Chapter-Two Geopolitics: A Conceptual Analysis Foreign policy behaviour of nation-states is always shaped by the domestic and external settings and is designed to serve their national interests. It can be understood with the assistance of various tools ranging from: realism to neo-realism; political geography to geopolitics and liberalism to neo-liberalism. These tools are quite useful to have a better comprehension about the foreign policy behaviour of nation states by looking at it from different perspectives. The realism, neo-realism, liberalism and neoliberalism have remained the dominant perspectives to analyze the foreign policy strategies of nation-states all over the world. The geopolitics couldn t get the imagination of foreign policy analysts as the mainstream thinking on international relations has been ruled by the above perspectives. Despite this disregard, the foreign policy specialists on and off utilized geopolitics as an approach to explain the foreign policy behaviour of states by considering their history and geography. To have a better cognizance of geopolitics and then make its use for appraisal of the foreign policy stances of state actors, it is vital to know the context in which the idea of geopolitics was conceptualized. The epistemological comprehension of the idea of geopolitics can be of sufficient use to know it better. The advancement of theoretical structure of geopolitics has further empowered the foreign policy makers and experts to build up the grasp over the context and foreign policy behavior of nation- states respectively. Geopolitics as a subject of scholarly inquiry has passed through various phases and stages. Apart from this, distinguishing geopolitics from political geography is of utmost importance to make geopolitics a successful device to understand how the nation-states behave in the comity of nations. Consequent upon that the comprehension about the aforesaid aspects of geopolitics enables the foreign policy specialists to analyze the foreign policy conduct of state actors across the world. 43
Tracing the Origin of Geopolitics Though there is no clear elucidation about the emergence of geopolitics as a concept, yet one can find the reference of the subject in the writings of Aristotle, Montesquieu, Kant, Hegel and Humboldt. Various scholars like Hagan and Cohen traced the history of evolution of geopolitics starting from Greeks writings till the full fledged explanation of subject by Carl Ritter. These thinkers have comprehended the geopolitics differently and highlight its importance in varied degrees. Earlier the concept of geopolitics was reflected in the writings of Aristotle, Strabo and Plato. Later, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bodin and Montesquieu referred to geopolitics in their discussion of environmental determinism. During nineteenth century, environmental concepts of various scholars were brought together and developed. Kant defined the field of geography and delineated its parts, with political geography being one of them. Ritter carried out a study of impact of climate on culture and civilization. He applied Darwinism to culture, where culture was seen as an organism. The term Geopolitics was first time coined by Rudolf Kjellen in 1899. But the golden period of geopolitics can be considered from the late nineteenth century till mid twentieth century. Because this was the period when worldwide political competition over the ability to organize, occupy, and administer space was on the ascent and led to the development of imperialist organizations and affiliations that attempted to legitimize colonial expansionism. During this period, various geopolitical thinkers, both academicians as well as statesmen of respective powers, devise their theories related to the impact of geography on state and foreign policy. These theories became guiding principles for foreign policy decisions of contending powers at that time. These developments raised the status of geopolitics as a science and made it as a scientific discipline. Meaning of Geopolitics Before endeavoring to characterize what geopolitics is, it is imperative to articulate few words on geography. Geography can be seen as the study of the earth s surface as the environment and space within which human beings live. Geography is 44
therefore concerned with the structure and interaction of two major systems - the ecological system that links human beings to their environment and the spatial system that links some area of the earth s surface with another 1. Robert Strausz-Hupe opined that geography neither focuses the way one perceives them nor one wish them to be, but it is concerned the way how things exist. Nicholas Spykman holds the view that geography does not argue, it simply is 2. Distinguishing Geopolitics from Political Geography Until the creation of geopolitics in 1899, it was political geography which was studied as a branch of geography. There are numerous ways to deal with political geography. What joins every one of them is the essential principle that understanding geography is crucial to understand politics as accentuated by Napoleon, that each state pursues the politics of its own geography 3. Geopolitics grew out of political geography. It actuates the latter s fund of learning and puts it at the administration of the political pioneers. It is essential to recognize