Heartland Theory

LISTEN:

AVAILABILITY:

Sorry, this programme is not available to listen again. (why?)

Last broadcast on Sun, 27 Sep 2009, 21:30 on BBC Radio 3.

SYNOPSIS

The study of the way geographical factors help to explain the basis of the power of nation states;
a combination of political geography and political science. Important characteristics in this
mode of analysis include territory, resources, climate, population, social and political culture,
and economic activity. Prior to World War 2 it was associated with German nationalism and the
Nazi regime.

Portions of the summary below have been contributed by Wikipedia.

Geopolitics is the study which analyses geography, history and social science with reference to
international politics.

The term was coined by Rudolf Kjellén, a Swedish political scientist, at the beginning of the 20th
century.

Halford Mackinder
The doctrine of Geopolitics gained attention largely through the work of Sir Halford Mackinder
in England and his formulation of the Heartland Theory in 1904. The doctrine involved concepts
diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies (he
coined the term sea power) in world conflict. The Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility
for a huge empire to be brought into existence in the Heartland, which would not need to use
coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its military industrial complex, and that this empire
could not be defeated by all the rest of the world coalitioned against it.

The basic notions of Mackinder's doctrine involve considering the geography of the Earth as
being divided into two sections, the 'World Island' which comprised Eurasia and Africa, and the
'Periphery', which included the Americas, British Isles, and Oceania. Not only was the Periphery
noticeably smaller than the World Island, it necessarily required much sea transport to function
at the technological level of the World Island, which contained sufficient natural resources for a
developed economy. Mackinder's notion of geopolitics can be summed up in his saying "Who
rules East Europe commands the Heartland. His doctrine was influential during the World Wars
and the Cold War, for Germany and later Russia each made territorial strides toward the
Heartland.

Other Theories
After World War I, Kjellen's thoughts and the term were picked up and extended by a number of
scientists: in Germany by Karl Haushofer, Erich Obst, Hermann Lautensach and Otto Maull; In
1923 Karl Haushofer founded the "Zeitschrift für Geopolitik" (Journal for Geopolitics), which
developed as a propaganda organ for Nazi-Germany.

Anton Zischka published Afrika, Europas Gemischftaufgabe Tummer (Africa, Complement of

Europe) in 1952, where he proposed a kind of North-South Empire, from Stockholm to
Johannesburg.

Since then, the word geopolitics has been applied to other theories, most notably the notion of
the Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington.

Definitions
In the abstract, geopolitics traditionally indicates the links and causal relationships between
political power and geographic space; in concrete terms it is often seen as a body of thought
assaying specific strategic prescriptions based on the relative importance of land power and
sea power in world history... The geopolitical tradition had some consistent concerns, like the
geopolitical correlates of power in world politics, the identification of international core areas,
and the relationships between naval and terrestrial capabilities.—Oyvind Osterud, The Uses
and Abuses of Geopolitics, Journal of Peace Research, no. 191

by geopolitical, I mean an approach that pays attention to the requirements of equilibrium.

Henry Kissinger in Colin S Gray, G R Sloan.

Geopolitics is studying geopolitical systems. The geopolitical system is, in my opinion, the
ensemble of relations between the interests of international political actors, interests focused
to an area, space, geographical element or ways. - Vladimir Toncea, Geopolitical evolution of
borders in Danube Basin, PhD 2006.

Institutions on Geopolitics
An increasing number of (inter)national institutions exist that work on (aspects of) Geopolitics:

International Centre for Geopolitical Studies (I.C.G.S.) located in Geneva

(Switzerland):
Founded in June 2001, I.C.G.S. engages in analyses and studies of world geopolitical issues in
order to facilitate a more complex reading of the evolutions taking place in contemporary
international relations.

Institut Français de Géopolitique (I.F.G.) located in Paris (France):

Created in 1989 out of the journal 'Hérodote. The Geopolitics Reader. Spang, Christian W.:
“Karl Haushofer Re-examined – Geopolitics as a Factor within Japanese-German
Rapprochement in the Inter-War Years?”, in: C.

Georg (Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp) Cantor - Life, Work [next] [back] geophysics

Citing this material

Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a
related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally
published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate
information.

Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or
any other HTML document.
<a href="http://encyclopedia.sta
Read more: geopolitics - Halford Mackinder, Other Theories, Definitions, Institutions on
Geopolitics
http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/8340/geopolitics.html#ixzz0iSIAoKW4

Russia
M ackinder’s proposed solution to the problem of Eastern Europe, which he
derived from “a consideration of the realities presented by the geography of our
globe,” was the formation of a “tier of independent states between Germany and
Russia,” which would form “a broad wedge of independence, extending from the
Adriatic and Black Seas to the Baltic….” This “territorial buffer between Germany
and Russia,” wrote Mackinder, must have access to the ocean, and must be
supported by the “outer nations” (i.e., Britain and the United States). Otherwise,
11

the East European power vacuum would again serve as the spark to ignite yet
another struggle for Eurasian hegemony.

During the 1920s and 1930s, unfortunately, Mackinder’s ideas had little influence in Britain or
the United States. That was not the case, however, in Germany where Mackinder’s global
view attracted the attention and praise of Karl Haushofer and his associates at Munich’s
Institute of Geopolitics. The German geopoliticians, influenced by the writings of Oswald
Spengler, Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellen, adapted Mackinder’s theories and concepts to
promote German expansion. Haushofer in the 1920s and 1930s was close to Rudolf Hess, a
close adviser to Hitler. But it is unclear to what extent the German geopoliticians influenced
the Führer’s global strategy. Haushofer considered Mackinder the author of “the greatest of all
geographical world views.” “Never,” exclaimed Haushofer referring to “The Geographical
Pivot of History,” “have I seen anything greater than these few pages of a geopolitical
masterwork.” The German geopoliticians divided the world into “Pan Regions” each of which
was dominated by a great power. Haushofer advocated the formation of a “Eurasiatic great
continental bloc”; in essence, an alliance between Germany, Japan and Russia that would
eventually overwhelm the British Empire. 12

During the inter-war period, Mackinder was knighted (1920), lost his seat in Parliament
(1922), chaired the Imperial Shipping Committee (1920-1939), sat on the Imperial Economic
Committee (1925-1931), was made a Privy Councilor (1926), and continued to write and
lecture on geography and related topics. His inter-war writings included: “Geography as a
Pivotal Subject in Education” (1921); “The Sub-Continent of India”(1922); The Nations of the
Modern World: An Elementary Study in Geography and History After 1914 (1924); and “The
Human Habitat”(1931). 13

The Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, the beginning of the Second World War and Germany’s
subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union drew attention in the United States to Mackinder’s
works. In 1941 and 1942, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest and Life published articles which
prominently mentioned Mackinder and his writings. Democratic Ideals and Reality was
reprinted in 1942. That same year, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs,
asked Mackinder to write an article to update his Heartland theory. That article, entitled “The
Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” appeared in July 1943, and was Mackinder’s last
significant statement of his global views.
"[M]y concept of the Heartland,” wrote Mackinder, “… is more valid and useful today than it
was either twenty or forty years ago.” He described the Heartland in geographical terms as
14

“the northern part and the interior of Euro-Asia,” extending “from the Arctic coast down to the
central deserts,” flowing westward to “the broad isthmus between the Baltic and Black Seas.”
The Heartland concept, he explained, is based on “three separate aspects of physical
geography.”
• First, “the widest lowland plain on the face of the globe.”

• Second, “great navigable rivers [that] flow across that plain [but have] no
access to the ocean.”

• And third, “a grassland zone which… presented ideal conditions for the
development of high mobility” by land transportation.

The Heartland, in essence, wrote Mackinder, was equivalent to the territory of the Soviet
Union, minus the land east of the Yenisei River.
If the Soviet Union defeated Germany in the war, opined Mackinder, “she must rank as the
greatest land Power on the globe.” “The Heartland is the greatest natural fortress on earth,” he
explained, and “[f]or the first time in history it is manned by a garrison sufficient both in
number and quality.”
A second geographical feature which Mackinder estimated to be “of almost equal
significance” to the Heartland was the “Midland Ocean,” consisting of the eastern half of
Canada and the United States, the North Atlantic basin and its “four subsidiaries
(Mediterranean, Baltic, Arctic and Caribbean Seas),” Britain and France (a remarkable
description of the NATO alliance that was formed six years after Mackinder wrote his article).
Completing his updated global sketch, Mackinder identified three additional geographic
features. The first was “a girdle of deserts and wildernesses” extending from the Sahara Desert
eastward to Arabia, Tibet, and Mongolia to eastern Siberia, Alaska, part of Canada, and the
western United States. The second consisted of South America, the South Atlantic Ocean, and
Africa. And the third encompassed the “Monsoon lands” of China and India. He expressed the
hope that those lands would prosper and, thereby, balance the other regions of the globe. “A
balanced globe of human beings,” he wrote, “[a]nd happy, because balanced and thus free.” 15

Mackinder expressed the hope that Heartland Russia would cooperate with the Midland Ocean
powers in the postwar world and, thereby, prevent future German aggression. But his theories
and concepts proved readily adaptable to the emerging Cold War struggle between the United
States and the Soviet Union. American strategists during and after the Second World War
borrowed aspects of Mackinder’s world view in formulating and implementing the policy of
“containment” of Soviet Russia. Anthony J. Pierce, in his introduction to the 1962 edition of
16

Democratic Ideals and Reality, could confidently assert that “[i]n America and in England,
since 1942, most studies of global strategy or political geography have been based, in whole or
in part, upon [Mackinder’s] theories. “Mackinder, of course, had his share of critics, but as
17 18

Colin Gray has pointed out, “Mackinder’s interpretations of historically shifting power
relationships in their geographical setting have stood the test of time much better than have the
slings and arrows of his legion of critics.” 19

More recent and current political observers and strategists attest to the continuing influence of
Mackinder’s ideas. In 1974, R. E. Walters wrote that “the Heartland theory stands as the first
premise in Western military thought.” In 1975, Saul B. Cohen noted that “most Western
20

strategists continue to view the world as initially described by Mackinder.” Zbigniew

21

Brzezinski’s Game Plan (1986) and The Grand Chessboard (1997) present global views
almost wholly based on Mackinder’s concepts. In 1980, Robert Nisbet claimed that “[e]very
geopolitical apprehension that Sir Halford Mackinder expressed some six decades ago in his
Democratic Ideals and Reality has been fulfilled.” The influential journals, Strategic Review
22

and The National Interest, published several articles in the 1980s and 1990s wherein the
authors applied Mackinder’s theories and concepts to contemporary global issues. In 1988,
23

the respected strategist Colin Gray asserted that “[t]he geopolitical ideas of the British
geographer Sir Halford Mackinder … provide an intellectual architecture, far superior to rival
conceptions, for understanding the principal international security issues.” In 1992, Eugene
24

