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Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules, a free history course on Tomo

Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules

Like Duolingo, but for Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through The Logic of Nations and Power in Motion. It starts from scratch.

12 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Gus the Globe-trotter, the guide who teaches the Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules course
Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules
with Gus the Globe-trotter
12
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules

  • National interests like resources and territory outweigh personal friendships
  • Economic strength is a form of security because it funds defense
  • Alliances are tools for specific goals, not emotional bonds
  • States view every interaction through the lens of survival and vulnerability
  • A nation's geographic and economic needs remain constant even when leaders change
  • Non-military agreements are often strategic moves to prevent future conflict
  • Nations prioritize long-term strategic needs over personal rapport between leaders
  • Security is the foundational motivation for all state behavior
  • International law only works if countries choose to follow it
  • Leaders must prioritize the 'selectorate' or power base that keeps them in office
  • There is no global police force with the power to arrest a sovereign nation
  • Foreign policy is often used as a tool to maintain domestic popularity
  • Self-help is the default mode for countries in an ungoverned system
  • A leader who ignores domestic needs risks being overthrown or voted out, regardless of international praise
  • The concept of international anarchy and the lack of a global enforcer
  • Domestic political survival dictates foreign policy choices
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

The Cold Logic of States

Why might a country view a new trade deal as a 'security' move rather than just a way to make money?

Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.

Course map

Where Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules takes you

Understand why nations behave the way they do by looking at the map. Learn to see the world as a high-stakes game of chess where geography dictates the moves.

  1. 1

    The Logic of Nations

    • Seeing the World Through Interests
    • Geography as Destiny
  2. 2

    Power in Motion

    • The Tools of Influence
    • Chokepoints and Lifelines

2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Professor

Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Start free

Start Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules today.

Download Tomo, search Geopolitics: The World's Hidden Rules, and play your first lesson in under a minute.