Theories of Geopolitics

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Political Science and History

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James Biser Whisker and Kevin Spiker

Theories of Geopolitics

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Contents

Preface

........................................................................................... ix

Chapter 1

Defining Geopolitics ..........................................................1

Chapter 2

Earliest Geographers.......................................................21

Chapter 3

Early Modern Geopolitics ...............................................41

Chapter 4

Rudolf Kjellén ..................................................................53

Chapter 5

Friedrich Ratzel ...............................................................67

Chapter 6

Alfred Mahan ...................................................................81

Chapter 7

Halford Mackinder ..........................................................99

Chapter 8

Karl Haushofer ..............................................................125

Chapter 9

Geopolitics in France .....................................................147

Chapter 10

Spykman and the Rimland Thesis................................171

Chapter 11

Some Important Geopoliticians ....................................185

Chapter 12

Alexander Dugin ............................................................199

Bibliography

.........................................................................................215

About the Authors ....................................................................................227 Index

.........................................................................................229

Preface Today geopolitics remains a popular and important intellectual field despite the persistent allegations that geopolitics helped to legitimate Hitler’s policies of spatial expansionism and the domination of place. Using insights from critical geopolitics and cultural history, we have focused on how the academic discipline of geopolitics was created, negotiated, and contested by a wide variety of intellectuals, practitioners, and academics. Many geopoliticians wish to begin by requiring that geopolitics take responsibility for its misuse in the past. Many also agree that this science must reconceptualize geopolitics to account for the many changes which have occurred in the late twentieth, and early twenty-first, centuries. Our study has focused on geopolitical history. We consider how geopolitical writings have been influenced by religion, iconography, and doctrine. We have also considered how geopolitics has been reformulated in the post-World War II period. Condemned as intellectual poison by the late American geographer Richard Hartshbornem geopolitics has confounded its critics. It is alive and well as an all-important and indispensable discipline in many other nations, especially in in Russia where Alexander Dugin has breathed new life into it. We have found that several important recent articles have been offered by scholars in Third World universities, with particular emphasis upon the revitalization of older, and allegedly obsolete and discarded, geopoliticians such as Halford Mackinder, while being ignored in the West. Many, if not most, of the contemporary studies among Atlantists have been written only to heap scorn on geopolitics as a Nazi pseudo-science. Initially, the great debate was between land power (Mackinder) and sea power (Mahon), with staunch support coming from many quarters for both sides. The choice of sides was not necessarily confined to one’s own strength, such as Great Britain favoring naval power. But there seemed to be no doubt that one or the other assertion was gospel. This was geopolitics’ finest hour. Geopolitics became synonymous with fascism because of its association with Dr. General Professor Karl Haushofer, the intellectual Godfather of Rudolf Hess, once deputy Fuhrer of Nazi Germany. Basing the condemnation of geopolitics upon the Nazi search for Lebensraum, living

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space, a concept basic to Haushofer’s geopolitics, as a science it all but fell into oblivion. The pre-World War II dialogue on Rimland versus Heartland became moot. There were a few articles raised, citing Nicholas Spykman’s Rimland thesis regarding the containment of communism, and the advocates of containment, notably George F. Kennan. But as an academic discipline, it was ignored. What research done frequently emanated from Third World scholars. Communist geographers were conspicuously silent on the subject, fearing Stalinist censorship. This was not the sort of slogan-based wisdom cited in Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. Geopolitics were also associated with power politics, an idea discredited in peace-seeking academic circles where any revival of geopolitics was tantamount to reverting to neo-Nazism. Then came Alexander Dugin, an unusual philosopher, who, like Haushofer, was thought to have one foot in the occultist domain. Dugin unabashedly drew principles from the extensive list of geopolitical thinkers from ages past. He saw the neglected and overlooked value of studying Heartland and Rimland, of considering the importance of the World Island, the impossibility of the existence of mini-nations, and the overriding importance of power politics in the present world. He created, not from whole cloth, but from precedents, Russian geopolitics, without ever apologizing for caring not a bit for other nations and blocks. His was not geopolitics based on morality, but one based in what was expedient and useful for Mother Russia. We have included here Charles Maurras, a political thinker included on few, if any other, lists of geopoliticians. Without arguing the case for his inclusion as a geopolitician, an argument we might well lose, consider this. Maurras’s great contribution was his assertion that nations, nationalities, races, by whatever term, are decisive, and not ideologies or beliefs, religions, or customs. Without that understanding one cannot appreciate Dugin. What he advocates is a modern geopolitical version of the old Russian claim that all Slavic rivers must melt in the great Russian sea. Dugin’s ideas of competing blocks, the Anglo-Saxon Atlantists, the Russian-Berlin-Tehran axis, the Chinese-Japanese Oriental grouping, are essentially racist, that the nationality blocks are most basic in international relations. Dugin is a modern version of Ivan IV “the Terrible,” and Peter the Great, an advocate for Russian expansion into its “natural” territory. It has a geopolitical right to control such areas as the Ukraine, which are artificially created mini states which have no right of independent existence. In order to

Preface

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achieve its geopolitical destiny, it will clash with the Atlantists, and, perhaps, with the Chinese block unless Russia successfully dismantles China first. There is a certain irony in advocating the Russian geopolitical potential by drawing upon a science which the West discarded as outmoded and useless. Much of Dugin’s writings has been directed at the destruction of the Atlantist states by all means, but especially by using disinformation and lies. All the while Dugin is strengthening his case by using the best, most logical, and most useful arguments from Western thinkers. There is no question that Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics is a formidable work, showing considerable understanding and appreciation of the entire canon of geopolitical writings. It is a genuine tour de force of the principal ideas of earlier literature. Having once showed respect and admiration for Hitler and National Socialism, Dugin is not in the least inhibited when it comes to relying on many key concepts taken from Haushofer. Most mainstream geopolitical though, as we shall see, builds from an organic base which holds that the state is a real, vibrant, living organism which is composed of myriads of living organisms. Like the cells of the human body, citizens are born, mature, serve proper functions, and eventually die. Cells have no life outside the body; if separated, they die. So it is with people. Human beings are part of the great body politic and have no life outside the state. Any attempt to part from the state is unnatural. Thus, the fate of the citizens is bound up with the fate of their nation. Some geopolitical thinkers assume that people are adapted to a particular nation and any life outside that nation is doomed to failure.

Chapter 1

Defining Geopolitics In the beginning, humans lived in a land of plenty in which no harm could possibly befall them. For whatever reason, the gods expelled them and now humans live in a threatening and insecure environment. As long as they existed in the original world, they would have been nearly perfect themselves, but, sadly, that is a world that is gone forever. The holy place determines how human live. Religious perspectives in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as other religions, as holy land, holy war or millennialism have a clear geopolitical character, fitting easily in the study of codes, script and narratives as practiced in critical geopolitics. This fits well within the founding principle of geopolitics, which is that place – geography – plays a significant role in determining how nations will behave.1 Professor Saul Cohen (2003) notes that intellectuals such as Aristocles, Montesquieu, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel and Humboldt already had an understanding of geopolitics. He continued, offering his own definition: Geopolitics is the analysis of the interaction between, on the one hand, geographical settings and perspectives and, on the other hand, political processes…. Both geographical settings and political processes are dynamic, and each influence and is influenced by the other. Geopolitics addresses the consequences of this interaction.2

Professor Colin Gray observed that geopolitics is a “basket of associated ideas that all but begs to be abused by the unscrupulous.”3 The concept of geopolitics has its roots in the timespan between 1880 and 1910, which was an age when scholars and philosophers looked upon the technological and social accomplishments of the century with great respect. It came to an end with a deep sense of foreboding about the new century, attempting to draw conclusions from the broad sweep of world history in 1

Parker, Geoffrey. Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century. Routledge 2014. See also Tuathail, Gearoid, et al. The Geopolitics Reader. Routledge, 1998. 2 Cohen, Saul Bernard. Geopolitics of the World System. Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. 3 Gray, Colin, “The Continued Primacy of Geography,” Orbis (Spring 1996), p. 247.

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search of a universal explanation. This was a great era for the development of world history which produced such immortal works of transnational synthesis as Brooks Adams’s The Law of Civilization and Decay and Oswald Spengler’s Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West). These early scholars concluded that geographical conditions constitute a set of opportunities and constraints, a structure that is independent of agency. General patterns and long-term processes can be aptly explained by this structure, but geopolitics is not a theory of state behavior or foreign policy. Understanding specific phenomena that occur in international relations therefore requires taking into consideration non-geographical factors. A combination of geographical and non-geographical factors provides sound explanations. Geopolitics revolves around analyzing international politics, seeking to uncover its geographical content.4 It is an established fact that the geographical conditions, which refers to the physical territory of the state, have remained the true determinant of International Politics. For centuries, geography has played a pivotal role in determining state power and influence in international politics. For instance, ancient Rome heroically destroyed Carthage due to its immense and strategic geography. Likewise, the defeat of Great European warrior Napoleon in Russia happened due to his lack of understanding of the Russian geographical conditions. Throughout history, the physical reality of the state has always been the cornerstone of statecraft and grand strategy. Nonetheless, the fact should be kept in mind that the geographical condition of the state is an irreversible fate. Here, the term ‘irreversible fate’ is the real essence of geopolitics, which is the true face of international politics today. Irish geopolitical thinker Gearóid O’Tuathail, Professor of Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech, known in the U. S. as Gerard Toal, made some valuable observations on his subject which 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 4

Hagan, Charles B., “Geopolitics,” Journal of Politics, 4: 4 (1942), pp. 478-490.

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3

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 counter-moderns because it imposes a constructed certitude upon the unruly complexity of world politics, uncovering transcendent struggles between seemingly permanent opposites [such as “land power” 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.5

The tradition of geopolitical thinking dates to ancient Greece and it was only after the European renaissance in the late sixteenth century that brought the discourse of geopolitics to the mainstream. There were certain truths discovered that served humankind well for millennia. Durable geopolitical influence depends on states’ symbolic capacities to secure recognition from competitor states, in addition to their coercive and economic capacities. States are liable to secure recognition to the extent that their agents embody social dispositions congruent with those of competitor agents.6 It was famous German geographical and geopolitician Frederick Ratzel, who conceptualized states as a growing organism in his masterpiece The Political Geography. According to Ratzel, states derive their actual power and project their influence at the international stage through the land they possess. The term geopolitics was coined in the late 1890s by the Swedish writer Rudolf Kjellén. Classical geopolitics, the term used to describe the earliest writings, was for Kjellén an intellectual field that recognized that it was “[a] science which conceives of the state as a geographical organism or as a phenomenon in space.”7 Kjellén pioneered the concept of geopolitics by declaring it as the science of the states. For Kjellen, the domain of geopolitics encompasses economic size, demographic patterns, political setup, social structure, and geographic parameters. After the end of World War I, the discourse of geopolitics became a major content of debate and discussion among Ó Tauthail, Geraoid, “Understanding Critical Geopolitics: Geopolitics and Risk Society,” Internet, http://www.majbill.vt.edu/geog/faculty/toal/papers/stratstud.html. 6 Atkinson, David and Klaus Dodds, eds. Geopolitical Traditions: Critical Histories of a Century of Geopolitical Thought. Routledge, 2002. 7 Kjellen, Rudolf. Der Staat als Lebensform [The state as a way of life]. (1917), p. 46. 5

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European geographers. Kjellen elaborated on Friedrich Ratzel’s idea that the state was an organism. Geopolitics was thus conceived as the effect of natural geographical factors on the state as a living thing. It is most difficult to understand Kjellén’s writings without having first a substantial understanding of Ratzel’s ideas and terminology. Adding to the confusion is the fact that, on some occasions the terms geopolitics and political geography are used interchangeably and as two different ideas on other occasions.8 One good definition of geopolitics according to Kjellén holds that it is the impact of geographic factors on a country’s foreign policy. A somewhat similar definition suggests that geopolitics is the impact on foreign security politics of certain geographic features, the more important being locations among countries, distances between areas, and terrain, climate, and resources within states. In Staat als Lebensform (State as a way of life) he wrote: Geopolitics is the theory of state as geographical organ of a phenomenon in an area, i.e., the state as land, territory, area, or more precisely, as an empire. As Political Science, it continually aims at state’s unity, and contributes towards the understanding of the essence of the state, while political geography studies the earth as a living space for its human population in its relationship to other characteristics of the earth.

It was in Prussia, that geography became an academic subject and even then not until the beginning of the nineteenth century that geography was established at the University of Berlin to carry out scientific research for doctoral theses and especially to train schoolteachers. In fact, it was in Germany that for the first-time geography was taught not only to military staff officers but also to elementary and high school students. Like elementary schoolteachers, Prussian high school teachers were charged with contributing to the Prussian-led movement to unify Germany that followed the Napoleonic wars. The teaching of geography in France would only begin some 60 years later in 1871 following the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The first university chair in geography 8

Brill, Heinz, “Political Geography, Geopolitics, Geostrategy: An Attempt at Systematization,” Strategic Studies, 8: 2 (1985), pp. 86-98 at 88. It should be noted that especially in the United States, few, if any, scholars attempt to differentiate between the two terms, seeing it serves no useful purpose.

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was created in 1873 in Nancy and not at the Sorbonne, as is often believed, with Vidal de La Blache as the first appointee. The French made that appointment largely to counter the chair created by the Prussians in Strasbourg, in Alsace, which had then become part of Germany. Until World War I, the most numerous and the most famous geographers were to be found in Germany.9 French scholars have defined geopolitics. In 1999 Aymeric Chauprade developed a well-structured geopolitical methodology. He defined geopolitics: “Geopolitical science is the search for the understanding of geopolitical realities and their future, through the study of geopolitical profiles, figures and devices.” Later, he added, Geopolitics is not only a science of identity reality, it is also a science marked by the continuity of time: On the one hand, in the history of human societies, there is a permissiveness of the search for states, as evidenced, in the midst of globalization, the phenomenon of proliferation of States. On the other hand, for many constituted and historically ancient states, there is a continuity, a permanence of foreign policy and state behavior on the international stage.”

Although Chauprade appreciated the role of the state, he deviated from the definition of the classical geopoliticians: He added “...to say that these states are the centers and stakes of geopolitical ambitions, does not mean that states are the only global actors; unlike international relations,”10 Another French scholar offered an interesting perspective concerning the origins of a definition of geopolitics: As defining Geopolitics is a notoriously difficult task, it is proposed to use as a starting point two working definitions. The first definition offered by political geographers Van der Wusten and Dijkink (2002, p. 20) is threefold, as the term Geopolitics can be used for (1) ‘a type of analysis using data concerning the international position of a country in light of its geographical features’ ; (2) ‘a set of rules applicable in conducting statecraft based on such analyses’ ; and (3) ‘a discourse, a sustained argument, that describes and evaluates a country’s position in the world, possibly based on such analyses and the application of such rules.’ Both a political scientist and a practitioner of statecraft, 9

Gottman, Jean, “The Background of Geopolitics,” Military Affairs, 6: 4 (1942), pp. 197-206. Chauprade, Aymeric, Introduction à l’analyse géopolitique [Introduction to Geopolitical Analysis]. Ellipses, 1999. See also https://exploringgeopolitics.org/publication_efferink_ van_leonhardt_the_definition_of_geopolitics_classicial_french_critical/.

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James Biser Whisker and Kevin Spiker Zbigniew Brzezinski (1986, p. xiv) makes an interesting distinction between the geopolitical, the strategic and the geostrategic: ‘geopolitical reflects the combination of geographic and political factors determining the condition of a state or region, and emphasizing the influence of geography on politics, strategic refers to the comprehensive and planned application of measures to achieve a central goal or to vital assets of military significance; and geostrategic merges consideration with geopolitical ones.’ These definitions bring some clarity, but are far from fully accounting for the diversity of meaning given to Geopolitics. 11

Largely because of extreme patriotism, German and French schools of geography were created in order to educate large numbers of students, inculcating them with love of their native lands. Therefore, the universities turned out large numbers of teachers and academics, who each had to carry out research in order to obtain doctoral degrees. This emphasis on geopolitical training did not happen in English-speaking countries, where, for ideological and geographical reasons, the civic education of future citizens was left to the social sciences, not to geography. In England and the United States, there was no need for educating a large number of geography teachers. By the end of World War I, the German Geopolitik had become a part of the international language of diplomacy and relations.12 In Great Britain, Halford Mackinder, leader of its New Geography School, refused to provide a formal definition of geopolitics, but sought to identify “certain aspects” of geographical causation useful in universal historical analysis.13 Kjellen’s ideas proved influential to the thinking of Germany’s Dr. General Professor Karl Haushofer between the first and second world wars. Haushofer and others were looking for a ‘scientific’ justification of how Germany could reverse its losses from World War I. Viewing the state as an organism that needed to expand to survive fitted neatly with Nazi plans for territorial expansion, although it is debatable whether these ideas directly influenced Hitler. As a result, the term geopolitics became closely associated Venier, Pascal, “Les principaux courants théoriques de la pensée géopolitique au XXe siècle [The main theoretical currents of geopolitical thought in the twentieth century],” l'espacepolitique, 12 (2010). This is an online journal of geography and geopolitics 12 Holdar, S., “The Ideal State and the Power of Geography: The Life Work of Rudolf Kjellen,” Political Geography, 11: 3 (1992), pp. 307-23 at 318. 13 Mackinder, Halford, “The Geographiocal Pivot of History,” Geographical Journal, 23 (1904), pp. 421-44 at 421. 11

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with the Nazis and fell out of popular use among English–speaking scholars.”14 Subsequently, Haushofer, who expanded and advanced the discourse of geopolitics at the beginning of the twentieth century by giving it a new direction. In Haushofer’s radical geographical navigation, Germany, Italy, and Japan do not possess sufficiently large territories and therefore would be unable to survive, if they did not expand. In this respect, for geographically smaller states, Karl Haushofer advocated the geopolitical regionalization to accumulate the natural sphere for their survival.15 The fate of classical geopolitics has been marked by a precipitous decline in the post-1945 world, almost entirely because of its use, or misuse, by Adolph Hitler, who justified his expansionist policies using Dr. Professor Karl Haushofer’s geopolitical writings. If a part of Nazi ideology, it must be wrong, and its writings consigned to the purifying flames. The heavily politicized nature of geopolitics under the Third Reich led to the subject falling into disfavor. Indeed, the now discredited science of Geopolitics caused doubt to be cast upon the whole of geography, and especially if geography was linked in any way with politics.16 This was indeed a radical shift in the discourse of geopolitics, which is a major content of debate and discussion today. On the other hand, the fact cannot be denied that the concept of geopolitics is purely a discursive phenomenon it establishes reality through language. In this regard, the contribution of Karl Haushofer cannot be despised because his writings played a major role in the purification of ‘geopolitics’ as a discipline. The New World Encyclopedia defines geopolitics as the attempt 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 14

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Dahlman, Carl T., “Geopolitics,” Key Concepts in Political Geography, Carl T. Dahlman, Carolyn Gallaher, Mary Gilmartin, Alison Mountz & Peter Shirlow, London, Sage Publications Ltd., 2009, 87–98; 87. Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf, ed. Karl Haushofer: Leben und Werk [Karl Haushofer: Life and Work], 2 vols. Boppard: Boldt, 1979. Venier, Pascal, “Main Theoretical Currents in Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century,” Open Editions Journals, 12 (2010), pp. 1-11.

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into account historical, social, and spiritual aspects, as well as the physical and geographic nature of each nation. 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, such as the geopolitical correlates of power in world politics, the identification of international core areas, and the relationships between naval and terrestrial capabilities.17 Professor Gerry Kearns defined geopolitics as the understanding of the inter-relations between empires, states, individuals, private companies, and multilateral agencies as these are expressed and shaped spatially. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines geopolitics is “analysis of the geographic influences on power relationships in international relations,” while the Cambridge Dictionary offers two definitions of the term. First, it suggests that geopolitics is “the study of the way a country’s size, position, etc. influence its power and its relationships with other countries. “Second, it defines the idea as “political activity as influenced by the physical features of a country or area of the world”. A textbook definition of geopolitics relates to the struggle over the control of geographical entities with an international and global dimension, and the use of such geographical entities for political advantage.18 Another, short definition of geopolitics calls it the study of the geographical factors in world politics and inter-state relations.19 The Oxford Dictionary says this of geopolitics: The view that location and the physical environment are important factors in the global power structure; a discursive practice with the spatialization of international politics by core powers and hegemonic states as its object of study broadens the scope of geopolitics to include the counter-spatialization of international political and economic relations by weak states to deny or mitigate claims made by more powerful states on natural resources and populations. That learned text also defined Critical Geopolitics, writing that it investigates the use of geographical reasoning in the service of state power, exploring the way the production of geopolitical knowledge about the relationship between states both exercises political power and affirms identity. Critical Geopolitics

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https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Geopolitics. Flint, Colin. Introduction to Geopolitics, 3rd edition. Taylor and Francis, 2006, pp. 16; 3639. 19 Dartmouth College, Research Guide. 18

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offers a critique of the application of classical geopolitics to outer space in the form of astropolitics.20 British professor James Fairgrieve defined the term in simple language: Geography is the science of relationship between physical inorganic factors and principles and of organic factors.” Asked for longer comment, Professor Fairgrieve wrote, “The real value of geography lies in the fact it helps man to place himself in the world to learn his true position & duties”. Knowledge of geography is quite handy to prepare the students to face various problems of life. If a student is familiar with the natural conditions of a country, its climate, vegetation, natural resources, mineral wealth etc. than it because easier for him to plan his future. Such knowledge can be of much help to an individual in developing social, political & economic relationships with the other countries. Thus, we find that the knowledge of geography has a practical utility.”21 In 1993, Peter Taylor, Professor of Human Geography at Northumbria University, reported with great pleasure of the revival of geopolitics which had occurred in three ways: First, geopolitics became a popular term for describing global rivalries in world politics. In the second instance, which is an academic one, there has emerged a new and more critical science of geopolitics. And third, the neo-conservative, pro-military lobby added geopolitical arguments to their Cold War commentaries and perspectives. These studies considered ‘geopolitical imperatives’ and treat geography as ‘the permanent factor’ that all strategic thinking must revolve around.” Taylor continued, writing that geopolitical analyses always had a national bias: “In the case of geopolitics, it has always been very easy to identify the nationality of an author from the content of his or her writings.” Taylor related the newly emerging geopolitics to international relations: “Geopolitics has generally been part of the realist tradition of International Relations.”22 A jurisprudential approach has defined geopolitics in this way: Geopolitics is the study of the relationship among politics and geography, demography, and economics, especially with respect to the foreign policy of a nation. According to geographers, it is an area of geographic inquiry that “Geopolitics,” https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.201108030958 4881. 21 Fairgrieve, James. Geography in School. (1926). 22 Taylor, Peter. Geopolitics, Political Geography, and Social Science. Routledge, 2000. Taylor was a founding editor of Political Quarterly and Review of International Political Economy, was the Founder and Director of the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. 20

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considers space to be important in understanding the constitution of international relations. It has multidisciplinary scope and includes all aspects of the social sciences with particular emphasis on political geography, international relations, the territorial aspects of political science and international law. 23 A classroom definition of geopolitics asserts that it is at work when political leaders, countries, organizations, and corporations assess how their actions would affect other political leaders, countries, organizations, and corporations. Explore the definition and foundations of geopolitics, the origin and progression of this concept, and examples of geopolitics in action. Geopolitics are at play when actors such as political leaders, countries, organizations, and corporations assess how their actions would affect other political leaders, countries, organizations, and corporations. Geopolitics is not a new phenomenon in politics by any means. Attempting to anticipate the reaction of others in different parts of the world has been part of politics for thousands of years, but it is expanded since the beginning of the twentieth century. 24 Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that geopolitics reflects the combination of geographic and political factors determining the condition of a nation and emphasizing the influence of geography and politics. He pointed out that strategic geopolitics is used to describe comprehensive and planned application of measures used to achieve a desired goal. The term Geostrategic combines strategic with geopolitical considerations.25 Geostrategy as a political science is both descriptive and analytical like political geography but adds a normative element in its strategic prescriptions for national policy. While some of the geostrategic ideas stem from earlier American and British geostrategy, geopolitics adopted an essentialist outlook toward the national interest, oversimplifying issues and representing itself as a panacea. As a new and essentialist ideology, geopolitics found itself in a position to prey upon the post-World War I insecurity of the populace.26 The Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis provides the definition of an American geographer, Saul Bernard Cohen who defined geopolitics as “Geopolitics,” in U.S. Legal, https://definitions.uslegal.com/g/geopolitics/. https://study.com/academy/lesson/geopolitics-definition-foundations-example.html. 25 Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Game Plan: How to Conduct the U. S. - Soviet Contest. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986, p. xiv. 26 Mattern, Johannes. Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942, pp. 32, 40–41. 23 24

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interaction between geographical features, patterns, and visions, on the one side, and political processes, both local and international ones. Geographical settings as well as political processes are dynamic and mutually influenced by each another. Generally, geopolitics examines the outcomes and aftermaths of those interactions.27 In this vein, American scholars tend to look at geopolitics as the political aspect of a nation’s security planning considering various geographical factors. Thus, the main objective of geopolitical research resides in the determining the real and true geographical interests of a nation and then taking the appropriate steps to secure the national interest.28 Two geographers gave this definition of geopolitics: it is a type of analysis using data concerning the international position of a country considering its geographical features. They also suggest that geopolitics is a set pf rules applicable in conducting statecraft based on the analysis. Finally, they asserted that it is a discourse or sustained argument that describes and evaluates a state’s position in the world based on the analysis and rules noted previously.29 An academic, in a substantial article on the origins of geopolitical thinking, suggested the following: A tentative working definition of geopolitics may, nevertheless, be useful for the sake of discussion: Geopolitics is the study of political phenomenon (1) in their spatial relationship and (2) in their relationship with, dependence upon, and influence on, earth as well as on all those cultural factors which constitute the subject matter of human geography (anthropogeography) broad defined. In other words, geopolitics is what the word suggests etymologically: geographical politics, that is politics, not geography – politics geographically interpreted or analyzed for its geographical content.30

Yves Lacoste established the French geopolitical journal Hérodote (Herodotus) and the head of the Institut Français de Géopolitique at the 27

Cohen, Saul Bernard. Geopolitics of the World System. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003, 12. 28 Brill, op. cit. See also Schöller, Peter, “Binnenwanderung und Städte wachstum [Internal migration and urban growth],” (International Migration and Urban Growth), Erdkunde, 22: 1 (1968), pp. 13-29. 29 Van der Wusten, H. and Dijkink, G., “German, British, and French Geopolitics,” Geopolitics, 7: 3 (2002), pp. 19-38 at 20. 30 Kristof, L. K. D., “The Origin and Evolution of Geopolitics,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 4: 1 (1960), pp. 15-51 at 34.

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University of Paris. He authored La Géographie ça sert d’abord à faire la guerre (Geography is first used to make war) whose central thesis was that “geography was a form of strategic and political knowledge, central to the military strategy and the exercise of political power. Lacoste played a key role in reviving the word geopolitics in both the French and English languages, writing that the term had been unfairly tarnished because of its association with the Nazi régime. He offered this definition: “The term geopolitics, of which there are many uses nowadays, actually refers to everything related to rivalries of power or influence over territories and the populations living there: rivalries between political powers of all kinds – and not only between states, but also between political movements or armed groups more or less clandestine – rivalries for the control or domination of large or small territories.”31 Invention of the English term Geo-politics is credited to Emil Reich, a Hungarian national who had emigrated to England. For Reich, Geo-politics was the combined influence of geographical considerations with politics constituted one of the most effective tools for the analysis of international relations that might be devised.32 Reich’s premature death, and lack of scholarly interest, relegated Geo-politics to oblivion until after World War II began. It then became an acceptable substitute for the German term Geopolitik. Later authors thought that geopolitics was more than a science. It was a way of understanding designed to signal a rather hard-nosed or realist approach to international politics. What made it reliable was its ability to generate law-like statements about the importance of the facts of physical geography, such as the distribution of landmass, the extent of the oceans, and the importance of, strategically located regions, in determining patterns of global political power.33 One recent authority, Colin Gray, defined geopolitics as the spatial study and practice of international relations. To Gray it is vitally connected to classical realism. Geopolitics seeks to explain the dynamic spatial dimension 31

Quote from Lacoste, Yves. Géopolitique. La longue histoire d'aujourd'hui [Geopolitics. Today's long history] (2006). See Claval, Paul, “Herodote and the French Left,” Dodds, Klaus; and Atkinson, David, eds. Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought. Routledge, 2000. See also https://exploringgeopolitics.org/publication_efferink_ van_leonhardt_the_definition_of_geopolitics_classicial_french_critical. 32 Reich, Emil. Foundations of Modern Europe. London: Bell, 1904, pp. 8-9. 33 Dodds, Klaus and Chih Yuan Woon, “Classical Geopolitics Revisited,” International Studies Association, 1 March 2010; revised 11 January 2018 and 30 April 2020. https://oxford re.com/internationalstudies/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.001.001/acrefore9780190846626-e-379

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to some persisting patterns of conflict in international relations. Gray saw geopolitics as the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent.34 But geography is important not only because of its relative stability, but also because of its role in shaping the dynamics of opportunities. Space, like time, is the fundamental context of all human experience; it is the obvious and immediate factor of human existence.35 Another modern theorist. Randall Collins offered a theory concerning the conditions which determine fluctuations in territorial power. He asserted these five principles: first, size and availability of natural resources which support expansion; second, geopolitical factors which favor expansion; third, disintegration and over-expansion, which favor contraction; fourth, interplay of various geopolitical negative factors; and fifth, a uniting or a disuniting national dynamic.36 In recent years, Professor Saul Cohen attempted to define the major purposes of geopolitics as a science. He suggested two functions. First, geopolitics should describe geographical settings as they relate to political power. Secondly, it should assist in creating a spatial framework which take in various interacting state and other actors.37 Most classical geopolitical writers were dedicated nationalists, usually bordering on imperialism, with reference to Germany. The global map for these authors was fundamentally divided between the imperial great powers and the colonized world, now referred to as the Global South. They were also enormously influenced by Social Darwinism and its emphasis upon survival of the fittest. They liked its assumption that only the strong will survive and that strong states will crush the weak and docile nations. To assert themselves by expansion and conquest was simply a matter of following the dictates of Nature. Great leaders need not create rules and arguments to justify aggressive policies when these very motivating factors existed in Nature. Darwinian evolutionary thought was translated into 19th Century German geography, particularly in the work of Friedrich Ratzel 34

Gray, Colin. The Geopolitics of Super Power. University Press of Kentucky, 1988, p. 15. See also Gray, Colin. “In Defense of the Heartland,” in Blouet, B. W., ed. Global Geostrategy, Mackinder, and the Defence of the West. Routledge, 2005, pp. 17-35. See also Starr, Harvey. On Geopolitics: Space, Place, and International Relations. Paradigm, 2013. 35 Abler, Ronald; John S. Adams; and Peter Gould. Spacial Organization: The Geographer's View of the World. Prentice-Hall, 1971, p. 10. 36 Collins, Randall. Macrohistory, Essays in the Sociology of the Long Run. Stanford University Press, 1999. 37 Cohen, Saul. Geography and Politics in a World Divided. Random House, 1963, p. 25.

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and his formulation of the concept of Lebensraum. Ratzelian Lebensraum must be viewed as a concept aimed towards a synthesis between biogeography and anthropo-geography.38 Social Darwinism is a generic term which applies to various theories and societal practices which sought to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics. Advanced by many scholars in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s, Social Darwinism asserts that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. Various Social Darwinist schools of thought differ on which groups of people are the strong and which are the weak and differ on the precise mechanisms that reward strength and punish weakness. Most of these theories stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism and emphasize the on-going struggle between national or racial groups. Social Darwinian thought has been consistently used to justify authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism and totalitarianism.39 Nineteenth century geopolitical thinkers demanded that all their scholars offer an objective and scientific discipline of politics, uncorrupted by ideology, religion, traditional ethics, mythology, or prejudice. It was high time to abandon not only classical Greek political science, as transmitted through Plato and Aristotle, through the Roman writer Cicero, and into Christianity by its inclusion in St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas; but also, to abandon integral liberal politics which sprang from John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Whereas earlier thinkers, such as Mahan, had concentrated their inquiries on sea power, Halford Mackinder, along with his intellectually related geopolitical thinkers, including Rudolf Kjellén, Asanga Abeyagoonasekera, and Dimitri Kitsikis, examined geopolitics through the perspective of Continental Europe. They wallowed in such terms of references as heartland, world island, and intermediate regions. Mackinder and Kjellén reasoned that developing international land transportation modalities reduced the advantages of the sea powers and so they argued that the pivot of global political power was control of the Eurasian land mass. 

38

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Abrahamsson, C., “On the genealogy of Lebensraum,” Geogr. Helv., 68 (2013), pp. 37–44. https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-68-37-2013, 2013 “Social Darwinism,” in Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology (2004). See also Heather Winlow, “Darwinism and Social Darwinism,” in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2020).

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German geographer Hermann Lautensach (1886-1971), known for his statistical geographical research, thought that it was necessary and useful to draw a distinction between geopolitics and political geography, with political geography being more statistically based and geopolitics being more dynamic. He explained his thinking: The borderline between geography and theory of state runs parallel to that of political geography, which examines the division of the state power over regions of the world. Geopolitics observes the events going on in the life of the state rather than the actual situations. Its mode of thinking is dynamic as opposed to the statistical perspective of political geography. It pursues the development of political forces and movements. The geopolitical maps make use of this mode of thinking to illustrate its dynamics, area interest of political events and power relations, political conceptions, area gains, conflicts, migrations, and propensities for growth. 40

The existence of, and competition between, different approaches to the explanation of international relations does not necessarily require that they negate one other. Starting from different postulates about the process of international relations, they channel hypotheses and research into different strategies of analysis. As a result, aspects of the process not given sufficient theoretical weight in one approach, or too elliptically treated, are illuminated by the other. There were signs of revival of geopolitics in the 1970s and 1980s, but that discipline went into decline again in the 1990s. Now, in the early twenty-first century, there appears to be a re-emergence of geopolitics as an instrument for understanding world events and the motivations of nations and politicians. This a new era characterized by nationalism, nativism, populism. Geopolitical thinking has re- emerged because of concerns about border creation and maintenance, national population composition, and national integrity. These factors have provided fertile ground for old geopolitical ideas to re-emerge. Many nationals have called for nation-states to secure their territories and peoples from meandering foreigners. One reason for the reemergence of geopolitics was the idea of “containment” was inherently geopolitical, as was the Cold War as a whole. As an interlinked 40

Lautensach, Hermann. Nature and Methods of Geographical Science (1967), p. 17. See also Wilhelmy, Herbert. Hermann Lautensach-Festschrift. Stuttgart, Selbstverlag des Geographischen Institut, 1957.

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struggle in many localities between global ideologies and powers, this was axiomatic—even if the relationship in question varied greatly. The competition among political scientists to find a rational way to define the international politics developed at the beginning of the 2000s. Different accounts of geopolitics were an aspect of this competition, and these differences can be seen between, and within, individual countries. The core principles of classical geopolitics emphasize the deliberate framing of space, the rejection of a hard separation between the domestic and the foreign. It must reassess the idea of the nation-state as a “living organism,” operating within a defined territorial container. Classical and critical geopolitics share a common concern: that geography matters. Critical geopoliticians tend to reflect an anti-Western approach and in particular, they press for many changes in the world. The critical thinkers differ from the classical school, which sought, and seeks, to appreciate the world as it is, or, in a more hostile light, not only to do so, but also to defend it. Realpolitik is a German mental construction which was derived from German real or realistic, practical, actual reality and refers to enacting or engaging in diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical premises. Realpolitik shares its philosophical approach with realism and pragmatism. Indeed, it is often simply referred to as “pragmatism” in politics, that is, “pursuing pragmatic policies” or “realistic policies.” Realpolitik approaches tend to seek an understanding of all players in order better to ground their analyses and proposals. In contrast, critical geopolitics frequently rests on a weak and naïve understanding of what it does not like.41 It had adopted a critical approach toward such considerations as public culture, consumerism, the West, neo-conservatism, and imperialist geopolitics. It claims to have arrived at absolute objectivity and also tends to rely on problematic theory, scant use of evidence, and argument by assertion. Realpolitik has infiltrated, and heavily influenced, recent approaches to geopolitical theory.42 Communist China has become a principal player in the development of a new geopolitics. It is of far greater significance than Britain and the

41

42

Cowley, Malcolm, “Geopolitik [Geopolitics],” New Republic, No. 16, Whole No. 1429 (20 April 1942), 546–547, p. 546. Black, Jeremy, “Why Geopolitics Matters,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, 17 January 2020, online. See also Gildea, Robert. Empires of the Mind: The Colonial Past and the Politics of the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2019; and Ward, S ed. Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain. Macmillan, 2019.

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communist state that appears to be pursuing geopolitical ideas quite aggressively. This emerging interest is based upon the Maoist assertion that the meddling of foreign nations had retarded China’s development back. Mao had argued that a Western determination to project power in order to prevent Chinese advancement had worked effectively by imposing that policy on Third World nations. The traditional land-based focus on the development of expanding rings of security around a state’s territory has been applied to the maritime domain in a major expansion of geopolitical concern. The concept of Near China has been refocused to include the East China Sea and the South China Sea, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and Tibet similarly reflect the ambition to extend power. This has led to a clash with the United States whereas China’s land-based policy had only minimally touched the U.S. The discipline of geopolitics has undergone a major renaissance during the past decade, addressing the theoretical implications of contemporary geopolitics and geopolitical change with particular reference to territorial problems and issues of state sovereignty. The contemporary study of geopolitics is necessarily multidisciplinary in its scope and nature. Geopolitics includes all aspects of the social sciences with particular emphasis on political geography, international relations, the territorial aspects of political science, and public international law. It is true that any form of geopolitics is an attempt to create a science of the relationship between man and his environment as needed by the practice of politics. It is a sort of guide to the art of being right. All interpretations of geopolitics encounter the same risk. The danger comes when one attempts to surpass the limits of science. That, geopolitics does when it affirms more than we know about infinitely complex relationships; when it does not stand up to those who glean more from its factors than the doctrine can give. Much recent geopolitical literature asserts that states do not have a place in the traditional Platonist duality of the concrete and the abstract. Rather, it claims, states belong in a third quasi-abstract category that has received philosophical attention with a recently emerging Theory of Documentality. Documentality was derived from J. L. Austin’s theory of performative utterances,43 and claims that documents acts can bring quasi-abstract objects,

43

In a 1955 lecture series, later published as How to Do Things with Words, J. L. Austin argued against a positivist philosophical claim that the utterances always “describe” or “constate” something and are thus always true or false. After mentioning several examples of sentences which are not so used, and not truth-evaluable (among them nonsensical

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such as states into being.44 The existence of quasi-abstract states should not be rejected on the basis of William of Ockham’s Principle of Parsimony, because geopolitical theories that recognize the existence of quasi-abstract states will have greater explanatory power than theories that deny their existences. Dr. Colin Flint, Distinguished Professor of Political Geography at Utah State University discussed the historical development of the concept of geopolitics. He noted that power has always had a central role in the definition, although its meaning has been subject to several changes: “Geopolitics, the struggle over the control of spaces and places, focuses upon power.” He continued, “In nineteenth and early twentieth century geopolitical practices, power was seen simply as the relative power of countries in foreign affairs.” However, by the late twentieth century, the definitions of “power were dominated by a focus on a country’s ability to wage war with other countries. However, recent discussions of power have become more sophisticated.” Flint stressed the need to define geopolitics in various ways: “Our goals of understanding, analyzing, and being able to critique world politics require us to work with more than one definition.” To Flint, “geopolitics is a way of seeing the world.” Flint envisioned a new school within geopolitics to be called Critical Geopolitics” which would focus on the underlying assumptions of geopolitical analyses.45 A recent article has provided an excellent overview of recent publications on geopolitics and the diversity is overwhelming. Scholarly research can be divided into four approaches: neo-classical geopolitics, subversive geopolitics, non-geopolitics and critical geopolitics. These four schools are distinguished on two dimensions. The first is the distance to the object under study (practical/applied versus academic/reflective). The second refers to the position towards the state system (states as the principal geopolitical actors versus attention for other political actors and interests).

sentences, interrogatives, directives, and “ethical” propositions), he introduced “performative” sentences or illocutionary act as another instance. 44 Robinson, E., “A Documentary Theory of States and Their Existence as Quasi-Abstract Entities,” Semantics Scholar, 3 July 2014, online. See also, Ronald Granieri, “What is Geopolitics and Why Does It Matter?” Orbis 59: 4 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.orbis.2015.08.003. 45 Flint, Colin. Introduction to Geopolitics. Routledge, 2006. See also van Efferink, Leonhardt, “The Definition of Geopolitics – The Classical, French and Critical Traditions,” https://exploringgeopolitics.org/publication_efferink_van_leonhardt_the_definition _of_geopolitics_classicial_french_critical/.

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Despite their differences, the four types of studies share a growing interest in geo-economics.46 Pascal Venier has taught at Aix-Marseille University, the Liverpool Hope University, the University of Manchester, and the University of Salford. Regarding the development of geopolitical theory in recent decades, Venier wrote, “It is difficult to identify theoretical approaches in the currents of traditional geopolitical thought, as it is true that these are primarily “worldviews” contextualized by history. Nevertheless, one can detect in the writings of all horizon’s territorial constants which, retroactively, condition the international life.” He continued, “Since the 1960s, various theoretical or methodological works have been proposed, especially in the field of geostrategy because there was a “demand” in this field. We want to think that their synthesis will allow progress.47

Mamadouh, V. C., “Geopolitics in the Nineties: One Flag, Many Meanings,” GeoJournal, 46 (1998), pp. 237-53. 47 Venier, op. cit. 46

Chapter 2

Earliest Geographers Both the Iliad and the Odyssey, traditionally ascribed to the legendary blind poet Homer, contain many geographical references and inferences, allowing some scholars to call Homer the first geographer. Assuming that there really was a Homer who was the celebrated author, he was likely active in the eighth century, B.C., at an unknown location. Whether Home or a consortium pf some unknown composition, the two greatest Greek stories did have their likely origin in that time period. The Bible, with its references to geography, would have antedated the Homeric writings by several centuries. One might also argue that other ancient peoples, perhaps beginning with the Sumerians, developed, and made contributions to, the science of geography. There are numerous geographic references, along with attributes ascribed to them, in such tales as The Epic of Gilgamesh which is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia.48 It is regarded as the earliest surviving literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. This epic was a foundational work, establishing the tradition of heroic sagas. Gilgamesh himself formed the prototype for later heroes such as Hercules, and the epic tale itself clearly had significant influence on the Homeric epics.49

Early Religion and Geopolitics Geography is far more important in the study of religions than is generally appreciated, partly because religious beliefs and ideas, symbols and practice, are naturally affected by the social and geographical conditions in which the framers created their theology. Geography, and the geological and

48

Kramer, Samuel Noah. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.: Revised Edition. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961, pp. 30–41. 49 Kovacs, Maureen. The Epic of Gilgamesh. Stanford University Press, 1989; and Temple, Robert. He Who Saw Everything: A Verse Translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Random Century, 1991, pp. viii–ix.

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climatological characteristics that are thereby derived, have a significant effect upon the daily life and needs of people. Geographical factors have affected the development of religious notions. Narratives of the gods have taken on particular characteristics or serve particular purposes relevant to and reflective of certain geographical areas and which are not associated with other areas. There are various motifs and metaphors which are more meaningful in certain geographical areas than in others. Too, historical religious structures and the locations in which they are built are largely shaped by the landscapes out of which they are born. 50 In the cultural and religious evolution of any region, certain inherent geographical and climatological factors contribute substantially to the local conception of a deity. For example, differences in the ecological and topographical features between the hilly northern Middle East and flat southern part of the same area are key to understanding different modes of thought concerning regional gods. In those areas characterized by substantial rainfall which permits agriculture religion differs from the way it is practiced in those portions in which men must practice dry farming.51 A fine religious scholar James Greham coined the term “agrarian religion” defining it as a “fine attunement to the essentially agrarian conditions of everyday existence.” He noted that it was as much urban as it was rural because it was the expression of an entire social and economic order which was connected to the vagaries of earth, sky, and environment. In Grehan’s formulation, religion was driven by geographical influences and characterized by sacred sites, essential agricultural needs, shared religious culture, and saints and holy figures. Sacred sites in the region intimately are related to geography, and often were hulled from the rocky landscape or simply created around natural wonders, consisting of holy mountains, noteworthy rock formations, and caves – especially caves with access to subterranean water. Agricultural concerns, foremost among them water, droughts, and crop yields, shaped the contours of agrarian religion.52 According to the newly emerging field of the geography of religion, religions inherently are “geographically contextualized.” This means that prevailing political, social, religious, and physical-geographical conditions 50

51

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Hinkels, John R. The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2010, p. 12. Green, Alberto R. W. The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East. Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California San Diego. 8 vols. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003, 8: 9. Grehan, James. Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine. Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 16, 140.

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evident within a particular locality have influenced the development and manifestation of that locality’s religious traditions at any given point in time. Texts, images, and sites can be thought of like artifacts that can tell us a great deal about the societies in which they were produced. Each text, image, or site acts like a small window into history. These then can be examined for evidence within them of contemporaneous religious, political, and geographical influences, helping to produce a picture of specific gods, religious figures, motifs, or metaphors that accounts for the intersections within them of time and place. This emphasis on geographical matters helps scholars to analyze specific religious traditions more precisely and better explain particular complexities that otherwise would be inexplicable.53 Geography has had an impact upon where particular religions or belief systems, such as the world’s major faiths, are located It has also had great effect upon how specific beliefs are practiced and the various behavior patterns that it has encouraged. Modern geographers have studied religions and their development based upon the assumption that geography intersects with other important social components within a human geographic approach. Scholars have also studied religion within the science of cultural geography, a discipline which studies how cultural processes spread. Geography also plays a role in influencing some end-of-life practices.54 Simple examples of how geography affects religious practices are easy to find. Cremation is used where wood is abundant, but where wood is not present, the corpse is buried. When an individual has completed fasting, desert inhabitants frequently complete their fasting by consuming dates whereas in regions where there are cattle in abundance, milk may be used to complete fasting. Where there are many rivers, water may play an important part in religion, such as baptism and ritual cleansing and purification. Religious belief, considered as mankind’s relationship with a higher force – God or “the gods -- and the afterlife, has always been linked to geographic considerations. This is most evident in the ancient world. Since the gods controlled the natural world, disasters were often linked with the displeasure of the gods. When the gods were angry, the forces of nature responded with ferocious vengeance. The ultimate punishment came with the 53

54

Stump, Richard W. The Geography of Religion: Faith, Place and Space. Rowman and Littlefield, 2008, p. 177. See also Knott, Kim, “Geography, Space and the Sacred,” in The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion, 2nd ed., 476–491. New York: Routledge, 2010, pp. 476-91. Sprung, Charles L. et al., “The Influence of Geography, Religion, Religiosity and Institutional Factors on Worldwide End-of-Life Care,” Journal of Pallative Care (2021), PMID: 33818159. National Library of Medicine.

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geographical anomaly, the universal flood, which is to be found in many mythologies as well as the Hebrew Bible. Until mankind more fully understood the patterns of weather and climate, the forces of nature were attributed to other worldly machinations. This primitive view of nature and geographical forces affecting mankind can be traced back to the earliest days of Paleolithic development and descending for millennia thereafter.55

The Hebrew Bible and Geography Early on, the Hebrew Bible makes much of the promised land. In Scripture, this was that geographic area which God swore to give to his chosen people, the descendants of Abraham.56 God fashioned the Promised Land in a certain way, according to God’s design for his people. The territory was located in ancient Canaan, on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.57 In addition to being a physical place, the promised land is a theological concept in both the Old and New Testaments. God promised to bless his faithful followers and bring them into a restful place. Thus, it has significant secondary attributes in addition to being a physical place. It is a place where God joins with humans. Faith and faithfulness are the conditions of entering the promised land.58 The Hebrew Bible has a few references to geopolitics. The Garden in Eden refers to a terrestrial place known for its abundant fertility and luxuriant vegetation. In a fury, God drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden following their sin and stationed an angel at the entrance so they could not re-enter.59 As punishment for the sin of price, God decided to disperse the people of Babel, who were intent to make a “name for [themselves].”60 When Balaam prophesied over Israel when they were still traveling through the desert, he observed: “From the rocky peaks I see them [Israel], from the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider Park, Chris, “Religion and Geography,” in Hinnells, J., ed. Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion. London: Routledge, 2002, ch. 17. The earlier classic study of this subject is Deffontaines, Pierre. Geographie et religions. Paris: Gallimard, 1948. 56 Genesis 15:15–21. 57 Numbers 34:1-12 details the boundaries. 58 Hebrews 11:9. 59 Genesis 2-3 to 3:24. See also Ezekiel 28 and 31-36. However, in some Jewish eschatology, a few rabbis had asserted that history will complete itself and the ultimate destination will be when all mankind returns to the Garden of Eden. 60 Genesis 11:4. 55

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themselves one of the nations.” The prophet foreknew that a consortium of nations (the entire world) will be apart from and opposed to Israel.61 The Hebrew Bible gives geographic information about the arch-villain, the Antichrist. It refers to the Antichrist as the “King of the North.” It says that the Antichrist will rise out of the western part of the Seleucid Empire, Syria.62 Some interpret the Bible as saying that the Antichrist will be the ruler of Russia who comes to power in Syria. The Antichrist, who reigns as the world is about to end, is an outsider who rises to power in Syria and many nations from the Middle East and North Africa will attack him.63 Scholars for millennia have been searching for various places named in the Hebrew Bible, starting with the Garden of Eden. The list is nearly endless. At one time, Christians believed that Calvary, where the crucifixion of Christ occurred, was at the exact center of the earth and that the skull of Adam lay directly below the cross. That way allowed Christ’s blood to drip down, permeate the ground, and purify Adam, the source of original sin. The Hebrew Bible is rich in examples of descriptive geography. In addition to the offering a full description of the many wonders of the Garden of Eden, it describes the Promised Land in glowing terms, such as a land overflowing with milk and honey. On occasion, it goes farther, for we learn, for example, that as long as Adam and Eve remained innocent in the Garden of Eden they would not die. By common understanding, it meant they also would not become sick or infirm; they could walk and talk with God; and they had complete dominion over all animals. Once expelled, they lost all these and many other special advantages, theologically called preternatural gifts. The Promised Land of the Hebrew Bible is a known place which is well described. The Jews received it in a way unknown elsewhere, except perhaps a few mythologies, since the Lord God chose that location, assisted in destruction of its inhabitants, and bequeathed it to the people led by Moses. The Lord God, on occasion, assisted the Jews in defense of that land, and, in other cases, allowed the enemies to overcome the Jews, even carry them into exile or disperse them. There are also other parallel concepts to the Biblical Garden of Eden which exist in other religions and mythologies. Dilmun in the Sumerian story of Enki and Ninhursag is a paradisaical abode of the immortals, where sickness and death were unknown. The garden of the Hesperides in Greek 61

Numbers 23:9. Daniel 8:9. 63 Daniel 11:21-45. 62

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mythology had elements which were similar to the Jewish concept of the Garden of Eden. Adherents of the Latter-Day Saint movement (Mormons) believe that after Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden they resided in a place known as Adam-ondi-Ahman. Mormon doctrine expressly locates that garden in what is present-day Daviess County, Missouri. The Mormon Doctrine and Covenants specifically records that Adam blessed his posterity there and that he will return to that place at the time of the final judgment in fulfillment of a prophecy set forth in the Book of Mormon.64 Many Christians believe that it is necessary that Jews reoccupy their ancient homeland, a geopolitical event, as a prelude the Second Coming of Christ. Israel, a nation which had not really existed as a separate nation for nearly 2,500 years, was declared a new sovereign state by an act of the United Nations on 14 May 1948, fulfilling the prophecy that Israel was to be reborn in a single day. “Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day, or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”65 The very difficult and obscure Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains many geopolitical references. Some dismiss it as a useful instrument for the present because they see it as a thinly disguised attack on the Roman Empire under Nero, hated because of its massive persecutions of Christians. Others read it as a warning of things to come as parts of God’s impending judgment of the corrupt world and its eventual redemption. As events unfold, they are tied to the rise and destruction of nations.

Earliest Greeks and Geography To understand the Greek writers, one must never draw a sharp distinction between history and geography as the two were constantly blended. Likewise, some classical scholars have tended to define geography too narrowly when assessing the contributions of Greek writers. A list of the historians in the fifth-century, B.C., Greece must include the choral lyric poets as well as the moral formal historians, because, for example,

64 65

Doctrine and Covenants 107:53; 116:1; Daniel 7:13–14, 22. Isaiah 66:8.

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Thucydides’ own narratives significantly incorporate the writings of Greek lyric poets. Indeed, in his writings, Thucydides retained a poetic vocabulary. The first known Greek philosopher to write about geography was Anaximander (c. 610 – c. 546 B.C.). Unlike Homer, he was a real person, not a mythical figure. He was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus, in Ionia (now Turkey). He created a map, perhaps the first ever map, of the known world which contributed significantly to the advancement of the science of geography. He was also involved in the politics of Miletus. Later, both Strabo and Agathemerus claimed that Anaximander was the first to prepare a useful map of the world. That map almost certainly inspired the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus to prepare an even more accurate world map. Strabo viewed both as the first geographers following Homer.66 As was typical of Greek philosophers, Anaximander sought to demonstrate that the world was built upon order, not chaos. In his geographical writings, he argued the necessity of Nature (or the gods) establishing and, maintaining an appropriate balance between earth, fire, and water, all of which may be independently seeking to aggrandize their proportions relative to the others. Some later detractors, notably Friedrich Nietzsche, claimed that Anaximander was a pessimist who asserted that the primal condition of the world was a state of indefiniteness. As a Greek philosopher, whose interest in the practical applications of his theories was unimportant, the philosophical conception of a global representation of the world simply for the sake of knowledge was reason enough to create such a being.67 Many of the early Greek works in all fields have been lost and survive in fragments. We know of many such philosophers only through citations of their works by others. Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 – c. 476 B.C.), son of Hegesander, was an early Greek historian and geographer whose Journey Round the Earth (also known as World Survey) and Genealogiai survive in fragments. Massiliote Periplus is a sailing manual, noted in the lines of the Ora Maritima written by Avienius, dated to the 6th century B.C. It describes a voyage from Oestriminis (Pointe du Raz) to Massalia, (Marseille), although some scholars doubt its existence or authenticity. Scylax of Caryanda was a Greek explorer who lived in the late sixth and early fifth 66

67

Dandamaev, M. A. A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire. Brill, 1989. p. 153. See also Agathemerus, Jacobus G. Compendiariae geographiae expositiones [A Sketch of Geography] (1671) in Epitome, 1: 1. Burnet, John. Early Greek Philosophy. A. & C. Black, 1930, pp. 31-57; and Rovelli, Carlo. The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy. Westholme Publishing, 2011.