Rostow remarked that “Mackinder’s map remains an indispensable tool of analysis” of global
politics. In 1994, the former State Department Geographer, George J. Demko, wrote that “the
25

geographic ideas of … Mackinder, still provide important insights into international political
processes.” Henry Kissinger in his book, Diplomacy (1994), concludes with a warning that
26

“Russia, regardless of who governs it, sits astride territory Halford Mackinder called the
geopolitical heartland….” Paul Kennedy, Robert Chase, and Emily Hill invoked Mackinder’s
27

theories in a 1996 Foreign Affairs article on post-Cold War “pivot states.” Finally, in 1996
28

the National Defense University issued a reprint of Democratic Ideals and Reality.
Twentieth century global politics were shaped, in part, by Mackinder’s geopolitical vision.
Following his concepts, the continuing struggle for Eurasian mastery was the geopolitical
essence of the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War. First Great Britain,
then the United States, organized great coalitions to oppose successive bids for Eurasian
hegemony launched by Wilhelmine Germany, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Great
Power struggles of the twenty-first century will likely repeat this pattern.
The People’s Republic of China, situated at the gates of Mackinder’s “pivot region” or
Heartland, and with access to the sea, possesses sufficient human and natural resources to
make a bid for Eurasian mastery sometime in this new century. Russia, though currently
undergoing a new time of troubles, still occupies the Heartland and possesses vast human and
natural resources, as well as thousands of nuclear weapons. The nations of Western, Central
and Eastern Europe are moving toward economic unity and, perhaps, political unity, with
Germany playing a leading role. Whatever specific power constellation emerges, however,
U.S. foreign policy will continue to be shaped by Mackinder’s geopolitical vision of a
Eurasian-based world hegemon.
 In 1944, the American Geographical Society awarded Mackinder the Charles P. Daley Medal,
which was presented to him at the American Embassy in London on March 31, 1944.
Ambassador John Winant remarked that Mackinder was the first scholar who fully enlisted
geography as an aid to statecraft and strategy. A year later, the Royal Geographical Society
awarded Mackinder the Patron’s Medal, and its president noted that ”[a]s a political
geographer his reputation is … world wide.” Mackinder died on March 6, 1947, at the age of
29

eighty-six. More than fifty years later, as we enter a new century, statesmen and strategists
still operate in Mackinder’s world.
Continue reading Sempa 1 • 2 • 3 • End Notes

The author, an attorney who is a senior deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, earned
degrees from the University of Scranton and the Dickinson School of Law. He has written
extensively on national security questions, publishing articles in Strategic Review, The
National Interest, National Review, and Presidential Studies Quarterly. Mr. Sempa has filled
the position of adjunct professor of political science at the University of Scranton and at
Wilkes University.

REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY 105

WARNING
It is critical that you come to class having read "The Geographical Pivot of History" by Sir
Halford Mackinder and "The Geography of the Second World War" by Nicholas John
Spykman. Lecture for this topic will consist of going through the Mackinder and Spykman
articles paragraph by paragraph. It is strongly recommended that you have these articles
printed out for class, and that you number the paragraphs so that you may easily follow along
with the analysis of each article.

Heartlands and Rimlands - Mackinder's Heartland

Theory
In 1904, Sir Halford Mackinder published a theory about political strength in Eurasia.
He analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the various regions and concluded that the
Russian Core and areas east of the core contained the potential to become a world power.
In 1919 he revised his theory to include Eastern Europe and the theory became known as
Mackinder's Heartland Theory.
Basically stated:
- Who rules East Europe commands the heartland.
- Who rules the heartland commands the World Island (Eurasia and Africa)
- Who rules the World Island commands the World.
Class discussion on implications of this theory to 20th and 21st century geography.

Heartlands and Rimlands - Spykman's Rimland Theory

 In 1944, Nicholas Spykman proposed a theory which countered Mackinder's Heartland
Theory.
Spykman stated that Eurasia's Rimland, the coastal areas, is the key to controlling the World
Island, not the heartland.
Class discussion on implications of this theory to 20th and 21st century geography.
Eurasia, the "World Island": Geopolitics, and Policymaking in the 21st Century
By Christopher J. Fettweis
Global Research, March 14, 2006
Parameters, Summer 2000, pp. 58-71.

"A victorious Roman general, when he entered the city, amid all the head-turning
splendor of a `Triumph,' had behind him on the chariot a slave who whispered into his ear
that he was mortal. When our statesmen are in conversation with the defeated enemy,
some airy cherub should whisper to them from time to time this saying: Who rules East
Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
Who rules the World-Island commands the World." --Sir Halford Mackinder, 1919[1]
"Few modern ideologies are as whimsically all-encompassing, as romantically obscure,
as intellectually sloppy, and as likely to start a third world war as the theory of
`geopolitics.'" --Charles Clover, 1999[2]

