the first step of the research is to try to conceptualize the border area correctly. In simple terms, the border area is the immediate geographical space of the border varying extent that is directly affected by the borders. It should be noted that the width of the border areas varies or decreases depending on the condition and performance of the borders and the surrounding environment. In general, however, with the increasing impact of border area through developments in various technologies and the expansion of the field of goods and human mobility increases, because these changes expand direct impacts and geographic spaces across borders.

Conclusions and Suggestions:

From parameters that form the border area from the views and theories related to the border areas, 32 parameters extracted for better understanding and are classified into 8 dimensions. Then, in order to prioritize the effective parameters in forming border areas, ANP method is used. The prioritization results indicated that the defense-security dimension is more important than any other dimension in shaping the border region. The most important parameters of each dimension are as follows: having a natural link with the cross-border in the territorial dimension, low investment in the region (for security reasons, etc.) in the economic dimension, having an ethnic link with the cross-border in the socio-cultural dimension, the influence of communication policy towards the bordering country in the political-sovereignty dimension, with historical links beyond the historical dimension, the interplay of actors, an agreed-upon and legal area of ​​legal-structural dimension, and finally being at the forefront of attack and war later. Defense-security is the most effective parameters in shaping the border region

The events that took place on the eve of World War II in Europe were all a reflection of Nazi Germany's territorial expansionist policies. These were rooted in events after the Weimar Republic and even before World War I. However, the role of a German professor, Karl Haushofer, the prominent geopolitician of the Nazi regime which is also known as the father of German geopolitics (Geopolitik), is remarkable. His action led geopolitics to be recognized as a Nazi science and forgotten after the second world war. This paper aims to answer whether German geopolitics as a Nazi-backed science was responsible for the events leading up to World War II and German territorial expansion? Moreover, to what extent Karl Haushofer influenced Hitler and the policies of the Nazi regime?

The research method is descriptive-analytic, and the research was conducted using a library research method. In this regard, it has been tried to evaluate new references about Haushofer s life and his connection with the Nazis.

Karl Haushofer began teaching geopolitics in the early 1920s; He met Hitler through one of his students, Rudolf Hess. He also regularly visited Hitler and Hess during prison to educate them. In these sessions, Haushofer taught them philosophies of Nietzsche and Marx and military topics presented by Bismarck and Clausewitz as well as political geography of Ratzel and Kjellén, including his own works, like Dai Nihon. He believed that Germany could only stand on her fits by thinking geopolitically. Researchers suggest that Hitler learned about concepts such as territory, borders, living space (Lebensraum) from Haushofer. This can be traced in his book Mein Kamp, which played an essential role in Nazi Germany foreign policy in following years.Haushofer's Lebensraum idea considered a nation's right and duty to provide space and resources for its people. Accordingly, the difference in the rate of population growth would be one of the factors causing friction between the states in international relations, and therefore the task of a strong state is to expand its territory at the expense of occupation of a weak country. Haushofer has also published the Journal for Geopolitics (Zeitschrift für Geopolitik), whose publication after 1933 raised to more than 700,000 copies a year. It is estimated that in particular, it spread the message of the need for new space for the country's territorial expansion for millions of Germans.The main practical result of Haushofer's geopolitics was the 1938 Munich conference. It was the first time that theory had been put into practice; he called the Munich Conference an important day in the history of geopolitics. He played a major role in the anti-Comintern treaty with Japan and also supported the militarization of the Rhineland. He additionally welcomed the Non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany, calling the attack on Poland a "heroic act" and finally played a significant task in the alliance of Berlin and Tokyo.

Haushofer representation has always been evil and exaggerated in the Allied countries. In the United States, for example, Haushofer was considered the mastermind of Nazi Germany, many of whom at the time thought that scientists at his institute were formulating strategies for expanding Nazism. However, according to the documents, despite his influence, Haushofer’s relationship with the Nazis was not always friendly, and in some cases, there were signs of conflict. Contrary to the claim of Life magazine in 1939, Haushofer was not a Nazi scholar, and there was much diversity of viewpoints, including with his emphasis on geographic or spatial relationships—while Hitler, whose racist view of the world formed his geopolitical strategy. Haushofer believed some low-educated Nazi leaders did not even really understand his geopolitical ideas; more importantly, he thought Germany had to support the non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union. Based on Pan-region theory, he believed a separate sphere of influence for Germany and the united states.  The German invasion of the Soviet Union and the declaration of war on the United States were in fact contrary to Haushofer’s ideas. Although the Allies have exaggerated the role of Haushofer in this regard, the Third Reich was not based solely on his ideas, and many other factors were involved.