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centuries B.C. whose writings are lost but have been cited by later Greek and Roman authors. His writings contained accounts of people, landscape, the natural conditions and political affairs, although they contain fanciful tales which he claimed were true. Such works may have been closer to travelogues than geographies. French geopolitical author Yves Lacoste claimed that Herodotus’ work The Inquiries marked the beginning of geographical reasoning as a method for analyzing power rivalries over territory. Herodotus was universally known as the father of historical inquiry and writing. To Herodotus, historía also meant “inquiry” or “research.” Since the 19th century, Herodotus has often been regarded as an amateur of history. Many modern historians have come to regard his technique and methodology as trifling, since mythologies, legends, and personal interviews misled him. In the History of the Greek Wars (499–479 B.C.). Herodotus depicted the event as a clash of civilizations, the democratic city-states of Greece holding off the autocratic Persian Empire. Herodotus placed on an insuperable divide between the diametrically opposed cultures of the East and the West. To this struggle Herodotus added substantial doses of genealogy, ethnography, and geography and in the event can be seen as the grandfather of geopolitics.68 Most students of geopolitics know Herodotus only as an historian. Herodotus (484–420 B.C.) was an Ionian Greek who hailed from Halicarnassus in Asia Minor. In his youth, he and his family lived through the final years of the Greco-Persian Wars. In 500 B.C., with support from Athens, the Ionian cities rebelled against Persian rule. The First Persian War began with the Persian invasion of the Greek peninsula. The Greeks repelled the Persians at Marathon. In the Second Persian War at the seminal Battle of Thermopylae the Persians failed once again to defeat the Greek city-states. The Greeks won again at the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. The Greeks naturally celebrated these victories by producing a considerable number of literary works. Herodotus believed that the Persians would eventually attack a third time, so, probably at the suggestion of Athenian statesman Pericles, he carried out very detailed geographical investigations of the Persian Empire. He thus produced several investigations, prepared over several years, which described the political and military organization of the Persian Empire along with a description of the

68

Koller, Armin Hajman. The Theory of Environment (1918). Wentworth Press reprint, 2019. See also Franklin Thomas. The Environmental Basis of Society: A Study in the History of Sociological Theory. Century, 1925.

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lands over which Persia ruled. He also revisited the battles and other events of the Persian Wars. Because Herodotus was very precise in his analysis of the many alliances, involving many Greek city-states as well as other political entities, he has been viewed mainly as a historian. He was, however, the first significant geographer. Of special note was his geographical description of Egypt, which, at that time, Persian ruled. In describing Egypt, Herodotus applied the world delta because of its similarity to the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. He also coined the phrase “Egypt is a gift of the Nile,” and it was he who demonstrated to the outside world the importance of the many dynasties of Pharaohs. It was also Herodotus who expressed surprise that the Nile was at its highest levels in summer whereas all the rivers in neighboring countries were dry. He devised the hypothesis that the source of this great river was in a faraway land, where it rained in summer.69 One of the ancient records concerning the strategic role of geography can be traced to the writings of the famous ancient Greek historian Thucydides (c.460-c.400 B.C.), whose The History of Peloponnesian War gave a brief account of the role of geography in winning wars. Thucydides came from an aristocratic background which was steeped in wealth, derived from family mines in Thrace. Thucydides is correctly regarded as a father of historical and political realism. According to him, the role that geography seemed to play in history this role is that it changed the advantage for Athens before the war even started this is seem early on in the book and is easy to understand because more people mean bodies to fight. Thucydides does this when he states, “Because of the migrations, the rest of Greece did not develop at the same rate as Athens, since most able refugees from wars and civil strife all over Greece retired to the safety of Athens.”70 Thucydides taught that “the best land was always the most subject to changes of inhabitants” due to its resources, communication, and strength. Thucydides’ book Justice, Power and Human Nature is centered on his recollection of the Peloponnesian War which was fought between the Spartans and Athenians in ancient Greece. In order to provide a better understand of his story to the reader, he includes archaeological and geographical information. In the introduction, it talks about the differences between Sparta and Athens in terms of geography, Thucydides wrote, “Sparta controlled its own fertile district, known as Laconia, as well as the Lacoste, Yves, “Geography, Geopolitics, and Geographical Reasoning,” Hérodote, 146-147: 3-4, (2012), pp. 14 to 44. Translated from the French by JPD Systems. 70 Thucydides. On Justice, Power, and Human Nature, ch. 2. 69

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conquered territory of Messenia. These made Sparta self-sufficient in terms of food. Athens, on the other hand, had too little farmland to support its large population and had virtually no forests; it depended on commerce to supply food for its people and timber for its shipbuilding.”71 This determined what happened for the Persian War. Since Athens was near the sea, Athens ruled the sea as head of an alliance (The Delian League) against what remained of Persian rule over Greeks. Athenian’s power of living near the sea also brought dominance and allowed the Delian League to become an empire of island. Athens also kept the Aegean Sea safe for its island allies by stamping out piracy and keeping Persians at bay and if any of the allies turned away from Athens, then Athens would put them down brutally. The Athens’ geography made that polis more powerful.72 Thucydides noted with great interest that the predecessor of Pericles, a statesman named Themistocles, first ventured to tell the Athenians to stay with their mastery of the sea and thus began to lay the foundations of the empire.73 The growth of Athens was alarming to many, such as the Spartans, and sparked a lot of tension, thus creating the war between Sparta and Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Geography plays a key role of whether a nation fought better at sea or on land. As Thucydides noted, Athens was a better at naval attacks because they were closer to the water and knew how to maneuver; while Sparta was more advanced on land battle because that was there surrounding. The Spartans failed in naval battles against the Athenians because they only really practiced warfare on land. Thucydides’ various examples of the importance of the geographic environment provided his audience with an understanding into the relationship between state survival and power, where gaining and maintaining territory shapes the operating environment and increases power, and equally how the uncertainty of chance in war can upset the best laid plans.74 Thucydides understood the great dichotomy in Greece, between maritime (Athens) and continental (Sparta) powers which vied for supremacy among the Greek city-states. Thucydides recapitulated that division through the speeches of the various actors, named and unnamed, throughout the work. In conjunction with the positions asserted in the speeches, Thucydides often talked of physis, that is, laws or rules of nature, 71

Ibid., introduction, xii. Ibid., 29. 73 Thucydides, The Landmark Thucydides, p. 51. 74 Hagan, Charles B., “Geopolitics,” Journal of Politics, 4: 4 (1942), pp. 478-490. 72

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which were immutable and unchanging, but which had the greatest impact on human societies and states. Thucydides is a political thinker centrally concerned with the question of the working of politics through a law of nature which compels cities to act in a manner befitting of their nature.75 Pytheas of Massali (c.350—c.306 B.C.) was an explorer and astronomer from the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseille). He visited a considerable part of modern-day Great Britain and Ireland and was the first known scientific visitor to see and describe the Arctic, polar ice, and the Celtic and Germanic tribes. He is also the first person on record to describe the midnight sun. Pytheas was the first to suggest the existence of the hypothetical land of Thule, and his account of ocean tides is the earliest one known which suggested the moon as their cause.76

Aristotle and the Founding of Geopolitics Geopolitical reasoning dates back to ancient Greece. Aristotle derived the respective political systems of the Greek city states and their neighboring empires and tribes from climatic conditions. The greatest Greek philosopher was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) who wrote on nearly all fields of human knowledge, including what would be called over two millennia later geopolitics. Among other considerations he discussed the natural environment from the perspective of its impact on human character as well as its implications for economic and military applications. He warned that “there are three things which make men good and virtuous: nature, habit, and national principles.” The relationship between nature and character he thought to be quite obvious. He also asserted that climate and character to be self-evident. He advocated homogeneous national territory, concluding that heterogeneity creates national disunity and prevents peace from reigning in a nation. He also thought a state fortunate which could achieve autarky. A geographically isolated state is fortunate because it is unlikely to be attacked

75

76

Krause, Paul, “The Geopolitics of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War,” https://minervawisdom.com/2022/01/15/the-geopolitics-of-thucydidess-history-of-thepeloponnesian-war/. Chevallier, R., “The Greco-Roman Conception of the North from Pytheas to Tacitus,” Arctic, 37: 4 (1984), pp. 341–346. See also Cunliffe, Barry. The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek. Penguin, 2001, especially pp. 74–76.

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with its natural fortifications and these same barriers prevent influx of alien ideas.77 Having made the classical, and frequently quoted, dichotomy of kingship, aristocracy, and the republic; along with its corrupted forms of tyranny, oligarchy, and mod rule, Aristotle devoted much attention to what kind of government is possible for any given state. The geographical conditions of an area, he asserted, had significant impact on what kind of government would thrive. One oft-quoted example is Sparta where geographical isolation, which insulated the city from outside ideas, dictated that the most stable government would be a sharply defined aristocracy. Athens, however, with its open sea-based trade, allowed the influx of new ideas, and so was well suited for some sort of democratic government.78 As a natural scientist, Aristotle was especially interested in what is fixed, unavoidable, and had a compulsory character in the natural environment. He recognized fully that there are immutable natural physical laws of nature which man must obey. In his three works on ethics, especially his great The Ethics, Aristotle was concerned with jus gentium and such jus naturale as would affect human interaction with the gods as well as with one another, but in The Politics, it was physical natural law upon which he focused. His geopolitics, but without use of the term, illuminated human life in its natural placement. His geopolitics strove to be an objective science about the relationship that actually exists with nature, not one that is only theoretically possible. To Aristotle, human will is largely determined by exterior conditions. That being so, geopolitics is not only objective, but is beyond considerations of good and evil.79

Later Greek Geographers Polybius (206-126 B. C.) was a Greek historian and a statesman, whose work explained how Rome rose to prominence. He is best recognized for his forty volumes known as The Histories. This work included the detailed account of 77

78

79

Aristotle, The Politics, 4 books iv, v, vi. See also Kristof, L. K. D. “The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics,”: Journal of Conflict Resolution, 4: 1 (1960), pp. 15-51 at 1718. Aristotle, Politics, III: 8, through IV: 4, and VI: 2. See also IV: 11. See also Dunning, William A., “The Politics of Aristotle,” Political Science Quarterly, 15: 2 (1900), pp. 273-307. Kristof, L. K. D., “The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 4: 1 (1960), pp. 15-51 at 18-19.

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the period of 264 until 146 B.C. and included his own experiences during what is known as the Sack of Carthage and Corinth. Polybius was a son of a Greek statesman and therefore became involved naturally in the affairs of state early in life. After Rome defeated the Achaean League in the Achaean War, Polybius the victorious Romans took Polybius hostage. During the third war of Romans against Perseus of Macedonia, Polybius’ father maintained a policy of neutrality. When King Perseus was defeated at Pydna (167 BC), the Romans took one thousand Achaean nobles to Rome as hostages. Because of his father’s neutral stand, Polybius was also included in the hostages While in Roman captivity he penned the major parts of his historical accounts. He wrote the history based on the actual experiences and interviews of eyewitnesses. Polybius accompanied Scipio Aemilianus as his advisor during the campaign of Carthage. After the destruction of Corinth, Polybius was asked to organize governments in the Greek cities. Polybius introduced the concept of separation of powers by function – legislative, executive and judicial – in order to maintain political balance in a government. Polybius is also considered as one of the founding fathers of Roman historiography. In 150 B.C., Rome the hostages were released, and Polybius was granted permission to return to Arcadia. In 151 B.C., the Carthaginians paid the last installment of the indemnity they had been forced to pay after the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), after which Rome almost immediately declared war on Carthage. In 149 B.C., he was called to assist in political negotiations before the third Punic War. In 146 B.C. Polybius witnessed the destruction of Carthage. He showed a small interest in the role of geography in this, the Third Punic War, preferring to attribute Rome’s victory to its constitution and democratic institutions. Strabo later noted that Polybius had shown great interest in geography largely its connection with the Odyssey, which he accepted as literally true. In a digression from his histories in thirty-fourth book he examined the geography of Italy and Sicily.80 He described the Plain of Capua in aesthetic and geographic terms, noting the importance of its geographic attributes, including its natural defensive features. His histories generally mixed geography with myth. While tracing Odysseus’s travels, Polybius expressed great interest in volcanic eruptions and activity. Using geography as a starting point, Polybius attempted to determine distances and travel time for 80

Walbank, F. W. A Historical Commentary on Polybius. 3 vols. Oxford University Press, 1979, 3: 567, 581-82.

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Odysseus and his men. His major contribution to the science of geography was concept of “place” as “lived-in space,” which was later exemplified in Strabo’s work.81 Timosthenes of Rhodes (fl. 270 B.C.) was a Greek navigator, geographer and admiral in Ptolemaic navy. He produced a work of sailing directions in ten books which has been lost. He was much admired and frequently cited by other geographers such as Eratosthenes and Strabo.82 Agatharchides of Cnidus was a Greek historian and geographer who flourished 2nd century B.C. Although most of his writings have been lost, a geographical treatise on the Horn of Africa and lands around the Red Sea, has survived almost intact.83 Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276--c.194 B.C.) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. A man of considerable earning, he became the chief librarian at the great Library of Alexandria when it was the most advanced library of antiquity. In a book entitled On the Measure of the Earth, which has subsequently been lost, Eratosthenes provided a reasonable estimate of the earth’s circumference. Using the resources of that library, in his three-volume work Geography, Eratosthenes described and mapped his entire known world, dividing the Earth into five climate zones: two freezing zones around the poles, two temperate zones, and a zone encompassing the equator and the tropics. The third book of his Geography dealt with political geography, or geopolitics. He cited countries and used parallel lines to divide the map into sections, to give accurate descriptions of the realms. He thus had invented geography and created terminology that is still used today.84 Hipparchus of Nicaea (c. 190 –c. 120 B.C.) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician and reportedly the founder of trigonometry. His most famous for his incidental discovery of recession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus was the first to show that the stereographic projection is conformal, and that it transforms circles on the sphere that do not pass through the center of projection to circles on the plane., which was the basis for the astrolabe. In addition to geometry, Hipparchus also expanded upon arithmetic techniques developed by the Chaldeans. He was one of the first

Williams, Mary Frances, “A Fragment of Polybius' Homeric Geography?” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, 39: 1/ 4 (2002), pp. 139-147. 82 “Timosthenes of Rhodes,” in Wikipedia. 83 “Agatharchides of Cnidus,” in Wikipedia. 84 “Eratosthenes of Cyrene,” in Wikipedia. 81

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Greek mathematicians to do this and, in this way, expanded the techniques available to astronomers and geographer.85 Strabo, (c.64-24 B.C.) was a Greek who lived in Asia Minor during the last years of the Roman Republic and into the earliest years of the Empire. He drew a detailed historical and political picture of the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus. An extensive world traveler, Strabo visited virtually all the known world. His work Geographica offered a descriptive history of people and places from different regions of the world known during his lifetime 86 Strabo’s Geography is the only surviving work of its type to be found in the vast collection of Greek literature. That work is the major source for the history of Greek scholarship on geography and the formative processes of the earth. In addition, this lengthy and complex work contains a vast amount of information on other topics, including the journey of Alexander the Great, a history of cults, the history of the eastern Mediterranean in the first century B.C., and women’s history. Modern knowledge of seminal geographical authors such as Eratosthenes and Hipparchos depends almost totally on Strabo’s citation of, and reference to, them. It is obvious that he spent much time in the great library at Alexandria if only by looking at his many citations of works housed there.87 Strabo also produced the maps, from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. These maps and charts, it was said, had first been drawn by Ptolemy ‘s cartographers soon after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. They showed Alexander’s conquests. Ptolemy’s maps were quite costly and were kept secret, as was the case of most other maps drawn before the seventeenth century. The Geography is the major source for the history of Greek scholarship on geography and the formative processes of the earth.88 Strabo’s Geography is a mixed bag. He had several important insights. For example, he was the first to connect the Danube River– Danouios and the Istros – with the change of names occurring at what he called the cataracts. However, in describing India, of which he had heard but never visited, he repeated fanciful tales of unusual flora and fauna without hesitating to consider the possible falsehood. “Hipparchus of Nicaea,” in Wikipedia/ Dueck, Daniela. Strabo of Amasia: Greek Man of Letters in Augustan Rome. Routledge, 2000. 87 Davis, William Stearns. Reading in Ancient History: Greece and the East. Allyn and Bacon, 1912. 1: 325–329. See Strabo, Geography 17.1.6, 7, 8, 13. 88 Strabo. The Geography of Strabo: An English Translation, with Introduction and Notes by Duane W. Roller. Cambridge University Press, 2020. 85 86

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Strabo cited the classical Greek astronomers, notably Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, noting their astronomical and mathematical efforts which more than occasionally touched upon geography. However, he claimed that his descriptive approach to geography was more practical. Where most of the Greek philosophers were disinterested in the practical application of their idea, Strabo bragged that his works were designed for statesmen who were more anthropologically concerned with the character of countries and regions. His work is generally accepted as true, and hence a valuable insight into that ancient world, insofar as it can be verified from other sources.89 Gaius Plinius Secundus (c.23– 79 A.D.), known best as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist and philosopher, also a naval and army commander in the first years of the Roman Empire. He was a friend and adviser of the emperor Vespasian. Pliny wrote the Naturalis Historia (Natural History), which became a model for future encyclopedias. That work encompasses such fields as botany, zoology, astronomy, geology, and mineralogy, and gives us a clear insight into Roman knowledge in these areas. He was among the first to study various geographic phenomena in person. He provided much information on Spain where he served as procurator. 90 Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100– c. 170 A.D) was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and music theorist. Ptolemy wrote in ancient Greek and utilized Babylonian astronomical data. He may have been a Roman citizen, but almost certainly was ethnically either a Greek or a Hellenized Egyptian. Ptolemy was well known for his work Guide to Drawing the Earth, better known simply as the Geography, which was a handbook on how to draw maps using geographical coordinates within the Roman world. He relied on previous work by an earlier geographer, Marinus of Tyre (c.70130 A.D.), as well as other works in both the Roman and the Persian Empires. By his own admission, Ptolemy did not attempt to collect and sift all the geographical data on which his maps were based. Instead, he based them on the maps and writings of Marinus, only selectively introducing more current information. Ptolemy’s most important geographical innovation was

89

Dueck, D.; and H. Lindsay; S. Pothecary, eds. Strabo's Cultural Geography. Cambridge University Press, 2005. 90 Beagon, Mary. Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder. Oxford Univ. Press, 1992.

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to record longitudes and latitudes in degrees for roughly 8,000 locations on his maps.91 He also acknowledged ancient astronomer Hipparchus (c.190-120 B.C.) for having discovered the elevation of the north celestial pole and for a few other matters. Ptolemy’s maps were based on scientific principles had been made since the time of Eratosthenes (c. 276-195 B.C.), although Ptolemy improved on his map projections.92 Ptolemy’s work known as the Almagest, is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy.93 Although Babylonian astronomers had earlier developed arithmetical techniques for calculating and predicting astronomical phenomena, these were not based on any underlying model of the heavens.94 The first part of the Geographia contains a discussion of the data and of the methods he used. As with the model of the solar system in the Almagest, Ptolemy created a synthesis from the information he had gathered from various sources into a grand scheme. Following Marinos, he assigned coordinates to all the places and geographic features he knew, in a grid that spanned the globe. Latitude was measured from the equator, as it is today, but Ptolemy preferred in book eight to express it as the length of the longest day rather than degrees of arc. In books two through seven, he used degrees and put the meridian of zero longitude at the most western land he knew, the “Blessed Islands, “which were probably the Cape Verde islands, although traditionally ascribed to the Canary Islands. In the second part of the Geography, Ptolmey provided a listing of 8,000 localities, largely based on Marinus and others. He was well aware that he knew only a small portion of the whole world. Ptolemy’s advantage was the simple accident of history that his work survived while others were lost. In placing the cities Ptolmey measured latitude from the equator.95 He saw the universe as a series of nested spheres.

“Geographer of Ptolemy,” in Encyclopedia Britannica. See also Lloyd A. Brown. The Story of Maps. Little, Brown, 1949, chap. 3, esp. 79- 80. See also Bagrow, L., “The Origin of Ptolemy's Geographia,” Geografiska Annaler, 27 (1 January 1945), pp. 318–387. 92 Berggren, L. Lennart; and Jones, eds., trans. Alexander. Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters. Princeton University Press, 2002. 93 Ptolemy. Almagest, G. J. Toomer, ed., trans. London: Duckworth, 1984. See also Stevenson, Edward Luther, trans., ed. Claudius Ptolemy: The Geography (1932). Dover reprint, 1991. 94 Jones, A., ed. Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of His Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Springer, 2010. “Ptolemy,” in Wikipedia. 95 Bagrow, L. “The Origin of Ptolemy's Geographia”. Geografiska Annaler. Geografiska Annaler, 27 (1945), pp. 318–387. See also “Ptolmey” in Wikipedia/. 91

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Ptolemy had divided the world into arctic, temperate, and tropic zones. Ptolemy divided the earth by latitude into seven ‘climates’ in his book Geographia (or Cosmographia). In this astrolabe there are seven projections on latitude plates that correspond to Ptolemy’s climates. Ptolemy’s Geographia illustrated the close relationship that was understood between geography, astronomy and time, by defining his climates according to the lengths of the longest days in those latitudes. Unlike those of most ancient Greek mathematicians, Ptolemy’s writings were constantly copied, or commented, by scholars in both in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Ptolemy’s Geography is the only book on cartography to have survived from the classical period and one of the most influential scientific works of all time. Written in the second century, A.D., for more than fifteen centuries it was the most detailed topography of Europe and Asia available and the best reference on how to gather data and draw maps. Ptolemy favored the use of astronomical observation and applied mathematics in determining geographical locations. He introduced the practice of writing down coordinates of latitude and longitude for every feature drawn on a world map, so that someone else possessing only the text of the Geography could reproduce his map at any time, in whole or in part, at any scale. One major problem with Ptolemaic coordinates was that they were not acquired scientifically from astronomical observation if only because there were no adequate instruments. Rather, coordinates were read off a map constructed essentially from times and distances. The vagaries of wind and weather and the lack of compass and log rendered marine itineraries, particularly those outside the trade-wind belt, sources of major errors.96 Some scholars have called Ptolemy the pro-astrological authority of the highest magnitude. That work held a place of great authority among the astrological writers for a thousand years or more. His astrological treatise, a work in four parts, is known by the Latin title Quadripartitum (Four Books). Ptolemy’s own title is unknown.97 Pomponius Mela, who wrote around A.D. 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He wrote a book on navigation largely based on the experiences of ships’ pilots along coastlines. Pausanias (c. 110 – c. 180) was a Greek geographer who provided a detailed travelogue of Greece, complete with Toomer, G. J., “Ptolemy,” in C. C. Gillispie, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 16 vols. Scribner's, 1970-80, 11:186-206, esp. 186-87. 97 Robbins, Frank Egleston, ed., intro., trans. Ptolemy Tetrabiblos. Harvard University Press, 1940, p. x. 96

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descriptions of buildings and myths. Agathodaemon of Alexandria was a probably Hellenized citizen of Alexandria, Egypt, florid in the second century, A.D. Others have mentioned that he had provided an important geography, now lost. Isidore of Charax was a Greco-Roman geographer who came from the northern end of the Persian Gulf, a citizen of the Parthian Empire. Reportedly, he wrote at least one work on geography, now lost, possibly in the first century, B.C. or first century, A.D. A Description of the World and its People is the title of an anonymously written commercial-geographical survey written about the late Roman Empire during the reign of Constantius II (317-361) The Greek work was composed of three parts. The first part describes lands east of the Roman Empire and contains the least accurate geographical information. The second and longest part describes the mainland provinces of the Empire, while the third book describes island provinces. Its principal value lay in its survival and although the Greek original has been lost, it has survived in many translations and editions. The Geography of Muhammad al-Idrisi, a Moroccan born in Ceuta, was established by order of the Norman king Roger of Sicily, who had delusions of conquering Byzantium. In the fourteenth century, another Moroccan from Tangiers, Ibn Battuta, wrote a highly geographical account of his travels from Sudan to India and China.98 Geography had made great advances under Greek philosophers and their Roman students and imitators. Much good can be said of the advancement of cartography as an aid to travelers, especially to those sailing on the Mediterranean Sea and its adjacent waterways. Nonetheless, geography remained a descriptive science with a branch in cartography and had not yet considered the influence of geographical features upon politics and history. It was also not yet a critical science, as so many geographical writings still spun incredible tales and repeated impossible myths and legends. No inferences were yet offered which described the influence of geography on political developments and institutions. Political geography simply meant adding factual descriptions of the governments of places described in various other ways, including architecture, art, music, commerce and trade.

98

Lacoste, op. cit.

Chapter 3

Early Modern Geopolitics For the next five or so centuries, geographers were influenced by Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) and by his teacher and friend, Albertus Magnus (12001280), whose works together summarized and promulgated earlier geographic and climatic ideas from Aristotle and Ptolemy. They assumed that those who lived in higher, cooler altitudes, where the air is thinner and dry, develop quite differently from those who live in low-lying areas where the air is damp, heavy, and warm. They sought a reasonable balance between the two, along with fertile soil, as the proper place for establishing the ideal city. Thomas especially warned against living too close to the sea, or indeed any place where the air is too “soft” because pleasure comes about far too easily, and work is viewed as unnecessary. Places where significant winds are found are to be avoided because agitation of the atmosphere disturbs the mind and distorts judgment.99 The early modern philosophers, like Bodin and Montesquieu were not the first to discuss the topics of climate and geography and they fully acknowledged his debt to classical authors like Aristotle, Livy, Hippocrates, and Tacitus. Their observations on climate differed from that of their medieval predecessors, such as Philippe de Commines (1447-1511), Sacrobosco (1195-1256), Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543), and Jerome Cardan (1501-1576). Early modern scientific employment of political geography began with French political philosopher Jean Bodin (1530-1596) and continued to Charles Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu (1689-1755). It is generally accepted that the term political geography can be attributed to J. M. Franz (1700-1755) who employed it in his Der Deutsche Staats-geographie (The German State Geography).100

99

St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Reign of the Prince, 2: ii, iv. See also Albertus Magnus, De Natura Locorum, 2: i, ii. 100 Brill, Heinz, “Political Geography, Geopolitics, Geostrategy: An Attempt at Systemization,” Strategic Studies, 8: 2 (1985), pp. 86-98. Brill asserts that Franz’s book “is recognized as the basis of general political geography.” We cannot locate a single reference to Franz outside Brill’s article.

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Jean Bodin The humanist philosopher and jurist Jean Bodin (c.1529-1596) was one of the most important political thinkers of the sixteenth century. He was a son of Guillaume Bodin, was a wealthy merchant and a member of the bourgeoisie of Angers, France. He joined the Carmelite order but was released from his vows a few years later. He studied, and later taught, law at the University of Toulouse. Unable to obtain a professorship at the university, he abandoned the academic life and worked as an advocate at the Parliament of Paris. Entering politics, he undertook certain legal reforms for King Charles IX. He fell out of favor with the new monarch King Henri III after he opposed the king’s fiscal policies, speaking against them at the States General of Blois where Bodin served as a representative. His reputation is largely based on his account of sovereignty which he explained in the Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576). Bodin lived at a time of great upheaval when France was divided by disputes between the Catholics and the Calvinist Huguenots. He was convinced that peace could be restored only if the sovereign prince was given absolute and indivisible power of the state. Bodin believed that different religions could coexist within the commonwealth and advocated great tolerance in religious matters in his Colloquium of the Seven about Secrets of the Sublime. Bodin was also one of the first to have opposed slavery. In 1596, Bodin died of the plague and was given a Catholic burial in the churchyard at Laon. As with virtually all ancient and medieval writers, Bodin saw no harm, or case of plagiarism, in copying those who first advocated or developed an idea. Bodin followed Aristotle faithfully in the first part of his fifth chapter of the Six Books. He taught that in order to obtain a thorough comprehension of the whole of the human experience, certain subjects must be undertaken, namely, history, cosmography, geography, chorography, topography and geometry. The natural environment was an important consideration for each and every state as it prepared to create a stable government. To ignore the climate was to risk folly and ultimate failure for each commonwealth had to adjust its laws and governance according to natural conditions. In order to command nature, one must first learn to obey it and only the fool attempts to

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recreate nature, making its natural laws conform to human demands. Bodin admonished those who have chosen to ignore that two millennia old truth.101 Bodin was a captive of the traditional assumption that human nature is fixed and, in and of itself, cannot be changed. The sole way to account for the great diversity among humans is to attribute it to environmental causes and influences. That is also the only way to account for the differing preferences of governments, habits, mores and folkways, and characters, among various peoples. Using the analogy of the good builder, Bodin suggests that while a talented architect will select the best construction style according to the available materials, so states must select the best governing instruments and style according to the national character of its people. That character, like building materials, differs because of environmental factors.102 Bodin claimed that no one who has written about states before him had ever considered the question of how to adapt the form of a state to the territory where it is situated, such as nearness to the sea or closeness to the mountains, etc. Earlier writers had also failed to take into account the natural aptitudes of its people. Bodin asserted that, amid the uncertainty and chaos of human history, natural influences provide humans with certain keys to unlock mysteries. These stable and immutable natural influences have a dominant role in molding the personality, physique, and historical character of the inhabitants of various nations. This naturalistic approach is, to some extent, obscured by Bodin’s belief in astrology and numerology.103 Bodin is best remembered for his writings on climatic effects on human societies. For him, differences in latitude subject humans to more complex influences than do heat and cold, which is partly due to the occult influences of the planets in the understanding of astrology. Scholars were still in an age when astronomy and astrology were so mixed that one would never study the one without understanding the precepts of the other. He began with a consideration of the Aristotelian discussion of the relationship between climate governments for he concluded that the national character and climate are very closely related. The geographical environment favors various occupations which, in turn, mold character, for Aristotle posited a direct relationship between the people and their propensity for good 101

Bodin, Jean. Six Books of the Commonwealth, 1608 edition, book 5, p. 663. This edition has been frequently reprinted. 102 Bodin, Six Books, book 5. 103 Brown, John L. The Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem of Jean Bodin. Catholic University of America Press, 1939, pp. 87-88.

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or evil. He had asserted that human vocations could be arranged in a hierarchy according to the degree to which the occupations promoted good citizenship.104 Bodin taught that environment reacts of human bodies, in the first way through temperature and humidity, which are unalterable properties of location. He made note of four basic types of human personalities: first, the phlegmatic, which is cool and wet; the sanguine, which is moist and warm; the choleric, which is warm but dry; and the melancholic, which is cool and dry. Thus, he forged a connection between place and character. He believed that external heat drew moisture from the body, and vitality is lost. External cold close the pores of the skin, preserving internal heat, diminishing vitality. As it was for Ptolemy, Bodin thought bodies were conditioned by the temperature and humidity in which they lived. Bodin was interested in the practical implications of his theory concerning climates. He wished to begin with a correct understanding of the laws which governed the environment. Those laws constituted the proper starting point for the understanding of all policy, laws and institutions. Bodin believed that climate and other geographical factors influence people but denied that those factors absolutely determined their temperament. He did conclude that the form of state and legislation must be adapted to the temperament of the people, and the territory which it occupies.105 Three different versions of his theory of climates are to be found in his works. The earliest version is in Methodus.106 Here he noted the general principles of the theory but did not choose to relate them to contemporary politics. In the first chapter of the fifth book of the Six Books of the Republic he chose to expand upon the theory of climates, relating it to contemporary politics. The differences in latitude were more important to Bodin than were the effects of heat. Longitude, however, was unimportant. As we had seen, Ptolemy had divided the world into arctic, temperate, and tropic zones. Bodin adopted the Ptolemaic zones, dividing the earth into areas of thirty degrees from the equator northward. The fact that different peoples have differing capabilities and weaknesses can be associated with the zone in which they live and work. According to Bodin, the southern people are contemplative and religious by nature, are wise, but are lacking in 104

Aristotle, The Politics, 4, books iv, v, and vii. Tooley, Marian J., “Bodin and the Mediaeval Theory of Climate.” Speculum 28.1 (1953), pp. 64-83. 106 Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem [Method for the easy knowledge of history]. (1566). 105

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energy. Northern people are active grow larger in stature but lack the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations. The people of the South are intellectually gifted and thus resemble old men while the Northern people, because of their physical qualities, remain youthful in appearance. Those that live in the temperate zone between North and South, are free of the excesses of the other two, while being possessed of their better qualities. Bodin addressed the third group throughout his writings. 107 He rejected Ptolemy’s assertion that some aspect of the sun’s movement had any influence over human actions, or, for that matter, any other claim that there was such a thing as planetary interference on humans or societies. Following Albertus Magnus, Bodin assumed that all generated beings depend upon two things: radiation, which produces heat; and site. Where moisture allows for growth. He discussed at some length how in high altitudes where the air is cool and dry, human life cannot flourish well and the locations tend to be more northerly than the latitude suggests. Areas which are near larger bodies of water have damp, warm, and heavy atmospheres, and thus err on the opposite side from mountainous regions. Sheltered valleys are splendid places to establish the city, just as Thomas Aquinas had suggested. He also discussed the importance of winds, following Ptolemy who had written that cities are conditioned by the air currents and prevailing winds. Humans should avoid marshes and places beset by tempestuous winds. Such climactic factors explain the differences of peoples from one place and another.108 Ptolemy had deduced the Earth’s spherical shape and connected climate to the inclination of the sun. Ptolemy based his system of fifteen climatic zones.

Montesquieu Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, was born on 19 January 1689, near Bordeaux, to a noble and wealthy family. He was educated at the Oratorian Collège de Juilly, received a law degree from the University of Bordeaux in 1708, and went to Paris to continue his legal studies. Upon his father’s death in 1713 he inherited the family estates. In 1716 he inherited from his uncle the title Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu and the office of Président à Mortier in the Parliament of 107 108

Tooley, op. cit. See also “Jean Bodin,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Bodin, Six Books, p. 668; Methodus, p. 131.

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Bordeaux, a judicial and administrative office. Although a Catholic, he married a Protestant. In 1721 he anonymously published The Persian Letters, an epistolary novel consisting of letters sent to and from two fictional Persians, in which many aspects of French society are humorously misinterpreted. In 1731 Montesquieu began work on his Spirit of the Laws, which he completed in 1748. It, like the Persian Letters, was immediately successful, but highly controversial. Two years later he published an answer to his critics, entitled Defense of the Spirit of the Laws. He died of a fever in Paris in 1755.109 Montesquieu expounded his theory of climates in Book XIV of Spirit of the Laws, asserting that, “If it be true that the temper of the mind and the passions of the heart are extremely different in different climates, the laws ought to be in relation both to the variety of those passions and to the variety of those tempers.” To some scholars, such as Robert Platt of the University of Chicago, he was an environmental determinist.110 To another authority, Montesquieu’s theory of political geography is more properly interpreted as being possibilistic rather than environmental or deterministic.111 Both agree that geography generally, and climate specifically, have a great bearing on human political, legal, and social development. Montesquieu incorporated what, in the present lexicon, would now be understood to be political science and ecology into his eighteenth-century sociological studies. He concluded that sociopolitical systems were outgrowths of ecological conditions, and so cannot be unthinkingly transplanted from locale to locale. There are some important modern studies which appear to validate Montesquieu’s conclusion about the relationship between ecology and the development of monarchies, republics, and despotisms. However, his famous fourteenth chapter shows that this is but a part of a larger process. Human populations respond to ecological conditions through changes in mean intelligence, but also through changes in other life history traits. Consequently, it is inter-population life history means that

“Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014. 110 Platt, Robert S., “Determinism in Geography,” Annals of American Association of Geographers, 38: 2 (1948), pp. 126-32 at 126. 111 Kreisel, Karl Marcus, “Montesquieu: Possibilistic Political Geographer,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 58: 3 (1958), pp. 557-74. 109

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were obliquely observed by Montesquieu to give rise to sociopolitical differences.112 His principal interest of course is given in the title of his most important book, the Spirit of the Laws. He proposed to examine the relationships which existed among governments, climate, soil, land area, topography, morals, manners, customs, culture, total environment, geography, and, of course, its laws. It was in that work that he specified how laws were to be made: Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things…. They should be adapted in such a manner to the people for whom they are framed that it should be a great chance if those of one nation suit another…. They should be in relation to the climate of each country, to the quality of the soil, to its situation and extent, to the principal occupation of the natives…. to the religion of the inhabitants, to their inclinations, riches, numbers, commerce, manners and customs…113

He based his theory on certain observations, such as the fact that the extremities of the body’s external fibers contract with cold air, favoring the return of the blood towards the heart. By contracting, these fibers become stronger. Warmer air, he discovered, causes the body to relax, reducing its strength, which is why Montesquieu concluded that men living in a colder climate are more vigorous. He thought that the heart’s action is better, and the blood travels faster towards the heart, giving the body more strength in colder climates. This physical superiority also means men are braver, and develop a sense of superiority, and a lessened desire for revenge. Human in cooler regions is more honest, cleverer, and less suspicious towards others. Should men in reside a warm environment, they will be weakened, and if presented with a task, will have no energy to complete it. This physical weakness discourages men, making them reluctant to act. He likened people in warmer countries to older persons, in that they are more prone to being lethargic, while northerners are more like young people. People in colder climates are braver and have fewer vices than people residing in warmer areas. Montesquieu next made the claim that, if one were to analyze recent wars, one would immediately perceive that soldiers from cooler climates Hertler, S. C., et al., “The Baron de Montesquieu: Toward a Geography of Political Culture,” in: Life History Evolution. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 1-14. 113 Spirit of the Laws, 1: iii. 112

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who have fought in warmer areas did not perform as well as those who fought in their own cool environment. Soldiers would do well to fight only in the areas with whose climate they are familiar. The sensitivity to heat makes people in warmer climates weaker when confronted with physical pain. He believed that the human body is severely weakened by excessive heat. This state of being is then transmitted to the mind, which leads to a lack of curiosity and of enterprising spirit. Humans become passive and, like Rousseau’s natural man, happy only when idle. Too hot a climate can make slavery comprehensible. In Book Fifteen, Montesquieu wrote that “the state of slavery is in its own nature bad.” However, he rejected any religious or racist justifications for slavery.114 There are two climates in which slavery, while not especially desirable, is a necessary institution. First, in nations ruled by authoritarian figures, the condition of slaves is wholly different from that of the other subjects. Thus, slavery in a state under despotic rule finds that slavery can be tolerable.115 In unusually hot countries, since “the excess of heat enervates the body, and renders men so slothful and dispirited that nothing but the fear of chastisement can oblige them to perform any laborious duty: slavery is there more reconcilable to reason.”116 Humans in warm climates not only are physically lethargic, but also in their mental activities, or lack thereof. Only through enslavement can they be forced to act. Still, Montesquieu infinitely preferred free labor. He asserted that when work can be done by freemen motivated by the hope of gain rather than by slaves motivated by fear, the former will always work better; and that in such climates, slavery is not only wrong but imprudent. He hopes that “there is not that climate upon earth where the most laborious services might not with proper encouragement be performed by freemen.” Should there be no such climate, then slavery could never be justified on these grounds.117 Montesquieu concluded that it was the climate and geography of Asia which explained why despotism flourished there. Asia fell into despotism because it has virtually no temperate zone.118 Montesquieu determined to his satisfaction that the physical environment interacted with humans, disposing those living in barren, isolated areas in the mountains to be active, brave, good and loyal 114

Spirit of the Laws, 15: i. Ibid., 15: i. 116 Ibid., 15: vii. 117 Ibid., 15: viii. 118 Ibid., 17: iii. 115

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companions, well aware of external goings-on, and especially vigilant in defense of their liberty. People in colder climates find pleasure in energetic activities, such as hunting, traveling and fighting. While northerners have fewer vices and more virtues, the closer humans move towards warm climates, the further they are removed from practicing the principles of morality. In the south, man’s strong passions make him commit all sorts of crimes and people are willing to do anything to satisfy their excessive desires. Europe prospered because the mountains of Scandinavia shelter Europe from the bitterly cold arctic winds.119 He wrote: Cold air constringes the extremities of the external fibers of the body; this increases their elasticity and favors the return of the blood from the extreme parts of the heart. It contracts those very fibers; consequently, it increases also their force…. People are therefore more vigorous in cold climates…. 120

Montesquieu also concluded that people in colder countries are less sensitive to things which bring pleasure, while those southerners are greatly influenced by pleasurable acts and situations. In warm countries, people are much more sensitive, and not only in that which regards physical aspects. He also offered opinions concerning emotional sensitivity. Montesquieu related how the same opera show will cause different public reactions in England and Italy. The same music will necessarily produce different effects on these two peoples. He remarked that the English are colder and unresponsive, while the Italians are joyous and attracted by the arts.121 Montesquieu was also interested in discussing the quality of a nation’s soil for that factor also affects its type of its government. Monarchies are more common where the soil is fertile, and republics where the land is barren, for three reasons. He wrote, “The goodness of the land, in any country, naturally establishes subjugation and dependence.” The reason they “are not jealous of their liberty” is that they are “too busy and too intent on their own private affairs.”122 First, those who live in fruitful countries are more apt to be content with their situation, and to value in a government not the liberty it bestows but its 119

Ibid., 17: iii. Ibid, 15: ii. 121 Lupşor, Andrea, “Montesquieu's Climate Theory,” Historia, (2022) https://www.historia.ro/ sectiune/general/articol/montesquieu-s-climate-theory. 122 Spirit of the Laws, 18: i.. 120

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ability to provide them with enough security that they can get on with their farming. They are therefore more willing to accept a monarchy if it can provide such security. Often it can, since monarchies can respond to threats more quickly than republics. Second, fertile countries are both more desirable than barren countries and easier to conquer; they “are always of a level surface, where the inhabitants are unable to dispute against a stronger power; they are then obliged to submit; and when they have once submitted, the spirit of liberty cannot return; the wealth of the country is a pledge of their fidelity.” Monarchies are much more likely than republics to wage wars of conquest, and therefore that a conquering power is likely to be a monarchy.123 Third, those who live where the soil is barren have to work hard in order to survive; this tends to make them excellent and desirable citizens. Those who inhabit fertile country, by contrast, favor “ease, effeminacy, and a certain fondness for the preservation of life.” He continued, “The barrenness of the earth renders men industrious, sober, inured to hardship, courageous, and fit for war; they are obliged to procure by labor what the earth refuses to bestow spontaneously.” The inhabitants of barren countries are better able to defend themselves from such attacks as might occur, and to defend their liberty against those who would destroy it. 124 The inhabitants of various islands also make attractive citizens. Of them, Montesquieu wrote, “The inhabitants of islands have a higher relish for liberty than those of the continent.” The reasons for their strong attachment to freedom and independence he gave were “Islands are commonly of small extent; one part of the people cannot be so easily employed to oppress the other; [and] the sea separates them from great empires…”125 Returning to antiquity, Montesquieu remarked on the influence of the soil upon governmental type. “Thus, monarchy is more frequently found in fruitful countries, and a republican government in those which are not…. The barrenness of Attic soil established there a democracy; and the fertility of that of Lacedaemonia as aristocratic constitution.”126 Ever since, if not previously, the more fertile an area the less its inhabitants will express an interest in self-government. Despotic governments are common in large expanses of essentially flat lands, whether barren or fertile. He noted that Asia has developed large 123

Spirit of the Laws, 18: ii. Ibid., 18:iv. 125 Ibid., 18: v. 126 Ibid., 18: i . 124

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empires frequently because of its vast plains. Such huge empires are unsuccessful in Europe because it is cut into many parts by large mountain ranges, rivers and seas. Power in Asia is destined to be commonly despotic. In Europe the natural division of nations has mitigated against autocratic governments and favored republics.127 There is a difference between savage lifestyles and barbarous ones. He noted that the Amerindians of North America were savages, as were all hunter-gatherer communities. Their environment and the rich soil allowed them to have much leisure time for they obtained their necessaries with little effort and thus had no interest in advancing toward civilization. Asians were barbarous. Africa hosted both savages and barbarians. He saw that there was an ascent in human development, advancing from savagery to barbarism. He wrote: There is this difference between savage and barbarous nations: the former are dispersed clans, which for some particular reason cannot be joined in a body; and the latter are commonly small nations capable of being united. The savages are generally hunters; the barbarians are herdsmen and shepherds…. The greatest part of the people on the coast of Africa are savages and barbarians. The principal reason, I believe, of this is, because the small countries capable of being inhabited are separated from each other by large and almost uninhabitable tracts of land.128

It would not be correct to view Montesquieu as either a geographical or climatic determinist, although he considers that both can, and in some instances do, have enormous impact upon all other aspects of the state and its population. Montesquieu wrote “There are climates where the impulses of nature have such a force that morality has almost none,”129 causing a charge of atheism to be lodged against him. He backed down a bit, noting that his book “presents a perpetual triumph of morality over climate, or rather over physical causes in general.”130 It would not have been well for him to have insisted upon his earlier position and so one may choose to see in his retreat a bit of cowardice in face of theological threats.

127

Ibid., 18: i. Ibid., 18: xi. 129 Ibid., 16, viii. 130 “Responses et Explications données a la Faculté de Theologie.” 128

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Later Figures Anton Friedrich Büsching, (1724—1793) was a German geographer and educator who helped develop a scientific basis for the study of geography by stressing statistics rather than descriptions and is thus regarded as the father of statistical geography. Büsching had more than a hundred publications, the most important influential of which was the multi-volume Neue Erdbeschreibung, the first volume of which appeared in 1760. At the time of his death only the sections dealing with Europe and a part of Asia had been published. The set appeared in English as A New System of Geography, in six-volumes, beginning in 1762.131 Albrecht Theodor Emil Graf von Roon (1803–1879) was a Prussian Minister of War, who, along with Otto von Bismarck and Helmuth von Moltke, modernized and improved the German army. He was an important figure in Prussia’s government during the decade of the 1860s, assisting during the series of successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France which ultimately led to German unification. A conservative supporter of the monarchy, he was an avid supporter of the emerging science of military geography. A student of geographer Carl Ritter, Roon published the Principles of Physical, National and Political Geography (1832) in three volumes, which earned him a substantial reputation. He followed that work with Elements of Geography in 1834 and with Military Geography of Europe in 1837 by The Iberian Peninsula in 1839. 132

“Büsching, Anton Friedrich,” in Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Encyclopædia Britannica. 11th ed. Cambridge University Press, 1911, 4: 869–87. 132 “Albrecht von Roon: Biography” FamPeople, 18 May 2019. 131

Chapter 4

Rudolf Kjellén Rudolf Kjellén was born on 13 June1864, in Torsø, County of Skaraborg, Sweden. He died on 14 November1922, in Uppsala. He was a Swedish political scientist, geographer, and sociologist. Rudolf Kjellén was born on Thorsö, a small island in Sweden’s largest lake, Lake Vänern. He was the third child of seven. He was the son of a Lutheran priest. Kjellén graduated from the University of Uppsala in 1883 and received the Doctor of Sciences degree in 1890. From 1891 through 1916 he taught political science at Göteborg, where he rose to the rank of professor in 1901. In 1916 he began teaching at the University of Uppsala. He was a member of the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament, from 1905 to 1908 and again from 1911 to 1917. European philosophers exercised much influence on Kjellén which served to shape his thinking and writing. Although he was never a student of Friedrich Ratzel, philosophically he was Ratzel’s most faithful disciple. He was touched both by the realistic European literature of the 1880s and by the romantic Swedish poetry of the 1890s. The strong Linnaean tradition in Swedish culture and his own hobby, ornithology, made him particularly receptive to the current biological modes of thought. Many ideas were suggested to him by the works of the geographer Friedrich Ratzel. the imperialistic theories of Heinrich von Treitschke and John R. Seeley and the imperialistic struggles among nations at the turn of the century.133 All of these factors changed his conception of the state. He came to see it not simply as a Rechtssubjekt, a legal abstraction, but as a reality, an organism.134 Kjellén coined the term geopolitics and was an early proponent of the reactionary theory that the state was a geographic and biological organism which naturally seeks to expand, that the state must grow or die.135 He was an ideologist of Swedish conservative thought, a male chauvinist, a Holdar, S., “The Ideal State and the Power of Geography: The Life and Work of Rudolf Kjellén,” Political Geography, 11 (1992), pp. 307-23. 134 “Kjellén, Rudolf.” in Encyclopedia.com. 135 Kjellén used the term geopolitics first in 1899, which is five years before Mackinder it it for the first time. Øyvind Østerud, “The Uses and Abuses of Geopolitics,” Journal of Peace Research, 25: 2 (1981), p. 191. 133

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Germanophile, and a militarist. Kjellén formed part of a group of conservative university professors whose contributions to public discourse as teachers, researchers, politicians and public intellectuals were significant in promoting a conservative and nationalist agenda in Swedish politics in the early twentieth century. While this suggests a predominantly Swedish focus, Kjellén was widely versed in the history of political ideas and extensively referred to international, particularly German, debates. He also wrote an influential book on great power politics, and most of his scholarly work was translated into German shortly after its publication in Swedish.136 Kjellén was a vehement anti-liberal and took a firm stance against both economic liberalism and, perhaps even more so, to German Rechtsstaat conceptions of the state because of its formalism and its restriction of state. Rechtsstaat translates literally as “state of law” or “legal state.” It is a doctrine which exits in Continental European legal thinking, with specific origins in German jurisprudence. In English it would be related to such concepts as “rule of law”, alternatively “legal state”, “state of law”, “state of justice”, or “state based on justice and integrity.” A Rechtsstaat is a constitutional state in which the exercise of governmental power is constrained by basic law. It is closely related to “constitutionalism” while is often tied to the Anglo-American concept of the rule of law but differs from it in by emphasizing what is just, that is, a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, and/or equity. Thus, it is the opposite of Obrigkeitsstaat or Nichtrechtsstaat, which refer to a state based on the arbitrary use of power. It also differs from Unrechtsstaat, which is a non-Rechtsstaat with the capacity to become one after a period of historical development.137 Kjellén’s writings focused on five central concepts that would underlie German geopolitik as would be later espoused by Karl Haushofer. First, Reich is a territorial concept which is composed of Raum (space), and strategic military shape. Second, Volk describes the racial conception of the state and is a most important factor in assessing nations. Third, he advocated autarky which has its base on land. That, he formulated in reaction to the vicissitudes of international markets, especially of raw materials. Fourth was Gesellschaft (Society) which is the social aspect of a nation’s organization along with its cultural appeal. Fifth, Regierung (government) refers to the Smolen. Kinga, “Evolution of Geopolitical Schools of Thought,” Sklodowska. University of Lublin. 7 vols. (2012), 7: 6. 137 Silkenat, James R., et al., eds. The Legal Doctrines of the Rule of Law and the Legal State (Rechtsstaat). Springer, 2014 136

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type of existing government whose bureaucracy and army would work to guarantee the people’s pacification and coordination.138 The most important principles which form the basis of Rechtsstaat are the following: A constitution or other basic document guarantees the constitutional rights of its citizens, which rights are delineated in some document. There is a recognition that there are human rights which exist independent of, and transcend, the state. Political powers should be separated by function, with the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government providing for checks and balances. The judicature and the executive are bound by law, and the legislature is bound by constitutional principles. There should be transparency in governmental actions. There should be an independent review of state decisions and state acts by independent organs, including an appeal process. States are forbidden to introduce retroactivity into its laws.139 The greatest need for geographers was to develop a vocabulary specific to that science, with particular reference to geopolitics. If the geopolitical writers were to create a more precise terminology that could be drawn upon when analyzing states, it would assist in positioning geography as a useful science and allow it to become a source of geostrategy. Only with a precisely defined lexicon could geographers expect to understand and then explain the vitality of major states. To further this aim, he produced Stormakterna: Konturer kring samtidens storpolitik (The Great Powers: Outlines of Contemporary Big Politics) in 1905.140 This book was a supposedly empirical analysis of Ratzel’s Political Geography. Proving to be enormously popular, Stormakterna went through no less than twenty-four editions between 1909 and 1934.141 Autarky is grounded in the assumption that the state has become an individual with its own distinct ethnicity which it derived from the multiplicity of individuals who inhabit it. It assumes that states can and should be self-sufficient eco-political organisms. Self-sufficiency exists in many dimensions, not only in terms of the production of all, or at least most, of what a state requires. Unless a state exerts its independence, it will never arrive at the true individuality of which it is capable by practicing autarky. 138

Mattern, Johannes. Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire. Johns Hopkins Press, 1942, p. 33. 139 Buchanan, James. The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty, Volume 1, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 1999. 140 The Great Powers: Outlines of Contemporary Great Politics. 141 Sprengel, R. Kritik der Geopolitik ein deutscher Diskurs [Critique of Geopolitics a German Discourse], 1914-1944. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1996, pp. 26-27.

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He fully and unconditionally accepted the place of autarky in the good state. No state could achieve the good life unless it practiced, insofar as possible, autarky. 142 Kjellén positioned himself in opposition to both liberals, socialists and aristocratic conservative reactionaries. He adopted a radical conservative stance. His conservatism was not rest content with what was, but, rather, it was committed to pursuing conservative and nationalist goals by way of state reforms. He wished to see how the theory of Lebensraum as advanced by Ratzel fitted in the real world. His first significant book was The State as a Form of Life which was published in Swedish in the autumn of 1916 and translated almost immediately into German under the title Der Staat als Lebensform. This work brought him not only international fame, but much serious academic attention. In it, he strove to provide an empirically grounded theory of the state. He defined geopolitics as “the study of the state as a geographic organism or phenomenon in space; that is, as land, territory, area, or, most pregnantly, as country.”143 All of his major works were translated into German, but they were never translated into English. Rudolf Kjellén’s geopolitik was the most important component of his attempt to produce a systematic political science. It focused on the study of the state based on organic analogy. Kjellén sought to construct an objective way to analyze the evolution of the power of states and to examine how this process affected interstate relations.144 If Kjellén had really conceived of the organic state as a true living organism, and not simply the subject of an elaborate analogy, he would not have allowed individuality and human independence. As he wrote, “the life of the state is ultimately in the hands of individuals.”145 The state is a changing, evolving, and living community in which the territory, its human population, and the government interact as a whole. Kjellén saw the need for such an account in the expansion of state powers which would transcend the liberal state. He held that political science must reassess its tasks, purpose and concepts in order to be able to analyze the ever more expansive state actions in an ever-increasing number of policy

142

Kjellén, Rudolf. Staten som lifsform [The state as a life-form]. Stockholm: Grebers, 1916, pp. 50Ff, also pp. 75-77. 143 Kjellén, Staat als lebensform [The State as a Form of Life], p. 46. 144 Holdar, Sve, “The Ideal State and the Power of Geography the Life-work of Rudolf Kjellén,” Political Geography, 11: 3 (1992), pp. 307-323. 145 Kjellén, Staat als lebensform, pp. 218-20.