The world today hardly resembles the one that Sir Halford Mackinder examined in 1904, when
he first wrote about the advantages of central positioning on the Eurasian landmass. His theories
would have influence throughout the century, informing and shaping US containment policy
throughout the Cold War. Today, almost a century after his "Heartland" theory came into being,
there is renewed interest in the region that Mackinder considered the key to world dominance.
The Heartland of the Eurasian landmass may well play an important role in the next century, and
the policy of today's lone superpower toward that region will have a tremendous influence upon
the character of the entire international system.
Eurasia, the "World Island" to Mackinder, is still central to American foreign policy and will
likely to continue to be so for some time. Conventional wisdom holds that only a power
dominating the resources of Eurasia would have the potential to threaten the interests of the
United States. Yet that conventional wisdom, as well as many of the other assumptions that
traditionally inform our policy, has not been subjected to enough scrutiny in light of the changed
international realities. Many geopolitical "truths" that have passed into the canon of security
intellectuals rarely get a proper reexamination to determine their relevance to the constantly
evolving nature of the system. Were the world system static, no further theorizing would be
necessary. Since it is not, we must constantly reevaluate our fundamental assumptions to see
whether or not any "eternal" rules of the game, geopolitical and otherwise, truly exist.
Geopolitics is traditionally defined as the study of "the influence of geographical factors on
political action,"[3] but this oft-cited definition fails to capture the many meanings that have
evolved for the term over the years. Dr. Gearoid Ó Tuathail, an Irish geographer and associate
professor at Virginia Tech, has identified three main uses of "geopolitics" since the end of World
War II. First, it is sometimes used to describe a survey of a particular region or problem, to "read
the manifest features of that which was held to be `external reality.'"[4] Geopolitics, according to
this usage, is a lens through which to survey a problem: "The Geopolitics of X, where X is oil,
energy, resources, information, the Middle East, Central America, Europe, etc." Second,
geopolitics can be synonymous with realpolitik, which according to Ó Tuathail is "almost
exclusively the legacy of Henry Kissinger."[5] Kissinger used the term to describe his attempts
to maintain a "favorable equilibrium" in world politics, and his singular ability to see the proper
course and set sail for it. His Machiavellian approach was infamously devoid of ideology (or
"sentimentality"), and as such caused the term geopolitics to fall out of favor with many of the
foreign policy practitioners who followed. Last, and most important for our purposes, geopolitics
has become synonymous with grand strategy, "not, as in Kissinger, about the everyday tactical
conduct of statecraft."[6] Theorists like Colin Gray place geography in the center of international
relations and attempt to decipher the fundamental, eternal factors that drive state action. This
belief traces its roots directly back to Sir Halford Mackinder and his theories of the Heartland.
A Brief History of Geopolitics in Theory and Policy
To the early 20th-century British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder, world history was a story of
constant conflict between land and sea powers. In the past, during what he described as the
Columbian Epoch, increased mobility that the sea provided put naval powers at a distinct
advantage over their territorial adversaries. The classic example of this advantage was the
Crimean War, in which Russia could not project power to the south as effectively as the sea-
supplied French and British, despite the fact that the battlefields were far closer to Moscow than
to London. But the Columbian Epoch was coming to a conclusion at the turn of the 20th century
when Mackinder was first writing, as evolving technology, especially the system of railroads,
allowed land powers to be nearly as mobile as those of the sea. Because land powers on the
World Island had a smaller distance to travel than the sea powers operating on its periphery, any
increase in their mobility would tip the balance of power in their favor. These "interior lines"
gave the power with the "central position" on the World Island the ability to project power
anywhere more rapidly than the sea powers could defend. Thus, who ruled the Heartland would
have the possibility of commanding the entire World Island.
Mackinder believed that the world had evolved into what he called a "closed system." There was
no more room for expansion by the end of the 19th century, for colonialism had brought the
entire world under the sway of Europe. Power politics of the future, Mackinder speculated,
would be marked by a competition over the old territories rather than a quest for new ones. His
Heartland concept recalled the 18th-century strategists' notion of the "key position" on the
battlefield,[7] the recognition of which was crucial to victory. Traditional military strategists
thought that control of the key position on the map was crucial to winning the war, and since
Mackinder recognized that the round world was now one big battlefield, identification and
control of the key position would lead to global supremacy.
Mackinder's theories might have faded into irrelevance were it not for their apparent influence on
the foreign policy of Nazi Germany. A German geopolitician and devotee of Mackinder, Karl
Haushofer, spent the interwar period writing extensively about the Heartland and the need for
Lebensraum (additional territory deemed essential for continued national well-being) for the
German people. One of Haushofer's pupils was Rudolph Hess, who brought his teacher into the
inner intellectual circles of the Reich. Haushofer was appointed by Hitler to run the German
Academy in Berlin, which was "more a propagandic institution than a true academy in the
continental European sense,"[8] according to one observer. The actual effect of his teachings
upon German policy is open to debate--Haushofer may have had an enormous effect on Hitler
through his pupil,[9] or he may have been "a neglected and slighted man who would certainly
enjoy learning about the hullabaloo raised by his doctrine" in the United States.[10] It cannot be
proven that the Drang nach Osten (eastward push) was affected by a desire to control the
Heartland. Here policy may just overlap with, rather than be dictated by, geotheory. But the
possibility that there was a secret master plan at work in Berlin created a whole new interest in
geopolitics and what Mackinder and geopolitics had to say.
Haushofer's ideas probably had a larger influence upon American strategic studies during the war
than they did on German policy. Wartime paranoia fed an image of a secret German science of
geopolitik that was driving Nazi action, bringing Mackinder and Haushofer onto the American
intellectual radar screen. In 1942 Life magazine ran an article titled "Geopolitics: The Lurid
Career of a Scientific System which a Briton Invented, the Germans Used, and the Americans
Need to Study,"[11] which captured the mood of the period, imagining a cabal of foreign policy
"scientists" dictating policy for the dictator. Opinions differed between those who prescribed
rapid acceptance of geopolitik and those who dismissed it as pseudoscience. The latter opinion
was strengthened, of course, by Germany's eventual defeat.
From Hot War to Cold
The most influential American geopolitician to emerge out of the furor created by Haushofer and
the quest for Lebensraum was Yale University professor Nicholas Spykman. Spykman,
considered one of the leading intellectual forefathers of containment, speculated about power
projection into and out of the Heartland. Whereas Mackinder assumed that geographical
formations made for easiest access from the east, Spykman argued that the littoral areas of the
Heartland, or what he called the "Rimland," was key to controlling the center. He updated
Mackinder, positing, "Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia; Who rules Eurasia controls the
destinies of the world."[12] Spykman put an American twist on geopolitical theory, and laid the
intellectual foundation for Kennan and those who argued that the Western powers ought to
strengthen the Rimland to contain the Soviet Union, lest it use its control of the Heartland to
command the World Island.[13]
Geopolitics as grand strategy was one of the important intellectual foundations for the West's
Cold War containment policy. Canadian geographer Simon Dalby recognizes it as one of the
"four security discourses (the others being sovietology, strategy, and the realist approach to
international relations) which American `security intellectuals' have drawn on in constructing the
`Soviet threat.'"[14] According to one of the preeminent historians of the Cold War, John Lewis
Gaddis, in the late 1940s "there developed a line of reasoning reminiscent of Sir Halford
Mackinder's geopolitics, with its assumption that none of the world's `rimlands' could be secure
if the Eurasian `heartland' was under the domination of a single hostile power."[15] Gaddis
describes how the containment policy evolved from countering Soviet expansion at every point
in the rimlands to concentration of defense on a few key points, especially Western Europe and
Japan.
While Mackinder's warnings of the advantages inherent in central positioning on the Eurasian
landmass certainly became incorporated into Cold War American strategic thought and policy,
some observers seem to believe that the principle architects of US foreign policy throughout the
Cold War era must have been carrying Mackinder in their briefcases. Colin Gray wrote:
By far the most influential geopolitical concept for Anglo-American statecraft has been
the idea of a Eurasian `heartland,' and then the complementary idea-as-policy of
containing the heartland power of the day within, not to, Eurasia. From Harry S Truman
to George Bush, the overarching vision of US national security was explicitly
geopolitical and directly traceable to the heartland theory of Mackinder. . . . Mackinder's
relevance to the containment of a heartland-occupying Soviet Union in the cold war was
so apparent as to approach the status of a cliché.[16]
Indeed, many policymakers came from the world of academia, where they were certainly
exposed to Mackinder's geopolitical theories. As was described above, Henry Kissinger used the
term geopolitics to denote any policy dependent upon power principles at the expense of
ideology and "sentimentality." Kissinger's worldview was less dependent upon geographical
realities than some of the other Cold Warriors, especially Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was
President Carter's National Security Advisor and a graduate-school mentor of Madeleine
Albright. Brzezinski has made Eurasia the focus for US foreign policy in all of his writing,
consistently warning of the dangerous advantages that the Heartland power had over the West.
[17]
It is of course very difficult to trace the progression of ideas into policy. But theories and
assumptions, whether articulated or not, provide the frameworks which guide decisionmaking.
Without those frameworks, the proper course for the nation, or the national interest itself, cannot
be identified or pursued. So while it is possible that geopolitics and containment simply
coincided, it is highly unlikely that Western policymakers could look at a map of the world, see
the red zone in the Heartland, and not remember the warning from Mackinder's cherub.[18]
After the Cold War
One might expect that geopolitics would have faded into the intellectual background with the end
of the Cold War and the defeat of the Heartland power. Strangely, though, Mackinder received a
fresh look by some scholars in the 1990s, both in the United States and abroad, and especially in
the Heartland itself.[19] In a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, Charles Clover identified the
growing discussion of geopolitics among some circles in Russia today:
Many Russian intellectuals, who once thought their homeland's victory over the world
would be the inevitable result of history, now pin their hope for Russia's return to
greatness on a theory that is, in a way, the opposite of dialectical materialism. Victory is
now to be found in geography, rather than history; in space, rather than time. . . . The
movement envisions the Eurasian heartland as the geographic launching pad for a global
anti-Western movement whose goal is the ultimate expulsion of "Atlantic" (read:
"American") influence from Eurasia.[20]
Clover argues that the modern Russian geopolitik is being used as the glue to form bonds
between the ultra-left and ultra-right, hinting at a "red-brown" coalition that could become
dominant in Russian politics in the years ahead, with ominous implications for international
stability.
This eventuality would of course be quite problematic for an America that still views Eurasia as
the chessboard upon which the game of global control will be played. The World Island is still
the central focus of US policy, and the Russians are still considered to have the most fortunate
position on the map. Yet is there now, or was there ever, any reason to believe that the Heartland
of Eurasia bestows any sort of geopolitical advantage to the power that controls it?
Examining Mackinder
Mackinder's theories have been attacked from many directions over the years, but their remnants
persist in our intellectual memory. Mackinder (and the geopoliticians who have followed)
thought that geography favored the Heartland power for five key reasons: the Heartland was
virtually impenetrable to foreign invasion; technological changes offered increased mobility
which favored land powers; the Heartland was in the central position on the World Island, giving
it shorter, interior lines of transportation and communication than a power defending the
Rimland; the Heartland was loaded with natural resources waiting to be exploited that could give
the area the highest productivity on earth; and, last, the Eurasian World Island, being the home to
the majority of the world's land, people, and resources, was the springboard for global
hegemony. Every one of these assumptions collapses under even the most cursory scrutiny.
Impregnability
"The Heartland is the greatest natural fortress on earth," Mackinder wrote. He envisioned it being
guarded by natural geographical formations that make it almost impregnable to attack,
specifically the "ice-clad Polar Sea, forested and rugged Lenaland [Siberia east of the Yenisei
River], and the Central Asiatic mountain and arid tableland."[21] The fortress had one weakness,
Mackinder concluded: there was an opening in the west, between the Baltic and Black Seas,
which was not blocked geographically. This gap in the natural defenses led to the famous
conclusion that whoever ruled Eastern Europe would be in an advantageous position to rule the
Heartland, and therefore the World Island, and therefore the world.
Mackinder seemed to ignore the fact that to the extent these geographical formations protected a
Heartland power, they also prevented it from projecting outward. Walls tend to keep residents in
as effectively as they keep invaders out. The geographical boundaries of the Heartland, to the
extent that they were ever obstacles, would have hampered any attempt to use it as a springboard
for hemispheric dominance.
But more important, the Heartland can be considered a fortress only by standards of 19th-century
technology. A modern army, should it want to attack the Heartland, would have little trouble
bypassing "Lenaland," or slicing right through Central Asia. Even its most seemingly
impenetrable boundary, the Polar Sea, offers little protection from attack from the sky by planes
and missiles. The greatest natural fortress on earth is certainly vulnerable to 21st-century
weaponry, offering little inherent advantage to the power within.<J243>
The essential irrelevance of the "natural defenses" of the Heartland was pointed out during the
first stages of debate on Mackinder during World War II. In debunking geopolitics as a
"pseudoscience," Ralph Turner made the seemingly obvious point in 1943 that "the high mobility
of land power on the steppes . . . is now amplified or offset by the far greater mobility of air
power."[22] Yet many geopoliticians remain unconvinced. Colin Gray, perhaps the leading
geopolitician of our time, has responded to this argument by saying, "That technology has
canceled geography contains just enough merit to be called a plausible fallacy."[23] He then
argues from a tactical standpoint, pointing out that logistical factors make geography's influence
permanent. Surely he is correct when he points out that "it mattered enormously" that the
Falklands were islands and Kuwait a desert, and geography still has a great impact upon military
tactics and how battles are fought. But it has a decreasing impact upon determinations of when
states choose to fight or who prevails. Gray does not make the case for the permanence of
geographical factors upon grand strategy. The experiences in the disparate conditions of the
Falklands and Kuwait show that technology can indeed overcome the geographical boundaries of
any natural fortress, including those of the Heartland.
Perhaps the projection of power out of the Heartland was not crucial to Mackinder's concept.
Perhaps the important point was that geographical defenses would allow the Heartland power to
exploit its resources and consolidate its power, uninterrupted by conquest and devastation. But
even by this conception, the Heartland falls far short. Russia has been devastated time and again
throughout history. Mongols, Turks, Arabs, Persians, Swedes, French, Germans, and many other
groups have penetrated the walls of the fortress, repeatedly laying waste to the area and
inhibiting long-term, steady growth. The Heartland was not impenetrable to the technologies of
the last two millennia, much less those of the next.
Mobility
To Mackinder, the Heartland power had a distinct geopolitical advantage at the end of the
Columbian Epoch because changes in technology allowed for rapid troop movement and power
projection. The railroad put land powers on equal footing with those of the sea, and the vast flat
steppes put the Heartland in the best position to exploit that new technology and mobility,