these two terms keeping in mind the end goal to have a superior clarity about these two terms. Geopolitics is different from political geography in many respects. Geopolitics is concerned with the spatial requirements of the state, while political geography examines only space relationships. Geopolitics frets about the state as a living being and not as a static idea. It explores the state essentially in connection to its surroundings its space and endeavors to take care of all issues coming about because of spatial connections. It is not interested like its mother science, political geography, in the state as a phenomenon of nature-in its situation, size, form, or boundaries thusly. Nor does it manage the state as an arrangement of trade, economy, and settlement, or as a community determined by racial, national, or social impacts. Geopolitics goes further. It contends that the minor investigation of a state from a physical and social perspective, regardless of the possibility that they are found in connection to its space, is certainly static. Nor is examination from the perspective of 1 2 3 Brian Goodall, Dictionary of Human Geography, London: Penguin Books, 1987, pp. 189-190. Nicholas Spykman, Geography and Foreign Policy II, American Political Science Review, Vol. 32, No.2, April, 1938, p. 236. Goodall, n.1, p. 362. 45
time, which supplies development and change, considered dynamic. The examination of political space organisms as they were and are remains the part of mother science. Further, Geopolitics dedicates itself to inquiries of the future by putting geography at the service of space-cognizant politics. Are the space needs of a state met? If not, by what means would they have the capacity to be conveyed into accord with land conditions? In what course ought to any change be made? The degree to which these inquiries are addressed decides a state s national and economic structure and impacts its foreign relations. Growing out of the life, not the form of a state, every one of these inquiries are principal issues of Geopolitics. Political geography mollifies itself with a static depiction of the state which may well incorporate a study of its dynamic past improvement. Geopolitics, then again, is a discipline that weighs and assesses a given circumstance and by its conclusions seeks to guide practical political issues. Thus, geopolitics is concerned more with the spatial prerequisites of a state, while political geography inspects just its spatial conditions. After differentiating geopolitics from political geography, there is a need to understand the literal meaning of geopolitics and different ideas have been put forth. Rudolf Kjellen expressed that geopolitics is a theory of the state as a geographical organism or phenomenon in space 4. Haushofer emphasized that geopolitics is a doctrine on the spatial determinism of all political processes based on the broad foundations of geography especially of political geography 5. Whereas Hagan added that the geopolitics is a contemporary rationalization of power politics 6. Encyclopedia Britannica defines geopolitics as the analysis of the geographic influences on power relationships in international relations 7. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary 4 5 6 7 Werner J. Cahnman, Concepts of Geopolitics, American Sociological Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1943, p. 57. Van Efferink, Leonhardt, Definition of Geopolitics, January 2009, http://www.exploringgeopolitics. org/publication_efferink_van_leonhardt_the_definition_of_geopolitics_classical_french_critical.ht ml. (Accessed on June 4, 2014). Charles B. Hagan, Geopolitics, The Journal of Politics, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1942, p. 485. Encyclopedia Britannica Online, http:/ /www.britannica.com/eb checked/topic /229932/ geopolitics. (Accessed on May 25, 2014). 46
English viewed geopolitics as the study of the effect of a country s position, population, etc. on its politics 8. Although there is no single definition of geopolitics that can be universally acceptable, but there is recognition of certain common aspects in different viewpoints that is the focus on interaction between geographical settings and perspectives, and political processes. Therefore geopolitics can be viewed as a discourse about world politics with a specific accentuation on state rivalry and the geographical dimensions of power. As geographer Kearns pointed out that geopolitics is a discourse that describes, explains, and promotes particular ways of seeing how territorial powers are formed and experienced 9. Therefore, geopolitics is the science which studies the dependence of political events upon the soil i.e. physical setting. Geographical factors have played a significant role by either favoring or obstructing political and military manoeuvres, endowments of strategic advantages over neighbours, building of national strength and preservation of peace. Evolution of Geopolitics The evolution of geopolitics as a subject of insightful inquiry and as an instrument of comprehension the foreign policy conduct of nation-states can be divided into various schools of thought and phases which are corresponding to each other. For example the first phase of evolution of the idea of geopolitics is corresponding with the German School of thought and the second is corresponding with the English School of thought. German School of Thought German school of thought is responsible for the development of geopolitics in theory as well as in practice as it was closely associated with the German soil, culture, dialect, and its identity. Thus it can be emphatically understood as a German science as it was delivered by and connected with Germans. It has been asserted by the Wickham 8 9 Dictionary of Contemporary English, Essex: Longman, 1978, p. 433. Gerry Kearns, Imperial Geopolitics: Geopolitical Visions at the Dawn of the American Century, John Agnew and et. al., eds., A Companion to Political Geography, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, p. 173. 47
