Introduction
Albert Einstein is known as a renowned scientist. As incredible as his scientific accomplishments are, I am not going to focus too much on them. Instead, I am going to write about his less widely known, but arguable more important achievement, how Einstein forever changed how geopolitics is conducted. 
History
Einstein was born to a Jewish family on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Germany. He remained in Germany until his family’s factory went out of business, after which he moved to Northern Italy. After completing his secondary education in Italy, he moved to Switzerland to attend university, at the age of 16. After graduating he took a job at the Swiss Patent office. During this time, he worked on his various theories of physics. He published 4 major works in 1905, which lead to him becoming famous within the scientific community. In 1908, he took his first academic job as a professor at the University of Bern. After teaching at several other universities, Einstein moved back to Germany in 1914 (4 months before the outbreak of WWI) to take a job at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. During the war Einstein accomplished very little. 
For he had lost his job at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, because he refused to aid in development of military weapons being that he was a pacifist. Shortly before the Versailles treaty was signed in 1919, Einstein received good new when his theory of relativity was proven by a British scientist, who had discovered proof for the theory when observing a solar eclipse. With proof for his theory, Einstein became renowned among the general public for his monumental break through, even winning the physics Nobel Peace Prize for it. 
Not many major things occurred to Einstein during the next decade. He mostly spent it, traveling the world (going to the US, China, India, Japan, Palestine, and many more countries), lecturing at various universities around the world, and taking part in political activities ranging from affiliation with anti-war movements to joining the League of Nations Intellectual Committee. The next major chapter of Einstein’s life began in 1933, when the Nazis rose to power in Germany. During this time Einstein was traveling abroad and chose to remain in America, after the Nazis had seized his assets in Germany. Also beginning in 1933 was a ban which stated that Jews could not hold professorships at German institutions. To ensure the safety of fellow Jewish German scientists, Einstein began to petition British officials and the officials of other nations to help these black-listed scientists leave Germany. This was accomplished by government officials arranging for various universities to give professorships to these scientists. The next significant thing that Einstein did came in 1939, when he was approached by two fellow Jewish refugee scientist. They explained to him the findings of a 1938 German lab experiment, which concluded that the atom could be divided. While Einstein had known about this finding, he had not considered what the other two scientists had, which was that the technology could be weaponized to construct atomic bombs. Working with these two scientists, Einstein penned a letter to FDR asking for him to begin American research into nuclear weaponry.
Einstein was able to leverage his reputation as a renowned scientist in order to have the threat seriously considered, leading to the development of the atomic bomb. The remaining few years of life of Einstein’s life were spent relatively quietly. He died on April 17, 1955.
Significance
Now even though it may seem that the only impact that Einstein had on geopolitics was the creation of nuclear weapons, this impact should not be underestimated.
For a start, it allowed for a quicker end of WWII. For the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led the Emperor of Japan to intervene in politics, for the first time during the war, forcing the military junta to surrender. This development is massive because it is estimate to have saved 1,000,000 American lives, and the lives of a majority of the Japanese civilian population. The reason that the bombing saved millions of Japanese lives is that the Japanese military had a tendency of forcing civilians to commit suicide rather than be dishonored by captured by American forces (at the Japanese island Okinwa 25% of the civilian population had died).
Not only did it impact WWII, but it mostly stopped WWIII from breaking out. At the end of WWII, there were serious concerns that the Soviets would seize on the opportunity provided by having a mobilized population and economy to commence a war to spread Communism to Western Europe, shortly after WWII. However, the deterrent provided by nuclear weaponry prevented this war from becoming a reality. In fact these nuclear technologies and the Mutually Assured Destruction that they brought with them would go onto prevent any major general war from erupting for the rest of the 20th century. Instead it would lead to the geopolitical shift known as the Cold War, in which superpowers battle with influence rather than violence.
Lucas Richardsen October 26, 2018
This is a very unique take on Einstein and his lasting impact. I never would have viewed even his involvement in the Manhattan Project as an individual contribution to changing the geopolitical landscape. One thing I’m curious about is how much of the US decision to invest in nuclear weaponry can be attributed to Einstein himself.
I also find it interesting that you suggest that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually saved lives. This is definitely a different view than many hold, and I think it’s intriguing (although I still tend to see it as a tragedy amidst the larger tragedy that is WW2).
Great and fascinating take on a familiar figure.
kah6268 October 26, 2018
I had never thought that way about the use of the atomic bomb of World War II, and I never knew (in depth) Einstein’s significant contributions to the creation of it. Obviously, so many people still debate today about whether or not the use of the bomb was appropriate or not, but I gather that they likely are not educated in this aspect of the argument. Since it did hypothetically save the lives of so many Japanese and Americans, I am sure the timeless debate may shift slightly to favor the use of the bomb.
axm6090 October 26, 2018
I find this post to be rather fascinating. The extent to which Albert Einstein changed the geopolitical landscape of the United States, not to mention revolutionizing modern science all the while, is astonishing. It’s interesting to see, looking back, how Einstein initially refused to help Germans to build weapons during the First World War, but eventually changed and advocated the building of a nuclear bomb for the United States by the time of the Second World War. Einstein was certainly a pacifist, but he recognized the necessity of a powerful enough deterrent that would effectively halt the momentum of the war in its tracks and be used for peaceful purposes. As a whole, I think you did a great job at analyzing the historical impact of Albert Einstein aside from his direct contributions to the scientific community. However, with that said, I think it still would be nice to hear a statement or so about how he revolutionized the global understanding of science in the 20th century with the theory of relativity.