# Three Images of Planetary Politics

Frédéric Ramel

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Frédéric Ramel. Three Images of Planetary Politics. Global Studies Quarterly, 2025, 5 (3), 12 p. 10.1093/isagsq/ksaf069. hal-05232694

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Three Images of Planetary Politics

FRÉDÉRIC RAMEL

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Sciences Po Paris, CEROI, GRAM

Three images may help to understand planetary politics. The first refers to a *Nomos of the Earth* defined as a conquest of lands between States. With the *Gaia Hypothesis*, the second image associates the Earth to a composite entity in the Anthropocene, where conflicts and even a new kind of “war” appear between humans and natural elements. The third, the *Spirit of the Earth*, defines the planetary as a cosmic star embedded in evolution, where a gradual awareness of the links between humans and the living world is growing. The aim of this paper is to clarify them and to identify their consequences for defining politics. The first tends to confuse war and politics. The second conceives politics in latent state of war even though it suggests a climatic regime that relies on composition between a plurality of actors and also the living. As for the third, it entails a revolution that aimed at a broad decentering of International relations. These three images not only help to refine what we mean by planetary, but also to show that planetary politics is not uniform, and that it can give rise to a plurality of forms of war and conceptions of politics.

Existen tres imágenes que pueden ayudar a comprender la política planetaria. La primera se refiere a un Nomos de la Tierra definido como una conquista de tierras entre Estados. La segunda imagen tiene que ver con la Hipótesis Gaia y asocia la Tierra a una entidad compuesta en el Antropoceno donde aparecen conflictos e incluso un nuevo tipo de «guerra» entre los humanos y los elementos naturales. La tercera imagen, el Espíritu de la Tierra, define al planeta como una estrella cósmica en plena evolución, donde la conciencia de los vínculos que unen a los humanos con el mundo viviente va creciendo progresivamente. El objetivo de este artículo es clarificar estas imágenes e identificar sus consecuencias para la definición de políticas. La primera tiende a confundir guerra y política. La segunda concibe la política en estado latente de guerra, aunque sugiere un régimen climático que se apoya en la composición entre una pluralidad de actores y también entre los seres vivos. En cuanto a la tercera, esta imagen supone una revolución que apunta a un amplio descentramiento de las relaciones internacionales. Estas tres imágenes no solo ayudan a refinar lo que entendemos por planetario, sino que también ayudan a demostrar que la política planetaria no es uniforme y que puede dar lugar a una pluralidad de formas de guerra y de concepciones de la política.

Pour comprendre la politique planétaire, on peut employer trois images. La première se rapporte au Nomos de la Terre défini comme une conquête des terres qui oppose les États. Avec l'hypothèse de Gaïa, la deuxième image associe la Terre à une entité composite dans l'Anthropocène, où des conflits et même un nouveau type de « guerre » apparaissent entre les humains et les éléments naturels. La troisième, l'esprit de la Terre, définit le planétaire comme une étoil cosmique ancrée dans l'évolution, où commence à apparaître une conscience des liens entre les humains et le monde vivant. Cet article vise à clarifier ces images et à identifier leurs conséquences pour la définition de la politique. La première a tendance à confondre la guerre et la politique. La deuxième conçoit la politique dans un état de guerre latent même si elle suggère un régime climatique qui repose sur une composition entre une pluralité d'acteurs et le vivant. Quant à la troisième, elle implique une révolution dont le but était de largement décentrer les relations internationales. Ces trois images nous aident à affiner ce que nous entendons par le « planétaire », mais aussi à montrer que la politique planétaire n'est pas uniforme, et qu'elle peut déboucher sur un éventail de formes de guerres et de conceptions de la politique.

The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to
build the Earth

(Teilhard de Chardin 1959 [1931], 46)

In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's tale, *The Little Prince*, published in 1943, the young boy explores different planets hosting characters living alone: a lamplighter, a king who gives orders, a vain man who hears nothing but praise, a businessman who counts and owns the stars, an unconditional drinker, and a scientist specialized in astronomy. Then the little Prince discovers Earth, where he learns from the fox the most important message: "You can only see well with your heart." Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's story seems particularly far removed from the reality we see and experience on Earth. In International Relations (IR), the return of great power competition, the rivalry for space conquest involving

private actors, the foreign interference by social networks
and digital tools, Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the
Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023 and the Israeli gov-
ernment's response to this event by violating both the le-
gal framework governing armed conflict and the principles
of international humanitarian law, all tend to make geopol-
itics the big winner in this nascent third millennium. In
other words, "the overall argument is that world politics is
still underpinned by geography that conditions the ease or
difficulty projecting power, even given the technological in-
novations such as the Internet and aviation" (Corry 2017).
From China's Belt and Road Initiative launched in 2016
to the EU–Japan Partnership on Sustainable Connectivity
and Quality Infrastructure, "weaponized interdependence"
(Farrell and Newman 2019) tends to emerge as a geopoliti-
cization of connectivity (Godehardt and Postel-Vinay
2020).

<footnote>*Corresponding author: Sciences Po Paris, CEROI, GRAM. Email: frederic.ramel@sciencespo.fr</footnote>
All these facts refer to a particular conception of the planetary, which can be described as an image defined by Kenneth Waltz in his preface to the 2001 edition of *Man, the State and War*. For him, an image is “a picture in the mind, it suggests that one views the world in a certain way. (...) To say “image” also suggests that in order to explain international outcomes one has to filter some elements out of one’s view in order to concentrate on the presumably fundamental ones” (Waltz 2008 [1959], xiii–iv).

Looking at the Earth through the prism of one element i.e., the soil the first image depicts the planet as a space of wars between states trying to conquer new lands: the Nomos of the Earth. Two other images appear in parallel. Associating the Earth with a composite entity, the second image emphasizes the entry into the Anthropocene. It is the result of the deterioration of the environmental conditions in which we live. It tends to generate a struggle between man and “nature”: the Gaia hypothesis. The third image, which defines the Earth as a cosmic star shaped by evolution, highlights a gradual awareness of the connections between humans and the living world as a whole: the Spirit or the Sense of the Earth.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of these images. All three are present in the international system, but to different degrees. While the first remains strong, the second is much less so. As for the third, it remains an embryo and could be considered as a moral aspiration. For while the first two images tend to involve “states of war” (no declaration of war or military confrontation), or even wars as such, the third corresponds to a revolution taking place within each one of us.

Each image is introduced by a specific author, whose reflections clarify what they mean and what they imply for planetary politics: Carl Schmitt, Bruno Latour, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Their intellectual significance for the discipline rather than their influence in the international system explains their selection. The first image sees the planetary as a *land* that humans seek to control. The second associates the planetary with an *agent* against which humans enter into conflict. The third defines the planetary as a *mi-lieu* in which life and, more broadly, the evolution of living organisms, of which humanity is only one component, is possible. Since the Second World War, IR has largely been shaped by modern state power politics. Seeking to control a territory, these states are the famous Hobbesian gladiators. The first image extends this reasoning by applying it to the planetary. Territory rhymes with land to be conquered, just like the emerging “climatic Leviathans.” The latter are implicitly attached to the Nomos, deferring their adaptation in order to retain a short-term advantage (China and carbon neutrality in 2060) or pursuing their logic of maximum ecological footprint (Russia and grain farming in areas previously unsuitable for cultivation for climatic reasons), while at the same time (Russia) or preparing (China) to wage a high-intensity war in the modern format. Although more sparse in the academic literature, the other two images offer different perspectives on the Earth’s Nomos. They call for a shift in emphasis in the way we think about the planetary in IR. The second image identifies a different type of war between Gaia and humans, underlining the fact that modern warfare can no longer avoid the climatic conditions in which forces are deployed. The third image offers a sensitive perspective that nuances the idea of humanity alone in the world. It enriches the way we think about the planet's habitability.