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areas. Kjellén saw that the state had commenced intervening in citizen’s daily lives in a manner which was inconceivable in traditional political thinking. However, the conception espoused by integral liberals, according to which the state is but a passive legal order, an arena in which selfsufficient individuals take care of the progressive labor on the market, is also an unrealistic image of the state. In reality, Kjellén argued, the state takes a leading role in questions of the economy, the exploitation of national resources, in questions of infrastructure but also in questions of culture. The state regulates the labor market, as well as social life. The state is a businessman, a progressive actor, indeed, the driving force in the development of society. It is, first and foremost, an organization entrusted with power, more so than a legal order.146 In his The State as a Form of Life, Kjellén sought to refute the traditional integral liberal conception of the state, in which the state is thought of in terms of Rechtsstaat. It was Kjellén’s idea that states were not fixed juridical entities but dynamic organisms competing on the international scene. According to Kjellén, such thinking reduces the state to a simple juridicaladministrative function, a minimalist state whose duties are fulfilled as soon as the law has been asserted. He made particular reference to Manchester School of Liberalism, but also pointed to the origins of the liberal conception of the state as taught by John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Parting with this liberal, juristic conception of Rechtsstaat, Kjellén asserted that the state, as a vibrant living organism, is greater than its constitution. Kjellén charged that the political science, as it was being taught at that time, was blinded by integral liberal ideology. It had irrationally imposed a meaningless selflimitation, tying itself to the formal juridical aspects of the state.147 One way to change the mindset of political scientists would be to dismiss lawyers as the practitioners of politics, replacing them with a new cadre of training public administrators. These new civil servants would not be hamstrung by juridical considerations but would be free to innovate and transcend the Rechtsstaat. Simply, if one wishes to change the politics of the state, one must change the way the state is administrated. In the areas of constitutional and administrative law, political expediency, utility and necessity constitute and direct the guiding principles. He argued that the

Tunander, O., Swedish Geopolitics: From Rudolf Kjellen to a Swedish ‘Dual State,” Geopolitics, 10, (2005), pp. 546–566. 147 “Rudolf Kjellén and the Origin of Geopolitics,” Center for Research on Geopolitics, 21 April, 2015. 146

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relative weakness of law in relation to state interest and power is evident in international relations. Kjellén’s organic state would progress far beyond the mere maintenance of the legal order but would also be interested in the material well-being of its constituents, seeking new and innovative ways to secure for them the good life. He specifically mentioned building adequate housing, road construction, and undertaking vocational training. In this way, the state would display its interest in the fulfillment of individuals, without any connection whatsoever with the old legal order. And this does not end with the material well-being of individuals. The organic state would assume the responsibility for the education of all its people at all levels. The state also assumes responsibility the advancement of culture, making cultural activities of all forms available to all the citizenries.148 The organic analogy is also limited in its application. Among other factors, human beings and animals are quite different, if only in relation to a spiritual realm. He noted that all sub-human analogies are redundant because states have the ability to forge spiritual connections whereas animals do not have such ability.149 While Kjellén commenced his analysis by supporting the legal and constitutional framework of the state, he made changes as time passed, later asserting the primacy of the biological and organic underpinnings.150 He assumed when states emphasize the practical, meaning materialistic, considerations it is a sign of maturity and sound development in both national and international affairs. He thus came to argue in favor of a political state which exists outside the constraints of law. He would bring us back to a state of nature, moving ever farther away from abstract and artificial conception of the state. That return to natural reasoning and assumptions would allow the state to develop its own unique geographic personality.151 He had come to conceive of states as powers rather than as legal bodies.152

Tunander, O., “Swedish-German Geopolitics for a New Century: Rudolf Kjellén's The State as a Living Organism,” Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), pp. 451-63. 149 Kjellén, Rudolph. Staten som lifsform [The state as a life-form]. Stockholm: Grebers, 1916, p. 45. 150 Esposito, Roberto. Biopolitics and Philosophy. University of Minnesota Press, 2008, pp. 15f. 151 Kjellén, Rudolf. Der Staat als Lebensform [The State as a Form of Life]. M. Langfeldt, trans. S. Hirzel Verlag, 1917, pp. 1-6, 230-32. 152 Thermaenius, Edvard, “Geopolitics and Political Geography,” Baltic and Scandinavian Countries 5 (1938), pp. 165-77 at 166. 148

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For Kjellén, this newly discovered investment in the advancement of the population will become a national project which will take five different forms, requiring a new approach to the social sciences: regiment-politics, also called constitutional and administrative law; geopolitics; ethno-politics; political economy and socio-politics. The primacy of politics in Kjellén’s thinking is noticeable by the addition of the term politics to areas which, in integral liberal theory, are conceived of as being distinct from the political sphere. Of these five main categories, geopolitics is the most important one. In turn geopolitics was divided into three areas: topopolitics (relative location of the state), morpho-politics (form of the state) and physio-politics (area and physical features of the state).153 One good definition of geopolitics according to Kjellén holds that it is the impact of geographic factors on a country’s foreign policy. A somewhat similar definition suggests that geopolitics is the impact on foreign security politics of certain geographic features, the more important being locations among countries, distances between areas, and terrain, climate, and resources within states.154 Regarding geopolitics, Kjellén advanced two concepts, proper geopolitics and special geopolitics. Proper geopolitics is the geographical unit limited by borders, outward by natural borders and inward by a natural territory. Borders could be simultaneously political and natural. Notable among natural borders were mountains, rivers, and similar natural borders, such as deserts, swamps, and forests. Humans created political borders. He divided the natural borders into different types: potamic borders were such as those around rivers like Euphrates, Tigris and the Nile. There were circumluvial states and circum-marine states, such as the Roman empire which was surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. His own nation, the Swedish Empire of the seventeenth century had been circumscribed by the Baltic Sea. He also advanced what he called the law of the opposite land which was a desire to create a national territory that was characterized by the desire to create an opposite territorial copy on the mainland. It might be an attempt to create what he called bridge stones like islands, capes and strips of land

153

Kelly, Phillip. Checkerboards & Shatterbelts: The Geopolitics of South America. University of Texas Press, 1997. Kjellén’s ideas remain highly popular in South America. 154 Holdar, S., “The Ideal State and the Power of Geography: The Life Work of Rudolf Kjellén,” Political Geography, 11 (1992), pp. 307-23.

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along the larger sea routes. An example would be Japan’s attempt to conquer Manchuria.155 Kjellén’s geopolitics approached the natural territory of a state from the point of view of production, the ability to cultivate, to hold together the state and strengthen the shares of earth’s face. Humans approached this through cultivation, communications and fortification of the land. According to Kjellén there was constant interaction between nation, people and state power. He believed that the development of international transportation on land was developing to such a degree that the advantage of the sea powers was more of historical importance. For Kjellen, the greatest asset of a strong state was its territory and, as such, geopolitik (geography of state) was the most developed among all political processes. If former were more theoretical in their nature and concerned how a state could and/or should be, geopolitics had shown how actually it is.156 Race was a matter of some interest to Kjellén. While Ratzel had named basic races, with sub-races within the Caucasian grouping, was there any such thing as pure races? German classical composer Richard Wager (18131883) had attacked the supposition that there were pure races in his work supporting Social Darwinism.157 Ratzel had accepted Wagner’s theory that all Volk were racially mixed as a direct result of migrations. Kjellén had concluded the Great Britain had become successful because of its blending of Celtic, Roman, and Germanic sub-races. He made a direct connection between human political development, on the one hand, and the state’s need to expand and its ability to do so, on the other hand.158 He commended states for providing incentives for population growth, because he linked geopolitics regarding the space that the population inhabits. In his own time, he found in this regard commendation for the imperial endeavors of Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Japan and Italy. Kjellén maintains that their actions in increasing their populations placed them under a law of necessity which impels them to reach outside of their territories to seek living space (Lebensraum) for their constituents. The same 155

156

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158

Toal, Gerard, “Critical Geopolitics and Development Theory: Intensifying the Dialogue,” Institute of British Geographers, 19: 2 (1994), pp. 228-233. Greenwood, Mattew David, “International Aid and the Geopolitical Imagination after the Cold War: A Case Study of Development Aims and Aid Policies for post-Soviet Russia,” M. A. Thesis, Durham University, 2010, pp. 10-12. Wagner, Richard. Die Darwinische Theorie und das Migrationgesetz der Organismen [Darwinian theory and the migration law of organisms] (1868). Kjellén., Rudolf. Stormakterna: Konturer kring samtidens storpolitik [The Great Powers: Contours Around Contemporary Large Politics]. Stockholm: Grebers, 1905, pp. 173-82.

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is not true for the United States of America, Russia, and Sweden, because these states have yet to fill their living space. Like Ratzel, Kjellén realized that territorial growth of states cannot be conceptualized or explained by a one-dimensional theory, such as need for living space or need for additional space for agricultural production. Territorial growth must be examined through several lenses, including topographical position, demography, history, moires and folkways, and many others. Combining all these many factors demonstrates the need for broad and involved study by many sciences. Both Ratzel and Kjellén saw geopolitics as a uniting science, helping to bring all others into focus.159 Next, he dealt with special geopolitics, which involved space, shape and position. Space is basically a question of large space, how much territory a state has, and how much it may acquire as it grows as an organic entity. One of the most important things to understand about the organic state is that it is conceived as being greater than the sum of its parts, which translates to state personality.160 States are born, mature, have a useful life, decline into old age, and eventually die, just like human beings. States have souls and personalities. Still, despite the constant and full use of an organic-related vocabulary, Kjellén was writing in metaphor.161 The organic state has an instinct of expansion, and this placed the great powers against small states. This concept quickly evolved into living space. One of Kjellen’s most important works on geopolitics was Staaten som Lifsform, published in 1917. In that time, he had developed the concept of the state as a living organism constantly engaged in a perpetual struggle for geographical space. The state is the repository of all resources used in that struggle for life. This constant battle among the states allows that only the fittest and the most powerful survive. This assertion alone led to the popularization of the term geopolitik outside the Sweden and especially in Germany.162 Using a biological analogy, Kjellén taught that a state is attached to its native land in the same way trees are attached to a particular forest land. So deep was his organic theory of the state that Kjellén actually concluded that a state is bound to its native soil. Just as tree roots may interlace as the forest

159

Kjellén, Staten som lifsform [The state as a life-form], pp. 90ff. Kjellén, Staat als lebenform [The State as a Form of Life], pp. 65, 79. H e does note explicitly that the organic state is a most useful analogy. 161 Kristof, op. cit., p. 22; Kjellén, Staat als lebensform, pp. 218-20. 162 Dikshit, Ramesh Dutta. Political Geography: The Spatiality of Politics, 3rd edition. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill, 2000, p. 25. 160

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matures, so there are interlocking attachments created within a state which negate any real possibility of viable separation. It is this profound reciprocity that makes the state an organic being with a life of its own as well as attributes all its own. The vital life-form of a state is characterized by nationality and its national living space.163 In referring to the shape of the state figure Kjellén wrote about the appearance of the territory. Ideally, the state should be like a circle. He used as an example the island nation of Iceland. Norway and Italy represent extremes in the other, undesirable, direction. There are also enclave and exclave states. Here he refers to the old Prussian state with its small territories spread over a large part or Germany. Moreover, Germany as a whole represents such an aberration. Examples of” corridors” are Alaska in its the panhandle and Finland, which he viewed as a territorial finger earlier pointing towards the Barents Sea. Similar corridors existed in Asia and Africa.164 To Kjellén, position is the most important of these geopolitical categories. By position he means not only the foreign policy position, for which he employed the term neighborhood, but also the cultural position in relation to world communications. For example, pre-war Germany existed between three great powers and five small states, with its different aspects and degrees of pressure on borders. Kjellén reversed the liberal assertion that states serve markets, pointing out how commerce can serve the state and to the state as a commercial actor. Further, instead of providing universally applicable laws Kjellén stresses the individuality of states in terms of the policies pursued, which depends heavily on whether the state is a gross exporting, or a gross importing, country. One must also factor in if a state is an agrarian or industrialized nation. One of the most important considerations is the extent and variety of natural resources. Although he cautions against making it too great an issue, Kjellén prefers autarky. Liberal political science emphasized far too much the significance of economical exchange between peoples. There are geopolitical values in delimited markets. Nations which depend upon foreign

163 164

Kjellén, Rudolf. Staten som lifsform [The State as a Form of Life], pp. 41-45. Greenwood, Mattew David, “International Aid and the Geopolitical Imagination after the Cold War: A Case Study of Development Aims and Aid Policies for post-Soviet Russia,” M. A. Thesis, Durham University, 2010, pp. 10-12.

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markets and free trade can suffer greatly at the time of greatest needs. He rejected world markets, preferring protectionism.165 Kjellén was a prolific writer and published a large number of works not only on geopolitics but also on Swedish internal and foreign policy. His classical geopolitical work, The Great Powers (Stormakterna), was published in 1905 in Sweden, and underwent more than twenty editions in Germany where it was wildly popular. This work was greatly influenced by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel and his published work in the field of political geography. History was in his view not an accidental series of chaotic and coincidental events which spontaneously occur, but, rather, history is influenced, if not largely determined, by geopolitical rules. 166 Like Ratzel, Kjellén viewed states as organic, growing, vibrant, living organisms. The state, in bond with the people, was an organism, or, as Thomas Hobbes had written, a great Leviathan. Kjellén’s school of geopolitics refused to accept any assumption of strong philosophical determinism. This group of scholars stressed that power struggles of nations, along with the deterioration of basic morality, were caused by unbridled human passions. Wars and other breaches of international law (jus gentium) are not caused by some fatalistic or deterministic immutable force, but by the self-serving wills of national leaders and immoral habits of a state’s inhabitants.167 Neither did he substitute legal determinism for geographical determinism. Kjellén had shown great interest in Japan and its rise in the Far East. In his view Japan and China, once free of Western control, would be great powers of the future. Their rise would come as the European powers declined. He was also critical of colonialism and racism rampant in Western states. In 1909 he traveled to Japan and China, a journey that would have significant influence on his geopolitical research. On this trip around the world, he traveled first by train through Siberia and arrived in Beijing in April 1909. He continued on to Japan where he made his base in Yokohama. He was even more impressed by Japan than by China, seeing its meteoric rise to a modern military and industrial state. After twelve days in the Chinese capital, he confided to his diary that the days of European power Gunneflo, Marcus, “Rudolf Kjellén: Nordic Biopolitics Before the Welfare State,” Selected Works of Markus Gunneflo at Lund University Faculty of Law, (Fall 2015), pp. 23-39. 166 Harding, Tobias, “The State Searching for a Soul: Rudolf Kjellén’s Concept of Culture, and its Relation to Politics,” Paper presented at the Nordic Conference on Cultural Policy Research (NCCPR), Borås, November 2021. 167 Kjellén, Staat als lebensform [The State as a Form of Life], p. 29. 165

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were coming to an end, because the Western powers had acted with hubris and arrogance.168 This assertion especially interested and influenced Karl Haushofer. Ever the Germanophile, after World War I broke out, Kjellén actively took part in the political debate in Sweden. He argued that Sweden’s front against Russia, an old enemy, was common with Germany and that the latter was a natural ally. He was enormously disappointed that Sweden did not join Germany during the war. Not surprisingly, later Sweden’s leftist politicians have denigrated him because he had been an adherent of the right wing of the Swedish Conservative Party, of which he was a member. Following the end of the Great War, Kjellén came to view England and Russia as planetarian powers, which, in present terminology would be superpowers. He viewed the United States hegemon as far more powerful than that of the United Kingdom. By 1919, he predicted the development of unprecedented superpower influence on the course of world events. These views were based on the future strength of geographically and demographically large countries, notably the United States and the Soviet Union. These planetarian powers were the geographically large and were destined by the laws of geopolitics to become the dominating superpowers.169 . As a conservative politician Kjellén held strong anticommunist views, so it was natural that he should publish a number of articles containing sharp criticisms of Lenin and communist ideology. Marxism generally knew little of the international fate of nations and was too self-absorbed to learn about international relations. Moreover, it had no understanding of the organic state. When Lenin introduced the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, Kjellén denounced on the communist state as a corrupted form of totalitarian ideology. He observed that Leninism was “a curious bastard” which mixed the form appropriated from G. W. F. Hegel into the content of J. J. Rousseau’s ill-conceived state of nature. Half a million Bolsheviks ruled the 100 million of Russia, and this half million was controlled by a few hundred ideologues in the Kremlin. If one of the usual labels is to be attached to that kind of state, it would be that of aristocracy in the degenerate form known as oligarchy. The article on Lenin ended with the words: “Only

“Rudolf Kjellén: the Swedish Father of Geopolitics,” Center for Research on Geopolitics, 10 January, 2014. See also “Geopolitics of Rudolf Kjellen,” in International Political Economy Club, 3 August 2019. 169 Kost, Klaus, “The conception of Politics in Political Geography and Geopolitics in Germany until 1945,” Political Geography Quarterly, 8: 4 (1989), pp. 369-85. 168

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history will in the future show if Vladimir I. Lenin was a scourge or God or the devil.”170 There are certain vital characteristics of the state: eco-politics (economics), geo-politics, demo-politics (demography), socio-politics (sociology) and krato-politics (laws). Kjellén subdivided geopolitics into a number of categories: topo-politics (location), morfo-politics (shape), and physio-politics (resources). He expended much energy in dividing and subdividing his categories and then defining each and delineating its role.171 Not only has geopolitics become part of the discipline of political science, particularly international relations, but it is also widely used in the public discourse about peace and war and international affairs more generally. Kjellén understood geopolitics as the study of the state as a spatial phenomenon, that is, as territory, realm or empire. Kjellén emphasized that while other entities, such as the church, corporations and labor unions, may exercise significant powers and even expand across the world, without the necessary connection to its own territory, they are unable to attain the form and stature of the state. Kjellén recognized the importance of language, psychology and cultural types, and agitated in particular for a healthy degree of self-affirmation as a crucial factor in the strong nation. This idea is little interested in attaining truth and right and far more interested in itself and what belongs to it. The nation is conditioned by its subjective understanding of its characteristics, its internal belonging and its external separation. Ethnopolitics has another side that makes it, along with geopolitics, the natural aspect of the state. This is demography or the question of the population stock. Kjellén emphasized that, as part of the ‘natural side’ of the state, ethnopolitics has a rather fundamental effect on politics.172 According to the Kjellén conflict in the Balkans was inevitable because that area had underlined the significance of territory and ethnic identity. It was this area that, a few years after Kjellén had begun to publish, World War I began.173 The end of the Cold War had revealed cultural differences on a

Cited in Deudney, Daniel. “Rudolf Kjellén,” Encyclopedia Britannica. Abrahamsson, C., “On the Genealogy of Lebensraum,” Geographica Helvetica, 1: 1 (2013), pp. 1-10. 172 Gunneflo, op. cit. at 32-33. See also Tunander, Ola, “Swedish-German Geopolitics for a New century: Rudolf Kjellén's The State as a Living Organism,” Review of International Studies, 27: 3 (14 August 2001), on line. 173 Sternad, Christian, “The Force of War. Max Scheler and Jan Patočka on the First World War,” Labyrinth. An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Socio170 171

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higher level, and new regional projects had been developed to overcome some of these differences. The European Union had developed into a more unified entity than recognized the traditional Anglo-American schools of international relations had appreciated. These developments seemed to justify a return to the study of the Swedish-German school of geopolitics. Kjellén’s hundred-years old power triangle of the North, which included the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia, seemed to be reappearing. However, there were now new emerging player blocks with the United States of America in the West, the European Union in the South and with Russia in the East defining much of world politics. This evolving change had left the small Nordic states, such as Sweden, in the backwater of world events. The Scandinavian states were, as before, included in the great power triangle, more as objects to be manipulated than as players who were active in altering and directing events. The return to Kjellén’s geopolitics of the North was also a return to the geopolitics of the weak.174

cultural Hermeneutics, 19: 1 (2017), pp, 89-106. The article views World War I as both an historical and a philosophical event. 174 Tunander, Ola, “Geopolitics of the North, Geopolitik of the Weak: A Post-Cold War Return to Rudolf Kjellén - Swedish and Scandinavian Geopolitics,” Peace Research Institute Oslo, January 2003, revised May 2011.

Chapter 5

Friedrich Ratzel Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) is considered the first of the founders of German geopolitics, although he himself calls his area as concerns political geography. Friedrich Ratzel was born on 30 August 1844, in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany, and died on 9 August 1904, in Ammerland, Germany. His father was the head of the household staff of the Grand Duke of Baden, a highly regarded position which guaranteed him access to the finest homes. Friedrich attended high school in Karlsruhe before being apprenticed at age fifteen to an apothecary. In 1863 Ratzel went to Rapperswil on the Lake of Zurich, Switzerland, where he began to study the classics. Following an additional year as an apothecary at Mörs near Krefeld in the Ruhr area (1865-1866), he spent a short time at the high school in Karlsruhe and later became a student of zoology at the universities of Heidelberg, Jena, and Berlin. He received his Ph.D. in 1868, and the following year published his first work entitled Sein und Werden der organischen Welt (Being and becoming the organic world), a commentary on Charles Darwin and his ideas. After the completion of his schooling, Ratzel started to travel, an experience that transformed him from a zoologist/biologist to geographer. He began fieldwork in the Mediterranean area, writing letters about his experiences for the Cologne newspaper. He subsequently became familiar with theories relating to the migration of species, and eventually chose Social Darwinism as a starting point for the study of human activity. He judged Social Darwinism to be too mechanical in its approach and eventually abandoned biology, choosing philosophy in its stead. He considered population distribution, its relation to migration and environment, and also the effects of environment on individuals and societies, to be proper subjects for inquiry. His extended tour of North and Central America took place between 1874 and 1875, where he traveled as a correspondent for the Kölnische Zeitung (Cologne Journal). The newly emerging superpower made a profound impression on him, providing many of his ideas. Upon returning to

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Germany, for the rest of his life he taught at the technical university of Munich (1875–86) and at the University of Leipzig (1886–1904). Ratzel’s principal writing on ethnography was volume three of Volkerkunde (1885-1888). He also turned out The History of Mankind (1896 to 1898). His first major work was Anthropogeography, which he subtitled Principles for the Application of Geography on History, which appeared in its first volume in 1882, and its second volume in 1891. His other works included Die Erde und das Leben: Eine vergleichende Erdkunde (1901–02) (Earth and Life: A Comparative Geography). He also penned Politische Geographie (1897) (Political-Geography), and a political-geographical study of the United States (1893). His essay “Lebensraum” (1901), often cited as a starting point in geopolitics, was a study in biogeography.175 It was geopolitician Frederick Ratzel, who conceptualized states as a growing organism in his masterpiece The Political Geography. According to Ratzel, states derive their actual power and project their influence at the international stage through the land they possess.

Ratzel and Peschel Oskar Peschel (1826-1875) was Friedrich Ratzel’s predecessor in the chair of geography at the University of Leipzig, filling that position from 1871 through his death. Born in Dresden, Peschel edited a journal Das Ausland which helped to introduce and popularize geography as a science throughout Germany. He was the son of an officer and teacher at the local military school. Peschel studied law from 1845 to 1848 in Leipzig and Heidelberg. In 1850 he joined the editorial staff of the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. Peschel died in Dresden on 31 August 1875. Peschel’s principal works dealt with general geography and the history of earth science, and his analysis of landforms contributed to the development of geo-morphology. Peschel studied causal relations in nature by the comparative method, which he enriched in his comparative use of topographical maps. He oversimplified the method, for example, by basing his analysis of the origin and classification of individual landforms on configuration and morphometric data alone.176 “Friedrich Ratzel: German Geographer,” in Encyclopedia Britannica. See also “Friedrich Ratzel” in New World Encyclopedia. See also W. D. Smith, “Friedrich Ratzel and the Origins of Lebensraum,” German Studies Review 3 (1980), pp. 51-68. 176 “Oskar Peschel,” in Farlex Free Dictionary. 175

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He is best remembered for his contributions to the idea of Lebensraum and Social Darwinism. Indeed, Peschel began promoting Social Darwinism almost immediately after Charles Darwin published his Origin of the Species (1859), using his journal to review the tome in highly favorable terms. Peschel saw the potential of Social Darwinism for geography immediately. He therefore set as a goal for himself the translation of Darwin’s assertions and hypotheses into geographic terms, arriving at the notion of Lebensraum. According to Peschel, natural selection was already a telluric selection. Peschel’s choice of Social Darwinism as a basis for, or at least major component of, the new geography was highly controversial. Most German intellectuals associated Social Darwinism with liberal and universalist ideology which they considered part of British intellectual development and as a system which was incompatible with German Kultur. Many Germans also rejected Darwin’s monogenism, that is, the assumption that humans descended from animals. Many Germans accepted only polygenism, that is, that humans were a separate species, having descended from a lineage which was different from that of the animal kingdom.177 Peschel was most influential through his book The Races of Man: and their Geographical Distribution (1876) which classified humans into seven races: Australoids, (Papuans), (Melanesians), Mongoloids, Dravidians, Bushmen (Capoids), Negroids, and Mediterraneans (Caucasoids), with the latter race itself being divided into the Hamite, Semite, and Indo-European families. He anticipated that the “lesser” races would naturally be uncompetitive and thus would disappear. That is a matter of natural historical course of events, just as was the extinction of various animals and plants.178 Ratzel repeated and expanded upon many of Peschel’s ideas in his Sein und Werden der organischen Welt (Being and Becoming the Organic World), published in 1869. Ratzel directed that work at the promotion of popularization of Darwin’s ideas, especially natural selection and survival of the fittest.179 For example, Ratzel inferred the politics and the character of sea populations from the form of their coasts, thinking such characteristics 177

Gliboff, S.; and H. G. Bronn. Ernst Hackel and the Origins of German Social Darwinism. M.I.T. Press, 2008. See also Smith, W. D. Politics and the Sciences of Culture in Germany, 1840-1920. Oxford University Press, 1991. 178 “Oscar Peschel,” in Wikipedia. See also Friedrich von Hellwald, Oskar Peschel. Sein Leben und Schaffen [Oskar Peschel. His life and work]. Augsburg 1876. Also Richard Weikart, “Progress through Racial Extermination: Social Darwinism, Eugenics, and Pacifism in Germany, 1860-1918,” German Studies Review, 26: 2 (2003), pp. 273-294, especially at 274-76. 179 Wanklyn, Harriet. Friedrich Ratzel, a Biographical Memoir and Bibliography. Cambridge University Press: 1961.

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were the result of natural evolution. He had absolute faith in the existence of a causal relationship between the shape of coasts and man, between the climate and man, between blood and soil. No scientific experiment had been carried out. Observations and statistics were nonexistent in the social sciences. Ratzel’s faith, perhaps a rather mystical one, was valued as scientific hypothesis. Ratzel believed that races or peoples had unequal territorial capacities and that Germans, who were “manifestly destined” to have access to large spaces, did not have enough territory, in contrast, for example, to the old nation-state of France.

Ratzel’s Geography Ratzel considered geography an integral, indispensable, and indivisible component of the larger field of social sciences. He asserted that the whole interconnected and very complex field of the social sciences could only be developed by establishing a firm geographical foundation. Any neglect of the discipline of geography would render the social sciences useless and incomplete. Those scholars who chose to ignore geography have failed in their duty to transmit whole and complete knowledge to their students. The charm of geography lies in its provision to all the social sciences a firm basis for analysis. Only through the study of geography can humankind reach a meaningful political science. Geography provides the spatial aspects of states, forms a point of departure and illuminates the path ahead, eventually pointing toward its final fulfillment with the creation of the science of geopolitics.180 Ratzel opened his argument for the establishment of geopolitics as the queen of social sciences in an article entitled, “Studies in Political Areas: The Political Territory in Relation to Earth and Continent.” In it, he advanced his argument for the need for the study of political geography, or geopolitics. He insisted that each geographical sub-division of the world was related to all other sub-divisions and that, considered together, they constituted a whole and that whole is shared among all the states which are living organisms. All states require expansion; they must grow or die. Because the total amount of space is limited all political extensions of

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Costachie. Silviu, “German School of Geopolitics: Evolution, Ideas, Prospects,” Revista Română de Geografie Politică 13: 2 (2011), pp. 264-276.

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territory will rub against one another, eventually producing conflicts. Thus, the zenith‖ could be reached by only a few states at the same time.181 To convey his ideas clearly, Ratzel created various methodologicalinterpretive devices. He also developed a new vocabulary with specific meanings so as to advance his ideas clearly and unequivocally. The focus of geopolitics is the state, which Ratzel defined as a part of human community inhabiting a specific bit of soil. Since people cannot live comfortably and safely without the state, and the state cannot exist without land, a state’s territory becomes an over-riding consideration. It is tied to the soil by bonds which are developed specifically by each group and are unique to that group of humans. Eventually, these ties develop the characteristics of a living, vibrant organism. The community then carries on its life in a way wholly similar to a person lives his life. Its unique quality lies in the relationship between humans and their space. He worked to achieve a comprehensive and efficient way to support the study areas and human habitation. In this regard, he added, when the research tools used by geographical elements, methods and findings coming from other disciplines, biology and history lies in the foreground. Because of these multiple influences, large numbers of people are considered mehrtypisch (poli-typical), any modern nation is the product of a mixture determined between two or more ethnic peoples, which is particularly noticeable in populations/peoples of merchants and sailors; pure peoples are dull, immovable and do not advance. He demonstrated how spatial expansion of populations produce various effects, both desirable and undesirable, on state social structure. Ratzel developed the organic theory of the state, which treated the state as a form of biological organism—territory being its body— and alleged that states behaved and lived in accordance with biological laws. He preferred ethnic solidarity. States which are inhabited by what he called bi-typical people, with two principal groups grasping for supremacy, are unstable because they never get to the final dominance of one type over the other. Later, other thinkers will present this idea by asserting that when two different races inhabit a given space, the state can survive only when one group is superior and the other in subjugation. By races, Ratzel referred more to nationalities than to what are today called races. The example of Czechs and Slovaks co-existing in Czechoslovakia would serve well to illustrate 181

Ratzel, Friedrich, “Studies in Political Areas: The Political Territory in Relation to Earth and Continent,” American Journal of Sociology, 3: 3 (1897), at 299.

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Ratzel’s meaning. He did allow that some racial mixes can produce good results, allowing for the “humanization” of a territory. During the process of creating racial stability, Ratzel considered culture as becoming an organic reality. This was the factor that mediated the relationship between environmental factors and physical-geographical humans. In a first stage of their social organization, people have managed to transform the environment that we lived in a more favorable area of human existence. Later, as the evolution and development of states, it became clear that different human cultures are unequally endowed and capable, to varying degrees, to capitalize on the gifts of nature. The relationship between a people and its land is fundamental. People are rooted to their land. Over the course of history, a people sheds it blood for its land, and with time it becomes impossible to separate the one from the other. It thus becomes meaningless and impossible to consider a Germany without Germans, or France without the French. In his Political Geography, Ratzel asserted that biological differentiation is a matter of growth, a natural phenomenon, which gives rise to spatial division of labor. That division naturally flows from the growth of a living organism. For the geopolitical thinker, the spatial extension of the state is the very condition in which all other conditions are grounded. He expanded upon that concept in several books and articles, with the final statement coming in his Lebensraum: Eine biogeographische Studie (Habitat: A Biogeographical Study) (1901). Lebensraum is the science which gathers together the biological, geographical, and anthropological conditions of a particular environment. He envisioned geopolitik as a synthetic concept which would explain the relationships among various species in a particular environment. Among other ideas, he reasoned that every form of life requires space to come into being, and even more space to develop and pass along its characteristics.182 Space possesses some intrinsic value which is independent of its content. Space has a metaphysical character and thus great value. Ratzel’s emphasis upon the organismic character of the state in its relationship to the soil and the great value he placed upon Raum (space) continued to reappear in later geopolitical scholars.183 In distinct opposition to Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) and others who warned of dire consequences of overpopulation, Ratzel saw that a Bassin, Mark, “Imperialism and the Nation State in Friedrich Ratzel's Political Geography,” Progress in Human Geography, 11 (1987), pp. 473-95, especially at 477. 183 Hagan, Charles B., “Geopolitics,” Journal of Politics, 4: 4 (1942), pp. 478-90. 182

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vigorous increase of a state’s population was an indication of its health. Ratzel absolutely rejected the assertion that overpopulation had a deleterious effect on human societies. Vital states expand in many ways, including in population. The only way a state can become strong and remain vital is through expansion of both territory and population.184 Ratzel wrote: All checks to the increase of the population have an incalculably farreaching effect; they prevent any influx of men and capital, and by invading the natural course of increase, injure the health and morality of the community, and, in general, place the future of the people on too narrow a basis. This isolation, however, from the nature of things, cannot be lasting, and as soon as it is broken through, the people, whose progress has been arrested, are exposed in consequence.185

Culture, which is among the most significant human achievements, is an organic reality and the principal factor which mediated the relationship between the environment and physical-geographical humans. In a first stage of their social organization, people have managed to transform their environment into a more favorable arena of human existence. Later, during the evolution and development of states, it became clear that different human cultures are unequally endowed and capable, to varying degrees, to capitalize on the gifts of nature 186 For Ratzel, the state has its roots in the land and therefore grows in accordance with the nature of its territory and location. According to the organic theory of state, because every state is a living organism, growth is in every state’s nature and naturally a growing state would tend to absorb less successful and smaller ones. He measured the growth of the state by its expansion and alleged that expansion and political growth is healthy for a state since it adds to its strength. Ratzel taught that every state’s geographical value and ultimate destiny might be foreseen and emphasized given the importance of physical environment as a factor determining human activity. By treating various states as living organisms which are in need of living space, and by arguing that physical environment had a determining effect on human activity, Ratzel emphasized that every state’s geographical needs and ultimate destiny might be ascertained and pursued as a policy objective. As a 184

Bassin, op. cit. p. 478. Ratzel, Friedrich. Politische Geographie [Political geography]. Leipzig: Oldenbourg, 1897, p. 378. 186 Nicolae, Ion. Antropogeography. A Diachronic Approach. Editura Universitara, 2011, p. 131. 185

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geographer, Ratzel argued for the primacy of the organic state and its need and right for acquiring area, or a Lebensraum. He wrote of “the hunger for space,” which becomes understandable when there is an excessive population density on a space small, which according to Ratzel, was the case of Germany. The struggle for existence is first and foremost a struggle for space. Continuous expansion is crucial to the creation of great states. He envisioned expansion as occurring all over the planet, which means that partial space of any state is dependent on all other nations. Thus, he laid the scientific foundations of these arguments and paved the way for geopolitical science.187 Ratzel wrote: The given space of every age has decided how far countries have had to expand in order to become in reality world powers, that is, to span the earth; and, in this general process, every single country, even the smallest, had had its position continually modified by the growth of the whole. Since the size of the earth’s surface sets limits to this development, the zenith can be reached by only a few states at the same time.188

Lebensraum is the geographical surface area required to support a human population, although it might also be applied to other species. It seeks to assure its residents that the space is adequate to fulfill the citizens’ needs while providing adequately for their metabolic requirements. If the population expands, so also must that living space. As a zoologist, Ratzel understood Social Darwinism’s law of natural selection relative to spatial and environmental requirements. Unless somehow stymied, a species will be expanded, filling its area in an ever-widening circle. The nature and exact direction of this expansion are determined by geography. There are secondary considerations as well, notably environmental changes and conflicts with other species or with alien members of their own species.189 Ratzel refused to allow the state to submerge the individual within its organic being. While the state is indeed the most perfect organism known, men must maintain their independent existence. As he wrote, not even slaves can lay it aside independence. At worst, humans may “sacrifice their free Gökmen, Semra Ranâ, “Geopolitics and the Study of International Relations,” Ph. D. dissertation, Middle East Technical University, 2010, pp. 22-26. 188 Ratzel, Friedrich. Politische Geographie [Political geography], pp. 298-99. See also Ratzel, Friedrich. Der Lebensraum [The habitat]. Edited by K. Bücher. Tübingen: Laupp, 1901, pp. 168f. 189 Ratzel, Friedrich. Politische Geographie [Political geography], pp. 1-32. 187

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will when bending it on one occasion and putting it in the service of the whole at another” time. States “are not organisms properly speaking, but only aggregate-organisms” whose unity is created by moral and spiritual forces.190 The stuff of which history is made is derived from man’s struggle to acquire Lebensraum. Another way of saying the same thing is that the history of the human species is the story of the changing patterns of adaptation to living space. Those species which successfully adapt to the living space will survive; those which do not adapt will be crushed under as weak and infirm. When a human group shows that it can adapt, it will be able to expand to fill its living space, and eventually, seek out underutilized living space beyond its borders.191 The form which an entire culture takes is determined by human relationships with their living space. Establishing that bond with Lebensraum involves a massive and all-consuming struggle. Ratzel buttressed his conclusion about human relationships to their living space by drawing upon his knowledge of zoology, showing similar processes ongoing with hundreds of other life forms.192 Continuing his emphasis upon the organic nature of the state, and its similarity to human existence, the state, like humans, must grow, meaning expand its borders. Just as there are aberrations among humans, with atypical examples managing to live for a while, there will be states which are stunted in their growth and development. But the nature of the living state is to expand, otherwise it will sicken, decay, and die. To prevent that corruption, its leaders must work to satiate the state’s appetite for expansion. Frontiers are peripheral organs, against which healthy states will overcome and dying states will recede. By treating people as an organism in need of living space, and by arguing that physical environment had a determining effect on human activity, Ratzel emphasized that every state’s geographical needs and ultimate destiny might be ascertained and pursued as a policy objective.193

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Ratzel, Friedrich. Anthropologie [Anthropology]. 2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Engelhorn, 1899, part 1. Ratzel, Friedrich. Lebensraum, pp. 101-189. See also C. Abrahamsson, “On the Genealogy of Lebensraum,” Geographia Helvetica 1 (2013), pp. 1-10. 192 Ratzel, Friedrich. Die Erde und das Leben: Eine vergleichende Erdkunde [The Earth and Life: A Comparative Geography], (1901), 2 vols. 1: 3-17, 578-82, 652-77. See also Wangler, Julian. Die Geopolitik Friedrich Ratzels und Karl Haushofers - Eine Kontinuitätslinie zur Hitler-Ideologie? [The Geopolitics of Friedrich Ratzel and Karl Haushofer - A Line of Continuity to Hitler's Ideology?]. GRIN Verlag, 2006. 193 Strausz-Hupè, Robert. Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power. Putnam, 1942, pp. 27-36. 191

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The term used to describe one area of great importance in geography is anthropogeography, a word which was coined in 1842 by L. F. Kämtz. That scholar defined anthropogeography as that aspect of geography, which above all else has to consider the influence of external natural conditions on the physical and spiritual constitution of human beings. Ratzel established this term within his writings on geographical science. It is frequently equated with cultural or social geography, although not without contradiction.194 In the second volume of his Politische Geographie (Political geography), Ratzel developed his own ideas of territory of the state (Staatsgebiet) as well as its natural territory (Naturgebiet), demonstrating both their internal structures and their mutual relations. He saw these relationships as creating community cultural spheres which lay beyond the state’s ability to get at the civilized or inhabited world. Ratzel sources identified the origin and formation of nations in political strength historical development of communities of individuals united by spiritual ties. Anthropogeography could evaluate the criteria and means of comparison, the performance achieved by different human communities. Ratzel pointed out the fundamental role played in history of what Germans call Mittelpunkt (core of civilization). He used the term geo-spatial to refer to the extension of a civilizing force which might extend as far as trans-continent. He used Mittelpunkt as the quintessential criterion for analyzing and interpreting the state in establishing its organic nature. Three were the basic elements which states must possess in order to function as an organic creature: Area (Raum), Position (Lage), Borders (Grenzen).195 Quite important for Ratzel was the consideration of space (Raum) for it influenced such factors as density of population, which often gave rise to considerations of advancing living space (Lebensraum). Overpopulation, more than any other single factor, pressured states into taking extraordinary steps to acquire additional space.196 Area (Raum) represented the political nature of state support, because such historical relations Ratzel called the blood and earth, the people and territory. In his analysis, he goes beyond political geography and makes policy analysis. Thus, he talks about space as Heucke, Clemens, “Anthropogeography”, in Brill’s New Pauly. See also Camille Vallaux. Geographie Sociale: Le Sol et L'etat [Social Geography: Soil and State]. Paris: Octave Doin, 1911. 195 “Ratzel, Friedrich” in New International Encyclopedia. D. C. Gilman, et al., eds. Dodd, Mead, 1905. 196 Semple, Ellen Church. Influence of Geographic Environment on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropogeography (1911). Reprint by Greenbie Press, 2007. Ms Church was Ratzel's leading American adherent and principal interpreter. 194

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the limit of expansion that occurs naturally between people, the area that it tends to fill. Ratzel made use of two notions: concordances and discrepancies in his Anthropogeography. Consistency is achieved through internal colonization, which can be achieved by the homogeneous distribution of a state’s population on its land.197 If a state cannot, or will not, expand its territory, and there is significant overpopulation, it may seek to establish colonies which can absorb the surplus population. However achieved, Ratzel advocated a migration from an overcrowded territory to an under populated one because of the great importance of acquiring sufficient living space for people. Ratzel advocated what he called Politico-geographical consolidation of the state body, which was to be achieved through a two stages process. First, a state creates a national territory or Lebensgebiete (habitat). Second, the state establishes and organizes its vital space Lebensraum [living space]. During the last stage, a state must decide to conserve the organic state’s vital functions and in order to guarantee the survival of the state. Ratzel also devoted much attention to the position (Lage) of states. In this section, reminiscent in many ways of the Spirit of the Laws by Charles Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu, he discussed such issues as climate and topography. Indeed, beginning with the Greeks, if not before, geographers had noted the overpowering importance of these factors upon people and states. Ratzel considered Lage in a direct relationship with the formation of Mittelpunkt civilization, putting it in a position to generate favorable geographic and climatic formation of such pulsars. Only natural geographic feature was valued political power conferred by the people. When a state had not been able to maintain political power, despite the geographic and climatic conditions favorable, it necessarily declined. 198 In the sixth part of Politische Geographie Ratzel took up the issue of the borders of states. State orders, of course, were the products of historical events and population movements and had often been established by war and conquest. Frontiers were frequently the result of compromises between these two states. He observed that that “treaties guaranteeing the borders are based on that illusion that it would be possible to make a nation living barrier growth.” He asserted that boundaries do not remain a merely arbitrary line but become a peripheral organ in the expanding state. The exact borders which mark a state’s territory are always relative to the size of the state’s Smith, Woodruff D., “Friedrich Ratzel and the Origins of Lebensraum.” German Studies Review, 3: 1 (1980), pp. 51-68. 198 Dobrescu, Paul. Geopolitica. Bibliotecii Naþionale a României, 2003, p. 75. 197

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population and the metabolic requirements of that population. He then delineated three ways to broaden Mittelpunkt generated boundaries: by military force and war, through trade, through the spirit and communication, meaning cultural triumph. Any state which materializes around a Mittelpunkt is correctly focusing the energy of the people. Expansion is related to the growth of the population.199 Although Mahan and others had drawn heavily on sea power and the importance of controlling the oceans, Ratzel was little interested in that idea. Rather, he discussed “oceanic cycles,” which meant that the importance of the seas and oceans changes constantly in time and place. Primarily, the importance of the seas depends upon their role in guarding the country which borders them, and, to a lesser degree, upon the freedom of shipping in trade.200 In 1901, Ratzel produced his last major work, Gesetz über die der Staaten des raümlichen Wachstums (On the Laws of Spatial Growth of States) in which he revealed certain laws which govern the expansion of states. Expansion of states generally occur at the expense of other states. That expansion is generated by two factors: First, there is an internal input, advocated by important persons who advocate the growth of living space. Second, the intellectual community, in the broadest sense, joins the agitation for territorial growth. These laws impel people to keep their own living space or to expand their living space. Aggressive nations realize that there are under populated areas, which offer fertile opportunities for the growth of their own overcrowded civilizations, making those under-utilized areas most attractive for aggressive expansion.201 Ratzel was a dedicated Germanophile who truly believed that it was the historic mission of Germany to fill its European geospace. Germans would migrate into underpopulated areas where human habitation was at a lower level. He frequently used the expression Volkohne Raum (people without space) regarding Germany. He saw it was Germany’s destiny to attain the vital living space. With the proper geopolitical development, the German state would grow and extend its culture, along with its economic development. But to achieve this the German nation must settle on its natural territory.

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Abrahamsson, op. cit. at 4. Anechitoaie, C. Maritime Systems Geopolitics. Top Form Publishing,2008, p. 36. 201 Mattern, Johannes. Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire. Johns Hopkins Press, 1942. 200

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Ratzel’s concept of political geography was similar to Herder’s construction of a nation that was also immensely influenced by the concept of climatic geography. Earlier, it was Carl Ritter, who expanded the discourse of political geography and geopolitics surrounding the concept of space and nature. Perhaps, this is why through his work, Ritter laid down much emphasis on space and nature by reasoning them as the key determinants of political geography. Nonetheless, the fact cannot be denied that it was Ratzel’s famous work Political Geography which laid down the foundation of new geopolitical thinking and discourse in Europe.202 Ratzel wrote at the same time, after the Franco-Prussian War, when Germany was undergoing vast industrialization. Its natural search for markets for the products of its industries that brought it into competition with Great Britain. Ratzel’s writings provided theoretical justification for imperial expansion. Partially influenced by Mahan, Ratzel wrote of the necessity of expansion of German’s naval power, asserting that sea power was selfsustaining because the profit from trade would pay for the merchant marine. Haushofer was quite familiar with Ratzel, who was a friend of Haushofer’s father. The younger Haushofer later would integrate Ratzel’s ideas on the division between sea and land powers into his theories, saying that only a country with both could overcome this conflict.203

202

Wangler, Julian. Die Geopolitik Friedrich Ratzels und Karl Haushofers - Eine Kontinuitätslinie zur Hitler-Ideologie? [Die Geopolitik Friedrich Ratzels und Karl Haushofers - Eine Kontinuitätslinie zur Hitler-Ideologie?] GRIN Verlag, 2006. 203 Dorpalen, Andreas. World of General Haushofer: Geopolitics in Action. Farrar & Rinehart, 1942, pp. 52, 66-67.

Chapter 6

Alfred Mahan Alfred Thayer Mahan was a United States Navy flag officer, geostrategist, geopolitical theorist, and historian, who has been called “the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century.” His concept of “sea power” was based on the idea that countries with greater naval power will have greater worldwide impact; it was most famously presented in his 1890 book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783. The concept had an enormous influence in shaping the strategic thought of navies across the world, especially in the United States, Germany, Japan and Britain, ultimately causing the World War I naval arms race. His ideas still permeate the teachings of U.S. Navy Doctrine as well as that of many other nations. Alfred Thayer Mahan was born on 27 September 1840, in West Point, New York, a son of Dennis Hart Mahan (1802-1871) and his wife Mary Helena Okill (1815-1893). The father, an acknowledged expert on military fortifications and tactics, and a well-published author, was dean of the faculty at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Nearly all the West Point graduates who fought during the U.S. Civil War had been his students. When he was retired, he became despondent and committed suicide.204 He married Ellen Lyle (1851-1927). He was a devout Anglican in religion and professed a considerable knowledge of the Bible. After taking classes at Columbia University, Alfred graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1859. He served almost 40 years in the U. S. Navy. He fought in the Civil War, later served on the staff of Admiral J. A. B. Dahlgren, and progressed steadily in rank, although none of his postwar assignments were of great interest. One biographer claimed that Mahan made few friends, was only an average ship’s officer, and had no real outside interests, preferring to spend his time reading.205 He was assigned to various duties in Asia and then South America. In 1878 he published his first work, Naval Education for Officers and Men, which won a Naval institute prize.

204 205

Banning, Kendall. West Point Today. Funk & Wagnalls, 1945, p. 176. Puleston, William D. Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan. Yale University Press, 1939, p. 165.

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He followed that work with a volume in Charles Scribner’s series on naval action during the Civil War, entitled The Gulf and Inland Waters.206 In 1884 he was invited by Stephen Luce, president of the newly established Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, to lecture on naval history and tactics. Mahan served as president of the Naval War College from 1886 to 1889 and again from 1892 to 1893. He retired as rear admiral in 1896 but returned to the navy during the Spanish-American War to serve on the Naval War board. Mahan retired from the U.S. Navy in 1896 but was subsequently recalled to service. In The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future (1897), he sought to arouse his fellow Americans to a realization of their maritime responsibilities. Mahan served as president of the American Historical Association in 1902. His other major books include The Life of Nelson (1897) and The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence (1913). Before his death in December 1914, Mahan correctly foretold the defeat of the Central Powers and of the German navy in World War I. He died on 1 December 1914, in Quogue, New York at age 74, and was buried at Quogue Cemetery.207 Admiral Mahan was an American naval officer and historian who was a highly influential exponent of sea power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1890 Mahan published his college lectures in book form entitled The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. In his book he made out a case for the paramount importance of sea power in order to establish national historical supremacy. The appearance of the book was most timely because it was published at a time when there was great technological improvement in warships. It won immediate recognition abroad, leading to a second book, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (1892), which was a two-volume work which Mahan considered his finest and most scholarly publication. Both books were avidly read in Great Britain and Germany, where they greatly influenced the buildup of naval forces in the years prior to World War I. He also wrote Sea Power in Relation to the War of 1812 (1905),

Ibid., pp. 41-57. On Mahan’s life see also Moll, Kenneth L., “A. T. Mahan, American Historian,” Military Affairs, 27: 3 (1963), pp. 131-40. 207 Find A Grave Memorial 7972481. See also Seager II, Robert, ed. Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan. 3 vols. Naval Institute Press, 1975. Volume one covers 1847–1889; volume 2 includes the years 1890 through 1901; and volume 3 offers the years 1902 through 1914. See also chapter on Mahan in Zimmermann, Warren. First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. 206

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published in two volumes.208 That was an important work because the U.S. had paid little heed to its catastrophic losses in that war, preferring to concentrate on Andrew Jackson’s victory at New Orleans, which, of course, actually came after the end of the war. Mahan concluded that the lesson that must be learned about that war was the impact and influence of the absence of sea power. He pointed out that there were many unfortunate effects of concealing losses such as had occurred here from the citizenry.209 He fully accepted the nation’s reasons for going to war, although he judged France as guilty as Britain. What he hated most was the parsimonious Jeffersonian policies which had led to a non-existent navy. The nation should have followed President Washington’s advice and built a navy; and it should have declared war some five years earlier.210 In 1911 he gave a lecture series published as Naval Strategy, Compared and Contrasted with the Principles of Military Operations on Land, but better known by its short title, Naval Strategy. Of his twenty-three volumes, the one least well received was Naval Strategy, which was his sole work on the concept of strategy. Finally, a batch of Mahan’s article s appeared in a book entitled The Interest of America in Sea Power.211 In his memoirs, From Sail to Steam, Mahan credited his reading of Theodore Mommsen’s six-volume History of Rome for the insight that sea power was the key to global predominance. In The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Mahan reviewed the role of sea power in the emergence and growth of the British Empire. In the book’s first chapter, he described the sea as a “great highway” and “wide common” with “well-worn trade routes” over which men pass in all directions. He identified several narrow passages or strategic “choke points,” the control of which contributed to Great Britain’s command of the seas. He famously listed six fundamental elements of sea power: geographical position, physical conformation, extent of territory, size of population, character of the people, and character of government. Based largely on those factors, Mahan envisioned the United States as the geopolitical successor to the British Empire.212

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Until the publication of this book, the subject of the U.S. Navy in the War of 1812 had been the subject of only the book by President Theodore Roosevelt entitled, The Naval War of 1812 (1882). 209 Mahan, Alfred. Sea Power in its Relation to the War of 1812. Little Brown, 1919, 1: v. 210 Ibid., 1: 38; 2: 313. 211 See Hattendorf, John B. The Influence of History on Mahan. Naval War College Press, 1991. 212 Mahan, Influence of Seapower, pp. 28-84.

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War was unfortunate but likely, according to Mahan. World circumstances mandated that nations maintain forces which contend and eventually conflict. War is simply a violent and tumultuous political incident. Political leaders are responsible for creating, maintaining, equipping, and dispersing naval fleets as well as land armies.213 Mahan listed six factors that must be considered when assessing the sea power of nations: geographical position; physical conformation; extent of territory; size of population; national character; and type and nature of government. These factors affect the ability of a nation to project its influence on the seas. The most difficult to explain is the national character and willingness of citizens to undertake the arduous task of becoming a sea power. The relative immunity a state has to invasion has enormous importance in its development.214 In the first book, Admiral Mahan asserted that British control of the seas, combined with a corresponding decline in the naval strength of its major European rivals, paved the way for Great Britain’s emergence as the world’s dominant military, political, and economic power. Mahan had shown the interdependence of the military and commercial control of the sea and asserted that the control of seaborne commerce can determine the outcome of wars. The first and most important mission of any navy was the securing of the command of the sea. That would permit uninterrupted sea communications for a nation’s own ships while simultaneously denying their use to the enemy. It might also be necessary to closely monitor neutral trade. Control of the sea could be achieved not by destruction of commerce but only by destroying or neutralizing the enemy fleet. Such a strategy called for the concentration of naval forces composed of capital ships, not too large but numerous, well-manned with crews thoroughly trained, and operating under the principle that the best defense is an aggressive offense.215 When a nation needs what later geopoliticians will call living space, Mahan saw the solution in overseas expansion. Too few people in proportion to territory was a cause of weakness and an inhibiting factor in the growth of sea power. Under-population diverts national away from the oceans and 213

See, for example, Mahan, Alfred. From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (1907), p. 324. 214 Cropsey, Seth; and Arthur Milikh, “Mahan's Naval Strategy,” World Affairs, 174:6 (2012), pp. 85-92. 215 Mahan, Influence of Seapower, pp. 451, 460. See also Crowl, Philip A., “Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian,” in Paret, Peter, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert, eds. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. Princeton University Press, 1986, ch. 16.

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concentrates it on internal development. Sea power was a result of an increase of population necessitating expansion overseas and a search for additional market for goods. By expanding both naval and commercial fleets overpopulated nations could grow in economic strength. Admiral Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea, with its commercial use in peace and its control in war; and he used history as a stock of examples to exemplify his theories, arguing that the education of naval officers should be based on a rigorous study of history. He emphasized the locating and obtaining strategic locations. If these could not be allied in some way, then the navy must decide how to isolate or capture these points should war come. The primary mission of a navy is always to secure the command of the sea, thus ensuring the maintenance of sea communications for one’s own ships while denying their use to the enemy. Nations must also closely supervise neutral trade. Mahan believed that good political and naval leadership was important, but a nation must pay great attention to geography when it came to the development of sea power. His recognition of the influence of geography on strategy was tempered by a strong appreciation of the power of contingency to affect outcomes. One of the important national characteristics was an interest in trade and commerce. Navies could protect commercial vessels on the high seas, and establish points of safety, but they could not motivate citizens to seek trade and profit; such had to come from national character.216 The concentrated study of history and geography would aid a nation in determining which overseas properties it should obtain. The nation should move aggressively in the acquisition of important properties during peacetime. States must also increase production and shipping capacities while at peace. Finally, states must constantly upgrade and improve their navies before wars occur both to retain great strength and to be able to afford the very finest without cost related compromises.217 If the citizen expressed an interest in sea power and worldwide trade, it would select governors who would work for that end. Governmental attitude could also motivate the citizens, leading them toward establishing and maintaining sea power. The ideal situation was one in which both the government and the populace entertained a favorable attitude toward sea power and maritime pursuits. In the long run, Mahan conceived of competent 216 217

Mahan, Influence of Seapower, pp. 28, 44, 397. Sumida, Jon, “Alfred Thayer Mahan, Geopolitician,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 22:2-3 (1999), 39-62.

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politicians who worked at maintaining a favorable popular attitude toward sea power. Eight years before the Spanish-American War resulted in the United States becoming a world power with overseas possessions, Mahan wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly entitled “The United States Looking Outward,” (1890). In it he urged U.S. political leaders to recognize that our own security and interests were affected by the balance of power in the Eurasian land mass. Mahan reasoned that the United States, like Great Britain, was geopolitically an island lying offshore the Eurasian landmass whose security could be threatened by a hostile power or alliance of powers that gained effective political control of the key power centers of Eurasia. He further understood that predominant Anglo-American sea power in its broadest sense was the key to ensuring the geopolitical pluralism of Eurasia. He famously wrote in The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire that it was only the navy of Great Britain, which he labeled “those far distant storm-beaten ships,” that stood between Napoleon and the dominion of the world.218 He also harbored the unusual opinion that Great Britain lost the War for American Independence through errors it made regarding the deployment and use of its navy. That he claimed was also George Washington’s opinion as expressed to Count de Rochambeau.219 Mahan’s book influenced some of the leading American politicians who came to believe that the lessons he taught could be applied to U. S. foreign policy, particularly in the quest to expand U. S. markets overseas. The publication of Mahan’s books preceded much of the disorder associated with the economic downturn of the 1890s, but his work resonated with many leading intellectuals and politicians who were concerned by the political and economic challenges of the period and the declining lack of economic opportunity on the American continent.220 Mahan’s books complemented the work of one of his contemporaries, Professor Frederick Jackson Turner, who is best known for his seminal essay of 1893, The Significance of the Frontier in American History. As a history 218

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Mahan, Alfred. The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (1897), 2 vols. See also Moll, op. cit., at 136; and Sempa, Francis P., “The Geopolitical Vision of Alfred Thayer Mahan,” The Diplomat, 21 August 2006; revised 30 December 2014. Mahan, Influence of Seapower, p. 397. He developed this theme from his earlier essay which appeared in a History of the Royal Navy into his longer The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence (1913). Crowl, Philip A. “Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian,” in Paret, Peter, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert, eds. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (1986), ch. 16.

