The Role of Leadership Analysis in Geopolitics

One of the strengths of geopolitical analysis is the ability to move above the fray of current politics. As a tool of assessment, geopolitics often works best in assessing strategic balances, drivers, and constraints. But while nations are often the discussed unit of action, reality requires us to understand and input the role of decision-makers, organizations, and institutions into the calculations, particularly in shorter time frames or narrower geographic scopes. In this more focused approach, we can consider two simultaneous ideas - “objective” geopolitics, and perspective geopolitics. Actions will be driven more often not by what is, but by what is perceived. The results, however, are much more influenced by what is, than by what one wishes. In this episode of the Applied Geopolitics podcast, Rodger Baker, the director of the Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE, speaks with Dr. Kenneth Dekleva about the difference between “objective” and perspective geopolitics, and the real world implications of these two ideas.

Dr. Kenneth Dekleva is a practicing psychiatrist and Senior Fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US-China Relations. From 2002 to 2016, he served as a senior U.S. diplomat and regional medical officer/psychiatrist with the U.S. Department of State, mostly overseas, but also in a leadership role (from 2013 to 2015) as director of the U.S. State Department’s worldwide diplomatic mental health program, providing mental health support to 60,000 U.S. diplomats and family members based overseas and in the United States. He has published widely in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, The Hill, The Cipher Brief, 38 North and The Diplomat, and has given numerous presentations in academic, private sector, and U.S. government settings in the field of leadership analysis, including profiles of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. He has also given media interviews to CNN, National Public Radio, Intelligence Matters, and Background Briefing.