This paper is divided into five parts. After describing the conceptual tool of images for dealing with the planetary (1), I describe the peculiarities of the Nomos of the Earth (2), the Gaia hypothesis (3), and the Spirit of the Earth (4). This third image can be considered as the beginnings of a revolution, since it intends to redefine our way of thinking about the human being in the evolution of the universe (5).

## “Images” as a Tool for Typology in IR

Planet studies have been primarily the domain of the physical and astrophysical sciences devoted to stellar bodies, rather than the social sciences or humanities. With the calls for the constitution of an Earth Council within the United Nations itself (Global Governance Forum 2024) or the manifesto “Planet Politics” published by *Millennium, Journal of International Studies* in 2016 (Burke et al. 2016), the planetary is increasingly investing IR. It presents several particularities, including a pronounced focus on climate and security issues in IR, and a controversy over the nature of politics on this scale. While a number of International Studies Association roundtables and panels organized during the annual congresses have highlighted the need to explore this notion in greater depth, and if possible over a longer timeframe as the roundtable dedicated to “planetary politics” in 2024 for an example during the Annual convention at San Francisco, there is no research in IR theory providing a typology of approaches that explicitly or implicitly claim to be planetary.

In this first section, I propose to see how the image as a tool in Waltz’s thought remains useful for explaining the relationship to the planetary. In *Man, the State and War* (Waltz 1959), Waltz proposes to group all approaches to war around three images: human nature, the nature of states, and the nature of the international system. Each of these images corresponds to a level of analysis focusing on a specific dimension of IR (Kaplan 1957; Singer 1960; Buzan 1995). This level of analysis is ontological. It makes it possible to isolate a segment of reality to be observed. It is also epistemological, since it corresponds to an explanatory factor for international practices. In *Theory of International Politics*, published in 1979, Waltz took up this typology but emphasized the third level of analysis in order to develop his famous structural-realist theory.

Between 1959 and 1979, Waltz seems to have moved from the “combination” of images “for an accurate understanding” of world politics (Waltz 1959: 14), to their hierarchization; the third becoming more central to the analysis. However, this movement needs to be qualified. First of all, the status of these images corresponds above all to ideal-types: “they are simplified world-pictures that portray particular perspectives on politics. They do not correspond to the world and are not confirmed or disconfirmed on a case-by-case basis. Instead, they clarify causal dynamics that should be treated as always present, and that, in the third image, define the international as such, even if these dynamics are sometimes invisible in our empirically messy reality” (LaRoche and Pratt 2017, 163). Moreover, each of these images is not enough on its own to explain all international phenomena. The explanatory function of the third image applies only to the war between the great powers. Waltz does not extend it to world politics as a whole: “While isolating the third image is necessary for understanding the persistence of war, it is not sufficient to understand world politics. The third image may inadequately explain outcomes
that require the “help” of the other images: “images differ
from levels of analysis that empirically separate world pol-
itics into domestic and systemic levels and seek the causes
of war in one or the other. Images clarify a unique set of
causal relationships, and can be compared heuristically to
explain world political situations—as Waltz did in his empir-
ical work—but do not alone explain world politics.” (Ibid,
165).

Waltz is not interested in the planetary as such. Never-
theless, using the notion of image to think about the plan-
etary offers some stimulating avenues. The aim is not to
add a fourth image, that of the planetary, to the three ex-
isting images. Nor is it to enrich the levels of analysis with
an additional level, as other authors have proposed with a
bureaucratic level (Jervis 1976) or a regional level (Buzan
and Weaver 2003). Using the notion of image does not also
help to construct a theory of planetary politics based on iso-
lated or even hierarchical variables. The aim is more mod-
est in the sense that it seeks only to identify ways of grasp-
ing the planetary from different angles. On the one hand,
the term “image” applied to the planetary makes it possi-
ble to identify a plurality of ideal types associated with it.
In other words, there is not just one representation of the
planetary, but at least three. Furthermore, each of these im-
ages emphasizes a particular way of illuminating the plane-
tary, and therefore offers some access to relevant realms of
activity. The first image focuses on the elements, primarily
land and sea, on *Earth* with a view to conquering and ex-
ploiting them for the purposes of power and domination.
The second image highlights an emerging relationship be-
tween humans and the rest of the living world which, in the
Anthropocene, is leading to a new form of war *with Earth*.
The third image places the planetary in the context of the
long history of biology, while expressing hope and aspira-
tion that contribute to the emergence of a sense *of Earth*.
These images are not mutually exclusive. Actors such as gov-
ernments, companies, NGOs, and other civil society players
can fall into either of these approaches. Each one offers
a point of view on the planetary and a way of looking at
planetary politics from their perspectives. The first image
confuses war with politics, emphasizing military power rela-
tions between states. The second image emphasizes a new
“state of war” that calls for a new political composition. The
third image aims to integrate a sensitive element into poli-
tics.

Using Waltz—a realist theorist—may raise questions or
even provoke reservations in this context. However, the aim
is less to return to *Theory of International Politics*—the breviation
of structural realism—than to *Man, the State and War*, i.e., a
philosophical introduction to the explanation of war. While
his typology does not constitute a heuristic breakthrough
and clearly follows in Max Weber’s footsteps, its originality
lies in the use of these three images as a resource for IR
scholars. The way he introduces images and derives guide-
lines for his thinking provide an interesting path here for
two main reasons. First, his foundational gesture simplifies
IR analyses by organizing it around three central phenom-
ena. For Waltz, they served as tools to conceptualize war;
in the present context, the three images I propose engage
with the planetary condition. Second, he retraces the in-
tellectual construction of these images through key philo-
sophical sources. He draws upon Saint Augustine and Freud
for the first image, liberal theorists—especially Kant—for
the second, and primarily Rousseau and, of course, Hobbes
for the third. In short, his argument on the origins of war
is fundamentally rooted in philosophical inquiry. It should
also be added that the three figures mentioned in this pa-

per (Carl Schmitt, Bruno Latour, and Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin) do not exhaust the ways of approaching each of
the images, just as Waltz mentions several figures for each of
them.

The Planetary Restricted to One Element: *The Nomos of the Earth*

The term “planetary” is rarely used by proponents of this
conception, which focuses on how modernity has shaped
wars: rivalries between states to control territories and re-
sources. This image encompasses all proponents of geopol-
itics, from the return of great power competition (Carter
2016; ) to the revenge of geography (Kaplan 2013). They
propagate a narrow conception of the planetary as a place
of conquest.