Steed 10 and George Kiss 11 that geopolitics is the outcome of consistent German aims and philosophy. The German School of thought comprised of works of several scholars and important ones are Friedrich Ratzel, Rudolf Kjellen, and Karl Haushofer. The German scholars attempted to induce German peoples by giving logical context to geopolitics which was somewhat their purposeful propaganda to legitimize their territorial expansion. The scholars who have a place with this school made different ideas like organic theory of state, autarky, pan-regionalism, and dynamic frontiers to proliferate their higher points of giving Germany its place in the sun after the Treaty of Versailles 12. German geo-politicians utilized geopolitics as a strategy for guideline to stir individuals from their bogus sentiment security and demonstrated to them the interconnectedness of all social and political phenomena on this planet. There were numerous factors that led to emergence as well as widespread application of Geopolitics as foreign policy guide in Germany. After political unification of the German peoples in 1871, the German Empire became significant power in the Europe. It has been argued by few thinkers that in fact in a drive to increase its political influence further Germany caused the occurrence of First World War. The defeat of Germany in First World War as well as terms of Treaty of Versailles gave a jolt to its national pride as it lost a huge part of its territory to allied powers. As a consequence, the pre-war German goals such as to attain its rightful place in the world were reproduced as post-war German rights by German scholars. Although this development can be linked way back to the mid-thirty Years War, but the much needed authentication and coherence to these goals was given by the Treaty of Versailles. In the inter war period, Hitler used aggressive policies suited to the geopolitics to attain the goals of German nation which has reference in the words of Bismarck that Germany deserve its place in the sun. As a result, in 1939 Germany attacked Poland which led to another World War. Thus during the interwar period, German policies influenced mainly by three interests 10 11 12 Wickham Steed, From Frederic the Great to Hitler: The Consistency of German Aims, International Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 5, 1938, p. 655. George Kiss, Political Geography into Geopolitics: Recent Trends in Germany, Geographical Review, Vol. 32, No.4, 1942, p. 632. Colin Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, London: Routledge, 2006, p. 20. 48
that include the desire to recover the lost territories, regain its glory, and conquer enough lebensraum (living space) to support its population 13. In the later part of the nineteenth century Friedrich Ratzel dominated the geographical scene in Germany and he built up the real framework for geopolitics. Ratzel is considered as the father of the political geography and was mainly concerned with the natural sciences and for him geography offered the connection between the natural sciences and the study of man. His major works were Politische Geographie published in 1897 and paper titled Laws on the Spatial Growth of States of 1896. In his observations, Ratzel saw the state as an organism fixed in soil and according to him boundaries were recognized as dynamic lines, representing only a particular condition in spatial context between two states. Boundaries expand and express expansive power of the aggressive state; weak state gets absorbed in the process and finally only a few complex states remain to compete for dominance. Ratzel is best known for his organic theory of the state, Lebensraum in which he compares the evolution of the state to that of living organism. Ratzel was influenced by Darwin s Theory of Evolution of Species. He applied Darwin s concept to human societies. This analogy suggested that group of human beings must struggle to survive in particular environments as much as plants and animal organisms must do. This is known as Social Darwinism. Thus, Ratzel s philosophy was also survival of the fittest in a physical environment. In the 1890s, he actively campaigned to persuade Germany to acquire overseas colonies and build up its naval fleet to challenge Britain. His thinking expressed the spatial consequences of the Darwinist struggle for survival. According to the laws of territorial growth, states must expand to thrive and higher forms of civilization must expand at the expense of the lower 14. Ratzel s views accorded with Germany s territorial designs. After his death and after the First World War, German geopoliticians revived Ratzel s ideas to suit their own ambitions and, as a result, his writings were condemned by Anglo-American geographers. 13 Wolfgang Natter, Geopolitics in Germany, 1919-45, John Agnew, and et. al., eds., A Companion to Political Geography, Oxford: Blackwell, 2003, p. 190. 14 Charles Kruczewski, Germany s Lebensraum, American Political Science Review, Vol.34, 1940, pp. 946-975, quoted in Hagan, Geopolitics, p. 488. 49