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professor at the University of Wisconsin, Turner had argued that westward migration across the North American continent and the country’s population growth had finally closed the American frontier. The end of the frontier had profound social and economic consequences. While Turner did not explicitly argue for a shift towards commercial expansion overseas, he did realize that the nation’s vigorous foreign policy showed that Americans were looking outside the continental United States for new markets. Mahan was one of many American leaders who infinitely preferred tree trade to attempting autarky which they considered impossible and leading only to folly.221 Beginning with the Turner Frontier Thesis, Mahan argued that the United States by 1890 had reached the limits of its continental expansion. It had seized vast areas at little or no cost and it remained only a small matter to fill them with people and integrate them into the union. Having moved from his earlier isolationist position, Mahan moved the great zeal to advocating that the nation expand beyond its sea frontiers. By advocating what his critics called “Mercantilist Imperialism” he argued that expansion on the oceanic highways would bring national greatness along with great wealth.222 To achieve that goal, Mahan suggested accepting the following simplistic argument: The United States deserved to be a world and should follow that destiny. To become a world power, the United States must build both a great navy and a substantial commercial fleet. A strong navy would guarantee commercial freedom and guard the nation’s shores. He noted that sea power “includes not only military the strength afloat that rules the sea…. by force of arms, but also the peaceful commerce and shipping.” Accompanying and complementing the navy would be a wide variety of supports, including ship-building facilities and modern ports. In return, the commercial fleet would sell American goods while importing a wide variety of goods that would guarantee the good life. He cautioned that these good things could come about because of a strong military fleet.223 Mahan was second to none as an exponent of a vigorous foreign policy. Mahan argued that the U. S. economy would soon be unable to absorb the massive amounts of industrial and commercial goods being produced 221

Seager, Robert, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and his Letters. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1977. See also Puleston, W. D. Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S.N. Yale University Press, 1939. 222 Livezey, William E. Mahan on Sea Power. University of Oklahoma Press, 1947, pp. 48-49, 294-95. See also Margaret T. Sprout. Rise of American Sea Power. Princeton University Press, 1939. 223 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, in passim.

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domestically. Thus, the United States must seek new markets abroad. Would the government guarantee access to these new international markets? Securing such access would require three things: a merchant navy, which could carry American products to new markets across the great highway of the high seas; an American navy complete with the most modern battleships to deter or destroy rival fleets; and a network of naval bases capable of providing fuel and supplies for the enlarged navy and maintaining open lines of communications between the United States and its new markets.224 He envisioned a constant interplay between the military and commercial portions of the nation’s fleets. Merchant shipping obvious requires the protection of a strong navy. Conversely, the fundamental duties of naval power are fulfilled when there is a commercial fleet afloat which is sufficient to fill the nation’s needs to import and export goods. Having achieved the proper total maritime fleet, it becomes a national priority to maintain it for the price of success is vigilance.225 There are actually several interrelated theses in Mahan’s book. The primary one is the assertion that naval power is a deciding factor for everyone but the most land-locked of countries. The secondary one is not so clearly stated, but quite evident in the later parts of the book, that the proper goal of military operations is the reduction of organized enemy forces in the field. The later parts of the book particularly talk about this, showing that the French government and navy held to theory that saw the taking of objectives while preserving force, and that its time and again failed to gain results, while the British habit of forcing battles inevitably put their opponents into a worse position over time. Lastly, he considers the pursuit of interrupting merchant shipping to be a mistaken strategy, as British trade increased even during wars where the French captured large numbers of British merchants. Mahan reviewed the successive moves toward European continental hegemony by the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, Louis XIV’s France, and Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the great coalitions, supported by sea power, that successfully thwarted those would-be hegemons. Mahan’s book covered the Age of Sailing Ships, concerned primarily with history from the Restoration of English King Charles II to the end of the 224

Hattendorf, John B., ed. The Influence of History on Mahan. Naval War College Press, 1991. See also Livezey, William E. Mahan on Sea Power. University of Oklahoma Press, 1980. 225 Manship, H. Kaminer, “Mahan's Concepts of Sea Power,” Naval War Review, 16: 5 (1964), pp. 15-30 at 20. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, in passim. Mahan recognized the possibility of other nations having disproportionately smaller navies while maintaining huge mercantile fleets. Such commercial interests receive their protection from greater navies maintained by friendly powers.

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Revolutionary War. However, there also was an extended chapter that considered naval power throughout history. But it is the age of sailing ships that is definitely his preferred era for him. He is not static in his thinking because he realized that tactics must change over time, with new technology. However, it is nonetheless possible to find strategic truths that always apply. His narrative gets steadily more detailed as it progresses, with the last few chapters \analyzing the actions in India and the Caribbean from 1781-1783 in considerable detail. As his descriptions get more detailed, so too do the conclusions that he draws from them. As a geopolitical thinker, Mahan first regarded the sea as a great highway, on which nations pass in all directions. He began this analysis by considering how the Romans, in their somewhat crude and primitive way, used the Mediterranean Sea as a conduit through which Rome was able to increase the strategic mobility of its armed forces. It was Rome’s naval power which struck at the heart of Carthaginian trade, while Carthage was unable to find an effective way to counter or reciprocate. Too, Rome forged a trading empire using that body of water since transportation by water is more effective and cheaper than land transportation. In that, Rome was following numerous earlier empires, such as Phoenicia and Crete.226 Mahan was the first, and remains the foremost, geopolitical thinker that the United States has produced. His writings are wholly based on a profound geopolitical insight based on an understanding of the impact of geography on history. Much of the military action of the 20th century can be traced to a handful of geopolitical writers, notably Halford John Mackinder and Karl Haushofer.227 Mahan’s geopolitics had a direct bearing on American foreign policy. In the United States Mahan’s emphasis upon the acquisition of naval bases was as analytical as prophetic. U. S. Secretary of State William Seward had expanded the U.S. commercial presence in the Pacific Ocean by purchasing Alaska in 1867, and by exerting American influence over Hawaii. In the latter case the United States concluded a treaty that sought to bind the islands’ economy to that of the United States. In 1893, Mahan wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times in which he recommended U.S. annexation of Hawaii as a necessary first step to exercise control of the North Pacific. If the United States failed to act, Mahan warned, “the vast Manship, H. Kaminer, “Mahan’s Concepts of Sea Power,” Naval War College Review, 16: 5 (1964), pp. 15-30 at 18. 227 Sempa, Francis P. Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century. Transaction Books, 2002. 226

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mass of China…. may yield to one of those impulses which have in past ages buried civilization under a wave of barbaric invasion.” Should China “burst her barriers eastward,” he wrote, “it would be impossible to exaggerate the momentous issues dependent upon a firm hold of the [Hawaiian] Islands by a great civilized maritime power.” Seward also attempted to purchase suitable Caribbean naval bases. Seward negotiated a treaty with the Colombian Government that would allow the United States to build an isthmian canal through the province of Panama. Congress, however, had become preoccupied with Reconstruction in the South, and the Senate ignored Seward’s best efforts to create a network of American naval bases in the Atlantic Ocean. As it was, bases were not as important in the Atlantic Ocean as in the far larger Pacific Ocean. Mahan believed that good strategy and effective operational command were the best guarantors of victory. As he wrote, The history of sea power is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war. The profound influence of sea commerce upon the wealth and strength of countries was clearly seen long before the true principles which governed its growth and prosperity were detected. To secure to one’s own people a disproportionate share of such benefits, every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these failed, by direct violence. The clash of interests, the angry feelings roused by conflicting attempts thus to appropriate the larger share, if not the whole, of the advantages of commerce, and of distant unsettled commercial regions, led to wars. On the other hand, wars arising from other causes have been greatly modified in their conduct and issue by the control of the sea. Therefore the history of sea power, while embracing in its broad sweep all that tends to make a people great upon the sea or by the sea, is largely a military history….228

Although President William McKinley showed little interest in Mahan’s ideas, his Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, and Secretary of the Navy Herbert Tracy were avid supporters of Mahan’s ideas. As a champion of American expansion at the end of the nineteenth century, Mahan had written, “I am an imperialist, simply because I am not iso-

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Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783.

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lationist.” As president, Theodore Roosevelt wrote a naval history of the War of 1812229 which the chief executive cast in Mahan’s framework.230 After the outbreak of hostilities with Spain in May 1898, President William McKinley finally secured the annexation of Hawaii by means of joint resolution of Congress. Following the successful conclusion of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States gained control of territories that could serve as the coaling stations and naval bases that Mahan had discussed, such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Five years later, the United States obtained a perpetual lease for a naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.231 Mahan had asserted that the will-to-power behind American expansion and involvement, was a formidable motivating factor that would propel the United States into world affairs. Mahan’s realism coexisted with the affirmation of national purpose, a less formidable but still important part, of Mahan’s idealism. Mahan’s strong conservative inclinations in politics were matched by a willingness to employ the tools of realism-particularly traditional diplomatic methods-as a way to uphold historic national goals and moral vision in American foreign policy. Far from seeing an irremediable conflict between the counsels of realism and limited moral gains in foreign policy, Mahan understood that governments are not immune from certain overall constraints. Mahan did not have a single vision of the future, and while he was certain that sea power was bound by the nature of things to play an important role in international affairs, he did not hold that it would necessarily define its terms or dictate its outcomes. Seldom, if ever, could American actions abroad be defended by arguing solely for the maintenance or increase of national power.232 German naval strategist Admiral Ludwig Wilhelm Carl Borckenhagen (1850-1917) introduced Mahan’s theories to the world in a series of influential and widely read and translated papers. Thus, Mahan’s name became familiar in the German navy. Always interested in military affairs Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered his officers to read Mahan. German Grand 229

Roosevelt, Theodore. The Naval War of 1812 (1882). Reprint by Modern Library,. 1999. Turk, Richard W. The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan. Greenwood Press, 1987. See also Wimmel, Kenneth, Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet: American Seapower Comes of Age. Washington: Brassey’s, 1988. 231 Ferreiro, Larrie D., “Mahan and the English Club of Lima, Peru: The Genesis of the Influence of Sea Power upon History,” Journal of Military History, 72: 3 (2008), pp. 901– 906. 232 Russell, Greg, “Alfred Thayer Mahan and American Geopolitics: The Conservatism and Realism of an Imperialist,” Geopolitics, 11: 1 (2006), pp. 119-40. 230

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Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) used Mahan’s reputation to build a powerful surface fleet. But the course of World War I changed European ideas about the place of the navy. As it was, the German fleet engaged in a major, if not decisive, decisive battle in May-June 1916 known as Battle of Jutland. It was heavy on maneuvering ships about and light on fighting. The German fleet withdrew before there was a true great all-out Mahan style battle.233 The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660–1783 was translated into Japanese and was used as a textbook in the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). That usage strongly affected the IJN’s plan to end Russian naval expansion in the Far East, which culminated in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). While junior naval officers were studying the implications of advancing weapon technology while simultaneously harboring increasing doubt about the relevance of battleships, the senior officers remained overwhelmed by the ideas of Borkenhagen and Mahan. In the context of bureaucratic struggles between the army and navy to gain supremacy in conducting the Pacific War, the ghost of Mahan hung heavily over the Japanese naval leaders. As these men prepared for war against the United States, they made decisions that were largely based on miscalculations about American and Japanese strengths and American intentions, but usually grounded in preconceptions based on Mahan.234 It was the IJN’s pursuit of the one great decisive battle that contributed to Imperial Japan’s defeat in World War II, because the development of the submarine and the aircraft carrier, combined with advances in technology, largely rendered obsolete the doctrine of the decisive battle between fleets235 It was British admiral Jacky Fisher who reversed Mahan by utilizing technological change to propose submarines for defense of home waters and mobile battle cruisers for protection of distant imperial interests. Control of the sea could be achieved not by destruction of commerce but only by destroying or neutralizing the enemy fleet. Such a strategy called for the concentration of naval forces composed of capital ships, not too large but numerous, well-manned with crews thoroughly trained, and operating under the principle that the best defense is an aggressive offense. His theories, expounded before the submarine became a serious factor in warfare, delayed the introduction of convoys as a defense against German U-boats during Holger Herwig, “The Failure of German Sea Power, 1914–1945: Mahan, Tirpitz, and Raeder Reconsidered,” International History Review, 10:1 (1988), pp. 69–105. 234 Asada, Sadao. From Mahan to Pearl Harbor. Naval Institute Press, 2006. 235 Peattie, Mark and David Evans, Kaigun. U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1997. 233

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World War I. But more importantly, his ideas precluded Japanese deployment of the best protective strategies to ensure safe transport of vital goods from its conquered territories back to the home islands. By the 1930s, the U. S. Navy had deployed long-range submarines which successfully raided Japanese shipping in World War II. Again, showing their inflexibility the Japanese, still tied to Mahan, designed their submarines as ancillaries to the fleet and failed to attack American supply lines in the Pacific or adequately protect merchant shipping. The idea of the great mid-Pacific battle, a titanic clash of battleships, dominated Japanese thinking, following Mahan. It apparently did not occur to the Japanese that the United States would not be willing to engage in such a climatic, all-out battle. Japan had built its fleet with such a conflict in mind. Indeed, even after aircraft carriers had shown their importance, Japan built two super-battleships that would have spearheaded its fleet in this final battle. Moreover, the IJN did not adhere strictly to Mahanian doctrine because its forces were often tactically divided, particularly during the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. It might easily have brought all its carriers to Pearl Harbor and continued flying sorties against American installations there until both ships and land-based facilities had been utterly destroyed. It could have assigned a certain number of aircraft to seek out and destroy the carriers that were at sea when the initial attack began. Mahan argued for a universal principle of concentration of powerful ships in home waters and minimized strength in distant seas. British addendum to Mahan suggested that the home islands might be protected by submarines while powerful surface fleets roamed the high seas. Japan did not adhere to this change. In his later articles and books, Mahan accurately envisioned the political struggles of the 20th and 21st centuries as expressions of geopolitical considerations. In The Interest of America in International Conditions (1910), Mahan foresaw the then-emerging First World War and the underlying geopolitical conditions leading to the Second World War, recognizing that Germany’s central position in Europe. At the time Germany possessed unrivaled industrial and military might on the continent. But it was her quest for sea power that posed a threat to Great Britain. Mahan argued that this emerging desire for power on the high seas would also ultimately become a grave threat to the United States. “A German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain,” he warned, “with a supreme German army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for over-sea operations, is one of

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the possibilities of the future.” “The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day,” he continued, “is the danger point, not only of European politics but of world politics as well.” It remained so for 35 years.236 The coordination of land and sea power was important. Mahan noted with particular interest that while Great Britain had the world’s greatest navy, it simultaneously had one of, if not the, best land armies. He noted the great advantage the British had in using their naval power to achieve mobility far beyond that of rival France. While the British navy could transport land troops and concentrate their forces quite easily, the French could only disperse their land army, thus reducing it potential. On the seas, French naval inferiority allowed it only to raid and harass. As Mahan wrote, “concentration of effort will, as a rule, be a sounder policy than dissemination.”237 Applying that knowledge to the United States, Mahan conceived of a hypothetical war in the Pacific in which land armies would travel by sea and land on occupied islands. That was an amazing prophecy of the logistical strategy known as island-hopping strategy which the United States employed in World War II in the Pacific.238 He also demanded that the political authorities allow the military commanders to pick and choose the proper strategy and the correct targets. First, the proper objective of any military force is destruction, or neutralization, of the enemy force. A nation does not choose to fight “targets of opportunity” until it has taken on and defeated the enemy’s martial power. For the navy, the proper object is destruction of the enemy’s navy. Two examples suffice here: Hitler intervened in the war planning of Germany’s armies to their detriment and ultimate defeat. Japan never could decide at the Battle of Midway which was the more important objective: occupation of Midway or destruction of the American fleet. Conversely, the United States knew exactly what it wanted: destruction of the Japanese aircraft carrier fleet.239 Mahan taught that control of the sea allowed free flow of communications, in the broadest sense of that idea, as well as goods. Without adequate communication, a nation could not exert its influence other nations 236

Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Interest of America in International Conditions (1910). Reprint by Transaction Books, 2003. 237 Mahan, Influence of Seapower, in passim; Manship, op. cit., at 24. 238 Manship, op. cit., at 23. See also Mahan, Alfred. The Problem of Asia and Its Effect Upon International Policies (1905). 239 Prange, Gordon et al. Miracle at Midway. McGraw-Hill, 1982. See also Mahan, Alfred. The Problem of Asia.

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and display its power. It was insufficient to have great naval power unless other nations were aware of its existence. No better example can be found than President Theodore Roosevelt’s sending the American Navy around the world following the Spanish-American War. That president’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” policy fitted well with Mahan’s assertiveness. Display of power to potential enemies by displaying that power to the entire world may well prevent having to actually deploy it later.240 Mahan’s sharp mind also grasped as early as 1901 the fundamental geopolitical factors that were to become the Cold War. These realities would soon emerge from the remnants of the first two world wars. In The Problem of Asia, Mahan urged statesmen to “glance at the map” of Asia and note “the vast, uninterrupted mass of the Russian Empire, stretching without a break…. from the meridian of western Asia Minor, until to the eastward it overpasses that of Japan.” He envisioned an expansionist Russia needing to be contained by an alliance of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, which is precisely what happened between 1945 and 1991. Mahan foresaw the potential power of and emerging China. He also envisioned a time when the United States would be compelled to be concerned with the power China. In The Problem of Asia, Mahan depicted a future struggle for power in the area of central Asia he called the “debatable and debated ground,” and identified the “immense latent force” of China as a potential geopolitical rival. “[I]t is scarcely desirable,” Mahan wrote, “that so vast a proportion of mankind as the Chinese constitute should be animated by but one spirit and moved as a single man.” Mahan understood that Western science and technology would become globalized. Japan was merely the first Asian nation to accept the industrial and technological supremacy of the West and move to emulate them. Mahan wrote that under such circumstances “it is difficult to contemplate with equanimity such a vast mass as the four hundred million of China concentrated into one effective political organization, equipped with modern appliances, and cooped within a territory already narrow for it.”241

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These points are well made in Livezey, op. cit. Livezey provided an excellent appraisal of Mahan’s strategic significance. He noted the great influence that President Roosevelt acknowledged after reading Mahan’s Influence of Seapower. Mahan, Alfred Thayer, The Problem of Asia and Its Effect Upon International Policies (1905) Reprint by The Classics, 2013.

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He wrote that the United States must present: … a policy realized in our past action, and to affirm it for the present and future. Our people have not now to evolve a policy, but to decide whether that of the past justifies itself to their conscience, to their sense of right and wrong, and embodies their purpose of the present. This still existent policy may, I apprehend, fairly be stated to be the determination to have equal commercial privileges, and withal to respect to the utmost the integrity of Chinese territory, and the individuality of the Chinese character in shaping its own government and polity. We meddle not with their national affairs until they become internationally unendurable. But in the very enunciation of this policy, we are confronted by the fact that it is diverse from that of some other states, as shown by their acts in special instances, and plausibly to be inferred from their general course and obvious tendency. Such divergence is not always necessarily a cause for alarm, but it is for watchfulness; and it must be taken into account, as an element influential upon our own policy, not perhaps in general conception or as towards China, but in the matter of deciding upon the preparation we need, and the free-handedness to be maintained in external relations of lesser importance. Needless external preoccupations might greatly embarrass us, in case divergence from our policy should develop into opposition to our interests, or to those of civilization in general. Briefly, we cannot be sure of the commercial advantages known as the open door, unless we are prepared to do our share in holding it open.

Like Germany before the First World War, and Japan before World War II, China in the 21st century has embraced Mahan. Naval War College professors have examined the writings of contemporary Chinese military thinkers and strategists in this regard in their important work, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The Turn to Mahan.242 With regard to Mahan’s elements of sea power, China is situated in the heart of east-central Asia and has a lengthy sea-coast, a huge population, a growing economy, growing military and naval power, and, at least for now, a stable government. China’s political and military leaders have not hidden their desire to supplant the United States as the predominant power in the Asia-Pacific region. Under these circumstances, China’s embrace of Mahan is reason enough for

242

Yoshihara, Toshi and Holmes, James, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The Turn to Mahan. Taylor & Francis, 2009.

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Americans to reacquaint themselves with the writings of that great American strategic thinker. Mahan, like General Douglas MacArthur, believed that the only legitimate objective of war was destruction of the enemy. He would have opposed vigorously simple defensive wars, which he thought would be the ruin of a nation. Once declared, war must be pursued aggressively, as Mahan wrote, “not be fended off, but smitten down.” Later, states may retreat from the fruits of total victory, restoring and compensating, but as long as war is active the enemy “must be struck incessantly and remorselessly.” This will follow naturally from a nation which possesses strong naval power operative on a global basis.243 The vast majority of Mahan’s writing and commentary centers on an active navy, either in war or prepared for war. He did offer two suggestions regarding naval strategy during peacetime. First, a thriving commercial shipping industry is the necessary and important adjunct to a strong navy. Rather than allowing other nations to develop their own commercial shipping, a great nation will promote the use of its own commercial shipping to fill the needs of other nations. Second, at certain times, Mahan reasoned that it might be a good political move to allow, even encourage, other nations to build a sea-going navy. Unless that navy also has the backing of a strong commercial fleet it may have the appearance, but not the substance, of strength. No nation can finance a navy unless it is associated with the wealth that trade on the high seas allows.244 In an account of Mahan’s influence, written in 1947 by William E. Livezey, a great amount of attention is directed to the connections between Mahan and geopolitics. The professor wrote, ‘As expositor of sea power’, he observed, Mahan was a geopolitical thinker long before that expression was coined; as espouser of sea power, Mahan was the precursor of Halford Mackinder, analyst exceptional of the forthcoming role of land power; as exponent of sea power, Mahan was the preceptor of Karl Haushofer, advocate extraordinary of depth in space, Lebensraum, and land empire. Mahan’s main concern in the Influence of Sea Power series was the critical importance of decision making by statesmen and admirals, not the power of geographical factors to determine the course of history. He next provided a list of the specific aspects of Mahan’s thought that were related to the central concerns of geopolitics.” 243 244

Mahan, Influence of Seapower, in passim; Manship, op. cit., at 26. Cropsey, Seth; and Arthur Mililkh, “Mahan's Naval Strategy,” World Affairs, 174: 6 (2012), pp. 85-92.

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Mahan’s sea-power doctrine polarized a set of historical data concerning the role of the sea in its relation to national well-being. As he viewed the constituent elements affecting power on the sea, he discussed geographical position, physical conformation, extent of territory, number of populations, character of people, and character of government. Mahan’s economic ideal was global free trade, a system that was an integral part of his concept of sea power and which, he was convinced, favored peace rather than war. The reception of The Influence of Seapower was incredible. It had asserted that national greatness was connected with sea power, bringing with it industry and markets.245 One author noted that Mahan had “put the United States on the path to greatness.”246 His first major biographer wrote that Mahan was “the greatest writer America has yet produced.”247 Many regarded Mahan as primarily an historian, giving him the title, “the father of modern naval historiography.”248

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Livezey, William E., Mahan on Sea Power. 2nd ed.; University of Oklahoma Press 1981, p. 316. See also Menon, Venugopal, “Concepts of Sea Power – Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan,” Chennai Centre for China Studies, 16 November 2021. 246 Earle, Edward Mead. Makers of Modern Strategy. Princeton University Press, 1952, p. 445. 247 Taylor, Charles C. The Life of Admiral Mahan, Naval Philosopher. New York: Doran, 1920, p. 43. 248 Livezey, op. cit., p. 26.

Chapter 7

Halford Mackinder Halford John Mackinder was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England, in 1861, the eldest son of Draper and Fanny Anne Hewitt Mackinder, of Scottish ancestry. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he majored in biology, graduating with highest honors. He continued his education with a specialization in modern history, but his interest shifted toward geography. At that time geography was not considered a separate science, although it was divided into physical and human geography. After graduating from Oxford, he studied law and became a barrister in 1886. In 1887, Oxford appointed Mackinder to a teaching position in geography, which was the most senior position for a British geographer. At Oxford, Mackinder was influenced by Michael Sadler and Henry Nottidge Mosely, who were key figures in the effort to establish geography as an independent field of study in England. From that chair, he argued that physical and human geography should be treated as a single discipline. He joined the Royal Geographical Society. According to Brian W. Blouet, Mackinder’s biographer, the membership of the Royal Geographical Society “consisted of men with a general interest in the world and its affairs, officers from the army and navy, businessmen, academics, schoolteachers, diplomats, and colonial administrators.”249 In 1899, Mackinder led an expedition to East Africa and climbed Mount Kenya. In 1902 he joined the Fabian Club, associating with socialist activists Sidney and Beatrice Webb. He was a member of the Coefficients dining club, set up in 1902 by the Fabian Society, which brought together social reformers and advocates of national efficiency. He was one of the founders of the London School of Economics and so moved to the LSE upon its creation in 1895 and remained on the staff as reader and professor until 1925. He served as director of the school from 1903 to 1908. He then dedicated his energies completely to the administration and the leadership of the school. During that time however, he continued his connection with geography, teaching classes in economic geography. 249

Blouet, Brian W. Mackinder: A Biography. Texas A&M University Press, 1987, p. 33.

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In 1910, Mackinder resigned his position at LSE to enter politics, becoming a member of the Parliament, where he was a strong supporter of British imperialistic policies. He retained his seat in parliament until he was defeated in the 1922 election. In 1919, Great Britain dispatched Mackinder as British high commissioner to southern Russia, where he was to attempt to unify White Russian forces against communists. Vehemently opposed to the Bolsheviks, he stressed the need for Britain to continue her support to the White Russian forces, It was upon his return to Britain in 1920 after that unsuccessful mission that he was knighted. He served as chairman of the Imperial Shipping Committee from 1920 to 1945 and of the Imperial Economic Committee from 1926 to 1931. Among many honors he received were the Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1946), and the Charles P. Daly Medal of the American Geographical Society (1943). Mackinder died on 6 March 1947, in Parkstone, Dorset, England. Mackinder has been credited with introducing two new terms into the language of geography: “manpower” and “heartland”. In 1944, he received the Charles P. Daley medal from the American Geographical Society, and in 1945 was awarded the Royal Geographical Society’s Patron’s Gold Medal for his service in the advancement of the science of geography.250

Mackinder’s Geography There are four principles which are the keys to understanding Mackinder’s ideas. First, he asserted that the goal of a geographer was to “look at the past [so] that he may interpret the present.” Second, we were nearing the completion of the great geographical discoveries for there were very few “blanks remaining on our maps.” Third, he categorized political conquerors according to where they operated, either as “land-wolves and sea-wolves. Finally, he concluded that it

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“Halford Mackinder,” in Wikipedia; “Halford Mackinder,” in New World Encyclopedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. See also Blouet, Brian W. Halford Mackinder: A Biography. Texas A & M Press, 1987.

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was the advances in technology which would make possible “the great size of modern states.”251 As early as 1900 he emphasized what would become his life’s obsession, the absolute necessity of England’s building substantial sea power, a navy second to none. Without that great navy, he wrote England, “would soon be less safe when confronted by the military powers, the rapidly developing resources of whose vast territories would presently enable them to build great fleets. No other course is open to us than to bind Britain and her Colonies into a league of democracies def ended by a united navy and an efficient army.”252 He continued to expand upon that theme, and it was the major theme of his book Britain and the British Seas (1902). He later wrote, Mobility upon the ocean is the natural rival of horse and camel mobility in the heart of the continent. The all-important result of the discovery of the Cape road to the Indies was to connect the western and eastern coastal navigations of EuroAsia. The one and continuous ocean enveloping the divided and insular lands is, of course, the geographical condition of ultimate unity in the command of the sea, and of the whole theory of modern naval strategy and policy.253

In 1902, Mackinder wrote his first major book, Britain and the British Seas, a book he wrote “to present a picture of the physical features and conditions” of Britain.” Nonetheless, the book contained such clearly geopolitical chapters as “The Position of Britain,” “Strategic Geography,” and “Imperial Britain.” He offered insights into various global affairs that foreshadowed his subsequent geopolitical studies. In the British Sea Power, he described Britain as being “of Europe, yet not in Europe,” and as lying “off the shores of the great continent.” British predominance in the world entirely depended upon its “command of the sea.” This was because the “unity of the ocean is the simple physical fact underlying the dominant value of sea-power in the modern globe-wide world.” He predicted that a new balance of world power is evolving. The future will be in the hands of five great world states, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States of America. Britain’s position as the preeminent world power was 251

Mackinder, Halford. The Scope and Methods of Geography (1887), pp. 211, 213, 214, 217. 218, 236, 237. This work was published first in 1887 in the New Monthly Series of the Royal Geographical Society. 252 Mackinder, Halford J. in the London Times, 22 October 1903. Original quote published elsewhere on 22 September 1900. 253 Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, p. 432.

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endangered because of the permanent facts of physical geography which favor Russia and the United States.254 On 25 January 1904, Mackinder delivered his famous address to the Royal Geographical Society. He noted that the last stage of geographical exploration, which he called the “Columbian epoch,” was coming to an end. Between the fifth and sixteenth centuries, a succession of nomadic peoples, namely the Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars, Patzinaks, Cumans, Mongols and Kalmuks, had emerged from Central Asia to conquer or threaten the states and peoples located in the “marginal crescent” which is Europe, the Middle East, southwest Asia, China, southeast Asia, Korea and Japan. Beginning in the late fifteenth century, the great sailors of the Columbian generation used sea power to envelop Central Asia. As the Columbian Epoch was ending, the increased mobility that the sea provided put naval powers at a distinct advantage over their territorial adversaries. The broad political effect of the rise of sea powers had been to reverse the relations of Europe and Asia. During in the Middle Ages Europe was squeezed between an impassable desert to south, an unknown ocean to west, and icy or forested wastes to north and north-east, and in the east and southeast was constantly threatened by the superior mobility of the horsemen.255 Beginning in the Columbian Age, sea power had altered perception of the world, adding the sea surface and coastal lands to which she had access. The twentieth century marked the end of exploration which had been a time when the world was open for both exploration and conquest. Mackinder wrote that the Columbian Age had “endowed Christendom with the widest mobility of power, short of winged mobility. The one and continuous ocean enveloping the divided and insular lands is, of course, the geographical condition of ultimate unity in the command of the sea.”256 The new age would be one of a closed international system in which various European states would compete, often violently, with one another for control of the Third World and its rich markets and source of raw materials. He had hoped to identify the most important playing field in which competing empires would clash. The science of this discernment was geostrategy. 257

254

Mackinder, Halford J. Britain and the British Seas (1902), pp. vii, 12, 350-51, 358. This work was originally published 1902 in the United States by Appleton. 255 Fettweis, Christopher J., “Sir Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics, and Policymaking in the 21st Century,” US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters, 30: 2 (2000), pp. 58-71. 256 Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, p. 432. 257 Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. ix.

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In 400 years, Mackinder claimed, “the outline of the map of the world has been completed with approximate accuracy.” Moreover, since conquerors, missionaries, miners, farmers and engineers “followed so closely in the travelers’ footsteps,” the world was for the first time a “closed political system.” This meant that “every explosion of social forces, instead of being dissipated in a surrounding circuit of unknown space and barbaric chaos, will be sharply re-echoed from the far side of the globe, and weak elements in the political and economic organism of the world will be shattered in consequence.” Nations, in other words, could no longer safely ignore major events that occurred in faraway places of the globe.258 Mackinder’s avowed purpose was to establish “a correlation between the larger geographical and the larger historical generalizations,” to provide “a formula which shall express certain aspects… of geographical causation in universal history,” and to set “into perspective some of the competing forces in current international politics.”259 In all his works, Mackinder emphasized the over-riding importance of geography in the study of history and global politics. He argued that all the great wars of history had been caused by the outcome, direct or indirect, of the unequal growth of nations. That unequal growth was the result of the uneven distribution of agricultural fertility, access to natural resources, technology, and strategical opportunities. The grouping of lands and seas, and of fertility and natural pathways, lend themselves to the growth of empires. He predicted that in the end there would be but a single world empire. In order to prevent future world conflicts, the world must recognize these geographical realities and take steps to control, perhaps even counter, their influence. He proposed to make known those geographical realities by exposing the relative significance of the great features of our globe as tested by the events of history.260 Mackinder never forgot or neglected his roots as a first-rate geographer. He made that clear in his classic essay regarding the geographical pivot of history: I have spoken as a geographer. The actual balance of political power at any given time is, of course, the product, on the one hand of geographical conditions, both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand, of the relative number, virility, equipment, and organization of 258

Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, pp. 241-42, 255, 257-58, 262-64. Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, pp. 148, 159,170. 260 Sempa, Francis P., “Mackinder's World,” American Diplomacy, February 2000. 259

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One of the most important objectives of geopolitics is the understanding of the creation, existence, and deployment of power politics. That political dominance is a matter not just of having power in the sense of human or material resources, but also of the geographical context within which that power is exercised. States must never allow themselves to be maneuvered into a position of geographical isolation. They cannot be geographically configured so as to appear to be trapped and set apart from the international community. Creating the correct geographical circumstances is a matter for policymakers and politicians. Mackinder recognized these factors and warned that political authorities must follow a policy that creates proper geopolitical conditions.262 Mackinder advocated an organic geography, a science in motion, as opposed to the heretofore static geopolitics he saw coming before him. It was to describe the life of the world organism. He saw the world as a closed unit. During World War II especially he worked to assure that politicians did not lapse back into geographic isolation, which he also called continentalism, meaning that states were concerned only with events on their own continent and were willing to ignore whatever happened elsewhere.263

Geographical Pivot of History There were three versions of the pivotal, or Heartland, theory, noted by date of exposition: 1904, 1919, and 1943. Each can be explained by examining the unique historical periods of the formation. Mackinder’s view of

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Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, p. 436. Sloan, Geoffrey, “Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The Heartland Theory Then and Now,” in Journal of Strategic Studies, 22: 2-3(1999), pp. 15-38. 263 Hans W. Weigert, Hans W., “Mackinder's Heartland,” American Scholar, 15: 1 (1945-46), pp. 43-54. 262

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geography should be interpreted by the theater of military action. One scholar referred to it as “a panoramic view of global imperialism.”264 In 1904 Mackinder gave a lecture to the British Royal Geographical Society in which he first introduced the idea of the advantage of controlling the world island. He subsequently published his thesis in the Geographical Journal as “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Finally in 1919, following the end of the Great War, and during the peace negotiations, he expanded his ideas into book form, published as Democratic Ideals and Reality.265 Mackinder held that effective political domination of the Heartland by a single power had been unattainable in the past because of the Heartland’s size, but its central position made it the key to controlling the World-Island. Many recall the basic syllogism which Mackinder offered, and which is quite probably the most oft quoted phrase from geopolitics: Whoever rules East Europe, will rule Heartland, Whoever rules the Heartland, will rule the World Island. Whoever rules the World Island, will rule the world.266

The “Heartland Theory” is essentially geographical in its outlook, thus citing a critical geostrategic link between land control and political power, i.e., geopolitical power. Mackinder made this connection in the presentation of his thesis, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” to the 1904 Royal Geographical Society meeting: The actual balance of political power at any given time is, of course, the product, on one hand, of geographical conditions, both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand, of the relative number, virility, equipment, and organization of the competing peoples.”267 In its first form, Mackinder’s prospective views do not appear as being merely speculative but are, in fact, well grounded in the fundamentals of British foreign policy of that time. Identifying a trend towards a shift in the equilibrium between land power and sea power, Mackinder emphasized, although he perhaps over-emphasized, a Russian threat to British interests, Blouet, Brian W., “The Imperial Vision of Halford Mackinder,” Geographical Journal, 170: 4 (2004), pp. 322-329. 265 Mackinder, Halford J. “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Geographical Journal, 23: 4 (1904), pp. 421-437. Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919, reprinted in 1942. 266 Rosenberg, Matt. “What Is Mackinder's Heartland Theory?” ThoughtCo, 27 August 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-mackinders-heartland-theory-4068393. 267 Mackinder, Halford J., “The Geographical Pivot of History.” The Geographical Journal 23 (1904), pp. 421 – 437. 264

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but considered that Germany alone only posed a minor threat. Such analysis was in accord with British geopolitical culture around 1904, and with the ideas of the British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.268 He viewed the pivot as “part of an imperial planetary consciousness…. a vision of a dangerous world viewed from the commanding heights.”269 The world island could be best controlled from the pivot area, which would guarantee self-sufficiency in food for the country dominating the region, and the pivot area’s inaccessibility by sea would provide a formidable defensive barrier. The pivot area was vulnerable to land attack only by way of the plains of eastern Europe. Mackinder’s land-based theory of world power contradicted the conventional theory advocated by Alfred Thayer Mahan which stressed maritime power. Any state which controls the pivot area is necessarily great as a consequence and any and all alliances and combinations of power would rotate around the state which controls the pivot area. The changing of powers controlling the pivot area would have no impact on the area’s importance.270 As long as the steppes were contained by nations of approximately equal power, Central Asia could be properly considered the great pivot area. By the end of the nineteenth century, not only the heart of Central Asia, but also areas of Asia proper which bordered on the steppes on the southwest, south, and southeast, were now simply frontiers of areas of European conquest and occupation. The inhabitants of Central Asia, and those lands bordering on it as noted above, no longer controlled their exterior politics for the Great Powers of the West had become their masters. In 1904, when the TransSiberian Railway was completing its 5,700-mile route from Moscow to Vladivostok, Mackinder had argued that these, along with rails, would knit Eurasia into a unitary landmass. As one academic said of Mackinder’s pivot area, “Huge swathes of territory are stamped with definitive positionality and function: ‘Pivot area’; Inner or Marginal crescent”. These are the macrogeographical identities around which Mackinder spatializes history and reduces it to formulaic equations.”271 The pivot area, the “natural seat of power” is to be found “in the closed heart-land of Euro-Asia.” It was an organic unit within the globe. Pascal, V., “The Geographical Pivot of History and Early Twentieth Century Geopolitical Culture,” Geographical Journal, 170: 4 ((2004), pp. 330-36. 269 Heffernon, Michael, “Balancing Visions,” Political Geography, 19, (2000) pp. 347-52 at 348. 270 Hall, Arthur R., “Mackinder and the Course of Events,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 45: 2 (1955), pp. 109-26 at 110. 271 Otuathail, Gearoid. Critical Geopolitics. University of Minnesota Press, 1996, p. 33. 268

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The balance of power was moving from land power to sea power. He feared “the shadow of the pivot” would fall across the globe, especially weakening the British Empire.272 He wrote, The conception of Euro-Asia to which we thus attain is that of a continuous land, ice-girt in the north, water-girt elsewhere, measuring 21 million square miles, or more than three times the area of North America, whose centre and north, measuring some 9 million square miles, or more than twice the area of Europe, have no available waterways to the ocean, but, on the other hand, except in the subarctic forest, are very generally favourable to the mobility of horsemen and camelmen. To east, south, and west of this heartland are marginal regions, ranged in a vast crescent, accessible to shipmen. 273

Germany was the center of much attention in Mackinder’s thought. It had the optimum location in Western Europe, the center of the great constellation of Europe. It was simultaneously continental and maritime, and, in Mackinder’s time, possessed a navy second only to Great Britain. There was a rapidly expanding population with an overwhelming desire to expand and a highly developed technological and industrial base. Through its commercial fleet, and with superior products, Germany was rapidly expanding into world markets. Under the direction of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Germany had retained only an interest in land power. Now that was changing for in 1900 the kaiser decided to double the size of his navy. None of Germany’s neighbors could contain its expansion. However, Mackinder’s real reason for concern was the possibility that Germany would ally with Russia and together they would rule the Heartland. He was certain that, should such an alliance be formed, Germany would quickly emerge as the dominant partner. The idea of such an alliance was quite possible, with the precedent being the Dreikaiserbund of the 1880s which had successfully united Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. Bismarck had also negotiated a.bi-lateral treaty with Russia.274 Shortly after the end of the First World War, Mackinder had written most important work on international politics ever written by a geographer. In this work, he greatly expanded on his 1904 “pivot” paper, drawing on recent lessons learned from the Great War. In the book’s preface, referring to 272

Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, p. 434. Ibid., p. 431. 274 Hall, op. cit., at 112. 273

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the continuing relevance of the ideas expressed in the “pivot” paper, Mackinder opined that “the war has established, and not shaken, my former points of view.” In the text which followed, Mackinder presented a masterful synthesis of historical and geographical analyses that has withstood the test of time.275 The end of World War I, and especially the terms of the subsequent peace treaties, dictated a modification of the Heartland thesis. To Mackinder, World War I had been simply the climax of the inevitable war between continental law power and the marginal land powers which were backed and supported by sea powers. He believed that Germany, not controlling either the Heartland or becoming a dominant sea power, had necessarily failed. Had Germany defeated British sea power it might have prevailed. At that point, the Heartland seemed to contain all areas which can be denied sea power. Those powers can expand their power base by building extensive railroads and relying on air power.276 Still, the original Heartland remained intact, despite significant changes in state borders after the peace treaties. Following the war and the subsequent peace conferences, Mackinder wrote a stern warning to the Allies: 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.277

The first great concern which Mackinder expressed which might become a reality as a result of the war, was the realistic possibility of a GermanRussian alliance. Having undergone the Bolshevik revolution, and with communists having taken control in a newly independent Hungary, German communists harbored high hopes of coming to power in all of Germany as 275

276

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Mackinder, Halford J. Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction. London, Constable, 1919, pp. 1-2, 4, 28-29, 29-30, 65-66, 62, 70, 73, 74, 150, 139, 154, 155, 114, 182, 158, 165, 160. Hans W. Weigert, Hans W., “Mackinder's Heartland,” American Scholar, 15: 1 (1945-46), pp. 43-54. Mackinder, Halford J. Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction. Holt, 1919. 2nd issue, 1942.

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they had done briefly in Bavaria. The Western Allies had failed to contain communism in Russia even though they had dispatched aid to the counterrevolutionaries and even stationed troops in some areas. As he had anticipated a decade and a half earlier, Mackinder worried that the Russian revolution would soon fall under German control. The result was Mackinder’s publication of Democratic Ideals and Reality as a loud message to the peacemakers to take all necessary steps to prevent a German-Russian alliance of any sort. One change he made in the pivot thesis was to enlarge the area said to be inaccessible to sea-power. The Heartland, as he now christened the pivot area, was redefined to include all of Tibet and the Asian mountains where the headwaters of Asia’s great rivers originated. He also noted that the Black Sea was inaccessible to sea-power so long as the Dardanelles was under the control of some competent military power. A new geographical term, Eastern Europe, appeared in Democratic Ideals, a land mass defined as the drainage areas of the Black Sea and Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea was also rated inaccessible to sea-power because of both German and Russian land power. This area had been cut off from insular Western Europe because of its historical development. It was the far eastern frontier of the Teutonic expansion which a more powerful Russia had checked. Mackinder argued that one aim of the Allies in making the peace would be to achieve a balance between Germany and the Slavic nations to its east and neutralize whatever nation seeks to organize the resources of the Heartland, represented by Eastern Europe.278 The conflict between land powers and sea powers which dominated the earlier version of Mackinder’s thesis are rather tangential to the points made in the post-war version. In this version, Eastern Europe was by far the most important component and concern of Heartland thesis. As it was, Mackinder’s Heartland thesis played only a tiny role in interwar geopolitics. A defeated Germany was unable to dominate the Heartland and utilize such of its resources as it commanded. An unstable Russia, now the U.S.S.R., was beset by internal ideological problems and did little with its share of the Heartland as the eastern portion of that vast empire dominated. His warning that, should a great power come to dominate the World Island through its Heartland, no naval power would be able to counteract it, was not heeded as the major nations still placed heavy reliance upon great navies. National leaders ignored his demonstration that the Great War had been a struggle between insular sea powers and continental land 278

Ibid., in passim.

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powers. In fact, the strength of the Great Powers on both sides had been amphibious.279 The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, combined with the emergence of a number of newly independent states such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, provided the peacemakers with the opportunity to separate Germany and Russia, reducing the power of both, by creating a Middle Tier of states, which would extend from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean Sea. Most important was reemergence of Poland as buffer between Russia and Germany. Recognition of Jugoslavia and the creation of Czechoslovakia would serve to add additional security. Mackinder spoke boldly in favor not only in favor of these creations, but of guaranteeing their future existence.280 As the Versailles Peace Conference opened in 1919 at the end of World War I, Mackinder turned his seminal essay into a memorable maxim about the relationship between East European regions like Ukraine, the Central Asian heartland, and global power. Mackinder, however, made the same mistake that came to plague the Allies: both chose to ignore the pleas for independence made by Ukrainians. The government of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic sent a delegation headed by Hryhorii Sydorenko, replaced in August by Mykhailo Tyshkevych, to seek admission to the conference, and recognition of the Ukraine’s independence. That delegation also asked for the withdrawal of Polish, Romanian, and Allied forces from Ukraine, and support for its war against Soviet Russia. Although national self-determination was one of its basic principles, the conference did not officially recognize the Ukrainian delegations or Ukraine’s independence, but favored instead, due to Russian anti-Bolshevik and American influence, the preservation of the territorial integrity of the old Russian Empire. The Allies did not end the occupation of the Western Ukrainian lands by Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. However, the Allies brought about an end to the Ukrainian-Polish War in Galicia. Under pressure from the pro-Polish French and American delegates, including French premier Georges Clemenceau and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the conference sanctioned the Polish occupation of Galicia. Had U.S. President Woodrow Wilson not refused to even meet with the Ukrainians, and had Mackinder consider the Ukrainian appeal, Russian power could have

279 280

Ibid., in passim. See also Hall, op. cit., p. 115. Teggart, Frederick J., “Geography as an Aid to Statecraft: An Appreciation of Mackinder's Democratic Ideals and Reality,” Geographical Review, 8: 4/5 (1919), pp. 227-42.

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been checked.281 As it was, the physical separation of Germany from Russia failed to produce the results which both the peacemakers and Mackinder had hoped for. Mackinder had also hoped for the creation of a concert of essentially balanced nations in which each state would consist of allied provinces ruled by democratic institutions. Each state would possess a diversified and wellbalanced economy, with global interdependence backed by essentially free trade. Each state would promote its own mores, folkways, customs, and traditions. His hoped-for cooperative Middle Tier was to be the first step in such reorganization. World War II marks the emergence of the third version of the Heartland thesis. It began with the greatest of all dangers, according to Mackinder: the Russian-German alliance. This alliance was fulfillment, as we shall see with Dr. Karl Haushofer, of the fondest hopes of German geopolitical thinkers. But it clearly was not going to last. Russia, which had aspirations of its own for the Heartland, was not about to allow itself to become a German vassal state or colony. However, they successfully accomplished one thing together: they neatly divided up Middle Tier states. It also became very clear that when Germany was militarily powerful, Russia could not withstand it, and, for its own survival, had to turn to the insular nations of the West to retain its nationhood. This brings us to the third version of the Heartland thesis. During the Second World War, the editor of Foreign Affairs asked Mackinder to update his geographic worldview, which he had previously set down. Mackinder, then 82 years of age, responded by preparing “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” which Foreign Affairs then published in its July 1943 issue. When he wrote “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” Germany and Russia were waging a great struggle for control of the Heartland. That article constitutes his last published views on the global balance of power. He reminded his readers that geographically, the Heartland was equivalent to the territory of the Soviet Union, minus the land east of the Lena River. If the Soviet Union defeats Germany, he wrote, “she must rank as the greatest land Power on the globe,” and “[f]or the first time in history”

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Lozynsky, M., ed., intro. Décisions du Conseil Suprême sur la Galicie Orientale: Les plus importants documents [Decisions of the Supreme Council on Eastern Galicia: The most important documents]. Paris 1919; and Notes présentées par la Délégation de la République Ukrainienne à la Conférence de la Paix à Paris [Notes presented by the Delegation of the Ukrainian Republic to the Paris Peace Conference]. Paris 1919. See also “Paris Peace Conference” in Internet Encyclopedia of the Ukraine.

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the Heartland will be “manned by a garrison sufficient both in number and quality.”282 Germany’s blitzkrieg, supported by airplanes, tanks, and motorized units, while successful against medium and smaller sized nations, was no match for the vast size of Russia. The dispersal of Russian industry, along with the large area in which natural sources were to be found, meant that Germany could never quite reach all the targets it needs to neutralize. In short, Germany was eventually defeated by much the same type of warfare with which it conquered successfully early on. The victorious states were those which commanded the greatest space which allowed for great mobility and maneuvering. It helped, too, if a state had access to all the natural resources required to assure victory, along with sufficient manpower, and a technologically advanced industrial base.283 The Heartland Theory reflects the intricate dynamics of and relationships between geography, political power, and military strategy, interwoven with demography and economics. It is these dynamics and relationships, which Mackinder viewed as strengths, which characterize the Heartland and speak to its importance. It is based on the important Napoleonic era military construct known as the “key position.” The Heartland was simply an extension of the military concept taken to the grand strategic level, the key position on a global scale.284 The surface of the planet Earth should be divided into islands in order to expedite geographical study. The co-joined continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa constitute the largest, and obviously most important, of these islands. All other islands are but satellites of that great land mass which he called the World Island. He elaborated on the World Island which can be controlled by controlling the World Island, in an area he called The Heartland: The Heartland, for the purposes of strategic thinking, includes the Baltic Sea, the navigable Middle and Lower Danube, the Black Sea, Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia, Tibet, and Mongolia. Within it, therefore, were Brandenberg – Prussia and Austria-Hungary as well as Russia – a vast triple base of manpower, which was lacking to the horse-riders of history. The Heartland is the region to which, under modern conditions,

Mackinder, Halford J., “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” Foreign Affairs, 21: 4 (1943), pp. 595-605. 283 Ibid. 284 Fettweis, Christopher J., “Revisiting Mackinder and Angell: The Obsolescence of Great Power Politics,” Comparative Strategy, 22 (2003), pp. 109-29. 282

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sea power can be refused access, through the western part of it lies without the region of Arctic and Continental drainage.285

Mackinder insisted on preventive measures of various means to remain in control of the situation in the Pivot. One of them consisted of controlling the “inner crescent.” There are two crescents which surround the Heartland. The first is an outer crescent which includes North and South America, Australia, and sub-Saharan Africa. The second is an inner crescent which consists of Continental Europe west of Russia, the Middle East, the Continental South, and Southeast and East Asia. Mackinder referred to this inner crescent as a marginal region which contained a large block of the earth’s population and had been the site of many of the world’s greatest civilizations, religions, and empires. At all stages of the Heartland’s development, Eastern Europe remains a spatial element of its structure. Its geopolitical unity is the sine qua non of the Pivot’s functional validity on a Eurasian scale.286 The Heartland as a single, integral region began with the Hun Empire and unfolded through the consecutive changes of geopolitical powers, including the Turkic and Khazar Khanates, the Arabic Caliphate, the empires of the Seljuks and Mongols, Timur’s Empire, the Ottoman and Safavid empires, and the Russian and Soviet empires. At different times, the Pivot expanded or contracted within empires that for several centuries replaced one another in its expanses. The Pivot’s spatial-functional parameters have been in constant change. Generally, each of them left behind stable administrativeterritorial units within which the historical evolution of the Pivot area unfolded.287 The principals who were the subject of the Heartland thesis were mainly ethnic groups, such as the Hun Empire, the Turkic and Khazar khanates, the Mongol Empire, and so on. He viewed European history as a struggle between its civilization and the barbaric actions of Asiatic hordes.288 The same groups generally practiced some special religious rituals which were unique to them, although, later, with the Soviet Union, the motivating philosophy was political-ideological. The evolution of these conquering 285

Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, pp. 135-36. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, p. 113. Also, Mackinder, “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace.” 287 Ismailov, Eldar; and Vladimer Papava, “The Heartland Theory and the Present-Day Geopolitical Structure of Central Eurasia,” Silk Road Studies, in Rethinking Central Eurasia. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, pp. 84-102. 288 Mackinder, Geographic Pivot, p. 423. 286

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powers proceeded according to three basic steps: The first was emergence in which the power group strikes at the Pivot expanse. Having won, the new power then Flourishes, assuming total control over the Pivot. Art this stage it usually expresses the desire to conquer the entire world. Finally, there is disintegration as some new power emerges on the frontiers of the Pivot and displaces the titular nation.289 The geopolitical transformations of the late twentieth century isolated Russia as a Eurasian geopolitical subject in the northeastern part of the continent and narrowed down the Pivot in its central part, that is, into three relatively independent regional segments of the latter – Central Europe, the Central Caucasus, and Central Asia. More precisely, the main relatively altered functions of the Heartland concentrated in the newly emergent spaces of its system-forming segments. The geopolitical logic created first by the domination of the Soviet Russian one in Eastern Europe suggested a division into Western Europe which includes the countries outside the Soviet Russian domination zone; and Eastern Europe, which includes the countries completely dominated by the Russian empire. Most ethnic Russians lived in the East European portion of the Heartland. Russians then gained control over all the important parts of the Pivot Area, which included Central European, the Central Caucasus, and Central Asia, thereby creating the Russian Empire. It subsequently conquered the strategically important littoral strips in the west, which included the Baltic states and Finland; in the east which meant Kamchatka, Sakhalin, the Maritime Area, and Alaska; and in the north the littoral part of the Arctic Ocean.290 As he pondered the Heartland theory, he determined that the great states of the Midland Basin could counter-balance the Heartland. The Midland Basin consisted of states which surround the North Atlantic Ocean, namely North America and Western Europe. During the Second World War he suggested that a coalition consisting of the Midland Basin and the Heartland would defeat, and in the future contain, Germany. In the mid-18th century, the Russian Empire began moving into all segments of the Pivot Area, and it had conquered the entire Central Caucasian region by the 19th century and was looking westward at Central Europe and eastward at Central Asia.291 289

Ismailov and Papava, op. cit., p. 96. Sloan, Geoffrey, “Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The Heartland Theory Then and Now,” in Journal of Strategic Studies, 22: 2-3(1999), pp. 15-38. Mackinder noted that there were few opportunities left for colonization outside arctic areas. 291 Mackubin, Thomas Owens, “In Defense of Classical Geopolitics,” Naval College Review, 52: 4 (1999), pp. 59-76. See also Vukovic, Nebojsa. “Do We Need Revision of the Key Geopolitical Paradigms?” Medjunarodni problemi, 72: 1 (2020), pp. 15–36. This is a 290

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Geographically, the connected landmass of Europe, Asia, and Africa, what Mackinder called the World Island, is centrally positioned in the world. To Mackinder, this geographic positioning means that as a united force, the World Island could both project power in a way that demonstrates her global supremacy and protect herself against external powers. The Heartland had it all: vast manpower, natural resources, transportation, technology, and trained and well-equipped armies. Most of the nations within the Heartland had access to the sea and thus could counter any mere sea power. Nations on the rim, or located on other islands, could, at worst, penetrate into the Heartland only a very short distance. Should the nations of the Heartland unite, or should one power control the Heartland, that single authority could control the entire planet, dominating all nations and subservient areas. By the time that the victorious Western powers had vanquished Germany the world’s statesmen had concluded that all now lived in a very closed system. The world was indeed a closed universe, whether viewed from the perspective of economics, physical geography, politics, or military affairs. Thus far, no power had truly controlled the Heartland and realized that it was so; and no power now was going to permit a modern state, which would understand what it had, to control the Heartland. Indeed, henceforth, one of the principal objectives of foreign policies of major states would be to prevent any one power or coalition from dominating the Heartland.292 In both his publications of 1904 and 1919, Mackinder had identified the northern central core of the Eurasian landmass as the pivot region or Heartland of the World Island. He asserted that from area a sufficiently armed and organized great power, or even a combination of powers, could move to establish` global hegemony. In both works, he had recalled how successive waves of nomadic pressure emerging from the Heartland had invaded successfully against the settled regions of Europe and Asia. He warned that technology and relative population distribution might produce a Heartland-based land power that could gain effective political control of the Coast-lands of Eurasia and construct a navy superior to the sea powers of Britain and the United States.293 The United States, along with Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Japan now constituted a ring of outer and brilliant classical analysis of Mackinder and Spykman on the rimland-heartland controversy. 292 Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, pp. 140, 185-96. 293 Hall, Arthur R., “Mackinder and the Course of Events,” Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 43: 2 (1955), pp. 109—26.