Implicitly or explicitly, these interpretations are linked to
the thought of Carl Schmitt (1888–1985). For him, the his-
tory of IR is nothing more than a succession of land grabs.
What he calls the Nomos defines the partition and division
of space according to historical periods. Schmitt takes dis-
tance with the classical definition of nomos as human con-
ventions, preferring instead a reference to the Greek verb
nemein: “to take,” i.e., to seize land, to establish its contours
and boundaries, and to make the most of it. Thus, Nomos
is a constitutive act of a spatial order, a concrete order gen-
erated by the distribution of lands. The taking of land can
occur within an existing order, or it can shatter the previ-
ous order by introducing a new nomos. This is what Schmitt
openly denounces in the interwar period, and even more so
after 1945 with the emergence of the League of Nations and
the United Nations, which outlawed the use of war between
states, even though it was an instrument he considered nec-
essary to preserve their existence (Schmitt 2001). On the
one hand, this conception is rooted in Christian theology:
“Man continues to be, as the Bible says, a son of the Earth.
He remains bound to his earthly nature, that is, to his prison
of clay” (Schmitt 2007 [1951]: 220–1). On the other hand,
this conception focuses on one element rather than on the
planet per se. Schmitt contrasts land and sea. The former
is fertile, produced by human labor, and accommodates the
human-defined order of walls, hedges, and fences. It is mea-
sure and order. The sea, on the other hand, is free. While it
sees peaceful fishermen gathering its resources, it also and
above all produced plunder, piracy, and naval warfare be-
cause it has no rules. First come, first served. No walls, no
barriers. No measures, no order: “on the sea, there is no
law” (Schmitt 2001 [1950], 71). Schmitt hates the oceans.
Referring to St. John’s Apocalypse, he points out that the
new Earth, washed clean of its sins, would not even have a
sea on it.

Here, Schmitt does more than skin the planet. He denies
one of its singularities: water, or the familiar image of the
blue planet. He limits the planetary to the element “Earth,”
defined as a constraint. Far from nourishing hope, this con-
ception leads to the repetition of a closed morality, based on
the preservation of concrete orders, those of States. These
orders rely on a suprapersonal decisionism, which expresses
“the will of a people to inhabit a territory and give order to
its own collective life” (Schmitt 1995, 55). For Schmitt, the
Earth is not linked to biology or the idea of evolution. The
German jurist limits the Earth to one of the four geophysical
elements. It is not the nest in which living beings grow and
develop, but a space as an object of appropriation.

There are two differences between this image and realist
approaches in IR. First, Schmitt proposes an essentialist def-
ition of politics through his famous assertion that politics
as an independent sphere of activity rhymes with the desig-
nation of enemies, or more precisely “the discrimination of
the friend and the enemy” (Schmitt 1992, 64). This confla-
tion of politics and war was widely criticized by Hans Mor-
genthau, one of the fathers of classical realism, for its reduc-
tive and even psychological nature. In *La notion de politique et
la théorie des différends internationaux* published in French in
1933, Morgenthau criticizes the lack of evidence in Schmit-
tian reasoning. He considers that friend and enemy are cat-
egories found in spheres other than politics. And politics
cannot be restricted to war (Baume 2013). Second, the re-
alists insist in one way or another on peace through force,
in other words, a direction to follow to establish a regulation
of political conducts. Fueled by a exceptionalist decisionism,
Schmitt is more than skeptical of a peace based on the bal-
ance of power, in the sense that any state, from the moment
it feels its very existence is threatened, can resort to force,
i.e., beyond the equilibrium mechanism as such.

At first glance, the Nomos of Earth still seems to reflect
the current reality. According to the data from the SIPRI
Yearbook (2024), defense spending remains at high levels
and have increased for the ninth consecutive year, topping
USD 2,400 billion (SIPRI 2024). Similar to the situation in
the early 1980s, when both blocs were hardening during the
Cold War, these levels and trends are not affected by exter-
nal events such as the 2008 financial crisis or the Covid-19
pandemic. Such budgets reveal the robustness of the secu-
rity dilemma between States: increasing military capabilities
is both a guarantee of security for them and a source of in-
security for their neighbors. They also sustain technological
innovation to enhance their strategic capabilities (Waslekar
2022). The robotics market is exploding with the arrival
of new producers such as Turkey (third in the sector after
China and the USA) and Iran. Transhumanist research on
the “augmented soldier” expands the possibilities of combat
sophistication by adding prostheses or tools (exoskeletons,
ultra-connected lenses, and wall-mounted displacement sys-
tems), ingesting drugs, or even modifying cellular and ge-
netic structure (an ethically more restricted field, depend-
ing on the political regime). This technological dynamic
creates a kind of vertigo, as the acceleration at work in mod-
ern society only amplifies it (Deudney 2018).

In addition to expenditure, there have been changes
in conflict situations, particularly with regard to common
spaces. Accessible to all but owned by none, these spaces are
characterized by their key function in managing flows: in-
ternational airspace (circulation of people and high value-
added goods), the high seas (circulation of low-cost com-
mercial goods), outer space (circulation of information),
and cyberspace (indispensable for connections in modern
digital economies). Until the beginning of the twenty-first
century, the USA had a monopoly on these spaces (Posen
2003). This is no longer the case. The major emerging pow-
ers are challenging this primacy, seeking to extend their
freedom of navigation in these spaces, or even to take over
part of them directly: China's maritime claims in Asia; the
anti-satellite capacity of Russia, India, and China; the con-
quest of space with the Moon and Mars as targets; and for-
eign interference in cyberspace through the manipulation
of social networks. In these areas, confrontation does not
yet lead to war. Nevertheless, power relations are more and
more salient. A "state of war" is emerging, in the sense that
below the threshold of combat and without a declaration of
war, a militarization of these spaces is becoming apparent,
i.e., their possible use to wage war (Deudney 2020). Exam-

ples include the active militarization of outer space through
the presence of exo-atmospheric ballistic missile defenses
and the strengthening of anti-satellite capabilities with con-
sequences for orbital pollution; or the militarization of the
cyber environment without a declaration of war, with the use
of viruses such as Stuxnet, or fake news, which affects the up-
per layer of cyber (i.e., its societal uses). The doctrines of the
great powers express this extension of the domains of war.
Russia promotes a "new-generation war," while China refers
to three articulated types of warfare (media, psychological,
and legal).

The reducing of the planetary to the soil—the Earth
element—has affinities with Thucydides’ trap. This trap,
which refers to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War be-
tween Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece, emphasizes the
rivalry between two great powers for hegemony, defined
here as material domination of the international system. To-
day, this rivalry involves China and the USA (Allison 2017).
Whether through the direct control of territories, the de-
nial of access to common spaces for enemies, or the temp-
tation to control or even Balkanize part of these common
spaces, the logic of war to expand their power would guide
States. The ambition is to occupy these spaces. It fuels the
tension between res communes (common things that can-
not be appropriated—no one can own them) and res nul-
lius (things that belong to no one, or things without masters,
without owners, but which can nevertheless be appropriated
by private individuals or even collectives). There is a risk of
confusing the two through the uncontrolled appropriation
of resources or simply of a part of these common spaces.