especially since the Heartland afforded shorter, interior lines of movement.
But, as was discussed above, technological advancement did not stop with the railroad. The
mobility that air power brings changes all the calculations of Mackinder. There is no longer an
advantage to being able to choose the point of attack, for armed forces can be airlifted between
any two points on the globe in a matter of hours. Rail mobility offered a tremendous advantage
before the advent of air travel, but not nearly so much since.
Gray and others argue that planes have to land, and therefore geographical positioning is still
vital. But this too is rapidly becoming obsolete. Mackinder clearly did not anticipate, and Gray
does not take into account, the implications of bombers that can take off from Missouri, drop
their bombload on Kosovo, and land back in Missouri. In our rapidly shrinking world, where air
power can now be projected around the world from any position, the geographical location of
bases (and indeed geography itself) is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Central Position
Mackinder would have us believe that central positioning is an advantage to a Heartland power,
for it allows shorter, internal lines of transportation with which the Heartland power can choose
the point of attack. To Cold War strategists, this central positioning made containment a
nightmare, for it necessitated defense of the enormous littoral rimlands.
Mackinder might have been the first strategist in history to suggest that the surrounded have the
advantage. When has central positioning ever been advantageous to any nation? No one spoke of
the "interior lines of communication" of the Third Reich, for instance. Germany has always been
at a disadvantage because of her position in the heart of Europe. Similarly, the central
positioning of the Heartland of Eurasia has never been geopolitically advantageous to its
inhabitants. Rather than providing a springboard to attack in any direction, central positioning
has rendered the Heartland power vulnerable on all sides. Rather than providing a heightened
security, this position actually heightens the Heartland's insecurity. Indeed, Russian history is
filled with attacks from the east, west, and south, feeding an insecurity and a paranoia to which
Americans, historically protected by vast oceans, cannot relate.
Central positioning is an advantage only to a Heartland power bent of expansion. Realpolitik and
geopolitik informed the West that while their intentions in the Rimland were benign (or at least
not offensive in nature), the Soviets had imperial designs on every region of the world. To the
West, the Soviets were not threatened from all directions, but rather were threatening to all
directions. This assumption of the eternality of Russian imperialism continues to affect our
policy today, and we continue to see the Russian littoral as threatened by its vast neighbor.
The inability to understand the other's view is one of the great historical features of US foreign
policy. We still are not able to understand that the quest for empire in Russian history is at least
in part an attempt to bolster the insecurity that its position has always entailed. Russia's imperial
outposts in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and elsewhere provided buffer zones against the
attacks that have periodically devastated Russian land. Central positioning has led to a state of
permanent insecurity, which has poisoned Russia's relations with its neighbors. The West
clumsily heightens that sense of insecurity with every new foray into the Rimlands.
Productivity
Ironically, the real reason behind the ability of the Heartland to resist attack also guarantees that
it will never be able to live up to Mackinder's forecast. In order to dominate the World Island, a
Heartland power would have to exploit its vast resources. But since virtually all of the pivot area
lies latitudinally above the continental United States, the harsh climate makes mining difficult,
growing seasons brief, and successful attack nearly impossible.
Large sections of the Heartland are not and will never be productive. So it is hard to imagine that
the productivity of the region will ever match Sir Halford's key condition for dominance of the
World Island.
"Who rules the World Island commands the World"
Using Mackinder's own qualifications, it appears that he has placed the key geographical position
in the wrong part of the world. It does not appear true that the Eastern Hemisphere bestows any
strategic advantage over the Western. In fact, control over the Western Hemisphere has allowed
the United States to rise to an unprecedented position of power, for many of the very reasons
Mackinder identified with the Heartland. The oceans provide it with heretofore virtually
impregnable boundaries, and it has command over a collection of resources far greater than any
Eurasian power could effectively exploit, given climatic realities. It seems hard to argue that
geographical factors favor Mackinder's Heartland over the American, or to see why so many
strategists continue to put Eurasia as the center of the world. Heterogeneity alone seems to
predestine the Eastern Hemisphere to infighting, and to disadvantages when compared to the
Western.
The point here is not to reinvent the Heartland, however, or to argue that "who rules North
America commands the world." Rather it is to show that even by the terms he used, Mackinder's
Heartland never was capable of bestowing any extraordinary advantages upon its inhabitants. If
anything, it was and is a disadvantage, especially when compared to other, more manageable,
geographical positions.
Implications for Policy and Theory
One of the reasons that Mackinder is being resurrected yet again is because policymakers are
searching for ways to conceptualize and deal with the heart of his Heartland--Central Asia and
the Caspian Sea--which is a region that has the potential to become a major source of great-
power contention in the next century. Some analysts estimate that the fossil fuels in the region
will transform it into a "new Saudi Arabia" in the coming decades.[24] Its vast deposits made the
Soviet Union one of the largest exporters of oil during the last decades of the Cold War, and new
reserves have been discovered through intensive exploration since. An apparent power vacuum
within the region is once again the subject of rivalry from without, and a new "great game" (an
analogy to which we will return) seems to be unfolding, with Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, and
the United States as the players. Desire for fossil fuels and the wealth they create has the
potential to damage relations between the global and regional powers, if diplomacy is
mishandled.
Russian behavior toward the states of Central Asia, and indeed toward all the other former Soviet
nations, is often seen to be a bellwether of its new nature. Some observers assume that Russian
meddling in the affairs of the states on its periphery is an inevitable sign of neoimperialism,
which is a permanent characteristic of its eternal national character. To head off any return to
empire, many feel that the West must be firm in discouraging a growth in Russian influence in
the new states. Thus the United States is interested in projecting power into Central Asia in the
belief that filling power vacuums is necessary to prevent the Russians from doing so, and to keep
the Cold War from recurring. Russia and China today are regional powers that seek influence
only in their littoral; the United States projects power everywhere. The three overlap in Central
Asia, which is the only region where the Cold War tradition of "triangular diplomacy" may well
become a reality again if geopolitical concerns dominate our strategy.
The heart of the Heartland is floating on top of a sea of oil. Before we decide on the nature of our
policy toward the region, we must examine some of the assumptions that we bring into the
debate. The theories of Mackinder and the geopoliticians still linger, affecting the ways that our
policy is made, despite the fact that the foundations upon which those theories are built are
intellectually shaky at best.
Geopolitics and Eternal Realities
Geopoliticians, by all uses of that term, seem to claim to understand the eternal and fundamental
geographical realities in a way that automatically places their analyses above those of ordinary
strategists. Mackinder, Kissinger, Brzezinski, Gray, and the rest all would have us believe that
they can see the proper course for policy because they understand the "eternal" realities that the
earth provides, despite the fact that their assumptions are often baseless or archaic. Ó Tuathail
has described this phenomenon, and his remarks are worth quoting at some length:
To understand the appeal of formal geopolitics to certain intellectuals, institutions, and
would-be strategists, one has to appreciate the mythic qualities of geopolitics. Geopolitics
is mythic because it promises uncanny clarity and insight in a complex world. It actively
closes down an openness to the geographical diversity of the world and represses
questioning and difference. The plurality of the world is reduced to certain "transcendent
truths" about strategy. Geopolitics is a narrow instrumental form of reason that is also a
form of faith, a belief that there is a secret substratum and/or a permanent set of conflicts
and interests that accounts for the course of world politics. It is fetishistically concerned
with "insight," and "prophecy." Formal geopolitics appeals to those who yearn for the
apparent certitude of "timeless truths." Historically, it is produced by and appeals to
right-wing countermoderns because it imposes a constructed certitude upon the unruly
complexity of world politics, uncovering transcendent struggles between seemingly
permanent opposites ("landpower" versus "seapower," "oceanic" versus "continental,"
"East" versus "West") and folding geographical difference into depluralized geopolitical
categories like "heartland," "rimland," "shatterbelt," and the like. Foreign policy
complexity becomes simple(minded) strategic gaming. [Ó Tuathail makes reference to
Brzezinski here] Such formal geopolitical reasoning is . . . a flawed foundation upon
which to construct a foreign policy that needs to be sensitive to the particularity and
diversity of the world's states, and to global processes and challenges that transcend state-
centric reasoning.[25]
As unsettling as it may be, there are no "timeless truths" in world politics. The international
system changes as fast as we can understand its functions, and often much faster. It seems to be
natural for the human mind to use analogies and slogans to comprehend situations that are
difficult to grasp. If policymakers indeed simplify the world into frameworks to make it
comprehensible, then they must beware not to base those frameworks on outdated and
intellectually sloppy assumptions of geopolitics.
Analogies and Policy
Policy is driven by analogy, both historical and theoretical. One common, and dangerous,
analogy that drives US Eurasian policy is "the game." Brzezinski speaks of chess; Central Asian
policy is the "new great game"; Kissinger and Nixon used game analogies throughout their reign
and in their writings afterward.[26] Impenetrably complex problems are simplified to games,
which was problematic enough during the Cold War but is acutely poisonous today.
Take Brzezinski's chess analogy. Chess has two players, and one opponent; it is zero-sum, and to
the finish; there is a winner and a loser, with no middle ground. The opponent of the United
States to Brzezinski is, and has always been, Russia. If we approach Eurasia as if it were a
chessboard, then we will be met by opponents, and cooperation and mutual benefit would be
removed from our calculations. If the leaders of the most powerful nation on earth were to
conceptualize foreign policy as a chess game, it would virtually ensure that other nations would
as well. A Eurasian alliance to counteract growing US influence would be virtually inevitable.
Mackinder's Heartland theory is a another example of inappropriately applied analogy. Sir
Halford took Britain's traditional fear of the dominance of the resources of continental Europe by
one power and extended it to encompass the entire world. To many geopoliticians, the United
States is an island power, peripheral to the crucial and decisive land of Eurasia. The only way
America can be safe is if the continent does not unify against her.
England's fear of a united European continent in the 19th century was understandable, because
only a continental power unconcerned with land enemies would be able to concentrate its
resources to challenge the Royal Navy. The analogy with the World Island and the United States
falls apart, for no nation that dominates that continent would ever be able to threaten our
hemisphere. Even if it were conceivable that one power could dominate Eurasia (which of course
it is not), such an imbalance would not necessarily threaten American interests, and the dominant
power presumably would not be able to project power over the oceans. Any imaginable alliance
of Eurasian powers would be too unwieldy and disparate to operate effectively. Some fear that a
Eurasian alliance would be capable of shutting off trade with the United States, ruining our
economy and standard of living. While this may have had some relevance when there was the
potential for the rest of the world to be dominated by the communists, as long as the great
powers of the World Island continue to be wedded to the free market (and do not perceive US
power to be threatening), then there is little danger of their voluntarily shutting their doors to the
American market and investment structure.
Paradoxically, our attempts to prevent a Eurasian anti-American alliance may make that outcome
more likely. As Steven Walt has persuasively shown, imbalances of threat, not imbalances of
power, drive alliances together.[27] Our attempts to project power into the Heartland, if done
clumsily, can heighten threat perceptions in its capitals, making such counterproductive alliances
more attractive.
British uneasiness with the European Union is reflective of this fear of continental alliances. But
is there really any threat of a state marshaling forces against the British Isles? Analogies, and
their accompanying "eternal interests," tend to persist long after their useful life is over.
Sometimes we fail to perceive the end of that intellectual shelf life.
Frameworks for Grand Strategies
The Clinton Administration has been criticized from the beginning for running a foreign policy
that is at best reactive and at worst rudderless and confused. While this characterization may not
be entirely accurate or even fair, it is apparent that running a foreign policy without the
framework provided by a global rival can appear to be unfocused and ad hoc. Without a vision of
what the next century ought to look like, no policies can be formulated to bring it about.
During the Cold War, foreign policy decisions were never easy, but at least the Soviet Union
provided an enemy to be opposed. Conventional wisdom recommended countering every Soviet
move, no matter how trivial. Today the United States is at a unipolar position in every possible
sense--militarily, economically, culturally, politically, and on and on. The world looked to the
United States at the end of the Cold War to lead a new century, to redefine the rules by which the
system operates. As Fareed Zakaria has noted, after the last two world wars, "America wanted to
change the world, and the world was reluctant. But in 1999, the world is eager to change--along
the lines being defined by America--but now America is reluctant."[28]
American policymakers have continuously underestimated the impact that a hegemon can have
on the "rules of the game" because they are wedded to the archaic realist and geopolitical notion
that those rules do not change. Yet as disconcerting as it may seem, the rules evolve as quickly as
"the game" itself, and policymakers must have the vision to anticipate that evolution and adjust
accordingly. The end of the Cold War has provided the United States an unprecedented
opportunity to shape the nature of the system. In order to do so it is necessary to jettison
antiquated and baseless concepts like geopolitics once and for all.
Conclusion
"Eternal" geopolitical realities and national interests are mirages. The idea that a Heartland
power has any advantages due to its position on the map cannot be historically or theoretically
justified; the notion that an imbalance of power in Eurasia (even if it were conceivable) would
somehow threaten the interests of the United States is not tenable; and the idea that geographic
"realities" of power can operate outside of the context of ideology, nationalism, and culture is
pure fantasy. Worse than mirages, these ideas can cripple the way we run our foreign policy in
the new century.
Debunking the fundamental assumptions of geopolitics is an important task when one considers
how policy is made. Policymakers operate with a set of assumptions and frameworks through
which they interpret international events. As Richard Neustadt and Ernest May have persuasively
argued, historical (and often wildly inappropriate) analogies, banal slogans, and outdated theories
often become the driving forces in policymaking.[29] One of these outdated theories that persists
in our intellectual memory is Sir Halford Mackinder's geopolitics.
Policymakers in the United States vastly underestimate the hegemon's potential to shape the
nature of the international system. Intellectuals wedded to old ideas about the unchanging nature
of power have so far failed to lead the world in the new directions that it expected. The
unparalleled unipolar position that the United States found itself in when the Cold War abruptly
ended is being wasted by politicians with no vision for shaping the future. The debate that
occasionally resurfaces over the "isolationist" nature of the United States misses a key
dimension: if nothing else, America has certainly been intellectually isolationist in the post-Cold
War era, hiding behind walls and refusing to lead the world in new directions that its
unprecedented power has made possible. The rules that govern international relations evolve. No
so-called permanent interests, or eternal geographical realities, exist. The only way that the next
century can be better than the one we are leaving is with a reevaluation of the assumptions and
attitudes that underlie our actions. A prolonged investigation into the utility of all geopolitical
theory would be a good place to start.