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insular bases for sea power and commerce, inaccessible to the land power of Euro-Asia.294 By the end of the Great War, Mackinder saw that modern communications systems were capable of uniting the whole Heartland into a cohesive unit. Heretofore, the Heartland has been under Russian authority for hundreds of years and so to capture the Heartland, nations had to follow foreign policies which would prevent the expansion of Russian influence in the Heartland. Mackinder perceived this Heartland as the greatest natural fortress on earth surrounded on all sides by geographical barriers. The nations of the other islands and the outlying islands would be hindered from making a successful invasion in the Heartland because of the geographical barriers surrounding the Heartland, such as the Carpathian Mountains to the west, the Hindukush Ranges to the South, and the Altai to the east and the Baltic Sea to the north. What is most important is that the Heartland is unassailable by the Anglo-Saxon sea powers.295 Mackinder maintained that the balance of global power favored the World Island, owing to her vast resources, including social capital, her distribution channels for exploiting or leveraging those resources to her advantage, and her land mobility. He surmised that her land mobility, twenty-one million square miles of continuous land stretching across Eurasia, technological changes, such as the continental dispersion of railway and communication networks, and also her social capital, a population size equal to two-thirds of the world’s total population, gave her a strategic military advantage. Countries of the two other world power systems can only advance their global military strategy, and thus, global political power, by sea. The World Island’s resources, demography, and military advantages were important then and now in that it could give her an unmatched competitive advantage in these areas. Mackinder also deemed that her land mobility better supports commerce than does sea power, conceivably giving her a competitive advantage economically.296 The Heartland’s importance has been reflected in the geopolitics of nations, including the United States, Russia, and China. These states have either maintained, expanded, or adapted their foreign policies and Mackinder, Geographical Pivot, p. 433. See also P. Mayett, “Beyond the Outer Crescent,” Geographical Journal, 170 (2004), pp. 368-76. 295 Mackinder, Democratic Ideals, pp. 39-40, 87-89, 185-86. See also Lacoste, Yves, “Le pivot géographique de l’histoire: une lecture critique [The Geographical Pivot of History: A Critical Reading],” Hérodote, numbers 146-147 (2012), p. 139-158. 296 Parker, W. H. Mackinder : Geography as an Aid to Statecraft. Oxford University Press, 1982. 294

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geopolitics, depending on their resolve for affirming, reclaiming, or capturing global superpower status. They are advancing their geostrategies and positioning for a struggle to control, influence, or constrain power over the Heartland. One recent analysis established that there is sufficient proof that these three nations have indeed followed Mackinder in their geostrategic planning. They found that there is substantial relationship between the predictions of the theory and current foreign policy relations. The study reached its conclusion based heavily upon that literature around the United States and Russia is indicative to the relevancy of Heartland theory.297 Mackinder had grown concerned with the changing balance of international power. He asserted that Russia’s vast, central territories were well beyond the reach of British sea power, but that its vast Eurasian territory possessed an invulnerable Heartland. Mackinder continued to develop that idea during the First World War. Buoyed by various professional criticisms during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, he expanded on the nature of various approaches to questions of avoiding war and ensuring the peace.298 At the instigation of American geographer Isaiah Bowman, Mackinder prepared a final statement on the Heartland. In his Foreign Affairs article of 1942 Mackinder discussed a geographical feature which he judged to be of almost equal significance to the Heartland. That newly named feature was the Midland Ocean, as he called it, and which he described as “the North Atlantic and its dependent seas and river basins.” It consisted of a bridgehead in Western Europe, “a moated aerodrome in Britain,” and the United States and Canada.299 Later, scholars were to view that as a prophecy concerning the North Atlantic Alliance which was created six years afterward. As war continued into 1943, Mackinder projected the existence of a new organic world unit located in the steppes of Russia. It would be inaccessible to sea power, but well accessed by railroads. It would be the successor to the famed Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. From that power position, Russia could easily exert great pressure in whatever direction it chose. Perhaps it would continue to move east into Poland and Chowdhury, Suban Kumar; and Abdullah Hel Kafi, “The Heartland Theory of Sir Halford John Mackinder: Justification of Foreign Policy of the United States and Russia in Central Asia,” Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, 1: 2 (2015), pp. 1-13. 298 Knutsen, Torbjorn L., “Halford J. Mackinder, Geopolitics, and the Heartland Thesis,” International History Review, 36:5 (2014), pp. 835-85. 299 Mackinder, Halford J., “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” Foreign Affairs, 21: 4 (1943), pp. 595-605. See also Tuathail, Geroid O., “Putting Mackinder in his Place,” Political Geography, 11: 1 (1992), pp. 100-18. 297

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even Germany; perhaps north against Scandinavia and the remainder of Finland; or south against Turkey, Persia, and India; and finally, it could expand into Asia, with Mongolia and even China as objects. The Mongol analogy was apt because Mackinder believed that the strong “centrifugal force that drove the horse-riding nomads of the steppes westward…. is still a living force in the Russian heartland.”300 In his 1943 article Mackinder returned to the word Heartland, which he then repeated many times. He related how the concept of Heartland gradually came to him. That epiphany started with his study of the sudden French defeat in 1870, which demonstrated Germany’s new power. The idea of Heartland emerged from the difficult war that the English conducted against the Boers in South Africa. But, for the most part, the Heartland in 1943-44 was essentially the same as it was for Mackinder in 1904, with improvement in vocabulary. However, he reduced slightly the extent of the meaning he had originally given it, when he considered that to the east, which he calls the “vast region of the Lena River,” there is in reality a group of mountains and not the extension of Siberian plains as he had initially suggested.301 He predicted that after all factors were considered, 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. Moreover, she will be the Power in the strategically strongest defensive position. Thus, the Heartland will remain the greatest natural fortress on earth, and, for the first time in history, it will be manned by a garrison sufficient both in number and quality to effectively rule the World Island.302 Mackinder’s Geographical Pivot remains a mainstay of the present-day foreign policy of United States and Russia regarding Central Asia. The modern day “pivot area” examined here is Central Asia. The Central Asian region comprises five former Soviet republics, now independent states. The central five are: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Pictured in the map below, these five states encompass a broad expanse of land at the heart, in accordance with Mackinder’s theory, of the Eurasian continent. Support for that geostrategy is to be found in the foreign policy discourses of both states deals greatly with the philosophy of

Hans W. Weigert, Hans W., “Mackinder's Heartland,” American Scholar, 15: 1 (1945-46), pp. 43-54. 301 Lacoste, Yves, “The Geographical Pivot of History: A Critical Reading,” Hérodote, 146147: 3-4, (2012), pp. 139-58. 302 Mackinder in Foreign Affairs, p. 601. 300

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Mackinder. Thus, the Heartland theory is still influential in foreign policy outlook of the United States and Russia in Central Asia.303 One of the major controversies in geopolitics has been the MackinderSpykman’s dichotomy of the Eurasian mainland into the heartland and the rimland. Each has its adherents, strengths, weaknesses, and historical applications and precedents. Each affords students and scholars alike with unique opportunities to understand the importance of geography upon history and upon politics. Most readers will find little value in denigrating the one at the expense of the other.304 According to Mackinder, geopolitics provides the link between geography and strategy. Geopolitics is based on the undeniable fact that all international politics, running the gamut from peace to war, takes place in time and space, in particular geographical settings and environments. At the level of international relations, geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain, and predict international political behavior through geographical variables. Geopolitics focuses on political power linked to geographic space. The Heartland Theory reflects the intricate dynamics of and relationships between geography, political power, and military strategy, interwoven with demography and economics.305 The effort which Mackinder expended in his Heartland thesis does not appear to be merely speculative but was in fact rather well grounded in the fundamentals of British foreign policy. It was more directly relevant than heretofore assumed. Identifying a trend towards a shift in the equilibrium between land power and sea power, Mackinder over-emphasized the Russian threat to British interests, but considered Germany to be only a minor threat. That analysis seems to be remarkably in accord with British geopolitical culture as it existed around 1904. It also parallels the ideas of the then British Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour. Twice during the Russo-Japanese War of Hess, Michel, “Central Asia: Mackinder Revisited?” Connections, 3: 1 (2004), pp. 95-106. See also Scott, Margaret; and Westenley Alcenat, “Revisiting the Pivot: The Influence of Heartland Theory in Great Power Politics,” https://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/ CCAS/departments/PoliticalScience/MVJ/docs/The_Pivot_-_Alcenat_and_Scott.pdf. 304 Gerace, Michael P. “Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and After.,” Comparative Strategy, 10: 4 (1991), pp. 347–64; Gray, Colin S. “Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power, and International Order,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 38: 6 (2015), pp. 873–97; and Holmila, Antero. “Re-thinking Nicholas J. Spykman: from historical sociology to balance of power,” International History Review 42: 5 (2019), pp. 951–66. 305 Sloan, Geoffrey, “Sir Halford Mackinder,” in C. S. Gray; and G. R. Sloan, eds. Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy. London: Frank Cass, pp. 15–38. See also Geoffrey Sloan, Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History. Routledge, 2017, especially part 1. 303

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1904-1905 Wilhelm II attempted to bring such an alliance about. Against this background, one may reassess the impact of the geographical pivot of history and more broadly of Mackinder’s thought, usually considered minimal, on British foreign policy in and around the year 1914, along with the genesis of Mackinder’s conception of the pivot zone or Heartland.306 In its final form, the Heartland thesis still assumed that Germany was the great pariah. Mackinder ignored growing Russian power. Neither was he concerned about a Russian-Chinese alliance that would control the Heartland. Only in this final form did he really give much credit to the United States as a countervailing power. The impact of Mackinder’s idea impacted the evolution of the geopolitical tradition differently in various nations, although nearly all states were aware of his ideas. In Great Britain its impact was slight, but in Germany, its impact was enormous, largely because of its promotion by Dr. General Karl Haushofer. In the United States it provided a framework that helped President Franklin D. Roosevelt prioritize a war in Europe against Germany over a war in Asia against Japan. There are justifiable criticisms of the Heartland thesis. Mackinder’s Eurasian heartland, while centrally located, is also in an isolated position which has not brought wealth and security. Apparently, its resources are not sufficient to dominate the World Island. Additionally, potentially hostile nations encircle it; and most of its rimlands are controlled either by the United States or by American allies and trading partners. Two recent scholars have argued that there are fallacies in Mackinder’s theory which have rendered the whole heartland thesis a fallacy from its very inception. He alleges that this resilient fallacy continues to distort perceptions and policies in and on Central Asia. They have concluded that there is a severe geographical predicament in Central Asia during this era of rapid globalization, and they assert that the myths perpetuated by Mackinder’s Heartland thesis, in conjunction with the biases and flaws of neo-liberal dogma, have served to impede the development of strategies for dealing with that predicament. .307 Nothing remarkable affixes to the Russian core, although its importance roughly equals that of the other Great Powers of the continent’s periphery. The whole Eurasian continent will continue being a platform for strategic 306

307

Venier, Pascal, “The Geographical Pivot of History and Early Twentieth Century Geopolitical Culture,” Geographical Journal, 170: 4 (2004), pp. 330–36. Megoran, Nick; and Sevara Sharapova, “Central Asia in International Relations: The Legacies of Halford Mackinder,” Oxford Scholarship Online, May 2014.

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relationships because it holds roughly two-thirds of global lands, peoples, and wealth. This is so because the largest and most powerful states, China, Germany, Russia, and Japan, lie within or near the continent.308

Contemporary Impact Mackinder had warned in vain, in 1919, against too great a separation of democracy and realpolitik. Six days after Mackinder’s death in March 1947, President Truman requested the support of the Congress to make the containment of Russia the mainstay of U.S. policy. America now assumed leadership of the creation of a Mackinder-tinged fusion of democratic ideals and realpolitik. A new order, however problematic, has emerged. Today, the heartland is once again at the forefront of great power politics, forcing a reconsideration of diplomatic and military priorities. In 1990 the first George Bush Administration authorized creation of a document for National Security Strategy (NSS) in which the Heartland thesis was assessed. That documented noted that “for most of the century, the United States has deemed it a vital interest to prevent any power or group of powers from dominating the Eurasian landmass,” which is obviously close to the geopolitical thesis advanced by Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory. The summary noted that Mackinder had argued that the power which controls Central Asia, that is, the great pivot, would emerge as the most powerful and important nation in the international community. The NSS paper reassesses the theory in the context of today’s foreign policy by examining American, Russian, China, and European Union policy regarding Central Asia. The purpose of the NSS paper was to analytically determine the extent to which the theory is still influential in contemporary world politics. The NSS paper was formulated around a fundamental question: to what extent is the Heartland theory influential in the current foreign policy of the four great powers. Mackinder theorized a shift in world power to, and world domination by, the international power that controls the continental “pivot area” — Eurasia, and to some extent, Africa, which suggestion has much

308

Kelly, Phil (2017), “Recognizing the North American Heartland: A More Suitable Fit for Mackinder’s Thesis,” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 9: 1 (2017), pp. 215–240.

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validity.309 He also viewed Russia as the pivot state, because of her central position to assert power throughout the World Island, despite her weaknesses and that historical events leading to Russia’s demographic evolution and widespread expansion engendered her as the logical Heartland pivot power.310 This again has great validity and implies much concern from great powers aligned against Russia. The Heartland’s perceived importance has been reflected in the geopolitics of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and China. These countries have either maintained, expanded, or adapted their foreign policies and geopolitics, depending on their resolve for affirming, reclaiming, or capturing global superpower status. As if playing a game of chess, they are advancing their geostrategies and positioning for a struggle to control, influence, or constrain power over the Heartland. The NSS paper concluded that there is substantial evidence of Mackinder’s teaching in the application of the geopolitics of all the major states in regard to Central Asia.311 Mackinder had given much consideration to the possibilities of there being great mineral and other natural resources in Central Asia, converting them from wasteland to usefulness in European minds.312 Halford J. Mackinder was a product of the development of political geography and has long been a major influence on American strategic studies. His Heartland thesis has been interpreted as environmental determinism. Still, Mackinder was known as a proponent and practitioner of the realist tradition in geopolitics. His thought is a complex mix of geopolitical analysis mitigated by the influence of ideas on human action. His concepts of organizer and idealist foreign policy ideal types anticipate any realist versus Utopian distinction by at least two decades. His interpretation of the realities of international politics seems to be at odds with Hans J. Morgenthau’s version of realism. Mackinder’s realism underscores the links between geopolitics and realist strategic studies. It also demonstrates the diversity of realist approaches in interwar international See Ahari, Ehsan, “The Strategic Future of Central Asia: A View from Washington,” Journal of International Affairs, 56: 2 (2003), pp. 164-165. 310 See Sloan, G. “Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The Heartland Theory Then and Now,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 22: 2/3 (1999), pp. 15-38). 311 Blank J. Stephen. “United States and Central Asia” in Central Asian Security: The New International Context. Brookings Institute Press, 2001. Scott, Maragret; and Westenley Alcenat, “Revisiting the Pivot: The Influence of Heartland Theory in Great Power Politics,” https://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/CCAS/departments/PoliticalScience/ MVJ/docs/The_Pivot_-_Alcenat_and_Scott.pdf. 312 Heffernan, Michael. The Meaning of Europe: Geography and Geopolitics. London: Hodder, 1998, p. 55. 309

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relations. Last, it shows that it was possible to be a realist and also support international organizations. An understanding of his brand of realism is necessary for a fuller understanding of the development of realism in both the twentieth century and twenty-first century approaches to geopolitics.313

313

Ashworth, Lucian M., “Realism and the Spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder: Geopolitics and the Reality of the League of Nations,” European Journal of International Relations, 17: 2, (2010), pp. 279–301.

Chapter 8

Karl Haushofer Between the first and second world wars, Dr. General Professor Karl Haushofer and others were looking for a scientific scheme for how Germany could reverse its losses from World War I. Viewing the state as an organism that needed to expand to survive fitted neatly with Nazi plans for territorial expansion, although it is debatable whether these ideas directly influenced Hitler. As a result, the term geopolitics became closely associated with the Nazis and fell out of popular use among English–speaking scholars.” 314 Subsequently, it was the German geographer Karl Haushofer, who expanded and advanced the discourse of geopolitics at the beginning of the twentieth century by giving it a new direction. In Haushofer’s radical geographical navigation, Germany, Italy, and Japan do not possess sufficiently large territories and therefore would be unable to survive, if they did not expand. In this respect, for geographically smaller states, Karl Haushofer advocated the geopolitical regionalization to accumulate the natural sphere for their survival.315 That was indeed a radical shift in the discourse of geopolitics. The concept of geopolitics is purely a discursive phenomenon because it establishes reality through language. Karl Haushofer’s contributions to the science of geopolitics cannot be despised because his writings played a major role in the purification of ‘geopolitics’ as a discipline. Haushofer’s Munich school specifically studied geography as it related to war and designs for empire.316 Today, the complex nature of international politics requires a new radical geopolitical thinking and approach. Since the beginning of neo-liberal globalization in the 1980s and the end of bipolarity, states have lost their 314

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Dahlman, Carl T., “Geopolitics,” Key Concepts in Political Geography, Carl T. Dahlman, Carolyn Gallaher, Mary Gilmartin, Alison Mountz & Peter Shirlow, London, Sage Publications Ltd., 2009, 87–98 at 87. Jacobsen, Hans-Adolf, ed. Karl Haushofer: Leben und Werk [Karl Haushofer: Life and Work], 2 vols. Boppard: Boldt, 1979. See also Schnitzer, Ewald W., “German Geopolitics Revived,” Journal of Politics, 17: .3 (1955), pp. 407-42. Dorpalen, Andreas. The World of General Haushofer. Farrar & Rinehart,1984, pp. 23–24. See also Haushofer, Karl. An English Translation and Analysis of Major General Karl Ernst Haushofer's Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean. Lewis A. Tambs, et al., eds., trans. Mellen, 2002.

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geographical significance. In this regard, the existing complex nature of the states and international system demands the reincarnation of the lost tradition of radical geopolitics, which was inherent to the geographical thinking of Karl Haushofer.

Haushofer and the Nazis Karl Haushofer, the man who popularized the term Lebensraum, has been accused of many misdeeds. In 1945, U. S. Chief of Counsel, Sidney S. Alderman, substituting for Justice Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg Trials, wrote that “Haushofer was Hitler’s intellectual godfather. It was Haushofer, far more than Hess, who wrote Mein Kamp….” More recently, a biographer, Bruno Hipler, insisted that Haushofer was “Hitler’s master teacher” and “the father of Nazi ideology.”317 The principal biographer of Rudolf Hess asserted that, “It is probable that Haushofer possessed psychic powers.” He insisted that Haushofer “at all times wielded an unsuspected, perhaps unwilling, influence upon the Nazi Party.”318 Other uninformed and historically illiterate commentators, including CBS and NBC anchor Roger Mudd, have asserted patently untruths, alleging that Haushofer established the Thule Society which an important völkisch [national] precursor to the NSDAP in Munich; that he created the Schutzstaffel, Himmler’s feared SS; and that he was the architect of Hitler’s racial extermination policies. Others have insisted that Haushofer was the father, or even the lover, of Rudolf Hess. According to his critics, through his discursive writings, Karl Haushofer attempted to establish the “Pseudo-Western-Teutonic” form of geopolitics. Moreover, Haushofer’s idea of the pan-regions was aimed at navigating the importance of regional geopolitics at the continental level.319 In 1945, U. S. Chief of Counsel, Sidney S. Alderman, writing for Justice Robert H. Jackson at Nuremberg, claimed that Haushofer was Hitler’s intellectual godfather. Alderman charged that it was Haushofer, not Hitler, who actually penned Mein Kampf (My Struggle). Such inflammatory 317

Hipler, Bruno. Hitlers Lehrmeister. Karl Haushofer als Vater der NS-ldeologie [Hitlers Lehrmeister. Karl Haushofer as the father of Nazi ideology]. St. Ottilien, EOS Verlag, 1996. 318 Hutton, J. Bernard. Hess: The Man and His Mission. David Bruce & Watson, 1979, pp. 2131. 319 Herwig, H. “Geopolitik, Haushofer, Hitler, and Lebensraum,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 22 (1999), pp. 218-41.

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statements make good propaganda, but that does not imbue them with truth nor prove the incredible. Haushofer also denied assisting Hitler in writing Mein Kampf, saying that he only knew of it once it was in print, and never read it.320 After the Allies’ victory in World War II, Father Edmund Walsh served as a consultant to the U. S. Chief of Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials. One of his duties was to interrogate General Karl Haushofer to determine whether he should be tried for war crimes. Father Walsh’s main criticism of Haushofer, with whose work he was most familiar, was that his geopolitics was completely divorced from moral philosophy. Father Walsh wrote that Haushofer’s conception of geopolitik had become “the politics of a wholly earthly conception of life. It is the logical culmination of a process of secularization both of mind and cultural institutions.” He noted that Haushofer’s approach to geopolitics had the effect of “emancipating thought from moral obligation and spiritual control.”321 Father Walsh noted in his assessment of Haushofer’s published work that the problems were not with the general’s geography but were with his political and moral stances. Father Walsh claimed that Haushofer’s published materials “contain about fifty, or even more, percent of useful truths. Among other interesting opinions, Father Walsh noted, was Haushofer’s belief that only about one-quarter of history is related to, or caused by, earth-bound factors.322 For the remainder, scholars must look to various human factors.323 Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s secretary who assisted Hitler in writing of Mein Kampf, was a close student of Haushofer’s, which was well known and thus was the source of Father Walsh’s investigation. While Hess and Hitler were imprisoned after the Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Haushofer was known to have spent at least six hours visiting the two men. He brought with him at that visit a copy of Friedrich Ratzel’s Political Geography324 and

320

Walsh, Edmund A. Total Power: A Footnote to History. Doubleday, 1949, p. 36, Walsh, Edmund, “Essay on Geopolitics,” in The Political Economy of Total War. Georgetown School of Foreign Service, 1942, p. 109. 322 Walsh, Edmund A., Wahre anstatt falsche Geopolitik für Deutschland [True instead of false geopolitics for Germany], pp. 8-9. 323 Haushofer, Karl, “preface,” in J. Fairgrieve, ed. Geographie und Weltmacht [Geography and world power]. Berlin: Vowinchel, 1925, p. 6. 324 Wangler, Julian. Die Geopolitik Friedrich Ratzels und Karl Haushofers - Eine Kontinuitätslinie zur Hitler-Ideologie? [The Geopolitics of Friedrich Ratzel and Karl Haushofer - A Line of Continuity to Hitler's Ideology?] GRIN Verlag, 2006. 321

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Clausewitz’s On War.325 After World War II, Haushofer denied that he had taught Hitler anything. Moreover, he claimed that the National Socialist Party had perverted his theories of geopolitik, largely because of Hess’s misunderstanding of his lectures and writings. He viewed Hitler at best as a half-educated man who never correctly understood the principles of geopolitik. Not only had Hess failed to grasp the real meaning of his teachings, but Foreign Minister Joachim also von Ribbentrop became the principal source of distortions of geopolitik in Hitler’s mind.326 Several of the victors’ prosecutors sought Haushofer’s indictment, on the grounds that his theories of international politics and geopolitics helped justify the Holocaust. There was also some question as to Haushofer’s racial theories and their association with the extermination of European Jewry, in the same sense as were Julius Streicher’s theories and writings. Father Walsh reported that although Haushofer had been Rudolf Hess’s primary teacher, Haushofer actually spent relatively little time with Hitler.327 Father Walsh disagreed with Haushofer’s assessment that Hitler had distorted his geopolitik. Father Walsh cited several of Hitler’s speeches in which he declared such ideas as that small states have no right to exist. Moreover, the Nazis used Haushofer’s reconstituted maps, language, and arguments. Even if distorted somewhat, Father Walsh felt that was enough to implicate Haushofer’s geopolitik, but Father Walsh concluded that the evidence pointed to a disconnect between geopoliticians and the Nazi leadership, even though their practical tactical goals had much in common. Moreover, Hitler broke with Haushofer completely over his war against England which Haushofer absolutely opposed. It was Haushofer’s motivation of Hess to fly to England to stop the war, Father Walsh noted. Therefore, Father Walsh recommended against prosecution of Haushofer, although some charged that it was his staunch and practiced anti-communist rhetoric that mitigated against trying Haushofer.328

325

Walsh, Edmund A. Total Power: A Footnote to History. Doubleday & Company, 1949, pp. 14-15. Father Walsh also gave an interview to Life magazine entitled “The Mystery of Haushofer,” published in the issue of September 16, 1946, pp. 107–120 326 Walsh, op. cit., p. 15. See also Walsh, Edmund A. Total Power: A Footnote to History. Doubleday, Garden City, 1949, pp. 4–5. 327 Bassin, M., “Race contra Space: The Conflict between Geopolitik and National Socialism,” Political Geography, 6 (1987), pp. 115-34. 328 McNamara, Patrick. A Catholic Cold War: Edmund A. Walsh, S. J., and the Politics of American Anticommunism. Fordham University Press, 2005. See also Walsh, Edmund A. Wahre anstatt falsche Geopolitik für Deutschland. Forum Academicum [True Instead of False Geopolitics for Germany: Academic Forum]. G. Schulte-Blumke, 1946.

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The truth is more complicated than exaggerated taglines. In the recent book The Demon of Geopolitics, Holger Herwig, professor of history emeritus at the University of Calgary, has attempted to set the record straight in Haushofer’s biography. Despite the sensationalist title, this is a sober account of an archconservative whose life and views sat uncomfortably with the Nazis. Haushofer, for example, remained fiercely loyal to his wife, Martha, despite her Jewish lineage., thereby calling into question his supposed strong antisemitism. Similarly, as a staunch admirer of the Japanese, Haushofer did not view the world through the same racist lenses as the Nazis. Still, he authored many geopolitical writings which provided the Nazis with ideological justification for the war.329 Despite Alderman’s allegations, there is not a shred of evidence which even suggests, let alone proves, that Haushofer wrote Mein Kampf. But did Haushofer influence its contents? Elements of Haushofer’s world view, including the emphasis on the regenerative aspects of war, present in Dai Nihon, which Hitler read in Landsberg, was evident in Mein Kampf. So, too, was much of Haushofer’s language. The term Lebensraum (Habitat), introduced to Hitler through Hess and Haushofer, first entered the Nazi propaganda vocabulary in Mein Kampf. Hitler also used other geopolitical notions such as “territorial formation,” “borders of accident,” “constriction of Lebensraum,” “relationship of population to territoriality” and “corrective and educational military training.”330 Much of what was found in Mein Kampf was an oversimplification of the nineteenth-century Social Darwinism with which Hitler was quite familiar long before he met Haushofer. Moreover, neither Hitler nor Haushofer never explicitly outlined how geopolitik could concretely be applied to Germany. Neither did Hitler attempt to define Lebensraum or geopolitik. Similarity of vocabulary does not guarantee common definition.331 Hitler’s view of Russia and its communistic threat clashed with Haushofer’s preferred eastern strategy of accommodation with Russia.332

329

See Spang, Christian W.; and Rolf-Harald Wippich. Japanese-German Relations, 18951945: War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion. Routledge, 2006. 330 Herwig, Holger H. The Demon of Geopolitics: How Karl Haushofer “Educated” Hitler and Hess. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, p. 103. 331 Herwig, Holger H. The Demon of Geopolitics: How Karl Haushofer “Educated” Hitler and Hess. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, p. 218. See also Gliboff, S. and H. G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel and and the Origins of German Social Darwinism. M.I.T. Press, 2008. 332 Kamenetsky, Ihor, “Lebensraum in Hitler's War Plan: The Theory and the Eastern European Reality,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 20: 3, (1961), pp. 313-26.

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Recent biographer Herwig has concluded that “Haushofer helped to legitimize Hitler’s claim to power and his expansionist foreign policy.” He quoted an earlier biographer, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, who wrote of Haushofer: that history “will hardly be able to declare him innocent of this moral complicity”333 The fate of General Haushofer illustrates the dangers of moving beyond science and delving into speculation. Arrested at the end of the war, the Allies questioned Haushofer for months, but, finding no chargeable crime, freed him before he committed suicide. His judges seemed to be hopeful that the interrogation would reveal some of the dark secrets of National Socialism. What happened was that Haushofer became aware of his responsibility, that he had created an instrument that politicians used in hopes of creating a military empire and thus obtain absolute power. He had first been flattered by the success of his ideas; later, when he wanted to intervene, he was shunned by his own disciples.

Biography Born in 1869 in Munich, Karl Haushofer was the son of Max Haushofer, a professor of economics and statistics at the Royal Polytechnical University in Munich and Frau Adele Haushofer (née Fraas). Max was not only a professor, but also the author of the poetic-trilogy Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew). Karl entered the Bavarian army in 1887 and the War Academy in 1895. Following graduation, he was assigned to the Bavarian General Staff. In 1887, Haushofer entered the 1st Field Artillery regiment “Prinzregent Luitpold” and completed Kriegsschule, Artillerieschule and War Academy (Kingdom of Bavaria). In 1896, he married Martha Mayer-Doss (1877– 1946) whose father was Jewish. They had two sons, Albrecht Haushofer (executed 1945) and Heinz Haushofer (1906–1988). He continued his career as a professional soldier, serving in the army of Imperial Germany, and rising through the Staff Corp by 1899. In 1903, he began teaching at the Bavarian War Academy. In 1908, the General Staff sent Haushofer on an extended study trip to Japan. There, Haushofer was impressed by the school curriculum which 333

Herwig, Holger H. The Demon of Geopolitics: How Karl Haushofer “Educated” Hitler and Hess. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, pp. 210, 218.

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included history, ethics, gymnastics, and visits to warrior sites which helped sustain the military ethos within Japanese society. He came to believe that this civil-military relationship created the perfect harmony of people, nature, and state necessary for Japan’s greatness. He traveled with his wife via India and Southeast Asia and arrived in February 1909. Haushofer was received by the Japanese emperor and became acquainted with many important people in politics and armed forces. In autumn 1909 he traveled with his wife for a month to Korea and Manchuria on the occasion of a railway construction. In June 1910 they returned to Germany via Russia and arrived one month later.334 Shortly afterwards he began to suffer from several severe diseases and was given a leave from the army for three years. From 1911 to 1913, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy at Munich University, researching his thesis on Japan titled Dai Nihon, Betrachtungen über Groß-Japans Wehrkraft, Weltstellung und Zukunft (Reflections on Greater Japan’s Military Strength, World Position, and Future). Dai Nihon (1913) is commonly translated as Great Japan. It was Haushofer’s intention was to encourage relations with Japan by showing how Japan revitalized its national spirit through education and by achieving a proper balance between its people and the military. To Haushofer, following Friedrich Nietzsche, war represented the greatest test of a nation’s right to exist. It was a struggle to achieve living space. War was the ultimate arbiter of international relations. Not only had the Japanese proven themselves in war, defeating China and Russia, but they had also annexed Korea, thereby securing Lebensraum. In his books, lectures, and journal articles, Haushofer constantly defended the Japanese race.335 By World War I he had attained the rank of General and commanded a brigade on the western front. During World War I, Haushofer distinguished himself as a military commander on both the eastern and western fronts. Yet he spent much time contemplating the political aspects of war. He came to the conclusion that Germany should have been allied with Russia and Japan, as “three great peoples of the future” who could break the “stranglehold of 334

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Spang, Christian W. Karl Haushofer und Japan. Die Rezeption seiner geopolitischen Theorien in der deutschen und japanischen Politik [Karl Haushofer and Japan. The reception of his geopolitical theories in German and Japanese politics]. Munich: Iudicium, 2013. 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. Routledge, 2006, pp. 139–157.

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the Anglo-Saxons” For Haushofer, America, with its soulless materialist and capitalist ethos, was the great enemy standing in Germany’s way. He became disillusioned after Germany’s loss and severe sanctioning, retiring with the rank of Major General in 1919. At this time, he forged a friendship with the young Rudolf Hess who would become his scientific assistant. With Germany’s defeat, Haushofer fled into academia. On the strength of his writings on the Far East, he was made an associate professor (Honorarprofessor) at the University of Munich. He now worked on developing the discipline of geopolitics (Geopolitik). Drawing on the works of Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellén, he insisted that states were not static entities, bound by a given geography. Rather, they were living organisms that grew or contracted, depending on how they wielded “spatial dynamics of power.” For Haushofer, geopolitics demanded an all-encompassing, interdisciplinary analysis that fit the discipline’s dynamic subject matter. It was to draw on a wide variety of fields including biology, geography, history, law, and zoology.336 Some have charged Haushofer with being involved with the occult. Louis Pauwels, in his book Monsieur Gurdjieff, describes Haushofer as a former student of George Gurdjieff.337 Others, including Pauwels, said that Haushofer created the Vril Society338 and that he was a secret member of the Thule Society. 339 Haushofer actually had difficulty defining his discipline. In 1935, he spoke of geopolitik as “the duty to safeguard the right to the soil, to the land 336

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Murphy, David Thomas, The Heroic Earth: Geopolitical Thought in Weimar Germany, 1918–1933. Kent State University Press, 1997. George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c.1866—1949) was a philosopher, mystic, and spiritual teacher. He was of Armenian and Greek nationbality. Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic “waking sleep”, but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline “The Work. According to his instructions, Gurdjieff's method for awakening one's consciousness unites the methods of the fakir, monk, and yogi, and is referred to it as the “Fourth Way.” The Vril Society believed to have come from an ancient Aryan race and had the belief that the New World Order was unavoidable. It included a secret group of women who claimed to have kept their hair long in order to act as an antenna to telepathically channel communication with other alien races. The Vril Society, along with the alien race, the ‘Vrillerinnens’, were alleged to have helped the Nazi Party in various ways, including technology. The Thule Society was a German occultist and Völkisch group founded in Munich shortly after World War I. It was named after the mythical northern country first named in ancient Greek legend. The society is notable principally as an elitist organization which assisted the Nazi Party with money and philosophy. See Pauwels, Louis and Jacques Bergier. The Morning of the Magicians. Avon Books, 1973.

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in the widest sense, not only the land within the frontiers of the Reich, but the right to the more extensive Volk and cultural lands.” One of his clearer definitions defined it as follows: Geopolitics is the science of the earth relationships of political processes. It is based on the broad foundations of geography, especially on political geography, which is the science of the political organisms in space and their structure. Moreover, geopolitics sets out to furnish the tools for political actions and the directives for political life as a whole. Thus geopolitics becomes an art; namely, the art of guiding practical politics. Geopolitics is the geographic science of the state.340

It was in 1919 that Haushofer first became acquainted with Rudolf Hess. The two men developed an intense teacher-student relationship, based on their common war experiences as well as their political views. Haushofer believed that the Versailles Treaty should be overturned because it was stifling German progress. Haushofer followed Hess in joining Epp’s Free Corps Oberland.341 Through Hess, he also met Hitler, following the failed Beer Hall Putsch. Haushofer visited Hess and met Hitler as the two men were cellmates in Landsberg Prison. However, the time that Haushofer spent with Hitler was quite limited.342 Haushofer’s professorship at the University of Munich served him well as a platform for disseminating his geopolitical ideas, which he did through journal articles, and books. In 1922, he founded the Institute of Geopolitics in Munich, from which he proceeded to publicize geopolitical ideas. By 1924, he had successfully established himself as the leader of the German school of geopolitik. Haushofer’s Munich school specifically studied geography as it related to war and designs for empire. Haushofer created the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Journal of Geopolitics) which was devoted to his vision of geopolitik. His ideas would reach a wider audience with the publication of Volk ohne Raum (People without Space) 340

Quoted in Walsh, op. cit., p. 48. Rudolf von Sebottendorf, president of ultra-patriotic Thule Society, founded the Freikorps in April 1919 and the next month engaged in battle against the Bavarian Soviet republic. Parts of the Freikorps fought in 1920 in the occupation of the Ruhr. Freikorps also fought against Communist and Polish insurgents and was successful in the 1921 Battle of Annaberg. Members of the Freikorps became the core of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) in Bavaria. Franz Xaver Ritter von Epp (1868-1946) was an officer in the German Army who rose to the office of Reichsstatthalter of Bavaria under the Nazis. 342 Heske, Henning, “Karl Haushofer: His Role in German Politics and in Nazi Politics,” Political Geography, 6 (1987), pp. 135–144. 341

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authored by Hans Grimm in 1926.343 That work popularized Haushofer’s concept of Lebensraum. Haushofer exercised influence both through his academic teachings, urging his students to think in terms of continents and emphasizing motion in international politics, and through his political activities. While Hitler’s speeches would attract the masses, Haushofer’s works were useful in recruiting the intellectual community. Haushofer used previous geopoliticians, converting their ideas into a dynamic normative doctrine for action on Lebensraum.344 In Munich, Haushofer promoted the academic discipline geopolitics, publishing many books and articles. In addition to his lectures at the university, he was a frequent radio commentator, speaking on behalf of various right-wing and ultra-patriotic organizations, particularly those devoted to promoting the interests of Germans now living beyond German borders. He built new institutions to propagate his work. He co-founded the German Academy, modeled on the Alliance Françoise popularize German ideals and philosophies beyond the nation’s borders. Haushofer also cofounded the Journal of Geopolitics (Zeitschrift für Geopolitik), an important academic journal dedicated to developing the science of geopolitics. Hitler’s ascension to power should have enhanced Haushofer’s influence, but, as it was, the opposite was true. After 1933, the Nazis distanced themselves from Haushofer because of his wife’s Jewish origins, and their two children, Albrecht and Heinz, whom the Nazis regarded as half-breeds. Haushofer refused to divorce his wife and leaned on Hess to secure exceptions to the regime’s anti-Semitic legislation for his family. The racial laws gradually removed him from the very organizations which he had helped to create and build up. Because of his intimacy with Japanese leaders and customers, the Hitler regime found it expedient to have Haushofer broker a diplomatic agreement with Japan. Perhaps because of his strong positive reputation in the West, he played a role in the 1938 Munich Conference. With the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, it appeared that Hitler was forging the German-Russian-Italian Japanese transcontinental Eurasian block that Haushofer had long advocated in various writings and speeches. It had long been Haushofer’s desire to create a transcontinental 343

344

Hans Grimm (1875--1959) was a German writer. The title of his 1926 novel Volk ohne Raum [People without space] became a political goal of the expansionist Nazi Lebensraum concept. Natter, W., “Geopolitics in Germany, 1919-1945: Karl Haushofer and the Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik,” in Agnew, J. et al., eds. The Companion to Political Geography. Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 187-203. See also Dorpalen, Andreas. The World of General Haushofer. Farrar & Rinehart, 1984, p. 54.

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bloc which would extend from the Rhine River to the Yangtze River. It would be a huge cooperative based upon collaboration among Germany, Japan, Russia, and China. Haushofer asserted that this bloc would eventually fall under rather complete German leadership due to the superior German mind’s ability to peacefully penetrate the minds of the other partners.345 The idea was sufficiently interesting to attract other German scholars and academics. Generally, the German Army’s hierarchy adopted Haushofer’s idea; Hitler did not. Soon, however, it was clear that Haushofer’s scheme was merely a temporary expedient for Hitler.346 In May 1941, Hess made his ill-fated flight to broker a German-British peace. Haushofer, who met with Hess several times in spring 1941, most probably encouraged this mission because he believed that Germany should see Lebensraum through global, not continental, expansion. Once his protector was gone, Haushofer had to deal ever more carefully around the antisemitic Nazis. His son Albrecht, also an accomplished geopolitician, held a position in the Foreign Office in Berlin. Released, Karl Haushofer returned to his Bavarian country house. He and his wife were unable to accept their condition after the war, including Albrecht’s death, and the utter destruction of their homeland. They committed joint suicide by taking poison in March 1946, choosing to be interred in unmarked graves. Much of the relevant historiography has largely overlooked the role of Karl Haushofer as a cultural-political actor in National Socialist-Fascist relations. From 1924 to 1944, the German geopolitician dealt extensively with Italy, with an eye to both its geopolitical role in Europe and to the political system of Benito Mussolini’s regime. On behalf of Rudolf Hess, he began visiting Italy during the 1930s, aiming to overcome ideological and political misunderstandings between Rome and Berlin. He established a network of contacts with Italian scholars and politicians, passed information back to the so-called deputy Führer, and attempted to influence official German policy toward Italy. He eventually promoted the development of an Italian geopolitics, and, in so doing, achieved one of the most significant

Weigert, Hans W., “Mackinder's Heartland,” American Scholar, 15: 1 (1945-46), pp. 43-54 at 44. 346 Hipler, Bruno. Hitlers Lehrmeister. Karl Haushofer als Vater der NS-ldeologie [Hitler’s Teacher. Karl Haushofer as the father of Nazi ideology]. St. Ottilien, EOS Verlag, 1996. 345

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cultural-political transfers from National Socialist Germany to fascist Italy.347

Basic Concepts of Haushofer’s Geopolitik German geopolitik adopted an essentialist outlook toward the national interest, oversimplifying issues and representing itself as a panacea. As a new and essentialist ideology, geopolitik found itself in a position to prey upon the post-World War I insecurity of the populace.348 To understand geopolitik one must comprehend the use and meaning of five terms: an organic state, pan-regions, Lebensraum, autarky, and the dichotomy between land and sea power. The theories contributed five ideas to German foreign policy in the interwar period.349 The organic state theory holds that states are more powerful than individuals. It advocates for a spirit of political collectivism because, as an organism, the state determines the outcomes of its organs, which are the people. In essence, a state is born, grows, matures, develops a unique life all its own, interacts with other organic states, occasionally clashes with other states, and eventually dies. Exactly how far the organic analogy is carried depends upon the particular advocate. With some, it is a literal truth, that the state is a living organism. The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) showed a giant (the Great Leviathan) on its front piece. Made up of humans in the same way a human body is composed of cells. The logical conclusions from the organic theory include superiority and importance of the state over the individual, and the necessity of growing by expanding its territory. Haushofer advocated the organic or anthropomorphized conception of the state, which had a need for self-sufficiency and thorough top-down organization of society. The origin of Haushofer’s uniquely German geopolitik rests in the writings of Karl Ritter who first developed the modern organic conception of the state which Friedrich Ratzel expanded and Haushofer accepted. Carl Ritter (1779– 1859) was a German geographer who, with Alexander von Bassoni, Nicola, “Karl Haushofer as a ‘Pioneer’ of National Socialist Cultural Diplomacy in Fascist Italy,” Published online by Cambridge University Press, 25 September 2019 348 Mattern, Johannes. Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942, p. 32. 349 Ebeling, Frank. Geopolitik: Karl Haushofer Und Seine Raumwissenschaft 1919-1945 [Geopolitics: Karl Haushofer and his Space Science 1919-1945]. (1995). Walter de Gruyter reprint, 2018. 347

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Humboldt (1769-1859), he is considered one of the founders of geography as a modern science. From 1825 until his death, he occupied the first chair in geography at the University of Berlin. Ritter’s 21 volume magnum opus, Erdkunde im Verhältnis zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen oder allgemeine, vergleichende Geographie, als sichere Grundlage des Studiums und Unterricts in physicalischen und historischen Wissenschaften350, is one of the most extensive works of geographical literature to have been written by a single author. Its main attention is directed at the interrelationships of organic life with geography and history. Part of Ritter’s approach to geography was the identification of the relationship between the variables at stake. He was particularly interested in the development of these relationships over time and how their constituent components, namely animals and the earth, contributed to this evolution. He borrowed the concept of “organic unity” used by Alexander von Humboldt. Ritter investigated the peculiarities of each locality, remembering to reflect the impact of organic life, mainly humans, on that locality.351 Haushofer justified Lebensraum because conquest was a biological necessity for a state’s growth.352 The State can be seen as organic structures under the organic perspective. The State can be shaped as an organic unit with well-defined duties within the organic society. It is to provide the necessary conditions to all organic units to fulfill their tasks. It is to intervene when required to solve an issue that prevents any given organic units from fulfilling their tasks or interacting freely and fairly. The principal duty of the organic state should be to ensure that the whole system operates properly. It should act as the general coordination unit making certain that all other units perform well.353 The metaphysical concept of the organic state assumes that all components are inexorably tied together and that they all grow together into one body which then grow into a new unified organic being. He argued that every nation has its own subjective geographical consciousness. Moreover, he asserted, 350

Trans-Erdography in Relation to Nature and Human History or General, Comparative Geography, as a Secure Basis for Study and Teaching in Physical and Historical Scientific Fields. Usually offered in English as Geography in Relation to Nature and the History of Mankind, published between 1816 and 1859. 351 Beck, Hanno. Carl Ritter Genius of Geography: On his Life and Work. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. 1979, pp. 75–113; and Kramer, Fritz L. (1959) “A Note on Carl Ritter,” Geographical Review, 49 (1959), pp. 406–409. See also G. R. G. Mure, “The Organic State,” Philosophy, 24: 90 (1949), pp. 205-18. 352 Walsh, op. cit., p. 39. 353 Mure, G. R. G., “The Organic State,” Philosophy, 24: 90 (1949), pp. 205-18. See also “The Organic Nature of the State,” https://www.politicalscienceview.com/the-organic-natureof-the-state/. Political Science Dictionary, 4 May 2019.

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“geopolitics shall and must become the geographic conscience of the state.” As the conscience of a particular nation, Haushofer’s geopolitics is not a standard for all nations,354 Haushofer championed a form of geopolitics that formulates a scientific foundation for the art of political transactions in the struggle for the existence of political living states within the living space which is available on the planet.355 This theory is based upon political geography as an exposition of spatial organisms and their structure. Haushofer intended that it bridge the gap that exists between theory and practical power politics. He intended that this version of geopolitics would become one of the bases of the conscience of the state.356 Lebensraum literally means living space. It has become vitally interconnected with German territorial expansion. It comprises policies and practices of settler colonialism which proliferated in Germany from the 1890s through the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, Lebensraum became a goal of Imperial Germany in the First World War. Critics saw it as a disguised form of colonialist imperialism. It was vitally interconnected with the assertion that mini-states and weak nations had no right to have an independent existence. Lebensraum represented a new approach to colonial imperialism.357 The existence of a state depended on living space, the pursuit of which must serve as the basis for all policies. Germany had a higher population density than did the older colonial powers. That became a virtual mandate for German expansion into resources-rich areas.358 Lebensraum also provides necessary space allowing for depth of national defense. The existence of a state depends upon living space, the pursuit of which goal must serve as the basis for all national policies. Haushofer saw space as a form of military protection against initial assaults from hostile neighbors with long-range weaponry. A buffer zone of territories or insignificant states on one’s borders would serve to protect Germany.359 He held the opinion that urbanization was a symptom of a 354

Haushofer, Karl et al. Bausteine zur Geopolitik [Building Blocks for Geopolitics]. Berlin: Vowinckel, 1928, p. 27. 355 See Ebeling, Frank. Geopolitik: Karl Haushofer Und Seine Raumwissenschaft 1919-1945 [Geopolitics: Karl Haushofer and his Space Science 1919-1945]. (1995). Walter de Gruyter reprint, 2018. 356 Haushofer, Karl. Geopolitik des Pazifschen Ozeans [Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean]. Berlin: Grunewald, 1924, p. 1. 357 Fettweis, C. J., “Revisiting MacKinder and Angell: The Obsolescence of Great Power Geopolitics,” Comparative Strategy, 22, (2003), pp.1009-29. 358 Dorpalen, op. cit., pp. 38-39. 359 Dorpalen, op. cit., pp. 94–95.

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national decline, evidencing a decreasing soil mastery, birthrate and effectiveness of centralized rule.360 He explained Lebensraum: Das hochste Gut des Mannes ist sein Volk.361 An American commentator offered this insight: Literally translated, Lebensraum means “living space,” and when interpreted by anyone in Germany, it is taken to indicate all that is necessary for guaranteeing the life and development of the German people – physically, politically, and economically. It embraces all kinds of issues based upon prestige, historical, and geographical considerations.362

Beginning with autarky as conceived by Ratzel, Haushofer asserted that expansionary states would invariably adopt an imperialistic world view and would link colonial control of other countries or regions to the cause of empire.363 The most extreme form of this ideology was supported by the Nazi Party and was one of the leading motivations, Nazi Germany had in initiating the Second World War and would continue this policy until the end of World War II. States may acquire living space by colonization, aggression, and reclamation. Some of Haushofer’s interpreters have asserted that he envisioned a future in which Germany would expand its conception of Lebensraum and autarky beyond the nation’s borders of 1914 and on to “a place in the sun” and eventually to a New European Order, then onward to a New Afro-European Order, and perhaps one day to a Eurasian Order.364 Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency found in societies, communities, states and their associated economic systems. Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements. Some nationalists have promoted autarky in line with protectionist policies which are designed to ensure a reliable supply of critical goods and eliminate dependencies for goods on other nations. In seeking autarky, states may acquire colonies which will 360

Ibid., p. 78. “Man's highest good is his people” in Karl Haushofer’s “Pflicht und Anspruch der Geopolitik als Wissenschaft [Duty and claim of geopolitics as a science],” Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik, 12 (1935), p. 448. 362 Kruczewski, Charles, “Germany's Lebensraum,” American Political Science Review, 34 (1940), pp. 964-75. 363 Cahnman, W. J. “The Concept of Raum and the Theory of Regionalism,” American Sociological Review, 9: 5 (1944), pp. 455-462. See also DeBlij, H. J. & Muller, P. O. Concepts and Regions in Geography. John Wiley, 2003. 364 Mattern, op. cit., 17. 361

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supply necessary raw materials which are missing in the homeland. It is essentially the opposite state policy from liberal free trade with its emphasis on comparative and absolute advantages. Haushofer concluded that Germany must practice autarky because of his quasi-Malthusian assumption that the earth would become overpopulated and no longer able to provide food for all its inhabitants.365 Haushofer understood of autarky as a form of tariff protectionism which would be supportive of a colonial system. He also believed that any state would depend on adequate living space and that over time, the earth would not be able to support all the various peoples that it contained. Consequently, autarky would increasingly come to represent a system in which a country used its economic power to protect itself from others by imposing tariffs on them. Haushofer’s version of autarky was based on the quasi-Malthusian assumption that the earth would become saturated with people and no longer able to provide food for all. There would essentially be no increases in productivity.366 Thus autarky became a new name of, and slightly novel approach to, limiting imports, something that import tariffs had attempted to accomplish against integral liberal free trade.367 A pan-region is a geographic region or state’s sphere of economic, political and cultural influence extending beyond that state’s borders. Haushofer was the originator of the idea of pan-regions or spheres of economic and cultural influence. The concept of pan-regions contributed to the formulation of German foreign policy during the interwar period (1918– 1939). Haushofer’s conception of pan-regions saw the world divided into three supreme leading states in terms of their economies, politics and cultures. Presently, international relations experts speak only of spheres of influence. Pan-regionalism is related to the previously discussed notion of Lebensraum, that small and weak nations can exist only within the sphere of influence of a larger and much more powerful nation.368 At least one of Haushofer’s interpreters claim that he developed the concept of pan-region from the American Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, and the idea of national and continental self-sufficiency.369 Perhaps 365

Dorpalen, op. cit., p. 231. Dorpalen, op. cit., p. 231, 235-36. 367 Evans D. “Autarky,” The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. See also Deardorff, A. V., “The General Validity of the Law of Comparative Advantage,” Journal of Political Economy, 88 (1980) , pp. 941–957. 368 Spykman, Nicholas, “Geography and Foreign Policy,” American Political Science Review, 32: 1 (1938), pp. 28-50. 369 Mattern, op. cit., p. 39. 366

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the best example of pan-regionalism would be the Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere (GEACPS), which was an imperialist concept which was developed in the Empire of Japan and propagated to Asian populations which were occupied by it from 1931 to 1945. It extended across the AsiaPacific and promoted the cultural and economic unity of East Asians, Southeast Asians, South Asians and Oceanians.370 Japan intended the GEACPS to be its pan-regional self-sufficient bloc of Asian nations, existing under the Japanese and free from the rule of Western interference.371 Haushofer supported this notion strongly based on his knowledge of Japan, for Japan was acting in accordance with the recommendations he had made in his book Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean.372 While American geopolitical thought tends to divide the world up morally into the Democratic nations and Evil states, German and Russian geopoliticians tend to strategize geographically in terms of Land powers versus sea powers. This dichotomy leads to endless paradoxes. Russian grand strategy has traditionally been obsessed with making the country less of a land power by obtaining seaports. In contrast, the British have held a strategically nautical foreign policy. In many Western minds, land powers are seen as militarist, and threatening, beginning in antiquity with Sparta. In contrast, sea powers are the preferable powers and reliable allies, beginning with classical Athens. Usually possessed of natural defenses, isolation because of the sea’s protection, and the charm of distance, sea powers generally did not require enormous conscript armies, martial discipline, and centralized economic control. Thus sea-powers tended to be democratic and protective of human rights whereas land powers trended to be authoritarian and organic states, with social systems which supported serfdom and slavery. Sea powers have the privilege of projecting violence wherever they please and then sailing off, secure in the knowledge that they will not be followed 370

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Fisher, Charles A., “The Expansion of Japan: A Study in Oriental Politics. The Great East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere,” The Geographical Journal, 115: 5/6 (1950), pp. 179-93. Fisher, Charles A., “The Expansion of Japan: A Study in Oriental Geopolitics: Part II. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” Geographical Journal, 115: 4/6 (1950), pp. 179–193. See also Yellen, Jeremy A. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War. Cornell University Press, 2019. Weigert, H. W., “Haushofer and the Pacific,” Foreign Affairs, 20: 4 (1942), pp. 332-342. See Das Japanische Reich in seiner geographischen Entwicklung [The Japanese Empire in its geographical development]. Wien: L.W. Seidel & sohn, 1921. Available as English Translation and Analysis of Major General Karl Ernst Haushofer's Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean: Studies on the Relationship between Geography and History. Edited by Lewis A. Tambs; translated by Ernst J. Brehm. Studies in Geography, number 7. Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. See also Spang, Christian W. and Rolf-Harold Wippich, JapaneseGerman Relations, 1895-1945: War, Diplomacy and Public Opinion. Routledge, 2006.

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and invaded. Land powers must learn to live with their neighbors, certain that they will not disappear. Haushofer viewed national borders as barriers between peoples. Borders were political, not natural, creations which were useful only so long as both powers sustained them. Political borders were artificial displacements of races or ethnicities. Borders must be fluid and determined by the will or needs of ethnic/racial groups and not politicians. Few borders were the result of natural geographical separations, excepting only those created by bodies of water. Borders must never interrupt key geographic territories exhibiting the same thoughts and philosophies. Haushofer always emphasized space over race, believing in environmental, rather than racial, determinism. This is at the very essence of the science of geography. He refused to associate himself with anti-Semitism as a national policy, if only because his wife was half-Jewish.