The Nomos of the Earth and Thucydides’ Trap have
their biases. First, they downplay the ecological footprint of
armies, which are growing in size and equipment. Although
awareness is growing in the military sector, it still seems lim-
ited with regard to the environmental damage caused by
the armed forces (Vogler 2024), as well as the accentuated
greenhouse effect caused by the negative externalities of
military budgets. It is in this sense that we should interpret
the words of philosopher Michel Serres when he reflects on
the consequences of war: “Did we know that by fighting we
were hurting the world? We impose our hatred on its peace.
Wounds and hatred that suddenly turn against us” (Serres
2008, 142). Second, they tend to ignore any other type of
conflict that does not have a military dimension. They stick
to a conventional reading of war: a confrontation between
groups, especially states, using violent means. The Nomos of
the Earth speaks to terrestrials (terrestres in French), not to
earthlings (terriens in French). Although stemming from an-
other tradition of thought, the proposals made by the ecol-
ogy of war with the Ukrainian war of 2022 can be placed
in this first image (Charbonnier 2022). It aims to cultivate
sobriety by cutting off European supplies of gas and other
natural resources from Russia. While the ecology of war may
serve as a detonator to free us from certain energy depen-
dencies, its horizon remains ultimately enshrined in a nar-
row conception, both politically and in terms of the imagi-
nary: energy abstinence would only be a weapon of war as
defined by modernity. It is by no means guaranteed that the
second image of the planetary will emancipate itself from
such a reasoning.

The Planetary as a Composite Entity: *The Gaia Hypothesis*

According to Hannah Arendt, human life is inextricably
linked to our planet. This life is undermined by the very ac-
tion of homo faber: “There is no reason to doubt that we are now capable of destroying all organic life on Earth” (Arendt 1958, 34–5). Arendt was thinking of the nuclear weapons and their effects on the Earth. Since then, however, the environmental effects of modern society must also be considered. These are causing an acceleration of the world that is very worrying. This acceleration is not limited to the “Great Acceleration” described in terms of human actions on the climate since 1945 (McNeill and Engelke 2014). It refers to a singularity in history as an experiment on Earth (Rosa 2013, 72). In fact, modern societies find their stabilization in an incessant increase that consists in bringing the world within our reach and facilitating our access to it. Everything goes faster because of technical acceleration especially in the domain of communications, and the rhythms of life. Even in the intimate. This exposes the individual to deceleration, whether experienced (burn-out, unemployment) or chosen (momentary disconnection, life choices outside the modern spiral).

This acceleration is leading to a phenomenon: that of enclosure, or planetary limits (Steffen et al. 2015). Our habitat is finding it increasingly difficult to contain both activities and their environmental impacts. Only three of these limits have not yet been reached: ocean acidification, ozone layer depletion, and atmospheric aerosol concentration (Richardson et al. 2023). Other limits already exceeded include climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling, land use, and chemical pollution.

As early as the 1970s, Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis proposed an understanding of the planet through the prism of humanity's impact on the biosphere. Although he uses the name of a goddess, and thus a personification, Lovelock does not seek to locate a will above us. Gaia corresponds to an “evolutionary system, a system composed on the one hand of all living objects, and on the other of their surface environment—the oceans, the atmosphere and the rocks of the Earth’s crust—the two parts being closely coupled and indissociable” (Quoted in Latour 2015, 175–6). This Gaia hypothesis, later reinvested by Latour (1947–2022), radically distances itself from the idea of the globe, which tends to homogenize phenomena and identify a unity that either already exists or is yet to be constructed. It makes the planetary “a sort of interconnected set of entities—in which each of them makes its own environment—but it’s not a whole” (Latour 2016a, 13).

This image represents a considerable leap forward from the Nomos of the Earth. The Nomos merges with certain characteristics of the global as defined by Chakrabarty (2023), i.e., focused on the control and exploitation of resources. For Latour, there is a confusion between the Globe and the Planetary: “such a Globe is still the undisputed, authoritative, universal, external frame inside which all geopolitical entities—be they empires, nation states, lobbies, networks, international organizations, and diasporas—are situated in a recognizable place a probe side by side with all the other provinces” (Latour 2016b, 307). In the Nomos of the Earth, there are no entities other than human beings organized into groups, and above all, States. The natural environment is merely an object of monopolization in the hands of political leaders. In this second image of the planet, humans interact with other non-human but no less active natural components. Gaia forces us to take a broader view. This hypothesis is not just about exploring the climatic–environmental factors of current or future wars, whether interstate or internationalized intra-state. In fact, current knowledge from various programs, such as the Toronto Project on Environmental Change and Acute Con-

flict led by Thomas Homer-Dixon, the Zurich group around the Environment and Conflicts Project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or PRIO around Otto Gleditsch in Oslo, show that these environmental factors interact with others rather than triggering armed conflict on their own. The Gaïa hypothesis proposes to broaden our understanding of war. It goes beyond Rousseau’s definition in the *Social Contract*: “War is not a relationship between man and man, but between state and state.” For it turns every living being into a strategic actor: “It is a war of all against all, in which the protagonists can now be wolf and lamb, but also tuna and CO2, sea level, plant nodules or algae, in addition to the many factions of humans” (Latour 2015, 294).

Latour thus proceeds to extend the domains of war. He sees non-militarized conflict between Gaia and humans, such as natural disasters, fires, and floods, as expressions of a warlike relationship. According to him, “until now, wars have been fought in a natural setting that was not itself at war with us. And that’s what’s new. [...] The old natural framework [the soil, or the chessboard] is reacting to our actions, and it’s reacting much more quickly than we thought. [...] This is the Anthropocene.” (Latour 2015, 196). The ecological footprint unaware of by strategic players about it lead to new forms of confrontation: “the U.S. sends us its CO2 and we send our CO2 to Africa. (...) This war [...] consists of occupying other countries, invading them with ecological transformations.” (Ibid., 192).

But Latour goes even further, asserting that “War does not mean necessarily blood and weapons, but it does mean the absence of a referee to settle the matter” (Latour 2014, 60). In other words, war is also being waged between humans over recognition of Gaia itself. When there is no common referee between them, a war appears: “you have to define your territory is, what your cosmos is, and answer: on what ground do you want to lie? In which world do you want to live? This is very striking in the climate skepticism question, because there is non common world between the climatosteptics and the climatologists” (Latour 2016a, 19).