NOTES
1. Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962 [original
publication 1919]), p 150.
2. Charles Clover, "Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland," Foreign Affairs, 78 (March/April 1999),
9.
3. From Jean Gottman, "The Background of Geopolitics," Military Affairs, 6 (Winter 1942), 197.
4. Gearoid Ó Tuathail, "Problematizing Geopolitics: Survey, Statesmanship and Strategy,"
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 19 (1994), 261.
5. Ibid., p. 263.
6. Ibid., p. 267.
7. For more on this, see Alfred Vagts, "Geography in War and Geopolitics," Military Affairs, 7
(Summer 1943), 85-86.
8. Ibid., p. 87.
9. For this perspective, and summation of Haushofer's writings, see Hans W. Weigert, Generals
and Geopolitics (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1942).
10. Vagts, p. 87.
11. J. Thorndike, "Geopolitics: The Lurid Career of a Scientific System which a Briton Invented,
the Germans Used, and the Americans Need to Study," Life, 21 December 1942.
12. Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of Peace (New York: Harcourt & Brace, 1944), p. 43.
13. For more on Spykman, and his links to Mackinder and Kennan, see Michael P. Gerace,
"Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and After," Comparative
Strategy, 10 (October-December 1991), 347-64.
14. Simon Dalby, "American Security Discourse: the Persistence of Geopolitics," Political
Geography Quarterly, 9 (April 1990), 171.
15. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1982), p.
57.
16. Colin S. Gray, "The Continued Primacy of Geography," Orbis, 40 (Spring 1996), 258.
17. See, for instance, Brzezinski's Cold War writings like Game Plan: A Geostrategic
Framework for the Conduct of the U.S.-Soviet Contest (Boston: the Atlantic Monthly Press,
1986) and The Grand Chessboard (New York: Basic Books, 1997) from after it was over.
18. For an analysis of the effect of geopolitics, Mackinder, and the Heartland on US Cold War
foreign policy, see G. R. Sloan, Geopolitics in United States Strategic Policy, 1890-1987 (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), esp. pp. 127-239; and Colin S. Gray, The Geopolitics of
Superpower (Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1988).
19. See, in addition to those works already cited, reviews of the current literature in Colin S.
Gray, "Geography and Grand Strategy," Comparative Strategy, 10 (October-December 1991)
311-29; David Hansen, "The Immutable Importance of Geography," Parameters, 27 (Spring
1997), 55-64; John Hillen and Michael P. Noonan, "The Geopolitics of NATO Enlargement,"
Parameters, 28 (Autumn 1998), 21-34; and Gerald Robbins, "The Post-Soviet Heartland:
Reconsidering Mackinder," Global Affairs, 8 (Fall 1993), 95-108.
20. Charles Clover, "Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland," Foreign Affairs, 78 (March/April
1999), 9.
21. Halford J. Mackinder, "The Round World and the Winning of the Peace," Foreign Affairs, 21
(July 1943), 603.
22. Ralph Turner, "Technology and Geopolitics," Military Affairs, 7 (Spring 1943), 14.
23. Colin S. Gray, "The Continued Primacy of Geography," Orbis, 40 (Spring 1996), 251.
24. Carl Goldstein, "Final Frontier," Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 June 1993, p. 54.
25. Geraoid Ó Tauthail, "Understanding Critical Geopolitics: Geopolitics and Risk Society,"
Internet, http://www.majbill.vt.edu/geog/faculty/toal/papers/stratstud.html.
26. Ó Tuathail documents Kissinger's usage of the game metaphor in "Problematizing
Geopolitics," pp. 266-67.
27. See Steven M. Walt, The Origin of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1987).
28. Quoted in Thomas Freidman, "The War Over Peace," The New York Times, 17 October 1999,
op-ed.
29. Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-
Makers (New York: Free Press, 1986).