Geostrategy Haushofer was among the first geopoliticians to dabble in geostrategy which is a branch of geopolitics that deals with strategy. It may also be considered as a combination of geopolitical and strategy. Government practicing strategy based on geopolitics may be said to engage in geostrategy.373 As a subfield of geopolitics, geostrategy underwrites a type of foreign policy which is guided principally by geographical factors as they interact, constrain, or affect political and military planning. Geopolitics is the study of the effects of geography, and especially economic geography, on international politics while geostrategy is the strategic use of geopolitics. As with all strategies, geostrategy is concerned with matching means to ends. Geostrategy as a political science is both descriptive and analytical like political geography but adds a normative element in its strategic prescriptions for national policy. While some of Haushofer’s ideas stem from earlier American and British geostrategic thinkers, German geostrategy adopted an essentialist outlook toward the national interest, oversimplifying issues and representing itself as a panacea. As a new and essentialist

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“Geostrategy,” in Merrian-Webster Dictionary. See also Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press: “Strategy: the science and art of employing the political, economic, psychological, and military forces of a nation or group of nations to afford the maximum support to adopted policies in peace and war.”

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ideology, geopolitik found itself in a position to prey upon the post-World War I insecurity of the populace.374 General Haushofer saw the need to develop a sub-field of geopolitics which would focus on influencing foreign policy. Thus, he helped to create geostrategy to allow for such specialization. Geostrategy examines the dramatic effects wrought by ideological, economic, socio-cultural and demographic changes in the context of their human and physical settings, and it explores their geographical influence on foreign policy and international relations. Geopolitics and geostrategy focus on political and military power linked to geographic space. They plan or predict international political behavior through variables such climate, topography, demography, natural resources, and regional technology. Geostrategy would also be useful in investigating the impact of energy issues in geopolitics. In Haushofer’s view, geostrategy must be derived from a sensitive understanding as to which historic and geographic determinants have shaped, and are still shaping, the conduct of key states, notably Russia, United States, Great Britain, and Japan. A concrete example of geostrategy dictating action can be found in Germany’s foreign policy regarding its eastern border. Haushofer taught that if Germany could control Eastern Europe, and subsequently Russian territory, it could control a strategic area to which hostile sea power could be denied and Germany would be secure.375 Should Germany choose to enter into a substantial diplomatic arrangement with Italy and Japan it would further enhance German strategic control of Eurasia, with those states developing naval power could protect Germany’s insular position.376

Albrecht Haushofer Albert Haushofer had grave reservations about the intentions of the Nazi party following its rise to power in the 1930s, but he nonetheless consented to represent it in foreign affairs, having spent significant time abroad as a geopolitics student in the 1920s. Acting as the principal foreign affairs 374

Gray, Colin S.; and Geoffrey Sloan. Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999. p. 3. See also Brzezinski, Zbigniew. America's New Geostrategy. Council on Foreign Relations, 1988. 375 Mackinder, Halford J. Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction. Washington D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1942. 376 Walsh, op. cit., p. 45.

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adviser to Rudolf Hess, Albert Haushofer traveled widely promoting German foreign policy. In 1924 he graduated with his thesis “Paß- Staaten in den Alpen (Passport States in the Alps)” written under the direction of Erich von Drygalski (1865–1949). Albrecht then worked as an assistant for Albrecht Penck. He was general secretary of the Geographical Society from 1928 to 1940 and professor of political geography and geopolitics beginning in 1940. He taught in Berlin at the Hochschule für Politik and the International Sciences faculty of Friedrich Wilhelm University. Believing that Germany must not get involved in another disastrous foreign war, Albert Haushofer was a significant force in negotiating for peace with Britain and France. He wrote, “The peoples of Europe are in a position in which they have to get on together lest they all perish, and although one realizes that it is not common sense but emotional urges which govern the world, one must try to control such urges.” Initially he became a close friend of one of his father’s finest students, Rudolf Hess. Hess had written a prize-winning essay entitled “How Must the Man be Constructed who will lead Germany back to her Old Heights? “Included in Hess’s essay was this passage: “When necessity commands, he does not shrink from bloodshed…. In order to reach his goal, he is prepared to trample on his closest friends.” In 1931, Hess asked Albrecht Haushofer to become his advisor on foreign affairs. Albrecht accepted the position but refused to become actively involved in the Nazi Party. He believed that it was vitally important that Germany avoided becoming involved in a European war. He wrote: “The peoples of Europe are in a position in which they have to get on together lest they all perish; and although one realizes that it is not commonsense but emotional urges which govern the world, one must try to control such urges.” While both Hess and Albrecht wanted to avoid a war with Great Britain, Hess was unwilling to break with Hitler to prevent that catastrophic war and the friendship weakened. At this time Hess had to intervene on Albrecht’s behalf since his mother was half-Jewish. Albrecht attended the Olympic Games in Berlin in August 1936 and, largely because of his father’s academic reputation, was able to make personal contact with several members of the British House of Commons, including Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, Kenneth Lindsay and Jim Wedderburn. Albrecht, in turn, introduced the MPs to various German officials, including Herman Gőring, Erhard Milch of the Luftwaffe, and Rudolf Hess. In April 1938, Albrecht traveled to Great Britain and stayed

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with Douglas-Hamilton, who attempted to arrange for Albrecht to meet with Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, but was not successful.377 As Hitler’s plan to go to war became ever more paramount, Haushofer voiced his opposition and therefore lost his position with the government. He returned to Germany but remained active in secret talks to persuade the British to accept a new peace agreement, which Rudolf Hess tried unsuccessfully to deliver. Beginning in the late 1930s, Albrecht Haushofer contacted two important German resistance circles. Following the outbreak of World War II, he sided with the conservative political faction which the Prussian finance minister Johannes Popitz (1884-1945) led.378 Following his father’s lead, Albrecht discarded the borderline difference some scholars had established between political geography and geopolitics in his book Allegemeine Politische Geographie (General Political Geography) (1926).379 The father and son dismissed the objections of many, scoffing at the attempted divorce of terms as superfluous and the war over how to establish the difference between the two terms as a waste of time which could not possibly bear fruit.380 In that book young Haushofer also published his realization that the more geopolitics sought to become the geographic conscience of the state, as his father had suggested, the more it became subservient to the political agenda of the prevailing politicians.381 During the Second World War, Albert Haushofer retained his position at the University of Berlin, but began associating with elements of the German resistance. Initially, he opposed making any attempt on Hitler’s life, but finally agreed to join the July plot. Albrecht was an active representative of the small conservative resistance in Germany during World War II. With the failure of the assassination attempt, the Gestapo arrested him. Reportedly, friends of Albrecht Haushofer approached his father, asking him to use his influence to secure his son released from prison. Allegedly, the elder Haushofer replied: “Why should I do that? He has betrayed his country and his people and deserves no help from me.” On 23 April 1945, in Nazi

Simkin, John, “Albrecht Haushofer and the Secret Peace Talks,” Political Conspiracies, 6 September 2007, https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/10902-albrecht-haushofer-an d-the-secret-peace-talks/. 378 “Albrecht Haushofer,” in Wikipedia. 379 Haushofer, Albrecht. Allegemeine Politische Geographie [General Political Geography]. Heidelberg: Vowinckel, 1926 380 “Albrecht Haushofer,” https://culture.fandom.com/wiki/Albrecht_Haushofer. His biography in German is posted on the website of Deutsches Historisches Museum. See also, “Albrect Haushofer,” in Prabook, 381 Haushofer, Albrecht, Allegeime, p. 19. 377

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Germany’s Berlin-Moabit prison, the SS executed Albrecht Haushofer for his part in the July 20 assassination plot.382

382

Owocki, Sarah, “1945: Albrecht Haushofer, German Resistance Intellectual,” Executed Today, 23 April 2008.

Chapter 9

Geopolitics in France Modern French political geography began as a response to Ratzel’s Politische Geographie and then became an attempt to place Ratzelian ideas into the context of French geographical thought. The science which emerged was a distinctly French approach to political geography which existed in direct opposition to German geopolitics. There were some geographers who felt that a more effective response could be made by developing indigenous French geopolitics. This can be seen as being the origin of the alternative geopolitics which was favored by some American geographers during and after World War II and which subsequently became an important underlying theme in the new geopolitics which arose in the 1970s. The concept of an alternative geopolitics has owed a great deal to the French school of geography and has its roots in the original response of Vidal de la Blache to Ratzel.383 Even before they had time to realize where German geopolitics was headed, French geographers made a radical turn away from taking account of political events, but without explicitly acknowledging this to be the case. From 1917 onward the leader of the French geographers was Emmanuel de Martonne, a professor at the Sorbonne and son-in-law of Vidal de La Blache. Martonne had a major role in making the Treaty of Versailles.384 The utter failure of, and enormous injustice written into, the Treaty of Versailles did much to discredit geopolitics as a science in France during the interwar period. French geographers had reacted to German Geopolitik by making attempts to examine France’s role as a great power following World War I. These scholars took two major approaches to answering that question. One Parker, Geoffrey, “Ratzel, the French School and the birth of Alternative Geopolitics,” Political Geography, 19: 8 (2000), pp. 957-69. See also Vidal De La Blache, Paul. “La géographie politique à propos des écrits de Frédéric Ratzel [Political geography about the writings of Frédéric Ratzel].” Annales de géographie, 7 (1898), pp. 97-111. 384 Lowczyk, Olivier. La Fabrique de la Paix: Du comité d’études à la conférence de la paix— L’élaboration par la France des traités de la Première Guerre mondiale [The Peace Factory: Study Committee to Peace Conference—France Development of First World War Treaties]. Paris: Economica, 2010. 383

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group saw France’s future as being principally a colonial power while the other saw her as a central part of a united Europe. The idea of closer European unity in place of strife became an important theme in French geopolitical writing during the 1930s. French geopolitical thought of this period can be seen as moving along lines similar to those which led to the establishment of the European Communities after World War II. 385 Geographical scholarship in France rarely enjoyed a high international reputation in the 1930s. For example, Yves Goblet referred to geopolitics as pseudo-science. He and others dismissed geopolitics as abstract metaphysical speculation that General Karl Haushofer and other German intellectuals had devised to justify and underwrite German territorial expansionist ideas.386 Albert Denangeon also denounced it as going against the prevailing scientific method.387 As late as 1938, geographer Jacques Ancel called it German propaganda science and denounced it also as contrary to real science.388 In 1939, younger academics were conscripted, many of whom spent years in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany. Despite disruption, teaching programs and doctoral research continued, and journals and books were published. Using biographical information, this article explores the experiences of French academic geographers. Some languished in prison and others joined the Resistance or the Free French, but the majority carried on with scholarly duties as usual. There is little evidence that geographers collaborated with occupying forces or with agents of the Vichy regime.389 Following the German invasion in 1940, the country was fragmented into the occupied north and the ‘free zone’ of the south, with territorial division imposing restrictions on routine movement and fieldwork. France’s geopolitical situation can be characterized by its never-ending quest for safety, which it seems presently to have achieved. Its former Parker, Geoffrey, “French Geopolitical Thought in the Interwar Years and the Emergence of the European idea,” Political Geography Quarterly, 6: 2 (1987), pp. 145-50. See also A. Demangeon. Le déclin de l'Europe [The decline of Europe]. Paris: Payot, 1920. 386 Goblet, Yves. “Le crepuscule des traites.” Paris: Berger-Leurault, 1936, Translated into English as The Twilight of Treaties. London: Bell, 1936, p. 16. 387 Demangeon, Albert. “Geographie politique [Political geography],” in Annales de geographie, XLI, 1932, p. 24. 388 Ancel, Jacques. Géographie des frontières [Geography of borders]. Paris: Gallimard, 1938, p. 186. See also, Parker, Geoffrey, “French Geopolitical Thought in the Interwar Years and the Emergence of the European idea,” Political Geography Quarterly, 6: 2 (1987), pp. 145-50. 389 Clout, Hugh, “French Geographers during Wartime and German Occupation, 1939-1945,” Journal of Historical Geography 47 (2015), pp. 16-28. 385

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enemies are now its allies, and the United States now watches closely over all of Europe’s power evolution. Thus, unlike conditions of a century ago, there are no substantial external threats looming. This situation sets the conditions for France to embark on some much-needed internal reforms, which will no doubt encounter heavy resistance from its own population. Nationalism and socialism, both of which are deeply rooted in the French society, cannot create the conditions necessary for achieving the dream of Charles deGaulle (1890-1970) of a France which extended continental supremacy, along with the eventual ability to challenge the global superpower. 390 Some have contended that, while France once produced great geopolitical thinkers, it has retreated from that stance in more recent years. The reasons for that retreat are many, but the fact was that any Frenchman who dared to agree with Dr. Karl Haushofer was immediately suspect as a fifth columnist. Too, France has had difficulty handling the neo-liberal thought which has permeated geopolitics.391 The change in French geopolitics has come about as a result of the realization of a basic geopolitical truth. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries France had followed a course of acting as though it was a major nation which was sufficiently powerful to follow her own self-interest without regard to other nations. That course had led to folly and had achieved nothing. It shifted gears, moving toward a policy of furthering her world interests, but in cooperation with other nations, especially those with whom France shared the European continent. While it might be convenient for this book to claim that the insights and writings of some far-sighted French geopolitician led the change, it is far more likely that it came about naturally as a result of practical politics, practical necessity, and common sense.

Vidal de la Blache Paul Vidal de la Blache was born on 22 January 1845 in Tamaris-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France, a son of a professor who subsequently 390

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Young, John David, “International Relations and French Geopolitical Thinking,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Queen's University at Kingston, 1992. Profant, Tomas, “French Geopolitics in Africa: From Neocolonialism to Identity,” Perspectives, 18: 1 (2010), pp. 41-46. See also Jacques Levy, “Geopolitics after Geopolitics: A French Experience,” Geopolitics, 5: 3 (2007), pp. 99-113.

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was raised to a position as an academic administrator. Paul attended school at the Institution Favard at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, later matriculating at the École Normale Supérieure. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1863, receiving certification in history and geography in 1866. His academic prowess allowed him to study at the École française d’Athens. He took full advantage of the opportunity which allowed him to travel in Italy, Palestine, and Egypt. While in the Mediterranean area, he studied Greek archeology as well as the classical Roman civilization. Returning to France, in 1870 he married Laure Marie Elizabeth Mondont, with whom he fathered five children. Paul held several teaching positions, notably at the Lycée d’Angers and at the École Préparatoire de l’Enseignment Supérieur des Lettres et des Sciences. Vidal received his doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1872, having written his dissertation on ancient history, which he later published under the title Hérode Atticus: étude critique sur sa vie (Herod Atticus: a critical study of his life). He moved to Nancy Université, but soon returned to the École Normale Supérieure where he assumed the position as a full Professor of Geography. Vidal taught there for the next 21 years, transferring to the Université de Paris, where he continued teaching until he retired in 1909. He died on 5 April 1918, at Tamaris-sur-Mer, aged 73 years, and was buried in the Cimetierie du Montparmasse, Ile de France, Paris.392 Paul Vidal de la Blache created a place for human geography among the social sciences. He created the theory that came to be known as environmental possibilism. He quickly became the leader of the French school of geopolitics. He did not build a system in his voluminous writings. Rather, the components of his geopolitics are scattered among many journal articles and several books, in the preface to an atlas, and in a posthumously published works based on his notes. He envisioned publishing the multivolume which was finally compiled and published between 1927 and 1948. Vidal had carefully planned the scope, nature, contents, and contributors before his death. After Vidal died, Lucien Gallois, who had participated with him in the planning of the work, assumed editorial responsibility for its completion and publication.393

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“Paul Vidal de La Blache,” in Wikipedia. See also Tissier, Jean-Louis, “Vidal de La Blache,” in Jacques Julliard and Michel Winock, eds. Dictionnaire des intellectuels français [Dictionary of French Intellectuals], Paris, Seuil, 1996, p. 1156-1158. Vidal De La Blache, Paul. Géographie universelle [Universal geography]. 15 vols. Published under the direction of Lucien Gallois. Paris: Colin, 1927-1948.

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He was associated with the Annales de geographic, of which he was the founder. It was as a fine and dedicated teacher whose work and thought continued through his disciples, at least as much as through his written work, that Vidal’s influence determined a generation or more of French geographers. Vidal began his scholarly odyssey as an historian with particular specialty in ancient Graeco-Roman studies. He augmented his academic research of those areas by visiting Rome and Athens, which visits profoundly influenced his later work as a geographer. On his travels through the Mediterranean area, he reveled in the richness and complexity of landscapes which had been radically changed over the millennia by human actions. Although he was still an historian, he began to delve into the recent books of the various German geographers, naturalists, botanists, and geologists. As a Francophile, he became jealous of the significant works being churned out by the pioneering thinkers such as Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769--1859), Friedrich Ratzel, and Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834—1919). 394 From the careful study of such works, he developed the sense of a close link between human societies and their natural milieus.395 The major thrust of Vidal’s study was directed at understanding the interrelations of people’s activities with other humans and with their physical environment. That study allowed him to be recognized as the founder of French geography. In his writings, he held that the role of people is not passive, since within limits they can modify their environment to advance their own ends. Vidal demanded that geographers be trained in various natural sciences, including geology. He required that his students appreciate the necessity of understanding the major bio-climatic zones as well as the importance of ecology for geography. Vidal attained these insights gradually, adding to his basically historical outlook, his ideas underwent progressive elaboration, revision, and refinement.396 Vidal De La Blache, Paul. “La géographie politique à propos des écrits de Frédéric Ratzel [Political geography about the writings of Frédéric Ratzel].” Annales de géographie, 7 (1898), pp. 97-111. 395 Andrews, Howard F. “The Early Life of Paul Vidal de la Blache and the Makings of Modern Geography,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 11: 2 (1986), pp. 174181. 396 Vidal De La Blache, Paul, “Les genres de vie dans la géographie humaine [Lifestyles in human geography],” Annales de géographie, 20 (1911), pp. 193-212, 289-304. 394

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Vidal’s masterwork, Tableau de la Géographie de la France (Table of the Geography of France), was the major exposition of his ideas. He labored on it for a dozen years of work. In it, Vidal surveyed the entire country, taking note of everything he had observed in his innumerable notebooks. He took great interest in all human and political aspects of existence, including geology, which, at that time, was in its infancy. Scholars had yet to connect geology to the discipline of geography. Vidal studied the modes of transportation, many of them still being developed. And, like most scholars who had been trained as historians, he remained ever aware of the history of France. Vidalian geography is based on varied forms of cartography He was the first to attempt to tie together all those disciplines in a somewhat quantitative approach, using statistics and numbers but sparingly. His style was essentially narrative, even descriptive, and not far removed from guidebooks and travel manuals. In addition to being the founder of modern French human geography, he was also the founder of the French School of Geopolitics. He conceived the idea of genre de vie, which is the belief that the lifestyle of a particular region reflects the economic, social, ideological and psychological identities imprinted on the landscape. One of his more important contributions to the field of geopolitics is to be found in the preface to his Atlas (1894). Here, Vidal proclaimed that “considered in isolation, the features that go to make up the physiognomy of the countryside are significant as facts; only when they are related to the chain of events of which they are a part do they become significant as scientific ideas.” Each fact taken in isolation depends on a specialized discipline, but the totality of facts, which makes up the characteristics of a landscape, is the geographer’s field of interest par excellence. At the time when he penned that preface, he attributed primary importance to the physical elements of the landscape. Later, he altered his thinking and chose to demonstrate the role of man as a geographical factor and the perpetual play of action, reaction, and interaction between human groups and their natural milieus. Wherever there are, or have been, human societies, the landscape is not merely the product of a sequence of natural events but is also the work of men. Each successive group inhabiting a particular region has left its mark there, thus bequeathing to its successor’s new conditions of existence. Each group, with its particular habits, techniques, and social,

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economic, and psychological structures, deals in its own way with the problems set by the milieu.397 As his thought matured, Vidal recognized it absolute necessary to “go even further and to recognize that no single part of the earth has significance in and of itself” and, therefore, to find in a sequence of events “a manifestation of the general laws of the terrestrial organism.” It was in this way that Vidal defined the scope of both regional and general geography. A key phrase in Vidal’s work is “Whatever concerns man is marked by contingency.” The opportunities which exist in any given locality are to be exploited in different ways by different inhabitants. The serious geographer cannot assume that a given environment dictates a particular way of life. Rather, the dedicated scientist must consider the gradual modifications that the environment has undergone as a result of successive ways of life.398 Although he was heavily influenced by German thought, especially by the work of Friedrich Ratzel, Vidal has been linked to the term “possibilism” even though he never actually employed that term. Possibilism is a term which means that environment only limits the number of choices for the person and only humans are responsible for all their actions. Possibilism is a theory related geography which asserts that human behavior, and therefore culture, is not merely determined by the environment but by human agency. As a theory it is directly opposed to determinism.399 Possibilism tends to deny the influence of environmental factors in human’s life. Vidal asserted that environment does not completely define culture rather it only limits the number of choices, people have. By 1950, environmental Determinism was completely replaced by the Environmental Possibilism. Humans have brought changes to the environment by increasing its capacity to meet his largely increased needs and demands. The most visible and common examples in this regard are the Industrial Revolution and the Agricultural Advancement Technological revolution.400 Vidal’s possibilism sums up conveniently his opposition to the German school of geopolitics which stressed some degree of determinism. Indeed, at the time, nearly all geopolitical writers defended the concept of possibilism. The latter had been used by historians, as well as geographers, to evoke the Vidal De La Blache, Paul, “Les conditions géographiques des faits sociaux [The geographical conditions of social facts],” Annales de géographie” 11 (1902), pp. 13-23. 398 Monbeig, Pierre, “Vidal De La Blache, Paul,” Encyclopedia.com. 399 “Possibilism,” in The Free Dictionary. See also “Possibilism.” in Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. 400 Stadler, Reuel R. and Hanks, Stephen J. Encyclopedia of Geography Terms, Themes, and Concepts. Santa Barbara, CA.: ABC-CLIO. 2011, pp. 262–263. 397

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epistemological fuzziness which they insisted characterized Vidal’s school. They tended to describe Vidal’s approach as “idiographic,” an approach which precluded the evolution of the discipline in a “nomothetic” direction that would be the result of experimentation, making it possible to unlock laws or make scientific demonstrations.401 Vidal published an important article on the regions of France in 1910, an item which the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand had requested. In it, Vidal had attempted to create some regional groupings with representative organs. He proposed to cut France into regions with each organized around some central metropolitan area. The economic realities of the modern world, with worldwide competition and the shrinking of the planet due to accelerated communications, made him think that less centralized, less static modes of organization ought to be promoted. For over 30 years Vidal de la Blache meditated on the problem of the eastern frontier of France. His article included several memorable concepts, including “landscapes” (paysages), “settings” (milieux), “regions”, “lifeways” (genres de vie), and “density”.402 Vidal had founded the French school of geography with emphasis upon geopolitics. Together with Marcel Dubois and Lucien Gallois, he created the journal the Annales de Géographie in 1893, of which he was the editor until his death. Annales de Géographie became the most influential French academic journal which promoted the concept of human geography as the study of man and his relationship to his environment.403 Those of his former students who were bound to a particular aspect of the master’s thought were unable to deal with complexity and growth in academic literature and ideas, and, as a consequence, Vidal’s importance in the discipline shrank. An immutable triad imposed itself on research and university studies: physical geography (Martonne, Baulig), regional geography (Blanchard, Cholley), and human geography (Brunhes, Demangeon, Sorre); in descending order of frequency and importance

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Preston E. James; and Geoffrey J. Martin. All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas, 2nd ed. Odyssey, 1981, p. 194. See also Paul L. Knox; and Sallie A. Marston. Human Geography: Places and Regions in Global Context. Prentice-Hall, 2003, p. 181. 402 Vidal De La Blache, Paul, “Les régions françaises [The French regions].” Revue de Paris, 16 (1910), pp. 821-849. See also Vidal, “Les genres de vie dans la géographie humaine [Lifestyles in human geography],” Annales de géographie, 20 (1911), pp. 193-212, 289304. 403 Vidal De La Blache, Paul, “Le principe de la géographie générale [The principle of general geography],” Annales de géographie, 5 (1896), pp. 129-142.

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geomorphology, then rural geography, regional geography, and finally tropical geography.404 His pupil Albert Demangeon was heavily influenced by Vidal’s emphasis on the importance of historical influences in the study of geography and went on the become France’s leading French academic in the field of human geography. In January 1915 Vidal and Demangeon helped the French Army’s general staff to establish the Geographical Commission. Eventually, that commission employed six geographers, Albert Demangeon, Lucien Gallois, Emmanuel de Martonne, Emmanuel de Margerie, Louis Raveneau and Paul Vidal. Antoine Vacher also contributed intermittently to the work of the Commission. Each of these scholars as students presented a dissertation on regional geography. Demangeon, wrote La plaine picarde: Picardie. Artois Cambrésis. Beauvaisis authored Étude de géographie sur les plaines de craie de la France du Nord de la France (The Picardy plain: Picardy. Artois Cambrésis. Beauvaisis authored Geography study on the chalk plains of the France of northern France) (1905); Blanchard produced La Flandre. Étude géographique de la plaine flamande en France. Belgique. Hollande (Flanders. Geographical study of the Flemish plain in France. Belgium. Holland) (1906); Cholley penned Les préalpes de Savoie (Genevois/Bauges) et leur avant-pays: étude de géographie régionale (The pre-Alps of Savoy (Genevois/Bauges) and their foreland: study of regional geography) (1925); Baulig’s dissertation was Le plateau central et sa bordure méditerranéenne: étude morphologique (The central plateau and its Mediterranean border: morphological study) (1928); geography. He held that the role of people is not passive, since within limits they can modify their environment to advance their own ends.405

Albert Demangeon Albert Demangeon was born on 13 June 1872 in Cormeilles, Eure, France, to lower middle-class parents. Albert was an outstanding student and won admission to the École Normale Supérieure in 1892. There he became interested in geography and in the teachings of Paul Vidal de La Blache. He graduated in geography in 1895 and became a teacher in a secondary school.

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“Paul Vidal De La Blache,” in Wikipedia. Berdoulay, Vincent, et al. “Vidal de La Blache,” in Jacques Lévy, et al., eds. Dictionnaire de la géographie et de l’espace des sociétés, Paris: Belin, 2003, pp. 981-987.

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He later was employed in the École Normale Supérieure preparing students for the Agrégation. Demangeon was a prolific author whose pre-war work focused on physical regional geography. As he matured, he wrote on larger topics including several volumes of the Géographie Universell in which he collaborated with Paul Vidal de La Blache and Lucien Gallois. As a student of human geography, he studied such current issues as colonialism, globalization, the economics of the depression, and German territorial ambitions vis a vis France.406 While teaching at the Sorbonne. He turned from physical to human geography. He avoided delving into theoretical work, and never wrote a book on human geography. Many of his writings on human geography were published posthumously in Problems of Human Geography, a collection which addressed a broad spectrum of human geography topics. That literature displayed a broad interest in the interactions of man and nature, and also in history. He made it very clear that geography must remain a distinct subject, and not be lost in other social sciences. He wrote in 1906, “To explain the geographical phenomena of which man has been the witness or contriver, it is necessary to study their evolution in the past with the aid of documents.” In his later essays, he defined three principles for the study of human geography: First, it should avoid following German deterministic trends. Causes are always complex and involve human initiative and choice. Second, it should focus upon a territorial unit. One of the principal objectives of the science of geography is the study and understanding of regional units. Third, geography must consider not only the present day, but must be steeped in history. The idea of age and of evolution is indispensable for without it, the reason for what exists often escapes human comprehension. Demangeon in 1905 produced a valuable guide to the National Archives for the use of geographers. In cooperation with several French historians, notably co-author Lucien Febvre, he coauthored The Rhine: Problems of History and Economy (1935). His work is impressive: a dozen books, with more than ten textbooks, and over one hundred articles and reports. Up until 1914, his emphasis was on regional geography.

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Among Albert Demangeon's works are: Le déclin de l'Europe [The decline of Europe] (1920); “Geographie politique [Political geography]” in Annales de geographie, 1932; “Pionniers et fronts de colonisation [Pioneers and colonization fronts]” in Annales de geographie, 1932; and “Geographie politique a propos de l'Allemange [Political geography about Germany]” in Annales de geographie, 1939.

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Although Demangeon wrote several studies of urban areas, he was much more interested in the countryside. He harbored a special affection for the many variations of farmsteads, and how these formations utilized their space. He presented his study of rural houses to the First International Congress of Folklore in 1937. His two-volume tome, France Économique et Humaine (Economic and Human France), which was published posthumously, surveyed the rural life and its economy. He also showed interest in roads and highways, railway lines and canal routes and how they dealt with their traffic. While doing research for this book, he visited coastal and inland towns, as well as cities like Marseilles and Paris. A long and detailed work, it provided in-depth surveys of agriculture, towns and industry for each French region. He never neglected a region’s historical background and frequently referred to evolution of land use, development of routes, evolution of industry, and changes to urban area.407 Demangeon belongs to the sphere of chorological and idiographic geography. He worked on all scales: while he produced monographs on small regions, such as the Limousin upland areas. Realizing its overwhelming importance in any science, Demangeon set about creating a precise vocabulary for his political and human geographical studies. He linked observed facts with an eye to formulating new and pertinent questions. He saw the importance of survey results and so made use of questionnaires to investigate patterns as early as 1909. In the 1930s he used questionnaires in large surveys for a 1939 study of foreigners in French agriculture. The surveys, sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute, gathered information on rural habitat, the organization of farms and the use of foreign farm labor.408 He published his pessimistic work, Le déclin de l’Europe (1920) which in the United States was known as The Race for World Domination. That work fitted in well with the trend promulgated by Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West (1918). In his book, Demangeon argued that Europe was deeply in debt and exhausted by the war, its decline was marked by reduced agricultural and industrial output, and low birth rates. Meanwhile, the US and Japan had expanded their industries, replaced Europe’s exports with their own products, had taken over leadership in exporting finished products, and had advanced huge sums to Europe to fight its war. Colonialism could become the salvation of France. Demangeon and his school saw the revitalization of France coming about as a result of creating 407

Darby, Henry Clifford. The Relations of History and Geography: Studies in England, France and the United States. University of Exeter Press, 2002, pp. 130ff. 408 Wolff, Denis, “Albert Demangeon,” Hypergeo, 5 July 2014.

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imperial power like Great Britain had. The British crown had long supported a policy of colonization in the Third World, having failed miserably in the Western Hemisphere. Becoming a major colonizer would ensure France’s place as a great world power, giving her strategic strengths that were missing. The colonials would reinvigorate France, forcing upon it a new vitality.409 Middle Europe, largely represented by Germany, bore the responsibility for the future of Europe as a whole. Immediately before the outbreak of World War II, Demangeon had realized that the balance of power had clearly shifted to Germany. Its mobilized population combined with substantial productive capability rendered Germany far more formidable than France. He understood General Haushofer’s claim that France would be the first nation to be disassembled by future world power, specifically Germany. He asserted that of all the states of Europe which have been “grown recently on the soil of Old Europe, there exists none more original, nor more disquieting, than Germany.410

Yves Lacoste Yves Lacoste was born on 7 September 1929 in Fes, Morocco. Lacoste is a French geopolitical writer who established the French geopolitical journal Hérodote in 1976. He is best known for his work La Géographie ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre (Geography is first used to make war) whose central thesis asserted that “geography was a form of strategic and political knowledge, central to the military strategy and the exercise of political power.”411 He earned the enmity of the United States during the Vietnam War when he published a spatial forensics analysis of the U. S. bombing in the Red River Delta. His analysis agreed with claims which the North Vietnamese government made, that the U. S. had deliberately targeted the

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Demangeon, Albert, “Pionniers et fronts de colonization [Pioneers and colonization fronts],” in Annales de geographie, XLI, 1932, p. 632. See also G. Hardy. Geographie et colonisation. Paris: Gallimard, 1933. Demangeon, Albert. “Geographie politique a propos de l'Allemange [Political geography about Germany]” in Annales de geographie, XLVIII, 1939, p. 114. Hepple, Leslie W., “Geopolitiques de gauche: Yves Lacoste, Herodote and French radical geopolitics [Left Geopolitics: Yves Lacoste, Herodote and French radical geopolitics]” in Dodds, Klaus; and Atkinson, David, eds. Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought. Routledge, 2000, p. 268.

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hydrological infrastructure of the river in an attempt to trigger flooding and cause mass civilian casualties. That, Lacoste alleged was a war crime. 412 A major concern in Lacoste’s geography has been emphasizing that over the centuries, and within any governing body and its administrative structure, geographical observation and historical narrative have been considered indispensable for considering a strategic situation and preparing either a political or a military operation. This, to him, has always been one of the major functions of geography.413

Henri Decugis Henri Decugis (1874-1947) was a French essayist, economist, and eugenicist, some of which ideas also spilled over into geopolitics. His works echoed the fears of some commentators of the time about the decline in the geopolitical power of Europe and the increase in the number of “degenerates” within the white race. Decugis lists what he considers to be the symptoms of a European crisis: a demographic crisis, with a fall in the birth rate, a social crisis due according to him to urbanization and the family dislocation that would ensue, and a political crisis with the appearance of anti-parliamentary dictatorships in Europe. Written in the same vein as Albert Demangeon’s Le declin de l’Europe (1920), Henri Decugis penned a prophetic work, Le destin des races blanches (The fate of the white races) (1935), offering a gloomy prognosis for Caucasians in Europe. White economic supremacy was faltering behind competition from non-white (or “colored”) races. These once-backward peoples, generally thought to be subjects of slavery and manual toil, were liberating themselves and their posterity. He denounced race-mixing and loathed miscegenation. Decugis blamed war crimes and socialism for having exhausted Europeans and drained their vitality, while bankrupting their financial structure. The better citizens are not multiplying, while only degenerates and idiots have increased in numbers. A multiplicity of

Claval, Paul, “Herodote and the French Left” in Dodds, Klaus; Atkinson, David, eds. Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought. Routledge, 2001. See also See also Lacoste, Yves. La Géographie ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre [Geography is first used to make war] (1976). 413 Lacoste, Yves, “Geography, Geopolitics, and Geographical Reasoning,” Hérodote, 146-147: 3-4, (2012), pp. 14 -44. Translated from the French by JPD Systems. 412

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centrifugal forces has prevented states from creating a meaningful cooperative federation of nations. The 535-page book ends with the tiniest note of uncertain optimism. There is the slightest hope that there may arise a new era of international prosperity that will trickle down to benefit, perhaps save, Europe. The greatest hope is that the natural white supremacy will prevail, allowing specialists and technicians whose ability far outshines other races to prevail. The demand for those able to perform more difficult and complicated tasks may ennoble the white race.414 He emphasized the great need for Europe to unite, even if it meant abandonment of nationalism. Unification was the only way Europe could combat the emerging centers of power emanating from Central Europe. Without such geographic unity, Europe would lose its world hegemony, opening the flood gates from the colored races to conquer. The emancipation of Asia, and especially African emancipation, would destroy what remains of Old Europe. Boundaries for the most part were artificial and could be removed easily.415

Jacques Ancel Jacques Ancel (1879 – 1943) was a French geographer and geopolitician and author of several books, including Geopolitics (1936). He studied both history and geography, but before his career got underway, he was drafted to fight in World War I. Wounded three times, he was detached to the Headquarters of the French Army’s Oriental Corps, which was engaged in fighting against the Ottoman Empire and in the Balkans. After the war, he was assigned to mediate relations between Jugoslavia and Bulgaria. In 1930, Ancel obtained his doctorate having written as his thesis “Macedonia: A Study in Contemporary Colonization.” He taught at the Institute of Higher International Studies of the University of Paris and was a member of the Romanian Academy and of other scientific forums. He was a knight of the French Légion d’honneur. In various publications, Ancel expressed his deep regret that Europe remained divided even after the disaster that was World War I. He referred to national borders as “watertight bulkheads.” As long as borders remained, and 414

Decugis, Henri. Le destin des races blanches [The fate of the white races]. Extended introduction by André Siegfried. Paris: 10th ed., librarie de France, 1935. 415 Decugis, Henri. op. cit., p. 66.

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Europe was thus artificially divided, there would be wars instead of friendly inter-regional relationships. True human realities lay beneath these artificially created lines. He wrote, “The walls of these Jerichos will fall at the sound of the trumpets which will awaken the bound and sleeping nations.”416 The great task of the geographer was to assist in removing the very barriers which his discipline had endeavored to create in the first place. He asserted that the deep-seated sentiments attached to race and nationality transcended drawing and redrawing borders. As with Maurras, as we shall see, race is the over-riding factor in nations.417 He was one of the forerunners of the French School of political geography. Ancel was a staunch opponent of German geopolitics as espoused by Professor Karl Haushofer. He denied that language could be a sure guide to true national feelings. He believed that it was his mission to rescue geopolitique away from Haushofer and to preserve the true science for the international scene. For that and other political reasons, he was incarcerated in the Draney concentration camp where he died. Before his arrest he had completed three volumes of the Manuel Geographique de Politique Europeenne (Geographical Handbook of European Policy) along with several other books.418

Charles Maurras Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was born on 20 April 1868 to a Provençal family and brought up by his mother and grandmother in a Catholic and monarchist environment. In his early teens, he became deaf. His family had become disillusioned by the defeat the Gaelic people had suffered in the Franco-Prussian War which was followed by the 1879 failure of Marshal MacMahon’s so-called Moral Order government. In 1890, Maurras answered Cardinal Lavigerie’s call, rallying Catholics to the Republic. He chose the wrong side in the Dreyfuss Affair, opposing the exoneration of an innocent officer because that act had served to weaken the

Ancel, Jacques, op. cit., p. 188. See also Sion, Jules, “Macédoine d'après le livre de Mr. Jacques Ancel [Macedonia from the book by Mr. Jacques Ancel],” Annales de Géographie, XLI ,(1932), pp. 305-309. 417 Parker, Geoffrey. Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century. London: Croom Helm, 1985, p. 94. See also his Political Geography of Community Europe. London: Butterworths, 1983. 418 “Jacques Ancel,” in DBPedia, https://dbpedia.org/page/Jacques_Ancel. 416

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French Army.419 In the earliest years of the twentieth century he associated with the Camelots du Roi, a monarchist league. He introduced the concept of political activism through extra-parliamentary organizations, considering even the possibility of a coup d’état against the increasingly impotent Third Republic. Maurras helped to find the Ligue d’Action Française in 1905, whose mission was to recruit members for the Action Française, a staunchly Catholic organization which opposed the more secular democracy. Members pledged to fight the republican regime and to support restoration of the monarchy under Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans (1869–1926). Maurras helped to develop the royalist league’s pro-Catholic policies. Eventually, many of Action Française members turned to fascism as the only alternative to atheistic communism.420 By June 1940, Action Française praised General Charles de Gaulle, seeing him as the new savior of France. However, he also worked with the Vichy occupation government after France capitulated. While he had been a staunch pre-war admirer of Charles de Gaulle, who himself had been influenced by Maurras’ integralism and geopolitical thought, Maurras harshly criticized the General while he was in exile, leading the Free French in Brazzaville, Africa. After the liberation of France, Maurras was arrested and charged with “complicity with the enemy.” Maurras had supported the Vichy state, largely because it had attempted to institute an organic society which he strongly favored. Convicted of treason, a French court sentenced him to life imprisonment and deprivation of civil liberties. He was automatically dismissed from the Académie française. Maurras was released in March 1952 in order to enter hospital and died on 16 November 1952. As early as 1912, American geographer Homer Lea (1876-1912),421 in The Day of the Saxon (1912), asserted that there were several separate racial groups each inhabiting a specific geographic area. The Anglo-Saxon (French and English) race faced a threat from German (Teuton), Russian (Slav), and Japanese expansionism. He greatly feared the “fatal” relationship of Russia, 419

Pierrard, Pierre. Les Chrétiens et l'affaire Dreyfus [Christians and the Dreyfus Affair]. Editions de l'Atelier, 1998, p. 180. 420 Arnal, Oscar L. Ambivalent Alliance: The Catholic Church and the Action Française, 1899– 1939. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985, pp. 17ff. 421 Homer Lea was an American adventurer, author and geopolitical strategist. He is today best known for his involvement with Chinese reform and revolutionary movements in the early twentieth century and as a close advisor to Dr. Sun Yat-sen during the 1911 Chinese Republican revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty.

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Japan, and Germany “which he argued had formed a coalition which was specifically directed against the survival of Saxon supremacy.” Lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at France and England, home of the Saxons. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents.422 This thesis was not lost on Charles Maurras. Charles Maurras (1868-1952) was a nationalist on the right of the political spectrum and is mainly associated with the concept of integral nationalism. While not considered a geographer in any conventional meaning, Maurras had significant influence on geopolitics in France. Maurras’ political ideas were based on intense nationalism, which he described as “integral nationalism,” and a strong faith in an ordered state based on strong government, which bases he found to exist both in a French monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. He supported the political Catholic Church both because it was intimately involved with French history and because its hierarchical structure and clerical elite mirrored his image of an ideal society. He considered the Church to be the mortar which held France together, and the association linking all Frenchmen together. However, he distrusted the Gospels, written “by four obscure Jews.” 423 Because of his popularity, but in the face of his theological heterodoxy, in 1926 Pope Pius XI placed some of Maurras’s writings on the Roman Index of Forbidden Books, simultaneously condemning the Action Française. In the geopolitical writings of Charles Maurras, “a true nationalist places his country above everything.” Nationalism thereby transcends sectional interests championed by rationalist ideologies such as liberalism and socialism. Ideologies and philosophies, even religions, are unimportant compared to nationality. States act in self-interest, as though having an organic existence all their own which transcends any and all other possible considerations. Nationality, in this sense, is wholly tied to national territory.424 Maurras was a monarchist and a leading counter-revolutionary, whose geopolitical philosophy was a mix of pragmatism and nationalist ideas. He championed integral nationalism which is closely linked to the race (in sense of nationality) and geographic location. Nationalities not political systems

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Lea, Homer. Day of the Saxon (1912). Nabu Press reprint, 2010. In Le Chemin du Paradis [The Way to Paradise], 1894. See also Amal, op. cit. 424 Gottfried, Paul, “The Neocons and Charles Maurras,” Taki's Magazine, 7 October 2007. 423

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determined the course of nations. Those states which will survive will do so because they follow the geopolitical needs and requirements of their races.425 Maurras was greatly interested in the processes associated with nation building. He directed significant interest towards those countries that adopt a strong military ethos during their struggle for independence. Once that goal of independence is achieved, he believed that a firm military presence would be needed to ensure the viability of the new state. Integral states are necessarily authoritarian in character, marked out by collectivism, statism and militarism. Maurras regarded seventeenth century classicism as his ethical and aesthetic standard. To him, Romanticism is simultaneously individualist, anarchist, revolutionary. He wrote several books discrediting Romanticism and praising the Graeco-Roman sources of French culture.426 He fully anticipated that many of his assumptions would underlie fascism, which he expected to encompass not only Europe, but also Third World nations as they emerged toward statehood. One can show a stark contrast of Maurras’s thought with the integral liberal nationalism of figures such as John Stuart Mill (18016-1873), and also with the Risorgimento nationalism of Italian theorists like Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872). Charles Maurras firmly believed in the virtues of firm government and social order. That accounts for the fact that he was an ardent supporter of the monarchy and the Catholic Church within French society. He taught that Catholicism is better than Protestantism because it accords more importance to reason. In contrast, he attributes the primacy of emotion, from which all false ideas flow, to his adversaries. Besides, Catholicism fits the French national character and soul. His style of nationalism entailed a rejection of those liberal-democratic principles which he believed were contrary to natural inequality within society. According to Maurras, the Enlightenment project had led to individuals placing a higher value upon themselves than the organic nation as a whole. Democracy and liberalism have had a deleterious impact upon both the individual and organic society.427 His endorsement of Catholicism was explicitly pragmatic, as he alleged that a state religion was the only way of maintaining public order.

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“Charles Maurras,” in Wikipedia. See also “Charles Maurras,” in Kaiserreich, at https://kai serreich.fandom.com/wiki/Charles_Maurras; and “Charles Maurras,” at https://arktos. com/people/charles-maurras/. Massis, Henri. Maurras et notre temps. Paris: Perrin, 1961. See also V. E. Shor, “Charles Maurras,” in The Free Encyclopedia. Bulletin Charles Maurras, Niherne, April-September 2001, at http://blog.revue-nouvelleecole.com/2017/01/maurras-ecrivain-artiste-poete.html.

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The sole way to overcome, and to compensate for, the destruction and chaos which the French Revolution had caused was for Frenchmen to return to the stability hereditary monarchy.428 Nationalism and monarchism are nearly synonymous in his view. His proof of the intrinsic superiority of the monarchical principle over the republican or democratic principle is associated with his total idealization of the Ancient Régime. Maurras taught that France had lost its grandeur during the Revolution, a grandeur which it had inherited from the Roman Empire, and which had been forged by, “forty kings who in a thousand years made France.” The French Revolution, he wrote in the Observateur Français, was negative and destructive. The causes of the Revolution could not possibly be endogenous. The Revolution could only be explained by the eruption of a foreign element subverting the French spirit. 429 French decline had begun many years before the Revolution of 1789. He traced the decline to the Enlightenment and especially to the Reformation which he described the source evil because it emanated from Swiss ideas. That was a reference to two notable men of Swiss ancestry, John Calvin (1509-1564) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1768). He asserted the superiority of the Gauls over all other races, partly because of their descent from Romans. Maurras also blamed France’s decline on “Anti-France” thought which derived from “four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons, and foreigners.” All four, each in its own special way, threatened the organic unity of France and the racial identity of Frenchmen.430 Still, many do not consider Maurras as a racist, at least in the classic sense of this term. However, antisemitism and anti-Protestantism were common themes in his writings.431 With Maurras his racist views take the form of an ethnophobia, for he loathed Germany and any ideas he chose to attribute to German philosophy and literature. He reveled in a fantasy genealogy which allowed him to condemn both the Jews and the Germans as revolutionaries: “The fathers of the Revolution… come from the Jewish spirit and the varieties of 428

Goyet, Bruno, Charles Maurras, Sciences Press, 2000. We have followed Goyet closely in discussing Maurras’s ideas. 429 Maurras, Charles. The Future of the Intelligentsia, and For a French Awakening. Translated with an introduction by Dr. Alexander Jacob. London, Artkos Media, 2016. 430 Joly, Laurent, “Les débuts de l'Action française (1899-1914) ou l'élaboration d'un nationalisme antisemite [The beginnings of French Action (1899-1914) or the development of an anti-Semitic nationalism],” Revue Historique, (2006), pp. 695–718. Quote from that article. 431 Giocanti, Stéphane. Maurras: Le chaos et l’ordre [Maurras: Chaos and order]. Paris: Flammarion, 2006.

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independent Christianity that rage in the Oriental deserts and German forests, which is to say in the various roundabouts of barbarism.”432 Maurras also wrote of other European races, notably the Slavs, represented by Russians; and Anglo-Saxons who included Germans, English, and Americans. Each race had its own identity, racial characteristics, destiny, and philosophical approaches. Those items which fitted one race well might have no appeal to the others. He considered the Germanic, and also the Celtic, world as nations with inferior culture, whose inhabitants will always remain “Barbarians,” prisoners of their passions, their emotional reactions, and condemned to live with “anarchy” by this fact of nature.433 However, Maurras shared some traits with Bonapartism and so allowed for some other strongman to lead the French people and state. This became a necessary compromise once there was no clear pretender to the French throne. Divine right monarchy has become unthinkable, and he had no interest in establishing a constitutional monarchy. That explains why Maurras expended much effort in the pre-war years educating and preparing Charles DeGaulle for the leadership of a new France. What makes Maurras extraordinarily important, is that, as a writer and the leader of a school of geopolitical thought, and the leader of a political movement, his teachings have exercised considerable influence and have proven to be remarkably durable. Maurras was a major intellectual influence of national Catholicism, farright movements, Latin conservatism, and integral nationalism. His assumption that races not ideologies motivated nations is important. As early as Ancient Egypt it was race that was essential. It was said there that he who drank of Nile River water could not have his thirst quenched with any other. Maurras went farther, predicating that level of attachment to one’s native land to all peoples. There was an intangible but very real relationship between a people and its natural homeland.434 Poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) observed that, had he been drawn to fascism, it would be the type enunciated by Maurras. Eliot continued, writing that “most of the concepts which might have attracted me in Fascism I see already to have found, in a more digestible form, in the work of Charles Maurras…”435 De Benoist, Alain, “Charles Maurras: Political and Philosophical Heritage,” Geopolitica, 15 August 2017. Bulletin Charles Maurras, Niherne, April-September 2001. 433 Ibid. 434 Goyet, op. cit. 435 Eliot, T. S. in The Criterion, December 1928, p. 289. 432

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André Siegfried André Siegfried (1875–1959) was a French academic, geographer and political writer best known to English speakers for his commentaries on American, Canadian, and British politics. He was born in Le Havre, France, a son of Jules Siegfried, once the French minister of commerce, and Julie Siegfried, who had served as the president of the National Council of French Women. He dabbled, in varying degrees, in the academic disciplines of political science, geography, economics, history, and sociology. Few geographers have accepted him as a true geographer because he largely worked outside the discipline’s classical setting. After the Liberation, the Académie française tendered him a vacant seat. Siegfried died in Paris in March 1959. Although he was an enormously prolific writer, his major contribution lay in the development of electoral geography in France. For many years he occupied a chair in Political and Economic Geography at the College de France. In his electoral studies, he attempted to measure the influence of the physical milieu on the electoral pattern. He preferred to write of the ‘deterministic tradition’ rather than the ‘possibilist tradition’ into his electoral analyses.436 Siegfried’s political geography revealed the impact of the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) in his first book published in 1904. His most important work in geopolitics was his study of political attitudes in Western Europe, published in 1913, Tableau politique de la France de l’Ouest sous la Troisieme Republique (Political picture of West France under the Third Republic). His books on the political geography of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Latin America, New Zealand, the Suez and Panama Canals and the Mediterranean were widely acclaimed by the geographers and general readers in France and outside. In one of his more important books, he warned other European nations of the impending crisis in Europe early in the 1930s.437 As a Protestant in largely Roman Catholic France, Siegfried was naturally attracted to things that were British because it was the leading Protestant nation. Much of his writing concerned Great Britain’s paradox of Goguel, F. Andre, “Siegfried: l'homme et l'oeuvre [Siegfried: the man and the work],” Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire du Protestisme Francais, 121 (1975), pp. 1-16. See also Miroglio, A., “Un grand Havrais: Andre Siegfried [A great Le Havre: Andre Siegfried],” Etudes Normandie 27: 2/4 (1978), pp. 47-61. 437 Siegfried, Andre. Europe's Crisis. London: Jonathan Cape, 1935. 436

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its location close by Continental Europe, yet it was afflicted by nonintegrality regarding joining that greater community. Others, notably Demangeon, had noted this British dilemma as well, but few were more affected by it than Siegfried. Because of his intensive study of England’s ambiguous relationship with Continental Europe, he was perfectly poised to study the irredentism438 of the French-speaking minority in Canada. He understood, as few did at that time, the fictitious nature of Canada’s socalled national unity and the absence of a truly unified nation beset by provincialism, namely the Quebecois secessionist movement.439 His perception of the United States was unique. He thought of it as a nation with essentially no useful history nor an interest in attempting to construct one. Europeans, he noted, would never understand a nation where the past was deemed to have little importance or directive force for the future. Likewise, Europeans would not comprehend how a constantly migrant people could choose faith in technology over national heritage. He viewed the United States as a huge, underpopulated nation which was perennially beset by boredom. In short, he saw a people far more influenced by climate and geography than custom and tradition.440 The modern world was beset by a huge paradox. On the one hand, the world seemed to be shrinking as communications and travel made it easy to be in touch almost anywhere in a very short period of time. On the other hand, nations were constantly creating new and more efficient barriers. He claimed that, without realizing it, humankind had entered what he called “the Age of Meridians.” The world no longer responded to the Euclidian model, if only because air travel, and to only a slightly lesser degree sea voyages, chose the great circle routes. A new age requires new geopolitics.441

438

Irredentism refers to political or popular movements whose members claim and seek to occupy territory they consider unredeemed to their nation, based on history or legend. The scope of this definition is occasionally subject to terminological disputes about underlying claims of expansionism, owing to lack of clarity on the historical bounds of putative nations or peoples. 439 Siegfried, Andre. Le Canada, les deux races [Canada, the two races] (1906). He revived that theme again in Le Canada, puissance internationale [Canada, an international power] (1937). 440 Siegfried, Andre. Deux mois en Amerique du Nord a la veille de la guerre [Two months in North America on the eve of the war] (1916). He returned to these themes in Qu'est-ce que l'Amerique [What is America] (1937). 441 Siegfried, Andre. Aspects du XXeme siecle [Aspects of the twentieth century] (1955).

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Siegfried had never attempted to produce any general theoretical system, whether in politics, geopolitics, or human geography. Still, he founded an academic approach which many former students and others followed. He was the sole geographer to have the distinction of becoming a member of the Académie Francaise in 1945.442

442

Kennedy, Sean. “Situating France: The Career of André Siegfried, 1900-40,” Réflexions Historiques (2004), pp. 179–203. Also Kennedy, Sean, “André Siegfried and the Complexities of French Anti-Americanism,” French Politics, Culture and Society, 27.2 (2009), pp. 1-22. See also Sanguin, André-Louis, “Political Geographers of the Past: André Siegfried, an Unconventional French Political Geographer,” Political Geography Quarterly, 4: 1 (1985), pp. 79–83.

Chapter 10

Spykman and the Rimland Thesis Nicholas John Spykman, was a Dutch-American journalist, sociologist, political scientist and geopolitician, who devised and championed the Rimland thesis of geopolitics while he was professor of international relations at Yale University. He was the principal among the diffusers of geopolitics from Europe to America. When defending his chosen life’s work, the science of geography, Spykman observed that “Ministers could come and go, even dictators die, but the mountain ranges stand unperturbed.” Nicholas John Spykman, born in Amsterdam on 13 October 1893. He earned his bachelor’s (1921), master’s (1921), and a doctoral degree (1923) from the University of California. Previously, he had worked as a journalist in the Near East between 1913 and 1916; as a journalist in the Middle East from 1916 until 1919; and as the same in the Far East between 1919 and 1920. He was an instructor in political science and sociology at the University of California from 1923 to 1925 before moving on to Yale in 1925. In 1935 he became chairman of Yale’s Department of International Relations and Director of the Yale Institute of International Studies, positions he held until 1940. It was while he was teaching at Yale that he postulated the Rimland thesis. He died on June 26, 1943.443 His determined that his life’s goal would be to connect the science of geopolitics to a set of liberal-idealistic values, such as individual freedom, national independence, national liberation and anti-imperialism. He saw that the geographer had to offer political-realist assumptions of the permanence and inevitability of struggles for power in order to have had a significant influence on American foreign policy. Although he undertook some work along the lines of normal geography, he is best known, as a theoretical geopolitician. In his approach, Geopolitics is the planning of the security policy of a country in terms of its geographical factors. He demonstrated particular interest in the maritime fringe of a country or continent; in particular the densely populated western, southern, and eastern edges of the

443

Thompson, Kenneth W. Masters of International Thought. Louisiana State University Press, 1980, p. 92.