Paradoxically, such a leap does not really break out of the previous framework proposed by the Nomos of the Earth. It reproduces an antagonistic scheme on a different level. By exploring the possibility of going “behind the Globe” and finding the Earth, Latour wishes, in the same gesture as Lovelock, to “purge the notion of sovereignty of the odd physics that had been inserted into it in earlier days” (Latour 2016b, 320). Admittedly, he considers that the suffix “geo” as used at COP21 in Paris does not have the same meaning as the ancient Globe that the Europeans themselves invoked to justify their imperial conquests<fnref n="1" />. It denotes an emerging Earth. In the guise of Gaia, however, it seems to me that the symbolism is not compelling enough. On the one hand, it feeds the idea of a personification of Nature, conceived as an enemy endowed with intention, although Lovelock and Latour after him do not fall into this trap. On the other hand, it reinforces the idea that a state of war remains latent between all the components of the biosphere, i.e., the reproduction of a certain Darwinian reading that needs to be corrected, since the experience of cooperation between cells and living beings turns out to be much more decisive for the preservation of evolution than the struggle for survival (Morizot 2016). This second image has nothing to do with the global village that liberals defend or seek to promote. The Gaia hypothesis broadens the conventional con-

<footnote n="1">¹Dipesh Chakrabarty (2023) agrees with this critique of the globe by drawing a strong line between the global and the planetary that focus on the habitability on Earth.</footnote>
ception of warfare between polities by identifying an eco-
logical component in strategic relations between states (in-
tentional or unintentional use of natural elements in com-
bat), but also a war defined in an extensive way between
humans and nature itself. Can the emerging planetary pol-
itics be anything other than a new warlike relationship be-
tween humans on the one hand, and between humans and
Gaïa on the other? Latour has examined the emergence of
a new climatic regime that aims to overcome this extension
of the domains of war, or at least to contain them through
the rise of a broader form of governance. He points out that
“universalism has to be composed” (Latour 2016a, 21). The
term composition is an explicit reference to aesthetics, and
more precisely to concert in which all instrumentalists are
involved with a view to bringing out a common piece of mu-
sic even though there is no conductor at all (Latour 2011).
The experiments carried out at the Théâtre des Amandiers
for preparing COP 21 in Paris in 2025, and “the Art of War
and Diplomacy” at the Tapei Biennial in 2020–2021, are all
explorations of these compositions. They rely on dialog and
cross-fertilization process for developing common responses
to climate change. They do not exclude natural elements.
Recognition of the legal personality of rivers, but also the in-
clusion of representatives of these elements in negotiations,
is a necessary move. Planetary politics is then a matter of in-
volving those concerned “to then compose” (Latour 2015,
332).

Beyond these convergence points, the Latour’s final re-
flections tend to express a profound pessimism about the
possibility of a planetary politics emerging in a spirit of re-
compositing. Rather, it is the spectra of total war that haunts
him, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which
did not, in the end, provoke a sufficient surge of conscious-
ness in his eyes. Calls for people to leave Earth and settle on
Mars seem to him to be blind to the possibility of a new all-
out war: “If I’m so impressed by the anecdote of the deadly
desire for Mars, it’s because I’m forced to take into account
the situation of extreme violence to which the unprepared-
ness of the twentieth century is leading us. The great his-
torian Adam Tooze, in a recent film on the Nazi war econ-
omy, evoked Goebbels’ frightening speech on February 18,
1943, offering the German people the choice between sur-
render and “total war” by asking “do you want a war more
total and more radical than anything you’ve seen so far?”
While everyone knew that this was madness, that the war
was lost, that they were under the bombs, we see the enthu-
siastic crowd applauding the project of this “Totaler Kriege”
(Latour 2021: 6).

Other conceptions of Gaia may differ from the one advo-
cated by Latour. This is the case, for instance, with Haraway,
whose reflection leads to a requalification of the very name
of the geological era—namely, the Anthropocene. Her in-
vitation is the following: Make Kin Not Babies! (Haraway
2015, 2016). It means first and foremost practicing the best
possible care for loved ones, whether human or non-human.
This invitation consists in uniting the various existing en-
ergies to reconstitute refuges. She calls this Chthulogene,
not just Anthropocene. This new term refers to “intense
commitment and collaborative work and play with other
terrans, flourishing for rich multispecies assemblages that
include people will be possible. I am calling all this the
Chthulogene—past, present, and to come. These real and
possible timespaces are not named after SF writer H.P. Love-
craft’s misogynist racial-nightmare monster Cthulhu (note
spelling difference), but rather after the diverse Earth-
wide tentacular powers and forces and collected things with
names like Naga, Gaia, Tangaroa (burst from water-full

Papa), Terra, Haniyasu-hime, Spider Woman, Pachamama,
Oya, Gorgo, Raven, A'akuluujjusi, and many many more.
“My” Chthulogene, even burdened with its problematic
Greek-ish tendrils, entangles myriad temporalities and spa-
tialities, and myriad intra-active entities—inassemblages—
including the more-than-human, other-than-human, inhu-
man, and human-as humus.” (Haraway 2015, 160). Such
a perspective tends to align with the third image, empha-
sizing the existence of an interconnectedness between hu-
mans and non-humans, along with a desire to deepen it.
Moreover, the idea of humanity as humus—a source of all
possibilities—repositions humanity at the heart of the living
world.

The Planetary Shaped by Cosmic Evolution: *The Spirit of the Earth*

This last image links the human person to the planetary in
a process of evolution. The planetary is no longer a geo-
physical element or a composite entity, but the Spirit—or
the Sense—of the Earth. The term noosphere is also used
to describe it (Shoshitaishvili 2021). Coined in the 1920s by
the Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadski and the French
Jesuit, paleontologist, and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin (1881–1955), the noosphere is an evolutionary
layer of thought and reflection added to the biosphere. In
order to depict this Spirit of the Earth, I will focus on the
writings of Teilhard. Although it earned him the wrath of
the papacy in his day, his thought on planetization are as rel-
evant as ever. Several theoretical approaches in IR had been
inspired by his work some decades ago. Having maintained
a correspondence with the first director of UNESCO, Julian
Huxley, and having spent the last part of his life in New
York in close contact with the first officials of the United
Nations in the 1950s, he anticipated the analysis of global-
ization through the circulation of information and the con-
nections between human minds across borders (Camdessus
2006; Meynard 2006; Ronfeldt and Arquilla 2020).

The uniqueness of the noosphere lies in its imprint on the
living. Vernadski was one of the first scientists to describe hu-
manity as a “large-scale geological force” (Vernadski 1945,
9), long before the invention of the Anthropocene (Crutzen
2002). In contrast to the Nomos of the Earth and the Gaia
hypothesis, the Spirit of the Earth proposes a singular read-
ing of the planetary in relation to life on a star as it evolves
in the universe and in the long history. This idea was es-
sentially developed by Teilhard. This thinker is well known
since the debate on globalization and the communication
process in IR. For example, the inventor of the “global vil-
lage,” McLuhan, quotes him nine times in the *The Gutenberg
Galaxy* (1962). Paradoxically, the references to Teilhard are
much less frequent in the current debate dedicated to the
planetary. In their latest book, Jonathan S. Blake and Nils
Gilman refer to the noosphere, emphasizing the differences
between the physical for Vernadski and both physical and
metaphysical for Teilhard approach to this noosphere, and
the idea of progress that informes Teilhard’s view compared
to Latour’s perspective (Blake and Gilman 2024, 78–80, 87,
90–1,176). They also make a connection between the Ver-
nadski’s secular conception of the noosphere and the plan-
etary sapience defined as “the growing scientific knowledge
about the planet and our embeddedness in it” (Ibid, 93).
But they do not refer to the Spirit of the Earth per se. I
propose to go further by returning to the Teilhard’s texts
that deal specifically with the human planetization and the
planetary at large.<fnref n="2" /> This choice resonates with the words used by the Secretary General Kofi Annan during a symposium on Teilhard de Chardin at the United Nations in 2005, “And who can fail to see that, according to his [Teilhard de Chardin] deepest intuition, we are now accountable for the future of the Earth?” (Annan 2005)

This Spirit of the Earth has three aspects.