The findings of this study show that although Haushofer played a notable role in the development of German geopolitics, he was not responsible for the Nazi crimes, as it was examined Haushofer ‘s major impacts and contributions were during the 1930s. Moreover, at least in the final three years of the world war II, he did not collaborate with the Nazis, Haushofer ‘s influence actually stopped following Hess’s flight to Scotland in 1941. So many of the allied narratives have been exaggerated about his role, leading to decades of decline in geopolitics in academia in the following decades. However, Haushofer’s impact on the scientific justification of Nazi Germany’s policies, especially through the radio provided to millions of audiences, on the one hand, and dozens of books and articles dealing with concepts such as the living space needed by Germany, and most importantly educating Hitler on the other hand ultimately transforms Haushofer into a historically controversial figure, with scholars disagreeing on the extent of his responsibility for his Nazi actions.

Transnistria is located between Moldova and Ukraine. After 28 years, the conflict remains unresolved. The region wants to join Russia, and as a result, it can be interpreted as a Russian-Moldovan conflict. On September 2, 1992, Transnistria decided to secede from Moldova. The violent phase of the conflict lasted four months and led to Russia's intervention by the 14th Army. Transnistria's independence has never been recognized internationally. Transnistria is a geopolitical conflict, not an ethnic one. This conflict is called (Frozen). This conflict is a major source of security threats such as organized crime, violation of the rule of law, and illegal immigration. Despite these considerations, the European Union gradually entered the international arena of conflict resolution as a foreign actor. Russia and the European Union are two important players in the Transnistrian conflict resolution process. Since 2003, the will of the EU has been to play an active role in Transnistria conflict resolution, and since 2005 the 5+2 talks have begun. The EU's most important policy in the region is the Eastern Partnership, which is part of the European Neighborhood policy. This means that conflict resolution is driven by indirect tools, and therefore not very successful. All things considered, the question arises as to why, despite the efforts of the EU, the Transnistrian conflict remains frozen and there is no clear prospect to resolve this problem.

The data collection method in this study is qualitative and is based on the documentary method. This research is in line with the theoretical modeling method. In this regard, the theory of regional security complexes Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver has been applied. In terms of the level of analysis, this research is three-level and examines the issue in national, regional, and international dimensions.

The analyzes of regional security complexes takes place during a process that includes the internal dimension of government (includes Transnistria strengths and weaknesses), state's relationship with other governments (includes Transnistria relations with Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine), the connection of the region with its nearby regions ( includes Transnistria relations with European Union), and  The relationship between government and superior powers ( includes Transnistria Relations with Russia). Depending on the pattern of conflict in Transnistria, the type of security complex in it can be called Centralized. This focus can be based on a superior power, a great power, a regional power or an institution. Transnistria is part of a security complex based on a superior power (Russia) and an institution (the European Union). It can be argued that Transnistria is part of Russia's regional security complex and the intricacies of the complex and its intersection with the security complex proposed in the Eastern Partnership do not allow the EU to resolve the conflict.

As Buzan and Weaver rightly point it, security threats are more common among close governments. That is why the European Union intervened in the Transnistrian conflict. At the same time, the issue of Transnistria is affecting Russia's security. Security patterns are interconnected and affect each other. If Moldova has a closer relationship with the European Union, this affects Russia. Russia is gradually losing control of the region and becoming weaker. As a result, Russia resists against this issue. The complexities within the region do not allow the EU to use an effective solution to resolve the conflict. In particular, high levels of corruption in Moldova and Transnistria are hampering EU reform. Russia also has a wide range of software and hardware in the region. So far, Russia's policies have been more successful than those of the European Union