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Eurasian continent. According to Spykman, America’s principal security concerns were located in the “Rimland” of Eurasia.444 Less than a year after the United States entered the Second World War, Nicholas Spykman wrote a book that placed the war effort in the broader context of the 1940s global balance of power. In that book entitled America’s Strategy in World Politics, Spykman examined world politics from a realist geopolitical perspective. He asserted that the United States was waging war to secure its very survival as an independent nation. Spykman warned that the military successes by mid-1942 by German and Japanese military forces had raised the distinct possibility of geopolitical encirclement. The specter of these hostile forces controlling the power centers of Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia caused a real threat to the security of the democracies. He also warned that the United States could not simply retreat and assume a safe defensive position far away from dangers and threats in the Western Hemisphere. Spykman looked beyond the Second World War, reasoning that in the postwar world the United States had to assume the leadership in shaping the new global geography. Following the defeat of the Axis Powers, he envisioned a new balance of power arrangement controlling world politics. Although Soviet Russia was our wartime ally, Spykman recognized that this would change immediately after the war. In geopolitical terms, the Soviet Union, having vanquished the only power which could restrain it, would then recreate the postwar balance of power, thereby endanger American security. He also predicted the rise of China in postwar Asia, which would create the need for the United States to ally itself with its wartime enemy Japan in order to balance Chinese aggression. He also recognized that the Middle East would play a pivotal role in the postwar world. Spykman influenced American postwar statesmen who sought to deny the Soviet Union political control of Western Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. His geopolitical vision was of American security, supporting a balanced Eurasian land mass. However, his writing was not primarily about geopolitics but was a contribution designed to support internationalism over the prevalent American isolationism. He realized that Americans were slow to awaken to their international responsibilities. His principal goal was to make the

444

Garrity, Patrick J. “Nicholas Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics (1942),” Classics of Strategy and Diplomacy, 1 April 2008.

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Americans understand that geography with its links to economic and military matters made isolationism a futile approach to U. S. national security.445 In Spykman’s opinion, American security depended on ensuring that the states of the Rimland remained independent from a would-be hegemon. In the modern world threats to the Rimland could occur quite quickly. The United States could no longer afford to procrastinate, waiting to see how what occurred. Rather, the United States must become actively engaged in world affairs through alliances and by making its presence known by establishing far flung military bases. Only such a presence would maintain air and maritime access to the Rimland and preserve the security of the seas. He argued that the United States would not alone be responsible entirely for the security of the Rimland, however, because other powers would naturally align with it against any threat, irrespective of their political orientation. 446 Spykman is remembered especially for his part in the system-level grand-theoretical debate over Mackinder’s Heartland doctrine, to which he counter-posed his own Rimland idea, which remains theoretically significant.447 There are two basic assumptions most scholars assert about Spykman’s thought which have become part of the conventional wisdom defining his relationship to Mackinder as well as U. S. containment policy. The first assumption is that Spykman only modified Mackinder’s basic framework and retained its basic logic. The second assumption, which builds upon the first, is that Spykman’s geopolitics laid the foundations for the American policy of the containment of communism, enacted and implemented through the writings of George F. Kennan (1904-2005), and other later policymakers, beginning about 1947.448 Some recent scholarship has concluded that Spykman’s ideas which were allegedly behind containment were not geopolitical in the true sense of the term, but were only outwardly so. To the extent that they were truly a product of geopolitics, they Furniss, Edgar S., Jr., “The Contribution of Nicholas John Spykman to the Study of International Politics,” World Politics, 4: 3 (1952), pp. 382 – 401. 446 Spykman, Nicholas. America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power (1942); and The Geography of the Peace (1944). 447 See Blouet, Brian W. Halford Mackinder: A Biography. Texas A & M Press, 1987, pp. 15051, 190-91; and Fettweis J. C. 2003. “Revisiting Mackinder and Angell: The Obsolescence of Great Power Politics.” Comparative Strategy, (2003), pp. 109-129. 448 “George Kennan — Containment and the Cold War,” Association for Diplomatic Training and Studies, https://adst.org/oral-history/fascinating-figures/george-kennan-containmentand-the-cold-war/. See also Neves, Andre Luiz Varella, “Truman Doctrine (1946); Defense Planning Guidance (1991) and the National Security Strategy (2002): The Mackinder & Spykman Dialectics Revisited,” Revista da Escola de Guerra Naval, Rio de Janeiro, 27: 2, (2021), pp. 429-468. 445

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reflected Mackinder and not Spykman.449 Conventional wisdom holds that although Spykman died long before the Cold War began, and had developed the Rimland thesis decades earlier, it was his vision which is at the base of the containment politics put into effect by the United States in its relation/position to the Soviet Union during the post-World War II period.450 Nicholas Spykman was highly critical of Halford Mackinder for his over-emphasis upon the strategic value of the Heartland. Spykman agreed that the Heartland was of immense strategic importance, largely because of its vast size, central geographical location as well as the supremacy of land power over than sea power. However, Spykman asserted that the Heartland would not be a potential hub of Europe for several reasons. First, Western Russia was then an agrarian society, and the bases of industrialization were not to be found to the west of the Ural Mountains. Second, that area was ringed to the north, east, south, and south-west by some of the greater obstacles known to transportation, such as and freezing temperature, and virtually impenetrable mountains, and difficult rivers. He also argued that there had never really been a simplistic land power versus sea power dichotomy. The Rimland as a concept simply provided better insights and offered more acceptable explanations that the Heartland theory.451 Simplistically, according to Spykman, “Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.” Spykman’s Heartland compared approximately to Halford Mackinder’s “Inner or Marginal Crescent.” That crescent Mackinder had divided into three sections: The European coastland; The Arabian-Middle Eastern desert land; and The Asiatic monsoon land. Spykman conceived of the Rimland, as that strip of coastal land that encircles Eurasia. The inner crescent contains the majority of world’s population in addition to the largest portion of world’s natural resources. The Rimland exists between the Heartland and marginal seas, and consequently is more important than Heartland. This area included Asia minor, Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Eastern Siberia, and eastern Russia, which nations lie in the buffer zone which exists between sea power and land power. Rimland countries were amphibian states, surrounding the Eurasian continents.

Gerace, Michael P., “Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and After,” Comparative Strategy, 10: 4 (1991), pp. 347-64. 450 Chatterjee, Partha, “The Classical Balance of Power Theory,” Journal of Peace Research, 1 (1972), pp. 51–61. 451 Garrity, op. cit. 449

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Those states known as the Rimland were a buffer between land and sea. Spykman argued that the upper hand belonged to these states with the power to control transit and cargo between land and sea. The Rimland is infinitely important than the central Asian zone (Heartland) for the control of the Eurasian continent. The Rimland’s defining characteristic is that it is an intermediate region, lying between the heartland and the marginal sea powers. As the amphibious buffer zone between the land powers and sea powers, it must defend itself from both sides, and therein lies its fundamental security problems. Spykman’s conception of the Rimland bears greater resemblance to Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “debated and debatable zone” than to Mackinder’s inner or marginal crescent. The Rimland has great importance coming from its demographic weight, natural resources, and industrial development.452 Spykman rejected Mackinder’s grouping of the Asian countries into one “monsoon land.” He insisted that it is self-evident that India, and the Indian culture were culturally and geographically distinct from the Chinese lands, and other distinctions and identifications applied as well. Spykman’s conception of the Rimland shows greater resemblance to Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “debated and debatable zone” than it does to Mackinder’s inner crescent.453 The Rimland has great importance coming from its demographic weight, natural resources, and industrial development. Spykman sees explains importance as the reason that the Rimland will be crucial to containing the Heartland. In contra-distinction, Mackinder had asserted that the Outer Crescent would be the most important factor in the Heartland’s containment. As it is, Mackinder and Spykman are actually quite different. For Mackinder there is but one pattern of conflict in history which occurs between sea power and the heartland. For Spykman, however, there are two patterns of conflict which may occur. First, there is that which takes place between sea power and heartland; and second, is the conflict which may take place between an independent center of power in the rimland with both sea power and heartland allied against it. These patterns alternate around the

452

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Holmila, Antero, “Re-thinking Nicholas J. Spykman: from Historical Sociology to Balance of Power,” International History Review, 42: 5 (2019), pp. 1-16. Federico Bordonaro, “Rediscovering Spykman – the Rimland, Geography of Peace and Foreign Policy,” https://exploringgeopolitics.org/Publication_Bordonaro_Federico_Red iscovering_Spykman_Rimland_Geography_Peace_Foreign_Policy/.

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shifting distribution of power within important regions of the rimland. This dualism in Spykman clearly sets him apart from Mackinder.454 Conventional views of Spykman have usually seen only the first pattern in his framework, a pattern which clearly supports Mackinder. But it was the second pattern which Spykman projected as the deciding factor in wars in modern times. The first scenario remains real for Spykman, but it is clearly no longer the overriding theme which it was for Mackinder. 455 Consider the issue of European unity. While Spykman’s containment policy supported European federation, he had warned against such unification whether it was because of voluntary federation created by alliance or some sort of conquest. While Mackinder had written nothing regarding European unity, he was not necessarily opposed to it. He taught that there are not many instances in history which show great and powerful states creating alliances and organizations to limit their own strength. States are always engaged in curbing the force of some other state. The truth of the matter is that states are interested only in a balance which is in their favor. Not an equilibrium, but a generous margin is their objective. There is no real security in being just as strong as a potential enemy; there is security only in being a little stronger. There is no possibility of action if one’s strength is fully checked; there is a chance for a positive foreign policy only if there is a margin of force which can be freely used. Whatever the theory and rationalization, the practical objective is the constant improvement of the state’s own relative power position. The balance desired is the one which neutralizes other states, leaving the home state free to be the deciding force and the deciding voice. Indeed, from the perspective of Mackinder’s writings, European unity may be seen as a desirable biproduct of American containment policy and multilateral cooperation. In America’s Strategy in World Politics, Spykman wrote of alliances: There are not many instances in history which show great and powerful states creating alliances and organizations to limit their own strength. States are always engaged in curbing the force of some other state. The truth of the matter is that states are interested only in a balance which is in their favor. Not an equilibrium, but a generous margin is their

454

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Mitchell, Martin D. “Using the principles of Halford J. Mackinder and Nicholas John Spykman to Reevaluate a Twenty-first-Century Geopolitical Framework for the United States,” Comparative Strategy, 39: 5 (2020), pp. 407-424. Gerace, Michael P., “Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and After,” Comparative Strategy, 10: 4 (1991), pp. 347-64.

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objective. There is no real security in being just as strong as a potential enemy; there is security only in being a little stronger. There is no possibility of action if one’s strength is fully checked; there is a chance for a positive foreign policy only if there is a margin of force which can be freely used. Whatever the theory and rationalization, the practical objective is the constant improvement of the state’s own relative power position. The balance desired is the one which neutralizes other states, leaving the home state free to be the deciding force and the deciding voice.

Spykman was certainly not a “geographical determinist.” Rather, he deemed geography the most important, but not the only important, factor of international politics and power relations. He wrote that: The geography of a country is rather the material for, than the cause of, its policy, and to admit that the garment must ultimately be cut to fit the cloth is not to say that the cloth determines either the garment’s style or its adequacy. But the geography of a state cannot be ignored by men who formulate its policy. The nature of the territorial base has influenced them in that formulation in the past and will continue to do so in the future…. Neither does the entire foreign policy of a country lie in geography. The factors that condition the policy of states are many; they are permanent and temporary, obvious and hidden; they include apart from the geographic factor, population density, the economic structure of the country, the ethnic composition of the people, the form of government, and the complexes and pet prejudices of foreign ministers; and it is their simultaneous action and interaction that create the complex phenomena known as foreign policy.456

According to Spykman, “Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.” Spykman advocated the consolidation of the Rimland countries in order to ensure their survival. As the states within the Rimland achieved independence, it did not come under the control of any single power. Rather, it has exhibited an increasing variety of races, and culture.457 456

457

Spykman, Nicholas J., “Geography and Foreign Policy I,” American Political Science Review, 32: 1 (1938), pp. 28-50 at 30. See also Sempa, Francis P., “Nicholas Spykman and the Struggle for the Asiatic Mediterranean,” The Diplomat, 9 January 2015. “Rimland Theory,” American Geopolitical Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimland. See also Brown, Jim, “What is Nicholas Spykman Rimland Theory?” The Knowledge

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Professor Spyros Katsoulas of Pantheon University is a strategic historian with a special research interest in geopolitics, alliances, and diplomatic history. He introduced a hybrid version of Spykman’s thesis regarding what he called the Rimland Bridge which he used to describe the important touchpoint where Europe and Asia join, and where Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey are located. It was Katsoulas’s purpose not to contradict, but to supplement Spykman’s theory by showing its adaptability in application. Katsoulas defined the Rimland Bridge as the buffer and transit zone that connects the European and Asian parts of Rimland. That Bridge has several major characteristics. It simultaneously acts as a strategic “choke-point” and a valuable gateway, but also as a dangerous shatter belt due to the enduring Greek–Turkish rivalry.458 Katsoulas also wished to bring to the attention of geopoliticians the special strategic significance of the Eastern Mediterranean. Katsoulas was concerned with the inherent instability of that vital area.459 The roots of Spykman’s approach to geopolitics are to be found in his participation in the complex dialectic which in twentieth century American political thinking has prevailed among streams of thought roughly identifiable as liberal idealism, political realism, and scientism. Spykman, now known almost exclusively as a political realist, in fact attempted to unite these divergent tendencies. Indeed, in his earliest non-journalistic work, The Social Theory of Georg Simmel,460 Spykman developed a position neither realist nor geopolitical, but idealistic and scientistic to a fault. Beginning with an assertion of abstract and absolute values, with an unconditional commitment to individual freedom and to the “liberation of the individual,”461 Spykman’s main work was not the development of such a common method, but rather the appraisal of one particular social force, the influence of geography upon politics, which seemed to him especially maleficent in its general and timeless potential for affecting freedom. Spykman’s liberalidealist commitment remained, sometimes heavily obscured, through his Burrow, 29 January 2020. See also MaLik SohaiL Nawaz, “Role Of Heartland and Rimland Theory,” 9 May 2017, https://www.academia.edu/35240447/Role_Of_Heart land_and_Rimland%20_Theory. 458 Katsoulas, Spyros, “The Geopolitical Context,” in The United States and Greek-Turkish Relations: the Guardian's Dilemma. Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2022, chapter 2. 459 Sloan, Geoffrey R. Geopolitics in United States Strategic Policy, 1890–1987. Harvester Wheatsheaf. 1988, pp. 16–19. 460 Spykman, Nicholas J. The Social Theory of Georg Simmel. Russell & Russell, 1925. 461 Morgenthau, Hans J. Politics Among Nations. 5th ed.; Knopf, 1978, pp. 164–166.

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work, controlling in particular the questions which he asked and the goals of his geopolitical social engineering. Had he been a nationalist, a pacifist, a socialist, or an immovable pessimist, the whole line of his inquiry, even as a geopolitician, would have been markedly different from what it was. Spykman had already argued his way from idealism to scientistic social engineering; in his next significant work, his contributions to the Fourth (1929) and Fifth (1933) Conferences of Teachers of International Law and Related Subjects, he made the case that the science of international politics has geopolitics as its basis. A political scientist interested in international political behavior, necessarily seeking for what is most general and timeless, must ask the question “What is general in the behavior of all states?” What appeared to Spykman as most general was a struggle for power among states, and a resulting international order, which might or might not be in accord with ethical values. The foreign policies of states, though of different types, timelessly embodied the power struggle. Such policy behavior was conditioned internally and externally by a variety of factors, the most important of which geography. Conditioning factor, in Spykman’s opinion was geography. Henceforth he did his substantive work upon the constraints placed by geography upon political objectives.462 Spykman co-authored two articles, each published in two parts, in the American Political Science Review. The one dealt with “Geography and Foreign Policy,” while the other was concerned with “Geographic Objectives in Foreign Policy,” Spykman provided a rationale and the elementary theoretical underpinnings for geopolitical statecraft. For him, geography “is the most fundamentally conditioning factor in the formulation of national policy because it is the most permanent.”463 Spykman’s articles in the American Political Science Review were based in, and taken from, history. They were not mere theories, but were lessons learned from concrete examples. Spykman and his associate devoted a considerable part of their theoretical introduction to geopolitics regarding the effects of size of territory and location upon a state’s political and strategic 462

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Fox, William T. R., “The Uses of International Relations Theory” in Fox, W. T. R., ed. Theoretical Aspects of International Relations. University of Notre Dame Press, 1959, pp. 29-44. Spykman, Nicholas J., “Geography and Foreign Policy, I,” American Political Science Review, 32: 1 (1938), 28–50; Also his “Geography and Foreign Policy, II,” American Political Science Review, 32: 2 (1938), 213–236. Nicholas John Spykman, The Geography of the Peace. Helen R. Nicholl, ed. Harcourt, Brace, 1944. Nicholas John Spykman, “Frontiers, Security, and International Organization,” Geographical Review, 32: 3 (1942), pp. 436–447.

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history. The authors recognized that “size is not strength but potential strength”, since geopolitics is a multi-factorial method of analysis, a fact which is widely accepted by modern authors. Size is strength insofar as it is “equivalent to arable land and therefore to manpower, and reasoning from this premise, most land powers have in the past followed a policy of territorial expansion. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the strength of a nation has become identified with its industrial strength. Resources of raw materials as well as industrial organization have therefore become the bases of power. But size is still operative in the sense that the larger the area the greater the chances that it contains varying climatic ranges and varying topography, and therefore varied resources and economic possibilities.”464 His contribution to geopolitical analysis has certainly not been limited to the Rimland theory. Neither has his academic contribution been confined to the study of geography. Professor Spykman’s scholarship extended far beyond geopolitics and international relations. A recent scholarly article argued that scholars have tended to overlook other important underlying current of his work. He began his studies with an interest in historical sociology. When one examines Spykman’s scholarly output from the 1920s to 1940s, one quickly detects a different view of Spykman that that of a geopolitician. Essentially, his fundamental understanding of world affairs derived from the German sociological theories which were prevalent at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Spykman used that sociological background as a springboard which guided his two major works: America’s Strategy in World Politics and posthumously published The Geography of the Peace. America’s Strategy was not primarily a book on geopolitical theory but was a forceful contribution to the American debate between isolationism and internationalism. In this book, Spykman’s goal was to make the Americans understand that geography rendered isolationism futile as an approach to national security.465 America’s Strategy was a nearly 500-pages in length and a genuine tour de force which examined in minute detail America’s position in the world “in terms of geography and power politics.” All international politics, Spykman wrote, involved a struggle for power, which “is identical with the struggle for survival, and the improvement of the relative power position becomes the primary objective of the internal and external policy of states.” He analyzed the power position of the United States in the Western 464 465

Spykman, American Political Science Review, p. 32. Holmila, Antero, “Re-thinking Nicholas J. Spykman: from Historical Sociology to Balance of Power,” International History Review, 42:5 (2020), pp. 951-966.

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Hemisphere, the “Transatlantic” and “Transpacific” zones, and from the perspective of the Old World versus the New World. He integrated economic, demographic and military factors, into his analysis and concluded that America’s security depended on a favorable balance of power in Europe and the Far East. It was in his second, much smaller, book, The Geography of the Peace (1944), which was published posthumously, that Spykman created his geopolitical map which identified the “Heartland” of Eurasia as the key geographic power center of the world, with power revolving around the Eurasian Rimland. That Rimland was the crescent-shaped territory abutting the Heartland, which included the countries of Western Europe, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and the Far East, and North America. In projecting the power potentials of each key region, Spykman memorably wrote, “Who controls the rimland, rules Eurasia, who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.”466 The concept of the balance of power formed the basis of Spykman’s realist approach to international affairs. He argued that American security depended on preventing a hostile power or coalition of powers from dominating Europe. The combined resources of the World Island of Eurasia would simply overwhelm those of the Americas. In the future the ocean would become a highway, rather than a barrier, to foreign invasion. Even more likely, oceans would assist in promoting economic strangulation of weaker states. He expected that there would be political intimidation and subversion in the post-war world. Peace is possible only though a collective security system of maintained by a balance of power.467 Balance of power as a factor in international relations was hardly original, but Spykman provided a conceptual map that appealed to both civilians and military. He wished to assist in all ways possible the emerging U. S. national security establishment. Spykman’s precise influence on policy is difficult to document but his major ideas resonated with those strategists who wanted to move the United States permanently beyond hemispheric-oceanic isolationism, while avoiding the mistakes of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson, they thought, had pursued an overly ambitious agenda during and after World War I that made no distinction between vital and peripheral U.S. interests; and that turned democratization and self-determination into categorical imperatives. Wilson 466 467

Sempa, op. cit. Nawaz, Malik Sohail, “Heart-Land and Rim-Land,” 6 February 202, https://www.link edin.com/pulse/heart-land-rim-land-malik-sohail-nawaz.

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thereby divided what was otherwise a political majority of conservative and liberal internationalists, who agreed on the need for the United States to “look outward” and participate actively in the security affairs of Eurasia. Spykman anticipated most of the themes which would later be developed in the “offensive realism” branch of neo-realism in international relations theory. That offensive realism is based upon the assumption that the great powers lust for territorial expansion and that is a very powerful factor directing state behavior. To Spykman, power maximization was a means to security maximization. His focus on geography as the most conditioning factor of world politics decisively separates his work from the main focus of international relations theory. Offensive realism as a development from neoclassical realism, rediscovered geography in general and geopolitics particularly. Spykman suggested that future scholars should study the implications of the geographical and ecological settings for human aggressiveness and expansionism. As a result, Spykman’s works, and especially America’s Strategy and World Power may be seen as a precursor of today’s new theoretical evolution of realism.468 Nicholas Spykman was not averse to the use of force. In America’s Strategy he noted that “individual states must make the preservation and improvement of their power position a primary objective of their foreign policy.” Moreover, he argued that “a sound foreign policy for the United States must accept this basic reality of international society and develop a grand strategy for both war and peace based on the implications of its geographic position in the world.” In his The Geography of Peace, he reiterated his support of the use of force: “Force is manifestly an indispensable instrument both for national survival and for the creation of a better world.” As we have seen, one particular criticism of Dr. Karl Haushofer was his support for German power politics over a more universal moral approach. In that sense Spykman went farther than Haushofer, in this case in support of American foreign policy objectives. In his book, American Strategy in World Politics (1942), Spykman wrote: The statesman who conducts foreign policy can concern himself with values of justice, fairness, and tolerance only to the extent that they contribute to, or do not interfere with, the power objective. They can be 468

See Mearsheimer, John. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Norton, 2003; and Mouritzen, Hans and Anders Wivel. The Geopolitics of Euro-Atlantic Integration. Routledge, 2005

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used instrumentally as moral justification for the power quest, but they must be discarded the moment their application brings weakness. The search for power is not made for the achievement of moral values; moral values are used to facilitate the attainment of power.469

In The Geography of the Peace, Spykman responded to those moralists who condemned his use of power to preserve his nation. He noted that “there is a tendency, especially among certain liberals and many who call themselves idealists, to believe that the subject of power in the international world should not be spoken of, except of in terms of moral disapproval.” He asserted that national security depended upon its ability to use its instruments of power in opposition to other states in the international community since there existed no international agency capable of controlling wars and aggression.470 Clearly Spykman, in what he deemed to be a geopolitical study of the most basic issue in U.S. foreign policy, advocated an ethical system whose sole criterion was the good of the state, and wholly devoid of an allencompassing and universal ethic. The book, which garnered many favorable academic reviews,471 was clearly an endorsement of power politics. Was the United States to strive to achieve world order based on high moral standards or power politics? Having been disappointed by the utter and complete failure of the League of Nations, and morally outraged by the genocidal practices of so many nations during World War II, it seemed that only a strong, but basically moral, power, indeed the United States, could change the course of history using its just powers in forcing all nations to act civilly. It appears that Spykman had little optimism for the remaking of humankind in a way that would wholly discard Thomas Hobbes’ “warfare of all against all” on the international scale.472 He hoped that the United States and perhaps other nations of the Western Hemisphere would lead the free world against tyranny, especially as British power eroded, after having met and defeated Nazi Germany. He had concluded that only Americans could maintain stability on the high seas, 469

Spykman, Nicholas J. America's Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power. 2nd ed. VanNostrand, 1946, p. 18. 470 Furniss, Edgar S., Jr., “The Contribution of Nicholas John Spykman to the Study of International Politics,” World Politics, 4: 3 (1952), pp. 382 – 401. 471 See, for example, S. W. Boggs, “Political Geography of Power,” Geographical Review, 32 (1942), pp. 149-52. Boggs also enthusiastically recommended Morton Fullerton, Problems of Power because as early as its publication in 1913 it had treated power politics in the same way that Spykman did. 472 Spykman, America's Strategy, pp. 25, 41, 134.

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lead financial markets, and secure the vulnerable areas of the rimland. He wrote: If the New World can be united or organized in such a manner that large masses of unbalanced forces are available for action across the ocean, it can influence the politics of Europe and Asia. And if the Old World remains divided and balanced, that external force can play a determining role in its political life. If, on the other hand, the Old World can be united and organized in such a manner that large masses of unbalanced power become available for action across the oceans, the New Would will be encircled and, depending on its powers of resistance, may have to submit to the dictates of the Old.473

473

Ibid., p. 132.

Chapter 11

Some Important Geopoliticians A number of nineteenth and twentieth century scholars have added to the rich heritage of geopolitical writings. A medieval saint was quoted as saying that one’s life was justified if one were to offer but a single enduring idea from which humankind could profit. Whether that story is true or not, the insight is valuable. Of the several scholars who work is summarized below, there is something enduring and valuable among their writings.

Peter Kropotkin Piotr Kropotkin (1842-1921) was born on 9 December 1842, a son of Major General Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin and Ekaterina Nikolaevna Sulima, both of old and distinguished, as well as affluent, families. Educated in the best aristocratic tradition, was an anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, economist, sociologist, historian, zoologist, political scientist, human geographer, philosopher, and activist who advocated a form of anarchocommunism. Kropotkin attended a military school and later served as an officer in Siberia, where he participated in several geological expeditions. He was imprisoned for his activism in 1874 and managed to escape two years later. He spent the next forty-one years in exile in Switzerland, France (where he was imprisoned for almost four years) and England. While in exile, he gave lectures and published widely on anarchism and geography. Kropotkin returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917, but he was soon disillusioned with the Bolshevism. He died on 8 February 1921.474 In 1864, Kropotkin joined a geographical survey expedition, crossing the wilderness of North Manchuria. Soon after he joined another expedition which traveled up the Sungari River of Manchuria. Largely due to Kropotkin’s expertise and attention to detail, the expeditions yielded valuable results which impacted germinal Russian geographical studies. The intransigent nature of the Russian bureaucracy made it impossible to 474

https://peterkropotkin.org/biography/.

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implement any real administrative reforms which induced Kropotkin to devote himself almost entirely to scientific exploration, an area in which he continued to be most competent as well as highly successful. In 1867, Kropotkin resigned his commission in the army and returned to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Saint Petersburg Imperial University to study mathematics. Simultaneously, he became the secretary to the Russian Geographical Society. He maintained that position as it provided a perfect cover for his anarchist activities 475 Kropotkin came to despise the repressive, authoritarian regime under which he lived. His descriptions of imperial Russia show the kind of repressive state power that he rejected and against which he chose to dedicate his life in order to save its vulnerable and innocent victims. Almost alone among geographers he developed a coherent, influential vision of violence, social justice and interpersonal ethics, based on geographical investigations as well as an anarchist perspective. 476 Following foreign travel, in March 1874, the secret police arrested Kropotkin and imprisoned him in the infamous Peter and Paul Fortress, having charged him with subversive political activity, as a part of the Circle of Tchaikovsky. Because he was an aristocrat, and on account of his father’s service to the czar, he received permission to continue his geographical work in his cell. There, he penned his important and scholarly report on the Ice Age in 1876, where he argued that it had taken place more recently than other scholars thought 477 In his most important book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), Kropotkin begins with the methods of natural science to support his arguments on mutual aid and human nature. He drew upon examples from the animal kingdom and human history to launch his attack on the prevailing social Darwinist argument that competition and struggle lead to the survival of the fittest, and that serves humankind and the animal kingdom well. Instead, he asserted, for both animals and humans, cooperation and mutual aid are the necessary ingredients to ensure evolutionary success.478 He wrote,

Stoddart, D. R., “Kropotkin, Reclus, and 'Relevant' Geography,” Area, 7: 3 (1975), pp. 188– 190. 476 Springer, Simon, “Anarchism and Geography: A Brief Genealogy of Anarchist Geographies,” in Geography Compass, 7: 1 (2013), pp. 46-60. 477 Gallaher, Carolyn et al. Key Concepts in Political Geography. London: Sage, 2009. p. 392. 478 Vucinich, Alexander. Darwin in Russian Thought. University of California Press. 1988, p. 349. 475

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In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense – not as a struggle for the sheer means of existence, but as a struggle against all natural conditions unfavorable to the species. The animal species…. which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits…. and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development…. are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress. The mutual protection, which is obtained in this case, the possibility of attaining old age and of accumulating experience, the higher intellectual development, and the further growth of sociable habits, secure the maintenance of the species, its extension, and its further progressive evolution. The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay…. under any circumstance’s sociability is the greatest advantage in the struggle for life.479

Humans had become the most successful species only because they realized that cooperation and mutuality, not competition, are natural. This altruistic and cooperative behavior can be seen in pre-modern human societies where early humans had collectively organized into tribes and clans and based on mutual support.480 The purpose of political economy was to study society’s needs and the means available to meet them. Some means were currently in use, others could be developed with present knowledge, and some others awaited future scientific breakthroughs. In order to achieve them.481 Natural Science displays and illuminates results of the most complicated scientific research, giving it a shape accessible to the general reader. Kropotkin argued that this rise of natural science would necessarily bring about a like revival of geography. He claimed that the task of geography was to discover various truths about the earth to full light, wiping out the lies accumulated by ignorance, presumption, and egotism. It is the proper function of geography must enforce on the minds of children that all

479

Kropotkin, Perter. Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution (1902) in passim. Kropotkin, Peter. The Conquest of Bread. Putnam ed.,1892, pp. 200ff. This edition is on the net as part of Project Guttenberg. 481 Kropotkin, Peter, “Modern Science and Anarchism,” in: R. Baldwin, ed. Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets. Dover. 1970, p. 180. 480

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nationalities are valuable to one another; that whatever the wars they have fought, mere short-sighted egotism was at the bottom of all of them.482 Kropotkin charged that the state and capitalism have distorted and concealed humans’ natural sociable and cooperative tendencies, altering and denigrating humankind. The state is nothing less than a coercive institution designed to subject the masses to the will of the power-possessing minorities. Power-made persons had created capitalism and private property in order to exploit an unnatural inequality, which does not reflect the communal nature of production accompanied by the creation of communal wealth. Mutual aid is a natural function of true human nature which teaches that people living together in society develop a natural collective sense of justice founded on equal treatment and true love.483 Kropotkin initially assumed that an abundance of goods was being produced-and thus that the primary problem facing socialists was arranging their distribution. Kropotkin investigated the matter and found that there was no accumulation of products because the producers allowed only for the production of what they could sell at a profit and thus some areas were continually beset by shortages. For the most part, the agricultural productive capacity of virtually all areas could produce all that the inhabitants need were it not for governmental interference.484 He embraced the concept of autarky. Kropotkin’s focus on local production led to his view that a country should strive for economic selfsufficiency. Each region should attempt to manufacture its own goods and grow its own food, lessening dependence on imports. To these ends, he advocated taking all necessary steps to avoid foreign entanglements. He advocated using irrigation and greenhouses to increase local food production. His concern for increasing food production included scientific geographical and geological assessment.485 Kropotkin proposed a system of economics based on mutual exchanges made in a system of voluntary cooperation. He believed that in a society that is socially, culturally, and industrially developed enough to produce all the Kropotkin, Peter, “What Geography Ought to Be,” Jason Dittmer and Joanne Sharp, eds. Geopolitics. Routledge, 2014, pp. 49-52. 483 Cahm, Caroline. Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism 1872–1886. Cambridge University Press, 1989. See also Alan, Barnard, “Mutual Aid and the Foraging Mode of Thought: Re-reading Kropotkin on the Khoisan,” Social Evolution and History, 3: 1 (2004), pp. 3–21; and Morris, Brian. Kropotkin: The Politics of Community. Humanity Press, 2004. 484 Kropotkin, Peter. Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow. Edited by Colin Ward. Freedom Press, 1985, pp 193-97. 485 See Morris, op. cit., pp. 213ff. 482

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goods and services it needs, there would be no obstacle, such as preferential distribution, pricing or monetary exchange, to prevent everyone to take what they need from the social product. He supported the eventual abolition of money or tokens of exchange for goods and services. One must remember that Kropotkin, like nearly all anarchists, agitated for basic economic standards, eschewing luxury goods and exotic foods.486 Kropotkin represented the anarchist impulse in geopolitics. To him, territories are bounded spaces which should be understood as only one type of the spatiality of power. Kropotkin wrote: “the state is nothing else than a form that the society took in history.” He stressed the need to stop associating geography only with territory, treating geography as the only modality for the spatial organization of politics. The state is an idea of a goal which has but the shapes and the limits of the idea of a territoriality. The state never is a condition of things, but a creation. Kropotkin wrote that the crystallized border then becomes ideological because it territorially accounts for power relations. Specifically, he wrote, “We live in a world of hierarchical borders, each of them defines different numbers of affiliation and identities to which we belong.”487 Kropotkin considered himself a geographer because he was an anarchist and vice-versa. It was no accident that several of the major anarchists of the late nineteenth century, most notably Kropotkin, were also geographers. Their approach as activists and as geographers was to pay attention to the natural environment and to human beings, as individuals and groups. Even though they were academically neglected in the twentieth century, with a preference to study and rescue classic/hierarchical geographers like Halford Mackinder and Friedrich Ratzel, the contributions to geographical thought made by Kropotkin and other anarchists did not disappear. 488 As non-violent anarchists, Kropotkin and his school of geographers had the aim of establishing cooperation and mutual aid, not in a single violent period, but after a long a process of individual and collective change. He wrote, “In our time of wars, of national self-conceit, of national jealousies and hatreds ably nourished by people who pursue their own egotistic,

486

Kropotkin, Conquest of Bread, p. 201. Kropotkin, Peter. The State: Its Role in History (1928), p. 28. 488 Springer, S. The Anarchist Roots of Geography: Toward Spatial Emancipation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. 487

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personal or class interests, geography must be…. a means of dissipating these prejudices and of creating other feelings more worthy of humanity.”489

James Fairgrieve James Fairgrieve (1870 – 1953) was a British geographer, and geopolitician who is best known for his books Geography and World Power (1915) and Geography in School (1926). He was born in Scotland, a son to a Presbyterian minister. He was educated at Aberystwyth University, and then at Jesus College, Oxford, majoring in mathematics. Fairgrieve began his teaching career teaching in Scotland and then moved to London. Fairgrieve had no formal training in geography but took some courses in geography at the London School of Economics, taught by Halford Mackinder. Inspired, from that point onward, Fairgrieve concentrated on studying geography. He taught at the University of London’s Institute of Education. He held a number of influential positions at the University of London and also in the Geographical Association, of which he was president in 1935. His research centered primarily on human geography.490 Among the English research which linked geographical causes to human events was Fairgrieve’s Geography and World Power, a work which has undergone several reprintings and which has rarely been out of print since first appearing. The German edition carried an enthusiastic endorsement and introduction by General Karl Haushofer. Fairgrieve borrowed some of Mackinder’s basic concepts in formulating his own geopolitical worldview. He factored into his geopolitical analyses’ topography, location, climate, relative population density, the distribution of energy, the ease or difficulty of movement, and political and social organization.491 He taught that “geography would still control the course of history, but it would control it in a different way.”492 As with most geopolitical writers, he began by tracing the impact of geographical conditions on the course of history, beginning with the desert, marsh and steppe lands of Egypt and Mesopotamia; to the near and readily Kropotkin, Peter. What Geography Ought to Be (1885). See also Fabrizio, Eva, “Using an Anarchist Approach in Geopolitics,” Anarchist Studies, 31 August 2018. 490 Most biographical information originates from Fairgrieve's obituary published in the March 1954 issue of the Geographical Journal, p. 120. 491 “James Fairgrieve,” in Wikipedia. 492 Fairgrieve, James. Geography and World Power. 2nd ed.; University of London Press, 1921, p. 345. 489

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accessible regions of Palestine and Phoenicia; to Greece, Carthage, and Rome; to the forest lands of Germany and Russia; to the great plain of Eurasia from which nomadic tribes invaded the settled peoples of Europe; to the lands of Arabia from which Mohammedans attempted to convert the known world to Islam; to the age of exploration and the discovery of the New World; to the African grasslands; to the Monsoon lands of China and India. In his Geography and World Power, Fairgrieve reviewed the struggles for supremacy among the Dutch, Portuguese, Spaniards, and the British sea powers. He wrote about the benefits of Britain’s insular position in relation to Continental Europe.493 Professor Fairgrieve’s importance in the history of geopolitics derives from his concept of what he called the “great land mass of Euro-AsiaAfrica.” Four years later Mackinder would call the same area by its far better-known name, the World-Island. Fairgrieve noted that Euro-AsiaAfrica was surrounded by a stream of ocean. European explorers had discovered “the oneness of the ocean” which held the keys to world commerce.494 He had a great interest in the Heartland theory. Indeed, it is probable that James Fairgrieve actually coined the term “heartland.” For him, the heartland was the area where Russia was located, and it had enormous geopolitical advantages thanks to its geographical location and the continued development of railways. Fairgrieve identified three centers from which the Eurasian heartland could be politically controlled by outside ocean powers: Germany, China, and India. He thought Germany could become one of the significant sea powers, while its simultaneous situation of being located on the western and most populous margin of the great heartland offers a possible power center from which the heartland might be controlled.495 He warned that China touched the sea and could easily reap advantages from its geographical position. He asserted that China was in an even greater position than Germany to dominate the Heartland. And then there was India which is in an even more extraordinary position surrounded by the sea yet in touch with the Heartland. He thought that it would be natural for India to

Sempa, Francis P., “Geopolitical Thinkers: James Fairgrieve,” Mackinder Forum, 28 December 2020. See also https://en-academic.com/dic .nsf/enwiki /8101776. 494 Kristof, Ladis K. D., “The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 4: 1 (1960), pp. 15-51. 495 Fairgrieve, Geography and World Power, p. 238. See also Tovy, Tal. The Changing Nature of Geostrategy. Air University Press, 2015, p, 11. 493

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take an important place in competition with those powers seeking to dominate the Heartland. The first Chinese translation of Fairgrieve’s book was published in Shanghai in 1937 and was destined somewhat later to become an important source of geostrategy in Communist China. Fairgrieve described the world geopolitical situation as it existed at the beginning of the twentieth century, focusing on conflict between the ‘seagoing powers, notably the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Italy, along with the ‘Eurasian heartland’ powers, which included China along with Germany. He described the area between these two sets of powers as the crush zone. If Germany and China could organize and strengthen themselves, they would transform their status in any conflict with the seagoing powers. Fairgrieve also noted that, “China to a large extent occupies a position in which it can control the Eurasian heartland… though it has lost its vitality, it still has a singular importance.” In another place he wrote, “China’s political status is extremely interesting, its history is not yet complete and only time can tell us what the final result will be.”496 Fairgrieve described parts of central and Eastern Europe as a “crush zone.” That area existed in Eurasia, and extended west to east from Holland to China, including Central Asia.497 Fairgrieve (1924) redefined the inner crescent as the “crush zone,” a belt of small buffer states located between the sea powers and the Eurasian land mass, which approach Spykman later chose and adapted. These states are largely survivals from an earlier time when political and economic organizations were on a smaller scale, and each has characteristics partly acquired in that earlier time and partly natural. With sufficient individuality to withstand absorption, but unable or unwilling to unite with others to form any larger whole, they remain in

Ingle, Michael, “Liu Xiaofeng’s Essay on ‘A Country’s Suffering and Geopolitical Consciousness,’” China Notes, 6 March 2021. See also Pop, Irina Ionela, “Strengths and Challenges of China's One Belt, One Road Initiative,” Centre for Geopolitics & Security in Realism Studies, 9 February 2016. 497 Sempa, Francis P., “Geography and World Power at 100: An Important Work of Geopolitics Was Written 100 Years Ago,” The Diplomat, 25 April 2015. See also James Fairgrieve, “Geography and World Power,” in Hans W. Weigert and Vilhajalmur Stefansson, eds. Compass of the World: A Symposium on Political Geography. Macmillan, 1944, pp. 191192. 496

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the unsatisfactory position of buffer states, precariously independent politically, and more surely dependent economically.498

Fairgrieve wrote extensively about the “great plain of the world” included the “steppeland” and Central Asia. That area he referred to as the “central land of Euro-Asia.” It was under Russian control and was basically “cut off from the ocean.” Russia was the great land power that occupied the “heart land of the old world” – or Heartland. He described Central and Eastern Europe as a “crush zone” situated between the great powers of Russia and Germany. Fairgrieve described China’s history as being influenced by great rivers, a long coastline, and a great plateau. He predicted that the interplay of land and sea forces “will have a growing tendency to unify China.” Fairgrieve’s book, which went through numerous editions, had a slew of maps, and he updated each new edition with developments in global politics. Japan, after defeating Russia in 1904-05, had become a modern state and a world power whose influence was to be felt far beyond the island rim of eastern Asia.499 Fairgrieve expected that the United States would become the seat of an ocean power and play the part on a vaster scale which Britain played in earlier times. He championed the U. S. in part because it was removed, but not far removed by an ocean moat, from the direct effects of European wars. He thought that the United States could claim to be arbiter in world disputes because it was armed with great power of all kinds, material and economic and moral.500 His obsession was with the quest for sources of energy. Shifts in world power have occurred on account of the endless search for ready supplies of fuels. He wrote, “In the long run, the geographical conditions are more powerful than the genius of individuals, more powerful even that racial

498

Fairgrieve, James. Geography and World Power, 8th ed. E.P. Dutton, 1941, pp. 329- 330. See also Flynn, Curran, “Political Geography and Morgenthau’s Early American Works,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2016), pp. 1582-1602. Flynn reviews Han Morgenthau's Politics among Nations in light of the geopolitics of Fairgrieve, Mackinder, and Spykman. 499 Cohen, Saul B. Geography and Politics in a World Divided. Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 83-87. See also Parker, W. H. Mackinder: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft. Oxford University Press, 1982. 500 Mitchell, Martin D. “Using the Principles of Halford J. Mackinder and Nicholas John Spykman to Reevaluate a Twenty-first Century Geopolitical Framework for the United States,” Comparative Strategy, 39: 5 (2020), pp. 407–24.

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characters, unless racial characters are due to geographical controls.”501 The world according to Fairgrieve is a single economic system and the great problem of geopolitics, he noted, is not how to live separately but how to live together. He lamented the waste of lives and energy in the recently concluded world war and expressed the hope that an effective international organization might be created which would be devoted to the preservation of international peace.502 Infusion of capital, raw materials, or sources of energy can substantially modify power bases. Similar studies have considered the search for raw materials, either alone, or in concert with the search for fuels, to have propelled geostrategies. New power politics have been moved by the desire nations have to acquire the earth’s riches which are variously deposited throughout the planet.503

Norman Angell Ralph Norman Angell (1872—1967) was one of six children, born to Thomas Angell Lane and Mary (née Britain) Lane in Lincolnshire, England. He given name was Ralph Norman Angell Lane, but later he chose to use only Norman Angell. He was an English Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a lecturer, journalist, author, and Labour Member of Parliament. He was one of the principal founders of the Union of Democratic Control and served on the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a member of the executive committee of the League of Nations Union, and the president of the Abyssinia Association. He was knighted in 1931 and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933.504 501

Fairvgreive, James. Geography and World Power. University of London Press, 1921, p. 22. See also “James Fairgrieve” in Marshall, Tim. The Power of Geography. Simon and Schuster, 2021. See also Geography, 14: 2 (1927)., p. 155. 502 Giudice Baca, Victor, “Teorías Geopolíticas [Geopolitical Theories],” Gestión en el Tercer Milenio, 8: 15 (July 2005), pp. 19-23. 503 Emeny, Brooks. The Strategy of Raw Materials. Macmillan, 1936. See also Schneider, William. Food, Foreign Policy, and Raw Materials Cartels. Crane, Russak for National Strategy Information Center, 1976; Yuan-li Wu. Raw Material Supply in a Multipolar World. Taylor & Francis Group for National Strategy Information Center, 1979; and Theodore Moran. China`s Strategy to Secure Natural Resources. Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2010. 504 Meadowcroft, Michael, “Norman Angell” in Duncan Brack; and Ed Randall, eds. The Dictionary of Liberal Thought. Politico’s, 2007, pp. 9–11. Full biography is found in Ceadel, Martin. Living the Great Illusion: Sir Norman Angell, 1872–1967. Oxford University Press, 2009.

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Angell is best known for his 1909 pamphlet, Europe’s Optical Illusion, which was republished in book form as The Great Illusion. 505 His thoughts can be summarized in this oft-quoted publisher’s synopsis from the book edition of 1913: He establishes this apparent paradox, in so far as the economic problem is concerned, by showing that wealth in the economically civilized world is founded upon credit and commercial contract (these being the outgrowth of an economic interdependence due to the increasing division of labor and greatly developed communication). If credit and commercial contract are tampered with in an attempt at confiscation, the credit-dependent wealth is undermined, and its collapse involves that of the conqueror; so that if conquest is not to be self-injurious it must respect the enemy’s property, in which case it becomes economically futile. Thus the wealth of conquered territory remains in the hands of the population of such territory. When Germany annexed Alsace, no individual German secured a single mark’s worth of Alsatian property as the spoils of war. Conquest in the modern world is a process of multiplying by x, and then obtaining the original figure by dividing by x. For a modern nation to add to its territory no more adds to the wealth of the people of such nation than it would add to the wealth of Londoners if the City of London were to annex the county of Hertford.506

A recent article began with the claim that Angell “is among the most misunderstood of international relations theorists.” His major premise, that is, the grand illusion, was that war was profitable and that any nation could be better off after a great war than it was before the conflagration. 507 He had not discarded war; sadly, more wars were inevitable. It was his self-appointed duty to try to communicate to the leaders of all nations that the time for wars should have passed long since. Modern technological advances had rendered war obsolete. It was no longer possible to “win” wars. All nations could do was to destroy one another, lower the standards of 505

Many have pointed out that the title so intrigued peace activists that the 1937 French antiwar film La grande illusion [The grand illusion], directed by Jean Renoir, chose to duplicate this title. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front, it is considered by many to be the most important anti-war film ever made, 506 Angell, Norman, The Great Illusion: A Study of the Relation of Military Power in Nations to their Economic and Social Advantage. 3rd ed.; Putnam's, 1913, pp. x–xi. 507 Fettweis, Christopher, “Revisiting Mackinder and Angell: The Obsolescence of Great Power Politics.” Comparative Strategy, 22 (2003), pp. 109-129.

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living, kill and maim millions, drain the national treasuries, neglect the national infrastructures, and damage civilization. Nations had arrived at technological and economic inter-dependence and no state would achieve any advantage over others.508 While it was polite, perhaps kind, to acknowledge what Angell wrote, he harbored no illusion that nations would change, or leaders would react against strengthening their military systems. He realized that there would be no reductions in military spending, and, indeed, he agreed with that “so long as the current political philosophy in Europe remains what it is.”509 After the First World War ended, he noted that several of the great powers had achieved their goals, but at “frightful costs.” None of the victorious powers emerged better off than before the war. The losers fell into chaos. From the perspective of power politics alone it was impossible to justify. The Allies had won, but the cost had been so high as to obviate any gains, making the “victory” worthless. One objective of The Fruits of Victory was to deny, if not fully refute, the claims that the Great war had been worthy crusade against evil.510 Angell has come back into vogue as a result of even greater technological advances, in biological and chemical warfare, and in nuclear weapons which certainly threaten life on this planet. Civilized nations pursue prosperity more than power. Still, Angell’s followers have overestimated the rationality of psychotic leaders in both Third World petty dictatorships and major powers to whom moral progress is an illusion.511

Isaiah Bowman Isaiah Bowman (1878–1950), a leading American geographer, was born in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He studied in Michigan, and moved to Harvard to study under William Morris Davis, then a physical geographer, obtaining his B.A. In 1905. He moved on to Yale, receiving his doctorate there in 1909. His classic on regional geography of the United States, Forest Physiography (1911), was the result of a physiography course he taught in 508

Angell, Great Illusion, p. 317. Ibid., p. 329. See also Miller, J. D. B. Norman Angell and the Futility of War. Macmillan, 1986. 510 Angell, Norman. The Fruits of Victory, W. Collins, 1922, pp. II: 341. See also Castelli, Alberto. The Peace Discourse in Europe, 1900–1945. Routledge, 2019, pp. 21–37. 511 Fettweis, op. cit, p. 114. 509

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the Yale forestry school.512 That book was a synthesis of hundreds of papers and monographs. Its generalizations followed the Davisian erosional-cycle theory of land formation. In 1915, after teaching ten years, he left Yale to become director of the American Geographical Society, where he remained until 1935, when he was appointed president of Johns Hopkins University, where he established the departments of geography, oceanography, and aeronautics. Bowman opposed accepting Jewish refugees from Europe before and during World War II because of his deep antisemitism. At the Johns Hopkins University, he established an anti-Jewish admissions quota system, on grounds that Jews were an alien threat to American culture. He launched a 25-year project to map the American continents south of the United States.513 He retired in 1948. By the early 1930s Bowman had completed research for his “pioneer fringe” thesis, an innovative theory that asserted that new human settlements should be made only after a scientific evaluation of the proposed environment and of the social and political processes involved.514 The National Research Council and from the Social Science Research Council funded his research and promulgated his findings. Bowman believed that the subject matter of geography could only be decided by individual geographers and thus his book contained no quotable definition of geography. Six years later he followed up with a cognate volume prepared under his direction, Limits of Land Settlement (1937), again impacting upon geography, land allocation, and political authority. Bowman’s influential 1937 study, with which President Roosevelt was familiar, made the case that there were virtually no places left in the world to which large populations could feasibly migrate. This work was so popular that it was translated into several languages, including the French language by the French geographer Jean Brunhes. Bowman served as a territorial adviser to President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference (1918–19). Later, Bowman was frequently consulted by President Franklin Roosevelt on matters of national geographic policy.515 He was a key adviser to President Roosevelt on population 512

Bowman, Isaiah. Forest Physiography: Physiography of the United States and Principles of Soils in Relation to Forestry. Wiley, 1911. 513 Knadler, George A. “Isaiah Bowman: Backgrounds of His Contribution to Thought.” Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. 1959. 514 Bowman, Isaiah. The Pioneer Fringe. American Geographical Society, 1931. 515 Smith, Neil. American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization. University of California Press, 2003. Smith has much to say on pages 246-47 on Bowman’s anti-Jewish orientation.

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settlement issues and, as an anti-Semite, strongly influenced the president’s view of the Jewish refugee problem. He was widely known as “Roosevelt’s geographer.” In the wake of the November 1938 Kristallnacht terrorism, which was directed against Germany’s Jews, Roosevelt enlisted Bowman to undertake an examination of settlement possibilities for Jewish refugees. Among other possibilities, Roosevelt had considered various parts of South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Bowman and his team found virtually every country they studied to be unsuitable for the influx of a large foreign immigrant group. He warned that if the U.S. undertook the importation of European population elements” to Latin America, then “we are likely to be charge with the importation of a European quarrel into America.” A better idea would be to “keep the European elements within the framework of the Old World.”516 A practical scholar, perhaps as a result of his experienced at the Versailles Peace Conference, Bowman sought to involve academics in directing international relations toward a peaceful international objective. To achieve that end, he was one of the founders of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the editorial advisory board of its organ, Foreign Affairs, for over two decades.517 The best-known of Bowman’s many writings is The New World: Problems in Political Geography which treated international relations on a regional basis. .518 During his life he broadened the scope of geography, encouraged graduate schools, and made the American Geographical Society a world institution. Bowman’s legacy and reputation belonged not only to the United States but to the international community, and, indeed, to anyone who was working for peace.519

516

Medoff, Rafael. FDR and The Holocaust: A Breach of Faith. David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, 2013, pp. 27-31. 517 Wright, John K.; and Carter, George F., “Isaiah Bowman, December 26, 1878–January 6, 1950,” in National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1959, 33: 39-64. See also Wrigley, Gladys M., “Isaiah Bowman,” Geographical Review, 41: 1 (1951), pp. 7–65. 518 Bowman, Isaiah. The New World: Problems in Political Geography. New York: 4th ed.; World Book Company, 1928. 519 Martin, Geoffrey J. The Life and Thought of Isaiah Bowman. Hamden, CT.: Archon Books, 1980.

Chapter 12

Alexander Dugin Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin was born on 7 January 1962. He was born in Moscow, into a family of a colonel-general of the Soviet military intelligence and candidate of law Gelij Alexandrovich and his wife Galina, a Doctor of Medicine. Dugin was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church and has formally supported the branch known as the Old Believers, a Russian religious movement which rejected the 1652–1666 reforms forced upon the Russian Orthodox Church by Patriarch Nikita Minov Nikon.520 These Orthodox Christians were anathematized, together with their ritual, in a Synod in 1666–67. In 1979 he entered the Moscow Aviation Institute. Dugin worked as a journalist before becoming involved in politics just before the fall of communism. In 1988 he and joined the nationalist group Pamyat. He helped to write the political program for the newly rebounded Communist Party of the Russian Federation under the leadership of Gennady Zyuganov.521 He is a Russian political analyst, sociologist, philosopher, expert on geopolitics, and strategist known for views widely characterized as fascist. He was the principal behind the National Bolshevik Front, the Eurasia Party. The Eurasia Party, later Eurasia Movement, was officially recognized by the Ministry of Justice on 31 May 2001. The Eurasia Party claims support by some military circles and by leaders of the Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish faiths in Russia. He founded that organization with the objective of setting the stage for his dream of a Russian strategic alliance with European and Middle Eastern states, primarily Iran. Dugin’s ideas, particularly those on a Turkic-Slavic alliance in the Eurasian sphere have 520

In 1652, Patriarch Nikon ascended to the throne of the Moscow Patriarchate. Nikon was probably the most brilliant and gifted man ever to become head of the Russian Church; but he suffered from an overbearing an authoritarian temper. Nikon discovered a number of tiny, and to most people wholly insignificant, differences between the practices of the Russian and Greek Churches. Therefore, unilaterally, he decided to correct the corrupt Russian practices. The most famous of these changes involved the Sign of the Cross: Russians had been making it with two fingers, but Nikon insisted that they must now make it with three, like the Greeks. A significant minority in the Russian Church rejected Nikon’s reforms and the split has remained. 521 “Alexander Dugin,” FamPeople, 18 May 2019.