### A unification of human history through a planetary winding

The planetary corresponds to the convergence of national histories into a single long-term history, that of humanity living on the same cosmic star. Schematically, we can distinguish two main historical periods (Teilhard de Chardin 1996 [1956]). The first is a geographical expansion from Africa to all continents, from the Paleolithic to late modernity (twentieth century): a dilation. The second is a compression that drives human beings to organize themselves socially and politically, but also to become ever more aware of their belonging to different, increasingly interconnected groups, with humanity as the ultimate referent. We are at the center of this compression, which is generating an increase in humanity's self-reflection, that is, a greater awareness of its constituent elements. Let us not delude ourselves. These two stages are not necessarily peaceful. The first period is characterized by territorial conquests, empire-building, and colonial wars. The second generates a sense of suffocation: the feeling of not being able to “breathe” as a State, as a sub-national community, or as an individual, whether to satisfy basic needs or to have one's uniqueness recognized. With the interpenetration of societies (contacts are intensified by communication, both material and virtual) and the increase in population in recent centuries, the human mass is being squeezed in on itself. Faced with this suffocation, people turn in on themselves, as we see today, for example, in populist and nationalist temptations, or in violent protests. Nevertheless, the other two characteristics of the Spirit of the Earth tend to correct these potential excesses.

### A connection between personalization and planetization

Personalization is defined as an increase in the reflexive capacities of humans, accompanied by greater self-expression in their singularity. What we might call the individual's contribution to the evolution of the species. This second particularity refers to the idea that the Spirit of the Earth does not correspond to an ethereal form above our heads that imposes itself on us. It also finds its way into our hearts and means that the coiling process also resonates in the way that every human being feels increasingly connected. Human beings are not only connected to the group to which they belong (community, nation. . .), but also to the planet as a whole.

### A moral imagination that goes beyond mere survival on the planet.

The Spirit of the Earth seeks to move beyond the logic of mere survival and towards positivity: “It is not from a desperate effort to survive, but from a tenacious will to live more, that humanity was born” (Teilhard de Chardin 1962 [1937],

173). It takes the form of a moral imaginary, namely “the way people imagine their social existence, the way they fit in with others, the way things are between them and their fellow human beings, the expectations that are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations” (Taylor 2004, 23). This moral imaginary offers a different way of understanding the world, new geopolitics: “Instead of continuing to oscillate between the obvious need to associate with others in order to continue to live, and the fear of losing oneself if one renounces one’s isolation, one could henceforth devote oneself without ultimate motives to the magnificent work of building the Earth. A true “geopolitics” [a term in quotation marks in the original version] would finally replace the miserable parochial quarrels to which History has been reduced until now” (Teilhard de Chardin 1963 [1937] 66).

## The Spirit of the Earth as an Aspirational Image

In the end, the first two images of the planetary remain tied to a mechanical conception of IR. These would be characterized above all by the reproduction of the identical over time: domination, violence, and war. Behind the third image, however, something else emerges. A revolution. This revolution is above all personal and psychic. Revolution here means return (the physical image of the loop) and evolution (the image of the upward spiral). It is about coming back to ourselves, thinking of ourselves as earthlings and not just terrestrials. Such a process goes beyond the “planetary mind” alluded to by Herz (1959, 317). According to him, when the survival of humanity is at stake, not least because of the nuclearization of the world, the distinction between national interests and internationalist ideas fades away in favor of a broader consciousness. That of being on a common planet. Herz's argument is limited to a strategic component—the existence of weapons of mass destruction—and a political stance adopted by States. Although it illustrates a change in both “beliefs and attitudes” (Sylvest 2010, 235), this “planetary mind” is not viewed in the long term through the prism of evolution, nor does it take into account ordinary individuals as actors in the international system. With the Spirit of the Earth, these individuals are invited to participate in this planetary movement. It means developing a sense of belonging to a much larger world beyond oneself. During the confinements related to Covid-19, this back-to-the-self movement was amplified: from downloading yoga or meditation applications to sharing sounds perceived from the confined living space, such as the “StayHomeSounds” project hosted by the Cities and Memories platform. Listening to the sounds recorded and deposited by more than five hundred people from over fifty countries, one constant emerges: to be more attentive to our needs, to cultivate greater listening skills, to reconnect with the Earth. For example, in proposing a recording entitled “Open Windows,” one of the contributors “refers to both the idea of opening ourselves up to each other and our environment but also humanities last window to create a world that is more harmonious and livable in the face of climate change and environmental destruction” (Law 2022). Let’s be clear. The experience of confinement has accentuated the inequalities between those who can initiate such a movement and those who are constrained by domestic, professional, and parental situations. These inequalities force us to consider the more or less favorable conditions for the emergence of an Earth Sense. We cannot separate the latter from socio-economic contexts and a reflection on social justice.

<footnote n="2">²I will not use other aspects of Teilhard's thought which, incidentally, are a source of controversy, especially transhumanism. I am aware of the stakes involved in referring to him, but I believe it is possible to separate what he says about the planetary with the consequences it induces from the other dimensions of his thought, which must be critically evaluated.</footnote>
This personal revolution can be interpreted as a conver-
sion: converting us to that ultimate belonging, which is not
an abstract humanity, but a humanity made of flesh and
bones on Earth (Teilhard de Chardin 1962 [1931], 47). A
humanity that is not the human race, but the singular indi-
viduals who make it up. A humanity that is not separate from
the living, but is one of its components. This personal revo-
lution invites a resonant relationship with the world. Here,
a possible articulation emerges between the *Spirit of the Earth*
and the way the German sociologist Hartmut Rosa conceives
modes of relating to the world, by activating axes of reso-
nance within modern societies oriented toward the accelera-
tion mentioned above. For him, "resonance means being in
a relationship in which the world speaks to me, touches me,
addresses me—and in which I can respond, become recep-
tive, and *be transformed in and through this interaction*" [original
emphasis] (Rosa 2019, 298). Moreover, this personal revolu-
tion, to some extent, shares affinities with Marcuse's Orphic
spirit that articulates a vision of personal revolution as a re-
configuration of sensibility, where receptivity and resonance
become political acts. This spirit centers on "the singing god
who lives to defeat death and who liberates nature, so that
the constrained and constraining matter releases the beau-
tiful and playful forms of animate and inanimate things"
(Marcuse 1974, 194) <fnref n="3" />.