Christopher J. Fettweis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government and Politics at

the University of Maryland, College Park. His fields are international relations and comparative
politics, and his dissertation addresses US foreign policy toward Central Asia and the Caspian
Sea.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do
not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this
article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will
not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

To become a Member of Global Research

The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community
internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright
must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including
commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our
readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of
political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to
those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If
you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request
permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com

© Copyright Christopher J. Fettweis, Parameters, Summer 2000, pp. 58-71., 2006

The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=2095

Strange Maps
July 27, 2009
402 – Homeland Is Where the Heartland Is
Filed under: Uncategorized — strangemaps @ 2:18 am

In geopolitical theory, the term ‘Heartland’ refers to the area between the Volga and Yangtze
rivers, and between the Himalaya and the Arctic regions. According to H.J. Mackinder’s 1904
article The Geographical Pivot of History, this area was of paramount geopolitical importance
due to its crucial position within what he called the World-Island (i.e. Europe, Asia and Africa).
Mackinder summarised his ‘Heartland Theory’ thus: “Who rules East Europe commands the
Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island
controls the world.”
Mackinder’s theory emanated from a late-19th century vision of wars being decided by massive,
land-based troop movements (speeded up by rail transport). The theory proved valuable as a
context (or even a justification) for Germany’s push into the Soviet Union during the Second
World War, and to a certain extent as a frame of reference during the Cold War. But one can
wonder how relevant it remained, with the development of highly destructive long-range air raids
as a major component of modern warfare.
Another use of the term ‘Heartland’ is as shorthand for the giant Hinterland of the United States.
This American Heartland is not totally identical to its obvious geographic manifestation – i.e. the
flyover states, the vast, landlocked bulk of the country without its more populated, urbane
Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It also a symbolic concept, referring to an essentialist vision of an
America where an apple pie is forever cooling on the window-sill. This America is less defined
by geography than by nostalgia; a Heartland that is not merely a place, but also a yearning - for a
country still defined by pioneering spirit and small-town values.
The heartland portrayed here is a very literal one, composed by cleverly arranging all 50 US
states to have their oblique sides help form the outline of a giant heart. Texas’ pointy southern
extremity represents the bottom part of the iconic heart-shape, while the slightly wedge-shaped
top of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is very aptly chosen as the place where the tops of both heart
halves merge. All in all, this picture is a very nice fit – considering that all states are drawn to the
same scale.
Many thanks to Casey T. for pointing out this (he)artwork, originally titled ‘States United’
(although the artist, Beauchamping, inevitably also considered ‘Heartland’). The original
context of the work is here, on the website www.etsy.com, a “global vintage and handmade
marketplace”.

Mackinder and the Heartland

/wiki/File:Pivot_area.png

/wiki/File:Pivot_area.png /wiki/File:Pivot_area.pngSir Halford Mackinder's

Heartland concept showing the situation of the "pivot area" established in the Theory of the
Heartland.
The concept of geopolitics initially gained attention through the work of Kazza Spoons and Sir
Halford Mackinder in England and his formulation of the Heartland Theory in 1904. Mackinder's
doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer
Mahan about the significance of navies (he coined the term sea power) in world conflict. The
Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility for a huge empire being brought into existence in
the Heartland, which wouldn't need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to The basic notions
of Mackinder's doctrine involve considering the geography of the Earth as being divided into two
sections, the World Island or Core, comprising Eurasia and Africa; and the Periphery, including
the Americas, the British Isles, and Oceania. Not only was the Periphery noticeably smaller than
the World Island, it necessarily required much sea transport to function at the technological level
of the World Island, which contained sufficient natural resources for a developed economy. Also,
the industrial centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The
World Island could send its navy to destroy each one of them in turn. It could locate its own
industries in a region further inland than the Periphery could,so they would have a longer
struggle reaching them, and would be facing a well-stocked industrial bastion. This region
Mackinder termed the Heartland. It essentially comprised Ukraine, Western Russia, and
Mitteleuropa (a German term for Central Europe). The Heartland contained the grain reserves of
Ukraine, and many other natural resources. Mackinder's notion of geopolitics can be summed up
in his saying "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland
commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World." His doctrine
was influential during the World Wars and the Cold War, for Germany and later Russia each
made territorial strides toward the Heartland.

[edit] Nazis
Popular views of the role of geopolitics in the Nazi Third Reich suggest a fundamental
significance on the part of the geopoliticians in the ideological orientation of the Nazi state.
Bassin (1987) reveals that these popular views are in important ways misleading and incorrect.
Despite the numerous similarities and affinities between the two doctrines, geopolitics was
always held suspect by the National Socialist ideologists. This suspicion was understandable, for
the underlying philosophical orientation of geopolitics ran counter to that of National Socialism.
Geopolitics, deriving from the political geography of Ratzel, shared his scientific materialism
and determinism. Human society was determined by external influences, in the face of which
qualities held innately by individuals or groups were of reduced or no significance. National
Socialism both rejected in principle materialism and determinism and also elevated innate human
qualities, in the form of a hypothesized 'racial character,' to the factor of greatest significance in
the constitution of human society. These differences led after 1933 to friction and ultimately to
open denunciation of geopolitics by Nazi ideologists.[2]

[edit] Ratzel
The geopolitical theory of Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) has been criticized as being too
sweeping, his interpretation of human history and geography too simple and mechanistic. In his
analysis of the importance of mobility, and the move from sea to rail transport, he failed to
predict the revolutionary impact of air power. Critically also he underestimated the importance of
social organization in the development of power[3]. The theories of Mackinder fall into the
category of geo-strategy which is no more than a single sub-component within the broader study
of contemporary geopolitics and geopolitical change.