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recently become popular among certain nationalistic circles in Turkey, most notably among alleged members of the Ergenekon network, which is the subject of a high-profile trial on charges of conspiracy. Eurasia also advocates for a Russo-Arab alliance. Dugin’s Eurasian Youth Union has been accused of vandalism along with expressing extremist political views. The Ukrainian courts subsequently banned the organization.522 Dugin’s Eurasian philosophy owes much to smaller and lesser-known religious movements, which means that it resonates with Neo-paganism, a category which in this context means the movement of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery), especially in the forms of Anastasianism and Ynglism.523 Dugin’s Eurasianism is often cited as adhering to the same basic theology as these movements. He relied upon some esoteric Eastern theology as well as mystical currents for the development of his so-called Fourth Political Theory of which he has written at least two books. Dugin’s relationship with Putin and his inner circles has changed over time, and its extent is presently hotly contested. Both men came to political maturity during Russia’s time as Soviet Russia, and both men were said to have been shocked at the collapse of the former U.S.S.R. Both lamented Russia’s fall from superpower status and both men are now committed to ‘making Russia great again.524 Dugin believes that the Soviet Union, or Russia, is the great land-based world power which is in competition with a great sea-based empires led by the United States and Great Britain. Russia’s first step is to weaken the U.S. and Great Britain and disconnect them from their ties to Continental Europe. Dugin believes that it is Russia’s destiny to draw Europe toward Russia. Not only would all the Slavic rivers pour into the Russian sea, but so would all European rivers, including Germans, Gauls, and all others. Along with Putin, Dugin asserts that the Ukraine is not a separate country, and never really has been so, but, rather, it is another part of greater Russia, having in common

Shekhovtsov, Anton, “Alexander Dugiun,” Religion Compass: Political Religions, 3: 4 (2009), pp. 697-716. See also Charles Clover. Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism. Yale University Press, 2016. 523 See discussion in two studies by Crummey, Robert O. The Old Believers and the World Of Antichrist; The Vyg Community and the Russian State. Wisconsin University Press, 1970; and his “Eastern Orthodoxy in Russia and Ukraine in the age of the CounterReformation” in The Cambridge History of Christianity. Volume 5, Eastern Christianity. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 524 Tolstoy, Andrey; and Edmund McCaffray, “Mind Games: Alexander Dugin and Russia's War of Ideas,” World Affairs, 177: 6 (2015), pp. 25-30. 522

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many things, including the Russian Orthodox faith. 525 He explained some of his religious thoughts in an interview in 1999: In Russian Orthodox Christianity a person is a part of the Church, part of the collective organism, just like a leg. So how can a person be responsible for himself? Can a leg be responsible for itself? Here is where the idea of state, total state originates from. Also because of this, Russians, since they are Orthodox, can be the true fascists, unlike artificial Italian fascists: of Gentile type or their Hegelians. The true Hegelianism is Ivan Peresvetov – the man who in 16th century invented the oprichnina for Ivan the Terrible. He was the true creator of Russian fascism. He created the idea that state is everything and an individual is nothing.526

Dugin believed that the Russian Orthodox Church was destined to rule as an empire over all of Europe and Asia. There is a messianic quality to Dugin’s delusional thinking. It is simultaneously religious and apocalyptic. Dugin’s directions have served Putin well, propelling him to a degree that we have not previously seen. Dugin imbued Russian aggression with an idea that it is on a religious mission to universalize the Russian Orthodox version of Christianity by employing power politics and violence. That explains why the Russian Orthodox clergy has supported by Putin and his aggression against the Ukraine. From a strategic standpoint, it is the nation on the north shore of the Black Sea, and Dugin claims that Eurasia, as he calls the future Russian empire, is destined to have complete control of the Black Sea.527 Dugin disapproves of liberalism which has come to characterize the West, and particularly U.S. hegemony. He has theorized the foundation of a Euro-Asian empire capable of fighting the U.S.-led Western world, which he considers the archenemy of Russia and the opponent of everything he cherishes about Mother Russia. Dugin decided that Russia’s problems stemmed from modern thinking, especially the ideas of freedom and of individual rights. It is not surprising that Dugin idolizes Josef Stalin and cherishes what he considers Stalin’s brand of conservative thinking. Describing himself as a conservative, he saw as the first political priority to be the creation of a strong, solid state, characterized by stability and order. 525

Mankoff, Jeffrey. Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics. Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, p. 66-67. 526 “Alexander Dugin,” in Wikipedia, text in footnote 5. See his discussion in his Foundations of Geopolitics, pp. 224-26. 527 Ingram, Alan, “Alexander Dugin,” Political Geography, 20: 8 (2001), pp. 1029-1051

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He supports a healthy family, positive values, the importance of religion especially the Russian Orthodox Church in order to accomplish the great state. The government must be back by a patriotic radio, TV, and news media. He promoted the education of patriotic experts leading and controlling patriotic clubs. The only acceptable media is one which expresses, and supports attainment of, national interests.528 In Dugin’s analysis, the Atlanticists, controlled by the United States, have consolidated their hegemony by infiltrating various regional, and especially international, organizations. Meanwhile, the Eurasian nations which are in natural opposition, are disorganized, and thus defenseless. The Atlanticists, by prioritizing neo-liberal individualistic values, have rejected traditional cultural values and social bonds, have convinced many nations and large numbers of individuals to see Asiatic nations as a threat to their version of freedom. In the long run, this dissolution of the very fabric of traditional culture will destroy the Atlanticists.529 Dugin does not believe that Eurasia, that is, the great Russian Empire, will be complete until China has been dismantled as a major power.530 In a slight modification of Dr Karl Haushofer, Dugin claims that if only Hitler had never invaded Russia, then together, Russia and Germany and Japan could have formed a fascist alliance that would have dominated the world. As the largest and most populous partner in such an alliance, Russia would also have been the strongest partner essentially controlling as area from Dublin to Vladivostok.531 If one considers the way Putin has manipulated the internet over the past twenty years, the rise of social media to drive division and heat up the culture wars in the United States, to influence the Brexit movement in Great Britain, all of these things are steps intended to weaken the West. Dugin publicly favored Putin’s controversial 2008 invasion of Georgia. During the 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict, he called for the annexation of all Ukrainian lands that were part of the former Russian Empire, leading to the 2022 invasion of that independent nation.

Shekhovtsov, Anton, “Alexander Dugin, in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 9: 4 (2008), pp. 491-506. 529 Tolstoy and McCaffray, op. cit., at 26. 530 Smith, G. “Masks of Proteus: Russia, Geopolitical Shift, and the New Euroasianism,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 24: 4 (1999), pp. 481-94. See also D. Trenin, Russia's China Problem. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999. 531 Hauner, M. What is Asia to Us? Russia's Asian Heartland Today and Yesterday. Unwin and Hyman, 1990. 528

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In 2016, Dugin expressed his newly discovered concern about the American heartland, which is connected to a decidedly un-American worldview. Advising Russian leaders, Dugin announced that “It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity.” Dugin advised Russian elites to follow an anti-U.S. Policy as early as the 1990s, by laying out what looks like a blueprint. To achieve this disruption, he was encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements, and especially extremist, racist, and sectarian groups. He assumed such activities would have a destabilizing effect on internal political processes in the United States. He would also support isolationist tendencies in American politics, especially emanating from President Trump’s neo-conservative supporters.532

Fourth Political Theory Dugin’s philosophy is well developed in his The Fourth Political Theory, Arktos (2012). It is heavily based upon the ideas of Martin Heidegger (18891976), one of the most important and influential philosophers of the twentieth century. A German philosopher and member of the Nazi Party, Heidegger is best known for contributions in the academic fields of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He was obsessed by the idea of being and wrote much on it. His perceptions pf being, time, and understanding were influenced by Roman Catholic teaching and interpretation of classical philosophers. In his later philosophy, Heidegger attempted to reconstruct the “history of being” in order to show how the different epochs in the history of philosophy were dominated by different conceptions of being. His goal is to retrieve the original experience of being present in the early Greek thought that was covered up by later philosophers. The three most powerful modern philosophical systems are Marxism, fascism, and liberalism, according to Dugin, who rejects all three although there are bits and pieces of each system which he has chosen to incorporate in his fourth way. The great fallacy of the first three systems is their emphasis on the wrong keys to proper understanding, such as class, race or social atomism. Dugin chose as the fourth key Heidegger’s concept of 532

Sharpe, Matthew, “Alexander Dugin, Eurasianism, and the American Election,” The Conversation, 13 November 2017.

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humanity called Dasein. Heidegger’s name for the human being is Dasein, a term which can be variously translated, but which is usually rendered as “being-there.” The basic and very simple idea, is that the human being is first and foremost not an isolated subject, cut off from a realm of objects that it wishes to know about. Humans are beings who are always already in the world, outside and alongside a world from which, for the most part, we do not distinguish ourselves. The basic idea of Heidegger’s book Being, and Time is extremely simple: being is time.533 Following Heidegger, Dugin asserts that the only correct basis for societies is tradition. Deprived of their traditional roots, both individuals and societies wither and die. Therefore, history, which bears and relates tradition, is of paramount importance. Politics is quite secondary to history. In this way the virtually unbridgeable gap between Atlantists and Eurasians can be understood. Dugin sees Putin as the champion of tradition, a conservative battling the elements of change; and he sees the Russian Empire as the natural leader in the resurrection of tradition.534 For his part, Putin supports Dugin seeing that he has served to illuminate the pathways of Russian foreign and domestic policies.

Geopolitics Geopolitics lies at the heart of Dugin’s works, although it touches on his somewhat esoteric mystical and religious prejudices. “Geopolitics is the worldview of power, a science about power and for power.” As a science, it proceeds along rationalist lines. Geopolitics is also “the science of how to rule.” However, he lamented that it had not yet fully shed its origins in “sacral geography.” He views geopolitics as inherently elitist, because he believes that only elites can grasp adequately the abstractions that it deals in, and the large scales at which space ‘reveals itself.”535 Geopoliticians teach concepts which are inevitably partisan, because they fully appreciate the sentiments of nationalism. True geopoliticians associate themselves solely with patriotic positions, theories, ideologies, and strategies. Geopolitics takes a worldview which is necessarily reductionist, enabling a simplistic mastery of whole historical periods. This discipline Critchley, Simon, “Being and Time, Part 1: Why Heidegger Matters,” Dasein Foundation. Tolstoy and McCaffray, op. cit., at 27-28. 535 Dugin, Alexander. Fundamentals of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia (1997), pp. 13-14. 533 534

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interprets complex realities through the eyes of a new artificial construct known as “spatial man.” That creature is environmentally determined by space. He held space to be the quintessential factor in geopolitics.536 Dugin claims that geopolitics remains an intermediate science which draws upon mystical insights. There are only a very few who can simultaneously explore a science while remaining ground in the occult. Thus, to him, contemporary geopolitics is the product of the partial secularization and desacralization of sacred geography.537 States are more likely to be successful when they listen to their geopoliticians, noting that such had been the warnings of Mahan, Spykman and Mackinder, among other geopoliticians. History is seen as essentially and ultimately determined by a single geopolitical law, which Dugin calls “the ceaseless duel of civilizations” in one place, and in another place the “great war of continents” which can be seen in land-based societies which he various calls tellurocracies, or continental powers. In order to achieve Russia’s geopolitical goals and vanquish all opponents in the Great War of Continents, it must expel English--American interests from the Asian continent and all other rimlands. He intended to humble the once-proud Atlantic Anglo-Saxon powers.538 Not surprisingly, tellurocracies are best seen in, and embodied most fully by, Russia. There are also sea-based societies, which Dugin dubbed thalassocracies, and which are seen in the Atlantic powers, especially Great Britain and the United States.539 Russian policy in Central Asia, a region consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, according to Dugin, must be to oppose U.S penetration into the region and to oppose a policy of cooperation which is advocated by those favoring policy paradigms of free market and pluralism, both of which are anathema to Dugin. Russia has acted in a manner that prevents outside interests gaining a foothold in Central Asia. Dugin has argued that Western policy constitutes a challenge to Russia which is aimed at weakening its influence in what it regards a strategically important region. Therefore, Russia has deployed political, military, and economic tools to advance its interests. Economic coercion and arguments for security demonstrate the scope of Russian policy to be neoIbid., p. 6. See also Alan Ingram, “Broadening Russia's Borders,” Political Geography 20 (2001), pp. 1029–1051 at 1035. 537 Dugin, Fundamentals of Geopolitics, p. 265. 538 Hauner, op. cit., p. 173. 539 Dugin, Fundamentals of Geopolitics, p. 5. 536

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imperialistic, conforming to Dugin’s writings.540 There is no doubt in Dugin’s mind that the destiny of Central Asia is fully in the hands of Moscow.541 He has proposed a complex system of the distribution of power within the great Russian Empire. There was to be a strategic center, with Moscow as the most likely choice. After considering the history and culture of the various “autonomies” the redistribution of responsibility would allow central coordination only of economic and military matters, with the regions allowed to pursue all internal affairs according to their local needs. Dugin’s apparently preferred structure would fit more with classical Italian fascist corporate organization than Marxist-Leninist communism. There would, however, be considerable room for variance within the basic Russian Empire.542 History has been, and in the future will be, determined by the opposition of land powers to sea powers. This perennial competition is but one of a whole series of dualities which mark Dugin’s geopolitics. The outcome of this struggle is not predetermined, although the choice of sides and nature of the struggle are determined. Current geopolitical processes will lead to the annihilation of tellurocracy, and thus bring about the end of history. On the opposite side, the consolidation of tellurocracies in Eurasia would lead first to true bipolarity, which would result from Eurasian control over sea borders. That eventuality would mark the end of history under teleocratic rule.543 Dugin held the war between continents to have been directed throughout history by Eurasianist and Atlanticist ‘orders’ operating within networks of covert agencies, such as the CIA and KGB, as well as by secret societies, such as the Freemasons, which, he claimed, advocated opposing metaphysical and even occultist doctrines. Following the end of World War II, the Soviets condemned the Heartland theory as pseudo-scientific geography, useful only as an excuse for the aggressive policies of imperialist states. Soviet leaders had banned geopolitics in the U.S.S.R., calling it as a false bourgeois science. Rutland. Peter. “Paradigms for Russian Policy in the Caspian Region” in Robert Ebel, ed. Energy and Conflict in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, pp. 163-171. See also Jonson, Lena. “Russia and Central Asia” in Roy Allison et al., eds. Central Asian Security: The New International Context. Brookings Institution Press, 2001, p. 95ff. 541 See Gretsky, Sergei. Russia’s Policy Towards Central Asia. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1997, pp. 21-22. 542 Tolstoy and McCaffray, op. cit., at 26. 543 Ibid., pp. 259-62. 540

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Eurasianists who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s were severely punished for their championing of the truth. Apparently neither Lenin nor Stalin had ever read Mackinder. The assumptions and conclusions of geopolitics challenged many of the mainstays of Marx-ism– Leninism. The perceived moral superiority of Marxism placed the importance of the class struggle above specialty and territoriality. Teachings of Marxism–Leninism covered up and concealed Russia’s true geopolitical interests. Meanwhile England and the United States had risen to world domination because of their reliance upon the truths of geopolitics.544 Secretly, Mackinder’s writings were preserved in Soviet libraries, with a few trusted ideologues allowed access, so they could refute them. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, in what President Putin called in 2005 “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Economic chaos, Western triumphalism and the loss of the Soviet republics left Russia humiliated. The secret scholars of Mackinder emerged – and began to proselytize his ideas. The concept of the Heartland’s centrality found new appeal in the ailing Heartland itself.545 Writing in Foreign Affairs at the very end of the twentieth century, the London Sunday Times journalist Charles Clover identified the growing discussion of geopolitics among some circles in Russia today: He pointed out that 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. What victory there is, might be found through geopolitics, rather than history, in space, rather than time. This new movement envisions the Eurasian heartland as the geographic launching pad for a global anti-Western movement whose goal is the ultimate expulsion of Atlanticist influence from Eurasia.546 There were those who claimed that the U.S.S.R. was doomed to defeat in the Cold War primarily because of its failure to occupy sea borders to its south, as directed in the teachings of Mahan and Mackinder. Dugin aimed to rectify Russia’s backwardness in developing an appreciation and understanding of geopolitics. His new emphasis upon geopolitics will produce a strategy which will allow for the recovery of Russia’s status as a great world power. Towards achieving that end, he discussed, and in some cases virtually plagiarized, the texts of Kjellen, Naumann, Mackinder, Mahan, de la Blache, Haushofer and Spykman. He also showed great respect 544

Ibid., p. 96. Tinline, Phil, “The Father of Geopolitics,” The New Statesman, 4 April 2022. 546 Clover, Charles, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland,” Foreign Affairs, 78 (1999),p. 9. 545

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as well for certain contemporary Americans, such as Daniel Meinig, Saul Cohen and Henry Kissinger.547 Russia occupies the most important land block known generally as the Heartland of the World Island. The homeland of Mother Russia is the most important space on the planet. Russia has every geographical right to control the coming Eurasian Empire because essentially it and Russia are one and the same. To achieve this, Dugin reminds his readers that the interests of this Eurasian Empire are far more important than petty individual interests.548 The only viable geopolitical strategy for Russia is based upon the construction of a strategic alliance among anti-Atlanticist great spaces, which is the only scale at which true sovereignty is possible, Dugin having no use for mini states. He would regulate political relations within each great space by cultural and false pluralism. Autonomy of these allied powers would be limited by what he called strategic centralism which requires total loyalty to the greater power structure. His ultimate aim was the creation of a continental bloc, which he referred to as the “empire of empires.” That bloc would be wholly devoid of Atlanticist influence, and thus able to engage fully in the global struggle for supremacy.549 Little attention is devoted to the concerns of the inhabitants of the potential and actual spheres of Russian interest. As we have seen, concerns about human rights and freedoms are of no interest because they inhibit national cohesion and act as centrifugal forces. Geopolitics as an elitist discipline makes no effort to uplift the inhabitants. Only the elite truly know what is in the interests of the people and so relieve the common folk of any burdens of conscience concerning national policies. Some of Dugin’s critics have concluded that it has been his contention all along to create an anticivilized world in which traditional civilization is viewed as an opponent to be defeated.550 The Ukraine represents an impediment to progress toward the Eurasian Empire so it must be dismantled and restored as part of Russia. Likewise, the Balkans must be reconstituted as a single entity, with Russia restored as its protector, just as it had been in the nineteenth century. Dugin returned to Haushofer’s planned alliance between Russia and Germany, with Soviet-

547

Allensworth, Wayne. The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and PostCommunist Russia. Rowan and Littlefield, 1998. 548 Pickels, J., “Texts, Hermeneutics, and Propaganda Maps,” in T. Barnes and J. Duncan, eds. Writing Worlds. Routledge, 1992, pp. 193-245. 197 549 Ingram, op. cit., 1034-36. 550 Ingram, op. cit. at 1037.

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occupied German Democratic Republic (East Germany) being a step in that direction. Only in that way could Germany, which had been ousted from geopolitical activity after World War II, be reinstated and re-enter history as a subject of geopolitics.551

Publications Among his books available in English translation are Fundamentals of Geopolitics: the Geopolitical Future of Russia (1997); Political Platonism, Arktos (2019); Ethnos and Society, Arktos (2018); Last War of the WorldIsland: The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, Arktos (2015); The Fourth Political Theory, Arktos (2012); and The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory, Arktos (2017). In 1997 Dugin penned an article entitled “Fascism – Borderless and Red,” in which he announced the arrival of a “genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism” in Russia. He asserted that it was “by no means the racist and chauvinist aspects of National Socialism that determined the nature of its ideology. The excesses of this ideology in Germany are a matter exclusively of the Germans…. while Russian fascism is a combination of natural national conservatism with a passionate desire for true changes.”552 Throughout his writings he has consistently lauded the accomplishments of both Tsarist Russia and the U.S.S.R. under Stalin. At one time, he also embraced Nazism, although he later tried to avoid any repercussions by attributing that sentiment to a rebellion against his Soviet raising, as opposed to genuine sympathy for Hitler’s ideology.553

551

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Kerr, D. “The New Eurasianism: The Rise of Geopolitics in Russia's Foreign Policy,” Europe-Asia Studies, 47: 6 (1995), pp. 977-88. See also Shekhovtsov, Anton; and Umland, Andreas, “Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? Neo-Eurasianism and Perennial Philosophy,” Russian Review, 68: 4 (2009), pp. 662–678. Umland, Andreas in the Turkish Daily News, 15 April 2008. See also Stephen Shenfield. Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2001, p. 195. Clover, Charles in Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia's New Nationalism. Yale University Press, 2016, wrote, “Dugin is very forthright about his early Nazi antics, which he says were more about his total rebellion against a stifling Soviet upbringing than any real sympathy for Hitler. Still, virtually everyone who remembers Dugin from his early years brings it up.”

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The Geopolitical Future of Russia is a textbook on Russian geopolitical thinking.554 Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia. Dugin credited General Nikolai Klokotov of the Academy of the General Staff as co-author and his main inspiration, although Klokotov denies this coauthorship. However, Klokotov has admitted that the book should “serve as a mighty ideological foundation for preparing a new military command.”555 The following is a summary of the contents of Dugin’s most important book.556 That book has had greater significant influence within the Russian military, police and foreign policy elites than any other since the fall of the U.S.S.R. It has become a principal textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. Powerful Russian political figures, notably Putin, subsequently have taken special interest in Dugin’s ideas. He argued that Germany should be offered political oversight of most Protestant and Catholic states in Central and Eastern Europe. Poland should return Kaliningrad Oblast to Germany. France should form a bloc with Germany since they both have a traditional anti-Atlanticist tradition. Germany would occupy Estonia while Russia would once again control Latvia and Lithuania.557 In Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin expressed his hope that the United States and its Atlantic allies would lose their influence in Eurasia, while Russia to rebuild its influence through annexations and alliances. The book declared that “the battle for the world rule of Russians” has not ended and Russia remains “the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution.” The Eurasian Empire is to be constructed “on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the United States, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us.”558 He merely described Great Britain as an “extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.”, and it should be cut off from Europe. Russia must spread antiAmericanism everywhere: “the main ‘scapegoat’ will be precisely the United 554

Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia available as a Kindle edition from Amazon in English translation, published 27 April 2020. 453 pages. There is also an independently published English translation, publication date 2017, 451 pages in length. 555 “Aleksandr Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of PostSoviet Democratization. Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University,12:1 (2004), p. 41, 556 See also “Foundations of Geopolitics,” in Wikipedia. 557 Dugin, Foundation of Geopolitics, 211-13. 558 Quotes taken from Burbank, Jane, “The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War,” New York Times, 22 March 2022.

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States.” Russia should direct it foreign policy experts to use their special services to wreak havoc within the borders of the United States. They must fuel instability and separatism and provoke “Afro-American racists.” Russia should “introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements and extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the United States. Russia would regain control over the Ukraine because “Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represent an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics”. Dugin argued that the Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent. Likewise, Russia would reabsorb Finland, adding it to the part it conquered during the winter war of 1939-40. Poland would have some sort of special status within the Eurasian Empire.559 Very important to Dugin is the “continental Russian–Islamic alliance” which lies “at the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy.” That alliance would be based on the “traditional character of Russian and Islamic civilizations.” In that alliance, Iran would become a key ally for his book employs the term “Moscow–Tehran axis.” Armenia was to play a very special role, serving as a “strategic base in the Moscow-Tehran axis. After all, Armenians “are an Aryan people as are the Iranians and the Kurds.” Azerbaijan would be dismembered, perhaps given to Iran. Georgia, too, would be dismembered.560 Russia must create “geopolitical shocks” within Turkey by employing Kurds, Armenians and other minorities against the majority government. The Caucasus, however, must remain a Russian territory, including “the eastern and northern shores of the Caspian, including Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, along with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Dugin repeatedly reminds his readers that Communist China, represents a real danger to Russia, especially with regard to the attempt to create the Eurasian Empire. Therefore, China “must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled.” Dugin suggests that Russia begin dismantling China by creating out of the Tibet–Xinjiang–Inner Mongolia–Manchuria area a 559 560

Dugin, Foundation of Geopolitics, ch 5, “Threat from the West.” Dugin, Foundation of Geopolitics, pp. 130-47

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security zone. As compensation, Russia should allow China to take control “in a southern direction – Indochina (except Vietnam), the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia.” Simultaneously, Russia should seek to manipulate Japanese politics, beginning by offering to return the Kuril Islands to Japan, since they are of no particular value to Russia. Russia must also provoke anti-Americanism in Japan, reminding them that it was the United States who fire-bombed their cities and used the atomic bomb. Too, Mongolia is to be absorbed into the Eurasian Empire.561 The New York Times reviewed Dugin’s book in English translation and offered this perspective: After unsuccessful interventions in post-Soviet party politics, Mr. Dugin focused on developing his influence where it counted — with the military and policymakers. With the publication in 1997 of his 600page textbook, loftily titled The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, Eurasianism moved to the center of strategists’ political imagination. In Mr. Dugin’s adjustment of Eurasianism to present conditions, Russia had a new opponent — no longer just Europe, but the whole of the ‘Atlantic’ world led by the United States. 562

Perspectives From the annexation of Crimea to Britain’s exit from the European Union, the grand strategy laid out in Aleksandr Dugin’s Foundation of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia has unfolded fully in a disastrous manner for the western rules-based international order. The book has laid out Putin’s plans to weaken America’s ties to Europe, dissolve the European Union, and break apart the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He has also urged Putin to follow a reactionary course of action at home, solving problems in isolation and attempting to preserve Russia’s position on the world stage. Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin is a contributing author to the Katehon think tank, which the New York Times and others have accused of pushing Russian propaganda through fake news-media sites. Dugin’s website operates in 561

562

Dugin, Foundations of Geopolitics, ch. 3 “Challenge of the East” and ch 4, “New Geopolitical Order of the South.” Burbank, Jane, “The Grand Theory Driving Putin to War,” New York Times, 22 March 2022.

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thirty-eight languages and promotes s far-right ideas in Russian domestic politics. Dugin has assisted in preparing courses for the Russian military General Staff Academy. He has been featured prominently on both Russian state-run media and various foreign and domestic conservative media with close ties to the Russian government. There would seem to be no question, but that Dugin is Putin’s favorite political geopolitician. The West can see where Dugin has planned his geostrategy and Putin has implemented it; and the West can see where Dugin would lead Putin next. Three of Russia’s most controversial moves this century have been the 2008 invasion of Georgia, the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and the 2022 invasion of the Ukraine. Dugin addressed these problems in sub-chapters of his book. According to his Foundation of Geopolitics, Russia needed the Black Sea coastline for both trade and as a naval base of operations so that the “northern coast of the Black Sea [could] be exclusively Eurasian and centrally subordinate to Moscow” and because she needed these lands Russia had a right to invade. This was just a part of the Russian need to control the Caucasus from Volgograd to Armenia. Dugin’s fame and international reputation has grown in relative fame after the Ukraine conflict began, as this was his most efficacious recommendation. “Ukraine, as an independent state with some territorial ambitions, poses a huge danger to the whole of Eurasia, and without solving the Ukrainian problem, it makes no sense to talk about continental geopolitics.” To him, the Crimean Peninsula, home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet and a major military hub since 1997, has always been part of the Russian empire. Ukraine is also a significant economic hub, since the bulk of Russia’s natural gas exports must travel through it. Control of the gas supply is a quintessential factor in Russia’s ability to control Europe’s energy needs, moving it away from dependence on third-world energy sources which are controlled by the Atlanticists. Meanwhile, Russia’s political and economic hold in Ukraine had dwindled over the time since the fall of the Soviet Union. Dugin has, at times, lashed out against some of Putin’s policies, even to the pointing of labeling some reforms “neo-liberal” and his realpolitik as a form of liberalism, and even his forms as “vacillating,” some viewed these as somewhat crude chiding remarks which are intended to steer Putin back onto the path of righteous behavior. Overall, it appears that Putin has followed Dugin in tossing the Marxist class struggle in favor of the Fourth Way.

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About the Authors James B Whisker James B Whisker is professor emeritus from West Virginia University where he taught for over 37 years. He was adviser to the WVU College Republicans during most of his tenure. He received his B.S. From Mount St. Mary’s College; master’s degrees in history and philosophy from Niagara University; and Ph. D. in 1969 from the University of Maryland. His fivevolume study of the colonial American Militia won the Adele Mellon Prize. He recently published a book on the armorers of the U. S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Among his other books are Command Responsibility; The Militia; The Right to Hunt; Capital Punishment in American Courts; Capital Punishment in Traditional Thought; The Citizen-Soldier and U.S. Military Policy, Our Vanishing Freedom: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Rise and Decline of the American Militia System. Most recently Sage Publications accepted both his The Alien Tort Claims Act and The Just War in Traditional Catholic Thought. He currently resides in Everett with his wife of 51 years, the former Sheila Elaine Bailey.

Kevin R. Spiker Kevin R. Spiker is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University, and West Virginia University where he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. He has taught political science at West Virginia University, Frostburg State University and is currently associate professor at Ohio University. With Professor Whisker he has co-authored a series on Bedford County, Pennsylvania history; The Pennsylvania Colonial Militia; Slavery Throughout the Ages; Asylum and Sanctuary in History and Law; Capital Punishment in Western Thought; The Alien Tort Claims Act, and Command Responsibility. They are currently working on additional publications on the death penalty. His teaching areas include areas of American political institutions, the American presidency, and research methodology He is currently preparing a book on presidential clemency.

Index

A advancement, 17, 27, 39, 58, 59, 100 Africa, 34, 51, 62, 99, 112, 115, 121, 149, 162, 191, 198, 222 aggression, 7, 139, 172, 183, 201 Alaska, 62, 89, 114 Amsterdam, 171 anarchist, 164, 185, 186, 189, 190, 223 Anaximander, 27 Ancel, Jacques, 148, 160, 161, 215, 223 Angell, Ralph Norman, 112, 138, 173, 194, 195, 196, 215, 216, 218, 221 Anglo-Saxons, x, 116, 132, 162, 166, 205 Aristotle, 14, 31, 32, 41, 42, 43, 44 Armenia, 112, 211, 213 Asia, 28, 35, 38, 48, 50, 52, 62, 81, 94, 95, 96, 102, 106, 107, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 131, 141, 160, 172, 174, 178, 181, 184, 191, 192, 193, 201, 202, 205, 206, 209, 216, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 225 Austria, 52, 107, 112 autarky, 31, 54, 55, 62, 87, 136, 139, 140, 188 authority, 9, 12, 38, 46, 94, 104, 115, 116, 197

B Balkans, 65, 160, 208 barriers, 32, 90, 116, 142, 161, 168 base, xi, 54, 63, 91, 107, 108, 112, 174, 177, 210, 211, 213 Bible, 21, 24, 25, 81

borders, 15, 59, 62, 75, 76, 77, 78, 108, 129, 134, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 148, 155, 160, 189, 205, 206, 207, 211 boundaries, 24, 77, 160 Bowman, Isaiah, 117, 196, 197, 198, 216, 220, 221, 225 Britain, ix, 6, 16, 31, 60, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 93, 94, 95, 100, 101, 102, 107, 115, 117, 120, 143, 144, 158, 167, 191, 193, 194, 200, 202, 205, 210, 212, 220 Büsching, Anton Friedrich, 52

C capitalism, 14, 132, 188 Caribbean, 89, 90, 198 Catholic Church, 162, 163, 164, 215 Catholicism, 42, 43, 46, 128, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 203, 210, 215, 221, 227 Caucasus, 114, 206, 211, 213, 222 Central Asia, 102, 106, 110, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 192, 193, 205, 206, 216, 218, 219, 222 chaos, 27, 43, 103, 165, 196, 207, 218 children, 26, 134, 150, 187, 194 China, xi, 16, 39, 63, 90, 95, 96, 98, 102, 116, 118, 121, 122, 131, 135, 172, 174, 191, 192, 193, 194, 202, 211, 219, 221, 224 Christianity, 1, 14, 166, 200, 201 Christians, 25, 26, 162, 199 church, 65, 76, 99, 162, 163, 164, 199, 201, 202, 215, 223 cities, 28, 31, 33, 37, 45, 157, 212 citizens, xi, 6, 50, 55, 74, 84, 85, 159

230

Index

civilization, 51, 76, 77, 90, 96, 113, 150, 196, 208 climate, 4, 9, 24, 31, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 59, 70, 77, 143, 168, 190 Cold War, 9, 15, 60, 62, 65, 66, 89, 95, 128, 173, 174, 207, 218, 221 colonialism, 63, 138, 156, 157 colonization, 77, 114, 139, 156, 158, 217, 218 commerce, 30, 39, 47, 62, 84, 85, 87, 90, 92, 116, 167, 191 commercial, 39, 62, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 96, 97, 107, 195 communism, x, 16, 64, 100, 108, 128, 133, 162, 173, 185, 192, 199, 206, 208, 211 community, 51, 56, 71, 73, 76, 78, 104, 121, 134, 139, 168, 183, 198 competition, 14, 15, 16, 79, 154, 159, 186, 187, 192, 200, 206 conception, 22, 27, 53, 54, 57, 58, 64, 96, 107, 120, 127, 136, 139, 140, 175, 220 conflict, 13, 65, 79, 84, 91, 93, 109, 175, 192, 202, 213 Congress, 90, 91, 121, 157 consciousness, 106, 132, 137 consolidation, 77, 177, 206 construction, 16, 43, 58, 79, 131, 208 Continental, 14, 54, 113, 168, 191, 200 controversial, 46, 69, 202, 213 cooperation, 149, 156, 176, 186, 187, 188, 189, 205 culture, 16, 22, 47, 53, 57, 58, 72, 75, 78, 106, 119, 145, 153, 164, 166, 175, 177, 202, 206

D Darwinism, 13, 14, 60, 67, 69, 74, 129, 216, 218, 225 Decugis, Henri, 159, 160 Demangeon, Albert, 148, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159 democracy, 28, 32, 33, 50, 101, 102, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 115, 116, 121,

141, 143, 162, 164, 165, 172, 194, 209, 220 demography, 9, 61, 65, 112, 116, 119, 143 destiny, xi, 73, 75, 78, 87, 166, 200, 206 destruction, xi, 25, 26, 33, 84, 92, 94, 97, 135, 165 determinism, 63, 122, 142, 153 dichotomy, 30, 32, 119, 136, 141, 174 distribution, 12, 67, 77, 103, 115, 116, 176, 188, 189, 190, 206 diversity, 2, 6, 18, 43, 122 dominance, 30, 71, 104 Dugin, Aleksandr Gelyevich, vii, ix, x, xi, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 217, 219, 223, 224

E East Asia, 113, 141, 172, 218, 225 Eastern Europe, 109, 113, 114, 129, 143, 192, 193, 210, 219 economics, 3, 8, 9, 14, 19, 22, 31, 54, 65, 78, 84, 85, 86, 87, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105, 112, 115, 119, 129, 130, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159, 167, 173, 177, 180, 181, 188, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 205, 206, 207, 213, 215, 219, 221 education, 6, 58, 85, 99, 131, 202 Egypt, 29, 39, 150, 166, 190 enemies, 25, 95, 149 energy, 45, 47, 65, 78, 143, 190, 193, 194, 213 England, 6, 7, 12, 35, 49, 52, 54, 56, 64, 88, 91, 99, 100, 101, 118, 125, 128, 136, 137, 141, 148, 157, 162, 166, 167, 168, 185, 190, 194, 205, 207, 209, 210, 212, 217, 218, 219 environment, 1, 17, 22, 30, 31, 32, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 51, 67, 72, 73, 151, 153, 154, 155, 161, 189, 197 environmental factors, 43, 72, 153 equilibrium, 105, 119, 176 Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 34 ethics, 14, 32, 54, 131, 186

Index Eurasia, 14, 86, 106, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 134, 139, 143, 172, 174, 175, 177, 181, 182, 191, 192, 199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 213, 219 Europe, 12, 14, 38, 49, 51, 52, 79, 93, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 120, 122, 135, 144, 148, 149, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 164, 167, 168, 171, 172, 174, 178, 181, 184, 191, 195, 196, 197, 200, 201, 209, 210, 212, 213, 216, 217, 219, 220, 223 European Union, 66, 121, 122, 212 evidence, 16, 23, 122, 128, 129, 148 evolution, 22, 56, 72, 73, 113, 120, 122, 137, 149, 154, 156, 157, 182, 187 exercise, 8, 12, 54, 65, 89, 158 exile, 25, 162, 185 expansionism, ix, 7, 95, 130, 134, 148, 162, 168, 182

F Fairgrieve, James, 9, 127, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 217 faith, 2, 70, 163, 168, 201 fascism, ix, 135, 136, 162, 164, 166, 199, 201, 202, 203, 206, 209, 215 fertility, 24, 50, 103 Finland, 62, 114, 118, 211 food, 30, 106, 140, 188 force, xi, 23, 49, 51, 57, 63, 76, 78, 87, 88, 93, 94, 95, 115, 118, 144, 168, 176, 178, 180, 182, 184 foreign affairs, 18, 143, 144 foreign policy, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 59, 62, 63, 86, 87, 89, 91, 105, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121, 122, 130, 136, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 171, 176, 177, 179, 182, 183, 210, 211 formation, 76, 77, 104, 129, 197 foundations, 10, 30, 74, 133, 173 Fourth Political Theory, 200, 203, 209, 217 France, vii, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 18, 28, 29, 41, 42, 46, 52, 70, 72, 82, 86, 88, 94, 95, 101, 110, 118, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150,

231

151, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 185, 192, 195, 197, 210, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 222, 225 free trade, 63, 98, 111, 140 freedom, 50, 78, 87, 171, 178, 201, 202

G geographer, vii, ix, x, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 21, 23, 27, 29, 32, 34, 36, 37, 38, 41, 46, 52, 53, 55, 60, 63, 67, 68, 74, 77, 99, 100, 103, 106, 107, 115, 117, 125, 136, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 155, 156, 160, 161, 162, 163, 167, 169, 171, 185, 186, 189, 190, 196, 197, 198, 202, 215, 216, 222, 223, 224 geology, 36, 151, 152 geopolitical, ix, x, xi, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 26, 28, 31, 54, 55, 60, 62, 63, 72, 74, 78, 79, 81, 83, 86, 89, 93, 95, 97, 101, 104, 105, 106, 111, 113, 114, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 129, 131, 132, 133, 135, 141, 142, 148, 149, 153, 158, 159, 161, 162, 163, 166, 172, 173, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 185, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 215, 217, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 225 geopoliticians, vii, 85, 185, 204, 224 Georgia, 202, 211, 213 Germany, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 41, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 151, 153, 156, 158, 161, 162, 165, 166, 172, 180, 182, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 198, 200, 202, 203, 208, 209, 210, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225 globalization, 5, 120, 125, 156

232

Index

God, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 65 governments, 33, 39, 43, 47, 50, 91 Great Britain, ix, 6, 9, 10, 11, 31, 60, 69, 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 88, 92, 93, 94, 95, 99, 100, 101, 102, 105, 107, 108, 117, 119, 120, 135, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 151, 158, 167, 183, 190, 191, 200, 202, 205, 210, 215, 220, 223, 224 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS), 141 Greece, 3, 14, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 77, 132, 150, 178, 191, 199, 203, 219 GRIN, 75, 79, 127, 225 grouping, x, 60, 103, 175 growth, 11, 15, 30, 45, 61, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 83, 84, 90, 103, 137, 154, 187

H habitat, 74, 77, 157 Haushofer, Albert, x, xi, 6, 7, 75, 79, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 158, 161, 182, 207, 208, 217, 219, 223, 225 Haushofer, Karl, vii, ix, x, xi, 6, 7, 54, 64, 75, 79, 89, 97, 111, 120, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 149, 158, 161, 182, 190, 202, 207, 208, 215, 217, 219, 223, 225 Heartland, x, 13, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 135, 173, 174, 175, 178, 181, 191, 193, 202, 206, 207, 208, 219, 223, 225 Hecataeus of Miletus, 27 hegemony, 88, 115, 160, 201, 202 Herodotus, 11, 28, 29 Hipparchus of Nicaea, 34, 35 Hitler, Adolf, ix, xi, 6, 7, 75, 79, 94, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 135, 144, 145, 202, 209, 219, 225 human, xi, 1, 4, 5, 7, 11, 13, 23, 31, 32, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 51, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61,

63, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 99, 104, 122, 127, 132, 136, 141, 143, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 161, 169, 182, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 197, 204, 208 human activity, 67, 73, 75 human body, xi, 48, 136 human existence, 13, 72, 73, 75 human nature, 43, 186, 188 human rights, 55, 141, 208 Hungary, 107, 108, 112

I ideal, 41, 85, 98, 122, 139, 163 idealism, 91, 178, 179 identity, 5, 8, 65, 165, 166 ideology, x, 7, 10, 14, 16, 57, 64, 69, 75, 126, 127, 135, 136, 139, 143, 163, 166, 204, 209, 219, 225 imperialism, 7, 13, 14, 105, 138, 171 independence, 50, 55, 56, 74, 82, 86, 110, 164, 171, 177 India, 35, 39, 89, 118, 131, 163, 175, 191 individuality, 55, 56, 62, 96, 192 individuals, 8, 14, 55, 56, 57, 58, 67, 76, 136, 164, 189, 193, 202, 204 industry, 79, 97, 98, 112, 157 insecurity, 10, 136, 143 institutions, 2, 33, 39, 44, 111, 127, 134, 227 integrity, 15, 54, 96, 110 interdependence, 84, 111, 195 interference, 45, 141, 188 international affairs, 58, 65, 91, 181 international relations, x, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 58, 64, 65, 66, 119, 123, 131, 140, 143, 171, 180, 181, 182, 195, 198 Iran, 174, 199, 211 islands, 37, 50, 59, 89, 93, 94, 112, 115, 116 isolation, 32, 73, 87, 104, 141, 152, 172, 180, 181, 203, 212 isolationism, 172, 180, 181 Italy, 7, 33, 49, 60, 62, 125, 134, 135, 136, 143, 150, 164, 192, 201, 206, 215

Index J Japan, x, 7, 60, 63, 81, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 102, 115, 119, 120, 121, 125, 129, 130, 131, 134, 141, 143, 157, 162, 172, 192, 193, 202, 212, 218, 223 Jean Bodin, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 Jewish, 1, 24, 25, 26, 129, 130, 134, 142, 144, 163, 165, 197, 198, 199 justification, 6, 79, 129, 183

K Kazakhstan, 118, 205, 211 Kjellén, Rudolf, vii, 3, 4, 14, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 132, 219, 224 Korea, 102, 131, 174 Kropotkin, Piotr, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 215, 216, 220, 221, 224 Kyrgyzstan, 118, 205, 211

L Lacoste, Yves, 11, 12, 28, 29, 39, 116, 118, 158, 159, 220 land, ix, 1, 3, 4, 8, 14, 17, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 37, 47, 49, 51, 54, 56, 59, 60, 61, 68, 71, 72, 73, 77, 79, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 93, 94, 97, 100, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 115, 116, 118, 119, 132, 136, 141, 157, 166, 172, 174, 175, 178, 180, 181, 191, 192, 193, 197, 200, 205, 206, 208 landscape, 22, 28, 151, 152, 154 languages, 12, 197, 213 laws, 30, 42, 44, 46, 47, 55, 62, 64, 65, 71, 78, 134, 153, 154 lead, 144, 145, 166, 183, 186, 206, 213 leadership, 85, 99, 121, 128, 135, 157, 166, 172, 199 Lebensraum, ix, 14, 56, 60, 65, 68, 69, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 97, 126, 129, 131, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 215, 219, 220, 223

233

liberalism, 14, 54, 56, 57, 59, 62, 69, 120, 125, 140, 149, 163, 164, 171, 178, 182, 183, 194, 201, 202, 203, 210, 213 liberation, 162, 171, 178 lying, 41, 86, 101, 175

M Macedonia, 33, 160, 161, 223 Mackinder, Halford John, vii, ix, 6, 13, 14, 53, 89, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 135, 143, 173, 174, 175, 176, 189, 190, 191, 193, 195, 205, 207, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, vii, 14, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 106, 175, 205, 207, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 225 majority, 97, 148, 174, 182, 187, 211 manpower, 100, 112, 115, 180 mass, 14, 86, 90, 95, 109, 112, 159, 172, 191, 192 mathematics, 38, 186, 190 matter, 11, 13, 45, 60, 69, 72, 87, 96, 104, 132, 176, 188, 197, 209 Maurras, Charles-Marie-Photius, x, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 218, 221 Mediterranean, 24, 35, 39, 59, 67, 89, 150, 151, 155, 167, 177, 178, 222 methodology, 5, 28, 227 Middle East, 22, 25, 74, 102, 113, 171, 172, 174, 181, 199, 218 migration, 11, 60, 67, 77, 87 military, 4, 6, 9, 12, 28, 31, 52, 54, 63, 68, 78, 81, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 101, 105, 109, 112, 115, 116, 119, 121, 129, 130, 131, 138, 142, 143, 158, 159, 164, 172, 173, 181, 185, 196, 199, 205, 206, 210, 212, 213 mission, 78, 84, 85, 100, 135, 161, 162, 201 monarchist, 161, 162, 163

234

Index

Mongolia, 102, 112, 113, 118, 211 Montesquieu, 1, 41, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 77 morality, x, 49, 51, 63, 73 Moscow, 106, 199, 206, 211, 213 music, 34, 36, 39, 49

N national character, 43, 84, 85, 164 national policy, 10, 142, 179 national security, 173, 180, 181, 183 National Security Strategy (NSS), 121, 122, 194, 222, 225 nationalism, 13, 15, 54, 56, 139, 149, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 179, 199, 200, 204, 208, 209, 216, 219 nationality, x, 9, 62, 161, 163 natural resources, 8, 9, 13, 62, 103, 112, 115, 122, 143, 174, 175 natural science, 151, 186, 187 natural selection, 14, 69, 74 Nazi, ix, 6, 7, 12, 125, 126, 128, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 139, 143, 144, 146, 183, 203, 209, 219 Nazi Germany, ix, 139, 146, 183 neutral, 33, 84, 85 Nile, 29, 59, 166 North America, 14, 51, 87, 107, 114, 121, 168, 181, 223

O oceans, 12, 78, 84, 181, 184 Oklahoma, 87, 88, 98, 220 operations, 88, 93, 213 opportunities, 2, 13, 78, 103, 114, 119, 153 organ, 4, 55, 75, 77, 136, 154, 198 organic unity, 137, 165 organism, xi, 3, 4, 6, 16, 53, 56, 57, 61, 63, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 103, 104, 125, 136, 153, 201 organize, 33, 109, 192

P Pacific, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96, 125, 138, 141, 219 pan-region, 126, 136, 140 Parliament, 42, 45, 100, 194 peace, x, 31, 42, 65, 85, 98, 105, 108, 109, 117, 119, 135, 142, 144, 145, 182, 194, 195, 198 Peschel, Oskar, 68, 69 philosopher, x, 1, 27, 31, 36, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, 53, 58, 65, 67, 98, 113, 118, 127, 131, 132, 136, 137, 163, 165, 185, 196, 199, 200, 203, 209, 221, 223, 224, 227 physical environment, 8, 48, 73, 75, 151 physical features, 8, 59, 101 pluralism, 86, 205, 208 Poland, 110, 117, 210, 211 policy, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 17, 33, 44, 56, 59, 62, 63, 73, 75, 76, 86, 87, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 101, 104, 105, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 130, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 149, 158, 171, 173, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 197, 205, 210, 211 policymakers, 104, 173, 212 political power, 8, 12, 13, 14, 77, 103, 105, 112, 116, 119, 158 political system, 31, 103, 135, 163 politics, x, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 27, 31, 39, 42, 44, 54, 57, 59, 65, 66, 69, 91, 94, 100, 103, 104, 106, 107, 115, 119, 121, 122, 125, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134, 138, 140, 142, 149, 167, 169, 172, 174, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184, 189, 193, 194, 196, 199, 201, 203, 211, 212, 213, 223 Polybius, 32, 33, 34 population, 4, 8, 12, 15, 30, 46, 51, 56, 59, 60, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 83, 84, 87, 96, 98, 107, 113, 115, 116, 129, 138, 141, 149, 158, 174, 177, 190, 195, 197 possibilism, 150, 153 power relations, 8, 15, 177, 189 preservation, 50, 110, 182, 194

Index President, 82, 83, 90, 91, 95, 110, 120, 121, 133, 167, 190, 194, 197, 198, 203, 207 primacy, 58, 59, 74, 164 principles, x, 9, 13, 16, 31, 37, 44, 49, 55, 90, 100, 110, 128, 156, 164, 176, 221 profit, 79, 85, 185, 188 project, 3, 17, 59, 68, 84, 115, 164, 197 propaganda, 127, 129, 148, 212 prosperity, 90, 141, 160, 196, 218 protection, 88, 92, 138, 141, 187 Protestant, 46, 165, 167, 210 Ptolemy, Claudius, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 44, 45, 215 purification, 7, 23, 125

235

Rimland thesis, x, 171, 174 roots, 1, 61, 73, 103, 147, 178, 204 routes, 60, 83, 157, 168 rules, 5, 11, 13, 30, 63, 87, 105, 108, 174, 177, 181, 212 Russia, ix, x, xi, 2, 25, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 92, 95, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 129, 131, 134, 141, 143, 162, 166, 172, 174, 185, 186, 191, 193, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224 Russian Orthodox, 199, 201, 202

R race, 69, 81, 131, 132, 142, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166, 203 racist, x, 14, 48, 63, 129, 165, 203, 209, 211 Ratzel, Friedrich, vii, 3, 4, 13, 53, 55, 56, 60, 61, 63, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 127, 132, 136, 139, 147, 151, 153, 189, 215, 222, 223, 224, 225 raw materials, 54, 102, 140, 180, 194 reading, 81, 83, 95, 188, 215 realism, 12, 16, 29, 91, 122, 178, 182 reality, 2, 5, 7, 16, 53, 57, 72, 73, 74, 108, 118, 125, 182 reasoning, 8, 28, 31, 58, 79, 172, 180 recognition, 3, 55, 82, 85, 110 reforms, 42, 149, 162, 186, 199, 213 refugees, 29, 197, 198 regionalism, 140, 141 religion, ix, x, 1, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 42, 47, 54, 81, 113, 163, 164, 200, 202, 219, 223, 224 religious, 1, 21, 22, 23, 42, 44, 48, 113, 199, 200, 201, 204 reputation, 42, 52, 92, 134, 144, 148, 198, 213 resistance, 145, 149, 184 resources, 4, 7, 29, 34, 57, 59, 61, 65, 101, 109, 116, 120, 138, 180, 181

S safety, 29, 85, 148 scholarship, 35, 148, 173, 180 school, 4, 6, 14, 16, 18, 63, 66, 99, 125, 130, 133, 147, 150, 153, 154, 155, 157, 166, 189, 197, 198 science, ix, x, xi, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 21, 23, 27, 32, 34, 39, 46, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 61, 62, 65, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 95, 99, 100, 102, 104, 125, 130, 133, 134, 139, 142, 147, 148, 156, 157, 161, 167, 171, 179, 186, 204, 205, 206, 227 scope, 8, 10, 17, 150, 153, 168, 198, 205 sea, ix, x, 8, 14, 17, 24, 30, 32, 34, 39, 41, 43, 50, 59, 60, 62, 69, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 115, 116, 117, 119, 136, 141, 143, 168, 174, 175, 191, 192, 193, 200, 201, 205, 206, 207, 213, 217, 219, 220, 221, 223 Second World, 93, 111, 114, 139, 145, 172 Secundus, Gaius Plinius, 36 security, 4, 11, 17, 50, 59, 86, 110, 120, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 181, 182, 205, 212 self-sufficiency, 106, 136, 139, 140, 188 shores, 87, 101, 211 Siberia, 63, 174, 185

236

Index

Siegfried, André, 160, 167, 168, 169, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223 slavery, 42, 48, 74, 141, 159 Social Darwinism, 13, 14, 60, 67, 69, 74, 129, 186, 216, 218, 225 social organization, 72, 73, 190 social sciences, 6, 10, 17, 59, 70, 150, 156 socialism, 149, 159, 163 society, 46, 57, 131, 132, 136, 137, 149, 162, 163, 164, 174, 182, 187, 188, 189 sociology, 14, 65, 119, 167, 171, 180 South America, 59, 81, 113, 198, 220 Southeast Asia, 131, 141, 174 sovereignty, 17, 42, 208 Soviet Union, 64, 111, 113, 118, 172, 174, 200, 207, 213 space, x, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 16, 18, 23, 34, 54, 56, 60, 61, 62, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 84, 97, 103, 112, 114, 119, 128, 131, 133, 134, 136, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 157, 189, 204, 205, 207, 208, 215, 217, 224 species, 67, 69, 72, 74, 75, 187 Spykman, Nicholas John, vii, x, 115, 119, 140, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 192, 193, 205, 207, 216, 218, 219, 221, 222, 223, 224 stability, 13, 72, 165, 183, 201 State, 4, 6, 18, 41, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 72, 76, 77, 89, 132, 137, 171, 189, 200, 215, 216, 219, 221, 224, 227 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 192, 199, 206, 208, 210 statistics, 52, 70, 130, 152 Strabo, 27, 33, 34, 35, 36, 217 structure, 2, 8, 113, 133, 138, 159, 163, 177, 206, 208 suicide, 81, 130, 135 survival, 7, 13, 14, 30, 39, 69, 77, 111, 125, 163, 172, 177, 180, 182, 186 Sweden, 3, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 224 synthesis, 2, 14, 19, 37, 108, 197

T Tajikistan, 118, 205, 211 teachers, 4, 6, 54, 133 technology, 89, 92, 95, 101, 103, 115, 132, 143, 168 territorial, 6, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 54, 59, 61, 62, 70, 78, 102, 110, 113, 125, 129, 138, 148, 156, 177, 180, 182, 197, 211, 213 territory, x, 2, 4, 17, 24, 28, 30, 31, 43, 44, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 70, 71, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78, 83, 84, 95, 96, 98, 106, 111, 117, 136, 143, 163, 168, 179, 181, 189, 195, 211 textbook, 8, 92, 156, 210, 212 Third World, ix, x, 17, 102, 158, 164, 196 threats, 50, 51, 149, 172, 173 Thucydides, 27, 29, 30, 31 Tibet, 17, 109, 112, 211 Timosthenes of Rhodes, 34 trade, 32, 38, 39, 78, 79, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 97, 213 training, 6, 57, 129, 190 translation, 69, 192, 209, 210, 212, 217 transportation, 14, 60, 89, 115, 152, 174 Turkey, 27, 118, 178, 200, 211 Turkmenistan, 118, 205, 211

U Ukraine, x, 110, 111, 200, 201, 202, 208, 211, 213 United Kingdom, 64, 66, 192 United States, 4, 6, 14, 17, 43, 51, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67, 68, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 101, 102, 107, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 132, 143, 149, 157, 158, 167, 168, 171, 172, 173, 174, 176, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 193, 196, 197, 198, 200, 202, 203, 205, 207, 210, 211, 212, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224 urban, 11, 22, 157 Uzbekistan, 118, 205, 211

Index V variables, 119, 137, 143 Vidal de la Blache, Paul, 5, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 215, 224 Vidalian geography, 152 violence, 90, 141, 186, 201 vision, 11, 91, 106, 133, 172, 174, 186 vocabulary, 27, 55, 61, 71, 118, 129, 157 von Roon, Albrecht Theodor Emil Graf, 52

W war, 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 47, 50, 52, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 102, 103, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 135,141, 142, 144, 145, 148, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 166, 168, 172, 173, 174, 176, 181, 182, 183, 188, 189, 193, 194, 195, 196, 200, 202, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211, 212, 217, 218, 219, 221, 223, 224, 225, 227 Washington, 83, 86, 91, 122, 143, 198, 210, 225 water, 22, 23, 27, 30, 45, 89, 107, 142, 166

237

weakness, 14, 47, 58, 84, 183 wealth, 9, 14, 29, 50, 87, 90, 97, 120, 121, 188, 195 Western Europe, 14, 107, 109, 114, 117, 167, 172, 181 World War I, ix, x, 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 64, 65, 81, 82, 92, 93, 94, 96, 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 117, 125, 127, 128, 131, 132, 136, 138, 139, 143, 145, 147, 158, 160, 174, 181, 183, 196, 197, 206, 209, 220 World War II, ix, x, 12, 92, 93, 94, 96, 104, 111, 114, 127, 128, 139, 145, 147, 148, 158, 172, 174, 183, 197, 206, 209 worldview, 111, 190, 203, 204 worldwide, 81, 85, 154

Y Yale University, 81, 87, 171, 200, 209, 216, 222

Z zoology, 36, 67, 75, 132