One way of making this sense of the Earth more effec-
tive is to renew human security. Placed on the international
agenda in the UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report,
human security aims to make personal security a priority.
Breaking with the Westphalian concept of security, which fo-
cuses on States and the strictly military dimension, it diver-
sifies the factors of insecurity by distinguishing seven com-
ponents (economic, food, health, environmental, personal,
community, and political). Despite this list and a consid-
erable diplomatic effort, until the publication of the 2003
report by the Commission on Human Security, co-chaired by
Sadoko Ogata and Amartya Sen, the concept of human
security was distorted and even diverted from its original
orientations. Canada used it to justify its intervention in
Kosovo. The USA used it in its counter-insurgency wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2012, General Assembly resolution
66/290 added paragraph 143 on human security of the 2005
World Summit Outcome Document. It defines human secu-
rity as "the right of people to live in freedom and dignity,
free from poverty and despair" and emphasizes the non-use
of force to achieve it. While the UNDP in 1994 and the Com-
mission in 2003 insisted on a necessary change of diplomatic
method by involving civil society actors in the implemen-
tation of human security, this resolution makes sovereign
States the main pivot in this area. This leaves much room
for interpretation, not to say instrumentalization, by gov-
ernments. To this must be added the criticisms leveled by
the "global South" against a concept that is perceived first
and foremost as a Western-centric project at the root of new
forms of domination over the rest of the world, or without
any implementation at the grassroots levels (Elliott 2024).

Renewing human security does not mean immediately
reinvesting in these short-term United Nations arenas. It
means, first and foremost, recognizing that human security
begins at the individual level. Quite simply, in our relation-
ships with others. For human security is not just a matter
of freeing oneself from need and fear. It also means free-

ing oneself from the egocentric self. Individuals are noth-
ing without the solidarity that binds them together. Political
institutions and third-party actors are expected to provide
human security, whereas human security requires individu-
als to stand up for themselves and provide it, first for those
closest to them and then, in concentric circles, according
to their own resources and capacities, to extend it beyond
them.

This movement remains fragile because every revolution
has its limits and dark sides. The personal revolution men-
tioned above cannot be separated from an economic revo-
lution. This means challenging capitalist models, as well as
alternative models based on planning that see the Earth as
a reservoir of resources to be exploited. We need to imag-
ine new forms of production based on sobriety. The ef-
fects of Covid 19 confirm this phenomenon: far from hav-
ing brought about change, the frenzy of travel is returning,
especially through the prism of increased air traffic with the
reopening of borders. However, new directions are emerg-
ing, notably those inspired by permaculture, the farming
method developed by Australians Mollison and Holmgren,
which aims to preserve the Earth by banning chemical in-
puts, limiting water inputs and relying on cooperation be-
tween species. Working with nature, not against it. In fact,
this method (or the perma-company) is now gradually be-
ing translated into the corporate world. Look at the case of
Norsys for example, a company in the Information Technol-
ogy sector whose raison d'être (not its slogan) is "To design,
with a human and ethical concern, efficient uses of digital
technology in order to contribute to the positive evolution
of the world" (Breuzard 2024).

There is also a dark side. *Homo planeticus* is first and fore-
most a *Homo progressivus*, that is, "a man for whom the earthly
future is more important than the present. A new type of
Man, I say, because less than two hundred years ago, the
very idea of an organic transformation of the World in Time
had not yet taken shape or consistency in the human mind"
(Teilhard de Chardin 1959[1946], 173). But could this *Homo
progressivus* not take on the features of a *Homo Sovieticus*, a
new Humanity produced by domination, with a random out-
come? Is it a matrix for new experiments in political rad-
icalism, using violence to impose this Spirit of the Earth?
The reference to cosmism (an ideology partly inspired by
the Spirit of the Earth) is very present in the circles close
to Vladimir Putin, but also among the advocates of transhu-
manism in the USA. They can serve the ambitions of a civi-
lizational state (Coker 2019; Faure 2021), as Russia defines
itself today, or a new form of domination in the USA and
abroad. How can we protect ourselves against such abuses
and instrumentalizations? A first safeguard is to diversify the
spaces for discussion and deliberation. This is what is pro-
posed by a body of literature that aims to think the planetary
in institutional terms: be it an Earth System Council (Burke
et al. 2016; Global Governance Forum 2024) or a "deliber-
ate multiscalar governance system where authority is allo-
cated on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity in a plan-
etary key" (Blake and Gilman 2024, 103). In other words,
this revolution that the Spirit of Earth suggests concerns
the way of inhabiting the Earth by recognizing an evolution
process.

But such a safeguard is not sufficient. While the notion
of a Spirit of the Earth offers a powerful aspirational hori-
zon, it cannot be divorced from the geopolitical and ideo-
logical forces that actively hinder its materialization. Power
politics, even a brutish world is prone to marginalize this
spirit and reinforce the dominance of the first image—that
is, the focus on the individual state and its pursuit of sur-

<footnote n="3">³Marcuse's Orphic imagination is grounded in a secular, psychoanalytically informed critique of industrial society. The potential contribution of Marcuse and also Rosa to this Spirit of the Earth exceeds the scope of the present article and would require more space to be adequately explored.</footnote>
vival through conquest of lands on Earth or beyond. Given Russia's violation of the San Francisco Charter in February 2022, neo-populist foreign policy developed by the second administration Trump rooted in an alliance with multinational corporations that champion rapid technological advancement, even as such acceleration entails profound and often detrimental environmental consequences (Quinn 2025), the third image may seem utopian. A number of emerging dynamics are challenging and calling into question the foundations of any new GEO-political order inspired by the Spirit of the Earth. The ideological convergence of far-right white nationalist movements across national boundaries, undermines cosmopolitical imaginaries (Abrahamsen and a 2024). The ongoing militarization of Europe, a region previously characterized by a civil or normative power, now redefining itself through the pursuit of strategic autonomy that increasingly frames the European project around defense and security priorities. In Germany, the expression "Kriegstüchtigkeit" (to be able to make war) has gained significant traction, and the newly elected Bundestag in the winter of 2025 has decided to prioritize the "security pact" over the "stability pact" in order to increase defense spending. The military had already received a €100 billion allocation—an amount nevertheless deemed largely insufficient to substantially enhance its capabilities. In March, the European Commission proposed the "Rearm Europe" program, a €800 billion initiative backed by the member states—a rare move in the history of European integration.

These dynamics not only obscure the planetary interdependencies highlighted by the third image but also risk entrenching a securitized imaginary that leaves little room for the Spirit of Earth. That is why reframing the Spirit of the Earth as contingent upon the cultivation of recognition in IR is also needed. Recognition understood as a relational practice that affirms the agency, dignity, and narrative of others (Lindemann and Ringmar 2012; Brincat 2017; Brincat and Lindemann 2024) is essential to move beyond a narrow security logic, especially in multilateral cooperation. When multilateral organizations neglect this dimension, the Spirit of the Earth is likely to falter, as actors revert to defensive postures driven by the security dilemma. While other factors must be considered to explain Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the enlargement of NATO (Sarotte 2021) without acknowledging Russia's security concerns exemplifies this dynamic of misrecognition, i.e., "a gap between what actors claim for recognition and what they believe they deserve to receive from others as recognition" (Brincat and Lindemann 2024, 2). The roots of this divide are diverse and context-dependent; in the case of Russia, for instance, it may manifest as a form of agentic maximization, whereby the dominant actor actively reaffirms its status and prerogatives. Besides, when multilateralism ceases to embody diffuse reciprocity (Keohane 1986; Ruggie 1992)—that is, an ethic of mutual commitment not based on immediate returns—the aspirational force of the Spirit of the Earth is also weakened. The recent positions articulated by Trump exemplify this shift toward transactionalism, undermining both trust and the conditions necessary for cooperation.