In 1897, Ratzel in his book, Politische Geographie, compared state to an organism. He emphasized the fact that a state, like some simple organism, must either grow or die and can never stand still. It was this philosophy of lebensraum living space which created the controversy of superior and inferior races by claiming that superior peoples (nations) have a right to expand their territories at the expense of inferior neighbours. He expounded his views in the saying: when a state extends its frontiers at the expense of a weak state this is a reflection of its internal strength. The superior nations, thus, ruling over the inferior peoples fulfils a natural organic necessity. It was Ratzel s philosophy which governed the German policy. Rudolf Kjellen improved upon Ratzel s ideas and accepted power as the aim of growth of the state. He also accepted the state as an organism. He employed modern cultural advances and techniques instead of a simple territorial expansion to achieve the goals. Kjellen idealized the idea of the nation-state infused with nationalism and equated the interests of the nation-state with the interests of a particular racial group and the culture they created. He saw geo-politics and ethno-politics as complementary activities in which the state must engage to survive and to prosper and expand its sphere of influence. The final objective of a state was seen as the achievement of natural frontiers externally and a harmonious unity internally. According to Kjellen, geopolitics means natural environment of the state. He was the first to use the term geopolitik. In his analysis of the state, he made certain distinctions- geopolitik was concerned with the relationship of geography and state; demopolitik with population and state; econopolitik with economic resources and state; sociopolitik with society and state 15. When Kjellen was developing his views about the best form of the nation-state and its governing mechanisms, there was a state of uncertainty in Europe at that time. Thus, he advocated for strong state and considered the Germany as idealized model of such a state. Kjellen predicted that power will pass from the maritime powers to compact land powers, and that Germany will be a superpower in Europe, West Asia and Africa. 15 V.D.Mamadouh, Geopolitics in the nineties: One flag many meanings, Geojournal, Vol. 46, No. 4, 1998, p.237. 50
Karl Haushofer was heavily influenced not only by extensive travels in Asia but by his exposure to the work of earlier geopolitical theorists such as Mackinder, Mahan, Ratzel, and Kjellen. Together with the likeminded geographers he started to publish the famous journal from 1924 onwards Zeitschrift für Geopolitik. Karl Haushofer borrowed the term geopolitics from Kjellen and distinguished it from political geography as Political Geography views the state from the standpoint of space; geopolitics views space from the standpoint of the state. Further, he borrowed the term Autarky from Kjellen, which means economic national self-sufficiency. Haushofer maintained that a great power has the requirement to produce everything that it needs, leaving the state in economic balance and independent of import. Haushofer borrowed the term lebensraum from Ratzel and defined lebensraum in practical terms as the right and the duty of a nation to provide ample space and resource to all his people. Differential population growth among nations guaranteed constant friction in the international power structure and it was thus the duty of a stronger state to expand at the cost of the weaker. He believes that the successful expansion of the state in the modern world would lead the formations of larger states in geographical sense. Haushofer referred these large states as Pan-regions. Haushofer describes the concepts of pan regions and argued that no nation is a region unto itself. Hence, there evolve the necessity to extend its area to include first, people of similar speech and culture and second, people of related speech and culture 16. Haushofer saw geopolitics as the scientific foundation of the art of political action in the struggle of state organisms for existence and for space. Controlling key strategic area of the world was a necessary step forward in his view because the world was divided into a series of panregions that were based upon the regional dominance acquired by a great world power. Typical examples of these regions included the British Empire and the sphere of influence garnered by the US as a consequence of the Monroe Doctrine. Germany also held some overseas territories and it was Haushofer s contention that it was the logical great party to assume more and more control over these regions. 16 Herwig, Geopolitik: Haushofer, Hitler and Lebensraum, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 22, Issue 3, 1999, p. 221. 51
