The inability of many Western policymakers to understand Iran reveals the limits of geopolitical thinking. Iran was often viewed as a state that could be weakened through military pressure, sanctions, or isolation. Yet these assessments underestimated the power of Iranian cultural identity — a civilizational consciousness rooted in shared history, language, literature, and collective memory. What appeared from the outside as a geopolitical problem was also a geocultural reality.
This raises a broader question: are we trying to understand the twenty-first century with tools better suited to the twentieth?
The 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s were largely geopolitical moments. Major conflicts revolved around states, ideologies, military alliances, and economic systems. Diplomacy, strategic agreements, and political leadership often seemed capable of reshaping history — from Nixon’s opening to China, to the easing of Cold War tensions, to the Oslo Accords.
Today, however, many conflicts resist these methods. Diplomacy remains necessary, but it often cannot reach the deeper forces driving events. Ceasefires are broken, agreements are challenged, and political solutions leave underlying tensions unresolved.
This is because the crisis of our time may be less geopolitical than geocultural.
States, military power, and economic interests still matter. But cultural identity has become an increasingly decisive force shaping political behavior, economic choices, and international relations. The central struggles of the twenty-first century increasingly revolve around identity, belonging, historical memory, culture, and competing visions of the future.
This can be seen in the Middle East, the rise of Donald Trump, Brexit, Hindutva in India, China’s rise, the war in Ukraine, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Political and economic factors are important, but beneath them lie questions of belonging, recognition, memory, status, and collective destiny.
The cultural tectonic plates of the world are moving. Nations and regions increasingly define themselves not only through interests, but through narratives, values, historical experiences, and aspirations.
One consequence is that democracy, as currently practiced in many countries, often struggles to provide a shared cultural horizon. Political systems can organize power, but they do not automatically create meaning, belonging, or collective purpose.
This raises urgent questions: How do cultures evolve? How can different cultures coexist while sharing power and resources? How can historical injustices be addressed in ways that foster reconciliation rather than deepen division?
If culture is becoming central, then some of the most important work ahead may be cultural.
Mexico offers an interesting example. Under Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum, there has been an effort to strengthen national identity by giving greater visibility to Indigenous peoples, recognizing women’s role in public life, and emphasizing social solidarity. Whether one agrees with all aspects of these policies or not, they represent an attempt to redefine Mexican identity by integrating historically marginalized sectors into a broader national story.
Rather than treating culture as a relic of the past, the Mexican experience suggests that culture can be reinterpreted and renewed in ways that connect historical roots with present realities and future aspirations. In many respects, Mexico is attempting to move its culture forward by expanding the definition of who belongs within the national community. Indigenous cultures are not presented as remnants of the past but as living contributors to the nation’s future. Women’s participation is not framed as an external demand but as part of the ongoing evolution of Mexican society. Social programs are often presented not merely as economic measures but as expressions of national solidarity and collective responsibility.
While Mexico seeks to expand the cultural community by including new voices in a common project, many other countries, however, are seeking security by returning to an idealized past. This tension between renewal and restoration may be one of the defining geocultural struggles of our time.
If the twentieth century was shaped largely by geopolitical struggles between states and ideologies, the twenty-first century may be defined by geocultural struggles over identity, belonging, memory, and meaning. The success of societies may depend less on military or economic power alone than on their ability to create inclusive cultural narratives that generate cohesion, purpose, and a shared sense of destiny.
Culture is not secondary. It is one of the primary forces that generates social cohesion, collective direction, and long-term transformation. To understand the emerging world, we must look beyond geopolitics and begin to think geoculturally.
