Geoeconomic Leaders among the Three Seas Initiative Countries. Part 1: Geoeconomics as a Paradigm for Research on International Security

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to build an analytical framework for measuring the geopolitical potential of the states in the Three Seas Initiative region and, on this basis, to infer which states are leaders in the region. The article integrates theoretical principles of geoeconomics with practical indicators that, in the authors' opinion, can serve as analytical tools to determine the geoeconomic power of states in international relations and security implications. Design/Methodology/Approach: The methods used in this study are comparative analysis and inductive method to build general theorems. The above methods consist of research procedures such as describing, defining, classifying. Classification and taxonomy of variables were used to analyze the potential of countries. The spectrum of methods used guarantees the objectivity of the results obtained. Findings: Geoeconomics as a paradigm of international security research meets the cognitive requirements of security and political sciences. It has the appropriate theoretical foundations necessary for conceptualization and enables the construction of a cognitive framework relating to socio-economic facts. Practical implications: Geoeconomics represents a new quality of potentiometric cognition applicable to international relations. It makes it possible to discern the potentials of states, to identify leaders, and to relate states and regions to general properties of international order (geopolitics and geostrategy) in the context of international security studies.