All these observations call for a clear-eyed assessment of the scope and limitations of the Spirit of the Earth as an aspirational image related to multilateral conduct. As a planetary ethic, it does not claim grandeur or radical rupture; rather, it assumes a modest, subtle form—fine rather than thick. In this sense, it is often through modest and technical forms of cooperation that these trends reveal themselves—however fragile, partial, or incomplete. These small-scale initiatives,

embedded in institutional processes, may offer a quiet but consequential path toward reimagining our relationship with the Earth and with one another. As Guilbaud et al. (2023) remind us, multilateralism is constantly nourished by crises. It is shaped by them, in order to overcome them. The Spirit of the Earth, then, may emerge not despite crisis, but in response to it—through incremental, relational, and often improvised efforts that renew the ethical potential of multilateral engagement. These small-scale initiatives, embedded in institutional processes, may offer a quiet but consequential path toward reimagining our relationship with the Earth and with one another.

For instance, the BBNJ negotiations represent a landmark attempt to extend environmental governance to areas beyond state sovereignty—namely, the high seas and deep seabed, which constitute nearly half of the Earth's surface but remain under-regulated. This treaty opens the door to novel legal and ethical frameworks based on common heritage and inter-generational responsibility. By introducing principles such as benefit-sharing and environmental impact assessments in areas beyond national jurisdiction, BBNJ signals a shift toward a planetary stewardship ethic.

The work of NGOs that embrace locally rooted, nonpaternalistic approaches to aid and peacebuilding—such as those highlighted by Autesserre (2023)—challenges dominant humanitarian logics often shaped by technocratic or donor-driven imperatives. These initiatives foreground local agency, contextual knowledge, and relational trust, offering an alternative model of intervention grounded in reciprocity rather than control. Such practices, though often informal or under-recognized, illustrate how ethical sensitivity, humility, and co-creation can form the bedrock of a more just and responsive planetary ethic. This resonates strongly with Brincat's argument that recognition is not merely a moral supplement to international politics, but a foundational condition for ethical relations between actors (Brincat 2017). By affirming the political subjectivity of local communities, these NGOs enact a form of practical recognition that counters hierarchical and depersonalized forms of engagement often embedded in traditional multilateral frameworks.

These developments suggest that a new image of multilateralism is possible—one rooted in responsiveness to the Earth, humility in governance, and a commitment to plural forms of planetary responsibility. It is within these evolving micro-practices that the Spirit of the Earth may quietly, but meaningfully, take shape.

## Conclusion

Few scholars explore IR thanks to the planetary notably. Margaret and Harold Sprout are pioneers of sorts in the early 1970s. They emphasize the fact that ecological issues transcend divisions: communism/capitalism; developed countries/developing countries; and rich nations/poor nations. The movement toward planetary consciousness is based on a dilemma between the ever-increasing demand for resources and their scarcity. Such a dilemma "will require major changes in values, attitudes, economic practices and lifestyles, accompanied by massive changes in the distribution of goods and services, and concerted international cooperation of a scope and scale as yet only dimly imagined" (Sprout and Sprout 1971, 15). More than 50 years later, this new cooperation remains embryonic. In my view, the Spirit of the Earth is shaping this kind of cooperation. At the same time, other aspects of the plan-
etary are still alive (Nomos of the Earth) or incomplete in
terms of transformation (Gaia hypothesis). These last two
images contribute more to generating new wars than to trig-
gering a revolution in consciousness, although the represen-
tations they generate differ. The Nomos of the Earth *reterrito-
rializes* human existence. The Gaia hypothesis *re-terrestrializes*
human existence. To a certain extent, the Spirit of the Earth
*planets* human existence.

Only the second of these images could possibly consider
as a new level of analysis in its own right, through the identi-
fication of a type of interaction not covered by the three ini-
tial levels identified by Waltz. But each sheds light on plan-
etary politics in its own way. It seems to me that the third
image of the planetary (the Spirit of the Earth) is neglected
normatively in IR. Born of anxiety, but also of the desire to
appreciate the fact of being alive, and even to live more,
this defense of an optimistic and lucid conception of our
condition of existence seems idealistic. Although less visible
or even less relevant to many IR scholars, it is very much
present (Sylvester 2023), whether as a moral imaginary, or
as a source of societal mobilization.

In his thought dedicated to the planetary, Teilhard de Chardin never overlooks the positive affective component. He calls for the cultivation of the joy, the zest of life. This zest has two characteristics. It is linked, “for the first time in history, to a new intergenerational consciousness and conscience that extends to the entire Earth community.” (Tucker 2006, 44) It is also associated with “an enormous sense of joy, for we are participating in a universe that is filled with interiority, spontaneity, and creativity.” (Ibid. 45) The plan for building the Earth is to be found here, not elsewhere: “The more we think about this infinitely urgent question of a plan to build the Earth, the more we realize that, if we are to avoid the path of brutal, material Force, there is no other way forward than that of comradeship and fraternity,—both between both between peoples and between individuals. Not jealous enmity but emulation. Not sentimentality, but team spirit.” (Teilhard de Chardin 1963 [1937] 23) The planetary then takes on a different color. The Spirit of the Earth is not only intellect or reason. It is fueled not only by a painful awareness of our condition and eventual disappearance in the universe. It also flourishes in our hearts, which vibrate more intensely on our star.

One compelling avenue for exploring the Spirit of the Earth lies in the cosmologies and epistemologies of Indigenous communities. These are not merely alternative symbolic systems but fully fledged ways of knowing and being that attest to a long-standing planetary consciousness (Yunkaporta 2019). Many Indigenous worldviews have cultivated a profound attunement to the Earth that predates and often surpasses the conceptual tools available in Western thought. Such knowledge systems offer more than ecological insights—they embody relational ontologies in which humans, non-humans, and the Earth form part of an interconnected and co-constitutive whole. This opens new conceptual and practical paths for thinking planetary care, responsibility, and survival. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has acknowledged, Indigenous knowledge represents a vital resource in adapting to the climate crisis—not just metaphorically, but in very concrete and life-saving terms. A striking example is that of the Moken people of Thailand and the inhabitants of Simeulue Island in Indonesia, who survived the devastating 2004 tsunami by reading the signs of the ocean and the Earth. Their capacity to interpret environmental signals, grounded in oral traditions and ancestral knowledge, led them to move inland before the

wave struck. These examples suggest that re-centering such cosmologies could profoundly enrich the notion of the planetary and the ethics of Earth-bound existence. Pluralizing resources, decentralizing perspectives, and strengthening dialogues. This means abandoning the grand narrative of Man learning to encounter the planet, and opening up to narratives that are much more situated and multiple. It is on this condition that the conceptual category of the “planetary,” as opposed to that of the “global,” will find all its strength and relevance (Bonneuil 2023).

Conflict of interest

The author declares that he has no competing interests that
could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the con-
tent of this article.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank fellow members of CERI's International Relations and Planetary Politics seminar, as well as Miriam Périer for her editing work. He would also like to thank the reviewers of *Global Studies Quarterly* who provided useful and valuable suggestions for improving the manuscript.

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