Subsequently, Haushofer divided the globe into three Pan-regions, organized along north-south direction. They are Pan-America centered on the US, Pan-Asia with Japan as Frontier nation and Euro-Africa under German leadership, and a fourth possible one as the Russia-India. According to Haushofer, Pan-regions needed to be territorially large and self-sufficient in economics terms. Haushofer has put forward the concept of dynamic frontiers. He doesn t have faith in legal and physical borders. Haushofer argued that boundaries were mere temporary halts for a nation on a march to expansion of autarky and lebensraum. He argues that Europe has many frontiers to expand the sphere of influence. But, states have to expand rationally into maximum territory by taking into account the geography as ally and not as enemy. Haushofer called for the establishment of a set of frontiers that were less likely to be mutable. He believed that it was necessary for a world power to seek control over frontiers as part of a larger effort of ensuring the security and stability of its own heartland. Haushofer also made an analysis of the warfare thought and considered war as having four phases and three dimensions. First phase is psychological warfare that aimed at the rest of the world through a states propaganda campaign, second phase is ideological warfare that prepares the citizens of a state to think in terms of expansion and the need for space, third phase is of economic warfare that includes preparedness period in which munitions, equipment, and armies are developed for the future use, and final phase is military warfare that is the battle itself. The three dimensions of the war include land power, sea power, and air power and he argued that three should be developed equally. Haushofer also contended that one of the key goals of any great world power was to acquire strategic control of certain key geographic areas. He made reference to the Suez and Panama Canals as examples of how and where such strategic control could be used by a colonial or imperial power to further their own ends. Haushofer was absolutely convinced that the successful country would be one that not only imposed its economic and ideological will on others, it would be the country that would become dominant in many different regions of the world and would control key shipping lanes, ports and harbours, and trade routes. The ideas of Haushofer are influenced more by the Mackinder s concept of Heartland than by any other thinker. Haushofer believed that Mackinder s Heartland would give Germany the important lebensraum, autarky, and pan- 52
regional achievement which they were searching for long. He put his speculations while keeping in mind the Mackinder s Heartland that he considered as true the heart of the world 17. It is believed that all the geopolitical ideas of Haushofer were used by the then German Chancellor Hitler. There are those who have suggested that Haushofer was somehow associated with Adolf Hitler although there is no real evidence supporting this contention. Many of great powers have similarly attempted to acquire a dominant position in their own region of the world and to seize the territorial prerogatives of their neighbours. Nonetheless, till Second World War, hostile attitude towards geopolitics was creating over the Atlantic and geopolitics was announced to be a scholarly toxin in the US and its geographical scholars characterized geopolitics to be intellectually fraudulent, ideologically suspect, and tainted by association with Nazism and its associated policies of genocide, racism, spatial expansionism, and the domination of place 18. British School of Thought Geography, one of the oldest fields of human curiosity, drew very little attention in Britain until the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1859, Darwin published his Origin of Species which attracted the attention of biologists, geologists, and sociologists. After this evolutionary theory, British scholars started paying attention to the earth as a home of man. It was in the end of the nineteenth century that geography was introduced as a discipline in the British universities. Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947) is known as the founder of the British school of Geography. The geopolitics of the world came into geography of the world under the work of Halford Mackinder who sought to explain the spatial relationship between the various segments of the world in terms of strategic location and spatial organization. Mackinder wrote Britain and the British Seas, which was published in 1902. This book is considered as a classic in modern British literature which shows a more 17 18 Ibid, p.218. Klaus Dodds, Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 22. 53
