The concept of the geopolitical image of threat is presented as a discursive tool used in mastering the internal space of a state. A state idea based on a geopolitical image of threat is suggested to have been a medium with which the alliance between the Finnish state and nation was historically constructed. In the 1990's the represented geopolitical image of threat possessing the potential of breaking the Finnish societal order includes several factors, all linked to the excludable Other, Russia. The represented threat is composed of refugee flows, Russian crime, environmental pollution, the possible return of communism, a strong Russia, a weak Russia, military attack and many other features linked to Russia and posing a negative challenge to Finnish society. There has been the simultaneous emergence in many countries of the world of political disputes over aspects of national history in the 1990s.
Geographical knowledge has political implications.
Hence, it is concerned with the formation of national identity as well as historical knowledge. This article examines the relationships between Japanese modernisation and geographical thought, the characteristics of school textbooks and geopolitics in Japan during the Asia Pacific War, and recent disputes about views of history and the meaning of views of geography in the post-Cold War era. Consequently, it is shown that the view of geography promoted the formation of national identity in the same way as that of history through geographical education and geopolitics. Taking the roles of geography into consideration, it can be said that an imaginative geography based on an ethnocentric view plays an important role in the time of rethinking national history. We should be aware of such an ethnocentric view of geography and make an effort to overcome differences in views between nations.