Political Geography 22 (2003) 43–47 www.politicalgeography.com Terra Incognita: mapping the causes of geopolitical realities Darren Purcell * Florida A&M University, School of Business and Industry, 32307 Tallahassee, FL, USA The terms realms, shatterbelts, and gateways conjure up images of places of fin- ance, trade, and war, dominated by hegemonic powers. This is the vision offered by Dr. Cohen’s paper, one that is intended to shape the decisions of geopolitical actors at the formal and popular geopolitical levels. The title of my response reflects what I see as unknown territory, the creation of maps and text incorporating the conse- quences of US political and economic policy, other views of these efforts, and how we might improve it. Unfortunately, Dr. Cohen’s paper does little to explore this realm while updating his own schema for guiding US foreign policy. While I understand the effort and applaud the desire to shape policies, the maps and the descriptions of new regions and realms leave me unsettled. Much is missing from the maps — the rich description and the reasoned analysis — enough to wonder if the maps and descriptions should not have dragons, sea serpents, and labels such as ‘terra incognita’ on them. This plenary address is a document in search of an audience besides academics; a paper wishing to serve the state, defining trends, and reflecting Dr. Cohen’s own ideologies, which sound somewhat like a Thomas Fried- man op-ed, extolling the virtues of economic exchange, free and open borders, and the hopes that a magnanimous United States will remember that morality, sensitivity, and humanitarian concern should be part and parcel of our foreign policy (Cohen, 1992). I will not debate the accuracy of Dr. Cohen’s description of the situations in the regions he proposes. These are individual assessments of spaces he defines, and given the past work in developing the analytical constructs, it is clear they carry a legacy of disciplinary respect (Cohen, 1963, 1973, 1990, 1991, 1992). In fact, I agree with many of the assessments as defined here, especially if from the US foreign policy establishment’s point of view. The issues highlighted below are more struc- tural in nature, aimed at the effort to map a specific worldview. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: purcelldarren@netscape.net (D. Purcell). 0962-6298/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(02)00068-9