[edit] Kjellen
After World War I, Kjellen's thoughts and the term were picked up and extended by a number of
scientists: in Germany by Karl Haushofer, Erich Obst, Hermann Lautensach and Otto Maull; in
England, Mackinder and James Fairgrieve; in France Vidal de la Blache and Camille Vallaux. In
1923 Karl Haushofer founded the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Journal for Geopolitics), which
developed as a propaganda organ for Nazi Germany. However, more recently Haushofer's
influence within the Nazi Party has been questioned (O'Tuathail, 1996) since Haushofer failed to
incorporate the Nazis' racial ideology into his work.

[edit] Huntington
Since then, the word geopolitics has been applied to other theories, most notably the notion of
the Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington. In a peaceable world, neither sea lanes nor
surface transport are threatened; hence all countries are effectively close enough to one another
physically. It is in the realm of the political ideas, workings, and cultures that there are
differences, and the term has shifted more towards this arena, especially in its popular usage.
Huntington’s geopolitical model, especially the structures for North Africa and Eurasia, is
largely derived from the "Intermediate Region" geopolitical model first formulated by Dimitri
Kitsikis and published in 1978.[4]

[edit] Definitions
“ The study of geopolitics has undergone a major renaissance during the past decade. ”
Addressing a gap in the published periodical literature, this journal seeks to explore the
theoretical implications of contemporary geopolitics and geopolitical change with
 particular reference to territorial problems and issues of state sovereignty .
Multidisciplinary in its scope, geopolitics includes all aspects of the social sciences with
particular emphasis on political geography, international relations, the territorial aspects
of political science and international law. The journal seeks to maintain a healthy balance
between systemic and regional analysis. (Geopolitics Journal home page -
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14650045.asp)
In the abstract, geopolitics traditionally indicates the links and causal relationships
between political power and geographic space; in concrete terms it is often seen as a body
of thought assaying specific strategic prescriptions based on the relative importance of
land power and sea power in world history... The geopolitical tradition had some
consistent concerns, like the geopolitical correlates of power in world politics, the
identification of international core areas, and the relationships between naval and
terrestrial capabilities.—Oyvind Osterud, "The Uses and Abuses of Geopolitics", Journal
of Peace Research, no. 2, 1988, p. 192

“ By geopolitical, I mean an approach that pays attention to the requirements of

equilibrium. Henry Kissinger in Colin S Gray, G R Sloan. Geopolitics, Geography, and
Strategy. Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999. ”

“ Geopolitics is studying geopolitical systems. The geopolitical system is, in my opinion, the
ensemble of relations between the interests of international political actors, interests
focused to an area, space, geographical element or ways.—Vladimir Toncea,
Geopolitical evolution of borders in Danube Basin, PhD 2006. ”

“ Geopolitics as a branch of political geography is the study of reciprocal relations between

geography, politics and power and also the interactions arising from combination of them
with each other. According to this definition, geopolitics is a scientific discipline and has a
basic science nature.(Hafeznia, M.R. 2006. Principles and Concepts of Geopolitics. Popoli
Publications: Iran, pp 37–39.)

Geopolitics
From New World Encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Previous (Geonim)
Next (Georg Büchner)
Geopolitics attempts to explain international politics in terms of geography—that is, the
location, size, and resources of places. It tries to describe the relationships between geographic
space, resources, and foreign policy. Several geopolitical theories have fallen into disrepute and
are no longer used because they have been used to justify imperialism and wars of aggression.
They also tended to emphasize only one material factor to the exclusion of cultural and
ideological factors. A deeper understanding of international relations requires consideration of all
factors that are pertinent to human life, taking into account historical, social, and spiritual
aspects, as well as the physical and geographic nature of each nation.

Contents
[hide]

•1 Definition

•2 History

•2.1 Halford Mackinder

•2.2 Other Theories

•3 Recent Developments

•4 Notes

•5 Further reading

•6 Credits

Definition
Geopolitics attempts to explain international politics in terms of geography, based on factors
such as the location, size, and resources of each area. In the words of Oyvind Osterud: [1]:
In the abstract, geopolitics traditionally indicates the links and causal relationships
between political power and geographic space; in concrete terms it is often seen as a body
of thought assaying specific strategic prescriptions based on the relative importance of
land power and sea power in world history... The geopolitical tradition had some
consistent concerns, like the geopolitical correlates of power in world politics, the
identification of international core areas, and the relationships between naval and
terrestrial capabilities.

History
Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén coined the term "geopolitics" at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Kjellén was inspired by the German geographer and ethnographer Friedrich
Ratzel, who published his book Politische Geographie (Political Geography) in 1897. The term
was popularized in English by American diplomat Robert Strausz-Hupé, a faculty member of the
University of Pennsylvania.

Halford Mackinder
Geopolitics gained prominence through the theories of Sir Halford Mackinder of England with
his "Heartland Theory" in 1904. Mackinder divided the world into two sections, the "World
Island" and the "Periphery." The World Island included the great land mass of Europe, Asia, and
Africa, including the Heartland, which included Ukraine, Western Russia, and Mitteleuropa. The
"Periphery" included the Americas, British Isles, and Oceania.
The Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility for a huge empire to be brought into existence
in the Heartland, which would not need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its
military industrial complex, and that this empire could not be defeated by all the rest of the world
coalitioned against it. The Heartland contained the grain reserves of Ukraine, and many other
natural resources. Comparing countries to cogs in a machine, he theorized that the Heartland was
the largest cog, and countries surrounding it were the smaller cogs that moved as it moved.
Mackinder's theory can be summed up in his saying "Who rules East Europe commands the
Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island
commands the world." His doctrine was influential during the World Wars and the Cold War, for
Germany and later Russia each made failed attempts to seize and fortify the Heartland.
According to Mackinder's doctrine, the World Island, which contained sufficient natural
resources for a developed economy, could send its navy to destroy or intimidate the nations of
the periphery while locating its own industries further inland so the nations of the periphery
would have a longer struggle reaching them, and would be facing a well-stocked industrial
bastion. Also, the industrial centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated
locations.
Influenced by Mackinder's theory, Adolf Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, which he saw as being
necessary for world domination. Hitler did not reckon, however, with the determination and
resilience of the Soviet people and the severity of the Russian winter, which combined to deliver
a crushing blow to the Wehrmacht and was the beginning of the end for the Third Reich.
Mackinder’s theory was further discredited when the Soviet empire, which occupied the
Heartland, dissolved into separate republics amid economic chaos and rebellion.

Other Theories
Mackinder’s theory was opposed by Alfred Thayer Mahan who stressed the significance of
navies (he coined the term sea power) in world conflict. American scholar Nicholas Spykman
argued that it was also important to control what he called the "Rimland," which consisted of
Western Europe, the Middle East, and southern and eastern Asia. These scholars saw naval
power as the key to controlling key straits, isthmuses, and peninsulas that intersect ocean trade
routes, such as the straits of Gibralter, the Bosporous, the straits of Molucca, the Suez Canal, and
the Panama Canal. These strategic chokepoints have been hotbeds of imperial ambitions and
intrigue throughout history.
A variation of geopolitical theory that emerged during the Vietnam War was the "domino
theory," the idea that communism would seek to take over adjacent countries one by one, like a
row of falling dominoes. This argument was used for U.S. intervention in Vietnam. The theory
argued that the line had to be held in Vietnam to prevent Thailand, Indonesia, and eventually
Australia from being at risk. This theory is no longer considered valid since the collapse of the
Soviet Empire, conflicts between communist countries—such as border disputes between
Mainland China and Vietnam—and the adoption of capitalism by China and Vietnam.
After World War I, Kjellen's thoughts and the term were picked up and extended by a number of
scientists: in Germany by Karl Haushofer, Erich Obst, Hermann Lautensach, and Otto Maull; in
England by Halford Mackinder; in France Paul Vidal de la Blache. In 1923, Karl Haushofer
founded the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (magazine for geopolitics), which developed as a
propaganda organ for Nazi Germany.
Haushofer combined Mackinder's theory with some of his own and developed geopolitics into a
pseudoscience. He argued that oceanic countries would have to grant lebensraum (living space)
to the newer, more dynamic continental countries. Lebensraum was a key propaganda slogan
justifying Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia that set World War II in
motion.
Anton Zischka published Afrika, Europas Gemischftaufgabe Tummer (Africa, Complement of
Europe) in 1952, where he proposed a kind of North-South Empire, from Stockholm in Sweden
to Johannesburg in South Africa.

Recent Developments
Geopolitics in the past has focused on world conflict, based on the premise that the world
contains a limited amount of space and all countries struggle among themselves to get enough to
survive. Geopolitics, however, can also be used to foster peace between nations, as Former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said, by geopolitical, I mean an approach that pays attention
to the requirements of equilibrium. [2]
Since then, the word "geopolitics" has been applied to other theories, most notably the notion of
the "Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel Huntington. At the same time historian William H.
McNeill in his book The Rise of the West wrote about the influence of the Silk Road in linking
global civilizations together. Stretching 5,000 miles from eastern China to the Mediterranean Sea
and flourishing from 100s B.C.E. to 1500s C.E., that key trade route, named after the caravans of
Chinese silks that traversed it to be sold in the West, effected what McNeill calls the "closure of
the ecumene": his term for the great community of civilization, linked together from extreme
East to farthest West, in which there have been no entirely independent civilizations since.
Gradual advances in maritime technology made sea routes safer and more convenient, leading to
the demise of the Silk Road by the 1500s and the rise of maritime powers. A modern version of a
land route linking the world together, however, has been proposed in creating a series of bridges
and/or tunnels across the Bering Strait, linking Alaska in the United States and Siberia. This
would be a vital link in the great project of creating a single land transit route spanning the globe
from the tip of South America to England. The concept of an overland connection crossing the
Bering Strait goes back at least a century. William Gilpin, first governor of the Colorado
Territory, envisioned a vast "Cosmopolitan Railway" in 1890 linking the entire world via a series
of railways. In the following years several other proposals were developed by others, including
Joseph Strauss, designer of the Golden Gate Bridge, engineer T. Y. Lin, who like Gilpin,
envisioned the project as more than simply a bridge but as a symbol of international cooperation
and unity, and Russian railway engineer Anatoly Cherkasov soon after the end of the Cold War.
The most recent proposal includes a global highway and rail system proposed by the Universal
Peace Federation founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
As the world became smaller in the sense of global transportation becoming faster and easier,
and neither sea lanes nor surface transport are threatened in a more peaceable world, all countries
are effectively close enough from one another physically to mitigate the influence of geographic
space. It is in the realm of the political ideas, workings, and cultures that there are differences,
and the term has shifted more towards this arena, especially in its popular usage.

Notes
↑ Osterud, Oyvind. "The Uses and Abuses of Geopolitics,” Journal of Peace Research, no. 2,
p. 191, 1988
↑ Kissinger, Henry. Colin S Gray, G R Sloan. Geopolitics, Geography, and Strategy.
Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999.

Further reading
•Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. 1997.
•Krejčí, Oskar: Geopolitics of the Central European Region. The view from Prague and
Bratislava Bratislava: Veda, 2005. 494 p.

•O'Loughlin, John and Henning Heske. From 'Geopolitik' to 'Geopolitique': Converting a

Discipline for War to a Discipline for Peace. In: Kliot, N. and Waterman, S. (ed.): The
Political Geography of Conflict and Peace. London: Belhaven Press, 1991

•O'Tuathail, Gearoid, etal. The Geopolitics Reader. New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN
0415162718.

•Spang, Christian W. “Karl Haushofer Re-examined–Geopolitics as a Factor within

Japanese-German Rapprochement in the Inter-War Years?,” in: C. W. Spang, R.-H.
 Wippich (eds.), Japanese-German Relations, 1895-1945. War, Diplomacy and Public
Opinion, London, 2006, pp. 139-157.
World Conquest : The Heartland Theory of Halford J. Mackinder
by MR Ronald Hee
Born in 1861, the eminent lecturer and British MP, Halford J. Mackinder, was a geographer by
training. In 1904, he wrote an article that changed how politicians and military men viewed the
world. It was a perception that influenced Hitler to send his panzers east against Soviet Russia. It
was a perception that, only recently, with the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of
the Cold War, had seemed all too relevant, relevant enough to be part of the intellectual
underpinnings for superpower foreign policy. The theory that had so influenced nearly three
generations of strategists was called simply, the Heartland Theory.
In a nutshell, Mackinder saw history as a struggle between land-based and sea-based powers. He
saw that the world had become a "closed" system, with no new lands left for the Europeans
powers to discover, to conquer, and to fight over without affecting events elsewhere. Sea and
land-based powers would then struggle for dominance of the world, and the victor would be in a
position to set up a world empire.
The determining factor in this struggle was geography; "Man and not nature initiates, but nature
in large measure controls".1 The geographical features of the globe, in large measure, is seen as
defining the nature of this world struggle, defining the opposing sides, and defining the areas of
conflict. Defeat and victory would hinge on the "pivot-state"; the state in control of the
"heartland" of the "world-island".
The "world-island" is the landmass of Euro-Asia-Africa. The control of this landmass by any one
state would enable it to organise overwhelming human and material resources, to the detriment
of the rest of the world. As the "heartland" of this landmass was inaccessible to attacks from sea-
based powers, this organisation could take place largely unimpeded.
Once this organisation was underway, victory would be all but inevitable, even if all the sea--
based powers were to unite against this "pivot-state". In time, this "pivot-state" would reach open
waters, and, with the resources of the "world island" behind it, it would be unstoppable; "the
oversetting of the balance of power in favour of the pivot state, resulting in its expansion over the
marginal lands of Euro-Asia, would permit of the use of vast continental resources for fleet-
building, and the empire of the world would then be in sight".2
A look at Map I perhaps illustrates matters more clearly. 'What Mackinder called in 1904 the
"pivot area", he subsequently called the "heartland" by 1919. The "heart" of Mackinder's theory
is contained in a famous and succinct dictum:
Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland;
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island'
Who rules the World-Island commands the World
In practical terms, this dictum points to a struggle for the control of Eastern Europe (including
European Russia) by the land powers. The sea powers would then have to fight the victor to
prevent control of the Euro-Asian-African landmass and ultimately the world. At the height of
World War II, a good 40 years after this dictum was first coined, it was said that "there is no
escape from the logic of this conclusion and it is the most powerful, practical argument for
intelligent international organisation that could be presented".4
In retrospect, it might be argued that, during the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon had nearly
succeeded in controlling this heartland, and the British were at times rather desperately raising
coalition after coalition to thwart this control. Napoleon's Continental System aimed to unite
Europe against England, closing off the continent from English trade. It can be argued farther,
that Napoleon came to grief only after the breakdown of the Continental System and his
disastrous fight against the other great land power of Europe, Tzarist Russia.
With the defeat of Napoleon, the paramount sea power, Britain, continued its struggle, now
against the successor "pivot-state", Russia. Throughout what Kipling called "The Great Game"
of 19th century diplomacy, Britain sought to keep Russia bottled up, by preventing access
through China and Japan in the east, India in the south, and Turkey in the south-west, with her
allies in Europe.
Writing in 1904 while his own British Empire was still the paramount sea power, Mackinder
sought to warn that the game was changing, that, as Marxists were once so fond of pontificating,
the "correlation of forces" was shifting. This change was being brought about not so much by the
heartland's vast wealth and size, but due to technical changes mobilising these resources:
It was an unprecedented thing in the year 1900 that Britain should maintain a quarter of a million
men in her war with the Boers at a distance of six thousand miles over the ocean; but it was as
remarkable a feat for Russia to place an army of more than a quarter of a million men against the
Japanese in Manchuria in 1904 at a distance of four thousand miles by rail. (italics mine)5
What Mackinder foresaw was that the traditional advantage of mobility enjoyed by the sea
power, was now being met in equal measure by mobility on land, brought about by the railroad
and by the motor vehicle. The British way of war, as explained by Mackinder's contemporary,
Alfred T. Mahan, was to land relatively small bodies of troops at points of their choosing, to
effect a strategic result. Victory was assured by the control of the seas.
Certainly the British way of war had resulted in one of the world's greatest empires - at its height,
covering one quarter of the world's landmass - built at relatively low cost by a small island
nation. But the rules were changing. As Mackinder foresaw, by World War I, the equal mobility
of the land-based powers would mean bloody stalemates, and a draining of resources from the
main effort; the failures at Dardanelles and Gallipoli are bloody examples.
During that war, Germany and her allies were not in undisputed control of Eastern Europe,
thanks again to Russia. But what if they were? The history of the world might well have been
very much different. In 1902, Mackinder had warned, "In the presence of vast Powers, broad
based on the resources of half continents, Britain could not again become mistress of the
seas...."6
It is the opinion of this writer that one of the greatest computer games ever designed is
Civilization, by MicroProse, surpassed only by its sequel, Civilization II. In this game, the player
matches his wits against other powers led by the likes of Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar and Mao
Zedong, for control of the world, in a game spanning 6,000 years of human history, from the
Stone Age to the Space Age, developing, along the way, all the technologies that make up the
modern world. To play the game is to play geopolitics the way Mackinder saw it; to defeat all of
one's rivals on the Euro-Asian-African landmass, would ensure victory, for the control of such
vast resources meant that even an enemy in control of everything else on earth, could not hope to
prevail. World conquest from either the Americas or Australia is, at best, difficult.
With the end of World War I, perhaps Mackinder's most enthusiastic followers could be found
among the Germans. Karl Haushofer, another Mackinder contemporary, wrote and lectured
widely on geopolitics, and is said to have influenced Hitler's thinking. Of Mackinder's theory,
Haushofer exclaimed, "Never have I seen anything greater than these few pages of a geopolitical
masterwork."7 For Haushofer, Hitler, and the Nazi leadership, the lessons of World War I were
clear - Germany's salvation lay in the subjugation of lebensraum in eastern Europe and beyond,
to be wrested from Soviet Russia; "dominate the Heartland, both for its strategic advantages and
for its rich resources; then and only then could she match the Anglo-Saxon powers; all other
policies, such as [a] ... naval challenge were wasteful and mistaken diversions".8
Mackinder hinted as much in 1904, that a union of the organised brain that was Germany, upon
the vast, rich body that was Russia, would put that union in an unassailable position. With this in
mind, the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 came as no surprise, nor did the
subsequent carving up of Eastern Europe between the two land giants. Hitler had seen the Pact as
a means to keep Russia at bay while he built his base in Europe. By 1941, he felt ready to attack
Russia, an attack which also should have come as no surprise to a student of Mackinder; nor
should Hitler's failure in the vastness of that country, just like Napoleon before him.
It is precisely such a juncture, whether by force or by agreement, that Mackinder sought to
forestall in Democratic Ideals and Reality, written in 1919. "It is a vital necessity [for lasting
peace]", he wrote, "that there should be a tier of independent states between Germany and
Russia".9 If these states remained viable, he reasoned, then Eastern Europe would be broken up,
denying Germany, Russia, or any other power, dominance. But this viability, he warned,
depended on the cooperation of the sea-based powers.
Written specifically to influence the politicians re-drawing the map of Europe at Versailles,
Mackinder was partially successful. It was these sea-based powers that had made these Eastern
European states possible after World War I. And it was these sea-based powers' failure to support
these states in the 1930s, that led to the dominance of the region by one power, and, in the end,
very nearly the creation of the heartland power - Nazi Germany -Mackinder warned of.
Fortunately for the sea-based powers, the two land behemoths of Nazi-controlled Europe, and
communist-controlled Russia went for each other throats, instead of keeping a united front
against the Anglo-Americans. Despite what the sea-based powers may claim, it was in this clash
of titans that Germany was defeated; "the real stuffing was knocked out of the German army on
its Eastern Front, where it suffered over four-fifths of its casualties..."10
With Nazi Germany so preoccupied, the sea-based powers could continue in their strategy of the
periphery, successfully defeating the Germans in North Africa, landing commando and sabotage
forces along the coasts of Europe, and keeping Russia in the fight with vital supplies sent by
ship. The best example of the application of sea power was the Normandy landings of 1944. The
landings gave the sea powers a short route to the heart of Germany, and the war ended just over a
year after the landings. But in 1944 the landings were an extremely perilous undertaking;
impossible if the Non-Aggression Pact had still been in force,11 and more likely, an invasion
from Normandy across to Britain, had the Germans and Russians been active partners, or if
either power had been defeated by the other.
Mention has been made of the sea power theories of Mahan. Of World War II, it has been said
that "Mahanite methods were ineffectual against a power which had adopted a Mackinderite
programme".12 Yet the theories of the two men are not as opposing as some believe. Boiled
down to the bare essentials, the two theories are two sides of the same coin; "the chief difference
between Mahan and Mackinder centred around the method of securing command over the world
island".13 Mackinder saw Mahanite sea power as on the wane, and his warning of the rising
strength of the land power gave rise to the containment school after World War II.
After World War II, the baton passed to a new sea power, from the fatally weakened British
Empire, to the US. With Germany in ashes, the great land power rival once again became Russia.
In 1943, while Russia had just started to gain the upper hand against the Nazis, Mackinder
warned of the rise of Russia, as a land power for the first time, in control of both Eastern Europe
as well as the heartland; "the conclusion is unavoidable that if the Soviet Union emerges from
this war as conqueror of Germany, she must rank as the greatest land power on the globe," and
the heartland "for the first time in history ...is manned by a garrison sufficient both in number
and quality".14
Soviet Russia had to be "contained" within the heartland; the world island had to remain at least
partially safe for democracy. Writing in 1962, Professor Pearce commented that with the "Cold
War [being] waged by carefully limited land, sea and air forces in the peninsulas of the World
Island, far from being outdated, [the Heartland Theory] appears to be more relevant than
ever".15 Map II shows the American right-wing view of the world; an embattled sea-based
Uncle Sam against the colossal land-based Russian Bear.
In the 1980's, Zbigniew Brzezinski, once the National Security Advisor under the Carter
Administration, echoed the words of Mackinder; "Whoever controls Eurasia dominates the
globe. If the Soviet Union captures the peripheries of this landmass ... it would not only win
control of vast human, economic and military resources, but also gain access to the geostrategic
approaches to the Western Hemisphere - the Atlantic and the Pacific...."16
Certainly such a Mackinderite view of the world continued under the neo-containment of the
Reagan years, little changed since the 1950's:
Whether the underlying process is perceived in the grandiose form of Kissinger's geopolitical
mechanics, the Nixon 'game plan' or an anti-Communist crusade, the prevailing American mental
map [during the Reagan Administration] is a Mackinderesque projection divided between white
and red camps with a contested field of pinkish green between. The image which sustains the
insanity of nuclear deterrence is of a violently aggressive Russian heartland which must be held
in check ... and other nations become mere dominoes in the hegemonic struggle....17
Yet, is control over such vast territories as the world island really possible?
A number of criticisms have been raised against Mackinder's theories, perhaps the most telling is
nationalism. Writing in an era where national strength was determined by the extent of one's
imperial possessions, how so vast an empire as the world island could be controlled and
exploited over the long term, appeared to not have been taken fully into account. The explosion
of nationalism after 194518 created a great many more nation-states than had existed before; the
explosion of 1989-91 created several more in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Rather than falling under the sway of one power, the world island has been heading in the
opposite direction. With the 20-20 vision of hindsight, it is easy to accuse the Cold War policy
makers of such a Mackinderite fixation, that they failed to see that the "evil empire" had enough
difficulties keeping its own nations in line, let alone its satellites in Eastern Europe, to seriously
think of adding more nations under its control.
This fixation meant lost opportunities. This fixation saw the communists as a monolithic block,
bent on following the Heartland Theory to its final conclusion. This fixation meant that the true
nature of the Sino-Soviet split, leading to two rival communist powers in dispute of the
heartland, remained unexplored and unexploited for 20 years, until Nixon's 1972 visit to China.
As far back as 1904, at the very first reading of the Heartland Theory, there was already
criticism. It was pointed out then that both the ship and the rail were destined to lose in
importance to air transport, and this would render the theory partly inoperable.19 In Mackinder's
defence, it should be stated that air transport remains, today at least, at best an auxiliary means to
project power. At best air transport can only bring the advance, key elements into a trouble spot.
The bulk of the troops and supplies must come the usual way.
Against the numbers a land power could muster, the small forces that can be brought in by air,
would be grossly insufficient. During the 1990-91 Gulf War, the early deployment of the 82nd
Airborne to Saudi Arabia may or may not have saved that country from an Iraqi invasion.
Certainly, in those early days, had Saddam Hussein chosen to do so, those few, brave men would
have slowed down the Iraqi tank divisions about as much as a speed bump.
Perhaps the worst criticism that can be levelled at the Heartland Theory is that it is based on one
view of the globe, for "policy is made in the minds of men; its contours may not concur with a
true map of the world".20 See Map I and II and containment looked necessary against the Soviet
Union. To see Map III, is to perhaps see the Russian view. The Soviet Union appears surrounded
by enemies, and no way is the rodina (or heartland, as the case may be) secure from attack.
During the Malta summit of December 1989, a map similar to Map III may have been presented
to President Bush by President Gorbachev. The map is said to show a Soviet Union surrounded
by US bases and warships. Bush apparently retorted that the map showed the Soviet Union as a
large, white, blob, with no indication of the vast military power contained therein. He concluded
by offering a counter-map; "I'll get the CIA to do a map of how things look to us. Then well
compare and see whose is more accurate".21
While it remains true that "nature in large measure controls", just geography alone is a limited
view of affairs among nations; "relations among states are governed by much more than the
extent of their physical proximity.... The way the populations of these countries organise
themselves, the resources available and their ability to exploit them, the nature of their beliefs,
fears and aspirations still provide the basic raw material of international politics".22 If "man
initiates", then it is up to men whether to seek dominance over others, and not the dictates of
geography.
Perhaps the secure heartland itself, so vital to Mackinder's theories, has already ceased to exist.
Mackinder himself defined "the heartland [as] the region to which, under modern conditions, sea
power can be refused access...."23 Under "modern conditions", there is no spot on the Eurasian
landmass that cannot be targeted by nuclear missiles fired from submarines; not to mention
bombers and missiles flying from American bases. Further, the increasing reach, potency and
accuracy of conventional weapons have to be taken into account, as demonstrated so graphically
during the Gulf War.
It is with some irony that Mackinder was to pass away in 1947, the year many consider to be the
start of the 50-year life-and-death playing out of the Heartland Theory, known as the Cold War.
Is Mackinder still relevant today? Despite the vulnerability of the heartland, which, it must be
added, will become vulnerable only in the event of all-out war, the evidence seems to suggest so.
The Soviet Union may be gone, but Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States still
remain. The collapse of the land-based superpower may only be temporary. Certainly much of
the Soviet Union's military strength is still in place, albeit now split into many hands. It has been
suggested that Russia, by letting go of Eastern Europe, had seen it as a liability, and intended that
this liability be passed on to Western Europe, which, in turn, lulled into a false sense of security,
would disband NATO.24 Perhaps.
Certainly, if Russia is able to get its act together, remove the last vestiges of Marxist dogma, and
successfully reclothe itself in free market capitalism, then it might one day, again, become a
superpower. And once again, the paramount sea power would be faced with a land power rival
for the world. Kipling's "Great Game", now seemingly over, would begin anew in earnest.
Today, with little fanfare, the US is building up its influence and military presence in the Middle
East despite a general draw-down in its military commitments and expenditure. Why? Oil is
certainly a large part of the answer. But in geopolitical terms, perhaps it is also to ensure that
these supplies do not become victim to a new land power aggressor, and to prevent that land
power's access to the seas - just as Mackinder argued had to be done, and the British had carried
out through the 19th Century. Perhaps Kipling's "Great Game" has not ended after all.
In the end, the basic argument of the Heartland Theory is still relevant; "the great geographical
realities remain: land power versus sea power, heartland versus rimland, centre versus
periphery.... Mackinder died but his ideas live on".25
ENDNOTES
1. Mackinder, H.J., Democratic Ideals and Reality, p186.
2. Mackinder, "The Geographical Pivot in History", p200.
3. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, p150.
4. Eliot, G.F., as quoted in Robin, W.C., "Struggle for the Heartland: An Introduction to
Geopolitics, p62.
5. Mackinder, as quoted in Kennedy, P., Strategy and Diplomacy 1870-1945, p52.
6. Mackinder, ibid, p48.
7. Haushofer, K., as quoted in Parker, W.H., Mackinder: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft,
p159.
8. ibid, p177.
9. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, op cit., p158.
10.Kennedy, op cit., p79.
11.The inside front cover of Wilmot, C., The Struggle for Europe, is a map labelled,
"Distribution of German Divisions, June 6th 1944. "The German had 59 divisions in France, but
157 divisions facing Russia.
12.Kennedy, op cit., p75.
13.Walters, R.E., The Nuclear Trap: An Escape Route, p39.
14.Mackinder, "The Round World and the Winning of the Peace", p272-3.
15.Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, op cit., p.xi.
16.Brzezinski, Z., Game Plan: A Geostrategic Framework for the Conduct of the US-Soviet
Contest, pp22-23.
17.O'Sullivan, P., Geopolitics, p117.
18.50 Nations signed the United Nations Charter in June 1945. By September 1994, the UN had
184 member states. (Sourse: The World Almanac, 1995)
19.Strausz-Hupe, R., Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power, p116.
20.Walters, op cit., p175.
21.Demko & Wood, Reordering the World, p57.
22.Freedman, L., Atlas of Global Strategy, p14.
23. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, op cit., p110.
24.Hall, G.M., Geopolitics and the Decline of Empire, p107.
25.Parker, op cit., p175.
Bibliography
1. Brzezinski, Z., Game Plan: A Geostrategic Framework for the Conduct of the US-Soviet
Contest (US, Atlantic Monthly, 1986).
2. Demko, G.J., & Wood, W.B., Reordering the World.: Geopolitical Perspectives on the 21st
Century (US, Westview Press, 1994)
3. Freedman, L., Atlas of Global Strategy (London, Macmillan, 1985).
4. Gray, C.S., The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era: Heartland, Rimlands, and the Technological
Revolution (US, Crane, Russak & Co., 1977).
5. Gray, C.S., The Geopolitics of Super Power (US, University of Kentucky Press, 1988).
6. Hall, G.M., Geopolitics and the Decline of Empire (US, McFarland & Co., 1990).
7. Kennedy, H.J., Strategy and Diplomacy 1870-1945 (London, George Allen & Unwin,1983).
8. Mackinder, H.J., Democratic Ideals and Reality, ed., Pearce, A.J. (New York, W.W. Norton &
Co., 1962).
9. Mackinder, H.J., "The Geographical Pivot in History", in Dorplan, A., The World of General
Haushofer (New York, Kennikat, 1966), pg185-201.
10.Mackinder, H.J., "The Round World and the Winning of the Peace", Foreign Affairs, July
1943; reprinted in Pearce, A.J., ed., Democratic Ideals of Reality (New York, W.W. Norton &
Co., 1962), pp 265-278.
11.Nijman, J., The Geopolitics of Power and Conflict (UK, Belhaven Press, 1993)
12.O'Sullivan, P., Geopolitics (UK, Mackays of Chatham, 1986).
13.Parker, W.H., Mackinder: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft (London, Clarendon, 1982).
14.Robinson, W.C., Struggle for the Heartland: An Introduction to Geopolitics, Strategy and
Tactics, March-April 1994, pp58-66.
15.Strausz-Hupe', R., Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power (New York, G.P. Putnam's
Sons, 1942).
16.Taylor, P.J., Political Geography (UK, Longman, 1993).
17.Taylor, P.J., ed., Political Geography of the Twentieth Century (UK, Belhaven, 1993)
18.Till, G., Maritime Strategy and the Nuclear Age (Hong Kong, Macmillan, 1982).
19.Walters, R.E., The Nuclear Trap: An Escape Route (US, Penguin, 1974).
MR Ronald Hee graduated from NUS with a BA (Hons) degree in History in 1989. He was
formerly with the Singapore Discovery Centre, and before that he worked for the Singapore
Broadcasting Corporation.