mature and sound approach to a regional interpretation of Britain and its seas. In 1904, Mackinder presented the authoritative writing Geographical pivot of History before Royal Geographical Society. He formulated the concept of the geographical pivot which is also known as the Heartland. The heartland theory was proposed with a view to explain land power and sea power and how geography is of great advantage to the country. He proposed a unique explanation of history in terms of cohesive force of geography. He believed that there existed a rivalry between the land powers and sea powers. In this theory, Mackinder identified a World Island consisting of the continents of the Eurasia and Africa. The most inaccessible part of the world, he called Heartland. This is the area of low population and difficult accessibility. He summarized his views of global strategy in the famous lines: Who rules the East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules Heartland commands the World Island; who Rules the World Island commands the World 19. Mackinder declared that throughout the history of mankind, the coastal lands had always proved vulnerable to attack from the heartland, and the heartland remained invulnerable because sea power could be denied access to it. His main goal as to generate a theory for the survival of Britain s imperial power against the possible threats posed by the two main power of the time: Germany and Russia. Thus, Mackinder was mainly concerned with a global view in 1943 warned of the danger of the heartland falling in its entirety under the control of the Soviet Union and of Russia s ability then to strike out to peripheral lands to east, south, and west of the World Island. His regional concept also pervaded his interpretation of countries. For Mackinder, Great Britain and other Western European countries should be fearful of a German alliance with Russia or a China organized by Japan. Such beliefs reflect a deep-seated great power dislike of the idea of a dominant East. Mackinder also proposed that the world had experienced three unique geopolitical periods. The closed heartland of Eurasia was the geographical pivot or location that was central for establishing global control. This was premised on the conviction that the age of maritime exploration which began with Columbus was drawing to a close as the 19 Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, New York: Norton Library, 1962, p. 8. 54
nineteenth century ended. The next period of geopolitical influence would be based upon land transportation technology which would reinstate land-based power as opposed to sea power as essential to political dominance. This would lead to a resurgence of Eurasia because it was adjacent to the borders of so many important countries, was not accessible to sea power, and was strategically buttressed by an inner and outer crescent of land masses. The third or preliminary period of geopolitical interaction was also a period in which land transportation dominated. Thus, Mackinder proposed the periods of land, sea, and land transport again as shaping geopolitical relationships while the heartland remained the key position on the global battlefield regardless of which type of transportation dominated. Mackinder s concepts have influenced several theorists, including America s George Kennan and Nicholas Spykman, although to a lesser degree. Mackinder was also instrumental in shaping the views of Admiral Alfred Mahan who asserted that control of sea lanes would be able to prevent any Eurasian alliance from assuming world dominance. The book attracted little attention in Britain but rather more in the US. His concept of the heartland was seized upon by Karl Haushofer to support his grand design for control of the World Island. In 1924, mindful of the lessons of World War I, Mackinder published his prophetic theory of the Atlantic community that became reality after World War II and assumed military form in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 20. This school of thought added new measurements to the idea of geopolitics and further enhanced the field of geopolitics. American School of Thought American School of thought comprises different scholars. The famous scholars of this school are Alfred Thayer Mahan, Isaiah Bowman and Nicholas Spykman. These scholars set forward their perspectives and consequently helped in the improvement of geopolitics. Despite the fact that they have never utilized the term however the way they led their foreign policy unmistakably shows the utilization of geopolitics. Nonetheless, the American geopolitics was more or less run on the lines of Monroe Doctrine of 1823 20 Flint, n.12, p. 18. 55
till World War I. This doctrine was brainchild of former American President James Monroe where he declared that US would follow the policy of neutrality towards the competition amongst European powers until and unless they tried to encroach upon in the Western Hemisphere. Any effort by European power to control this region would be considered as potential threat to the American sovereignty. However, the Spanish- American War of 1898 could be considered as the deviation from following this principle. One of the renowned geopolitical scholars in US history was Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) who put every effort to educate the American people and their leaders about the importance of history and geography to the study and practice of international relations. In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan, a lecturer in naval history and president of the United States Naval War College, published The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660 1783, a revolutionary analysis of the importance of naval power as a factor in the British Empire. In this work, Mahan put light on the significance of maritime power over land power and argued that maritime preponderance is the essential rule and premise of foreign policy. Mahan emphasized 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. He identified several narrow passages or chokepoints, the control of which contributed to Great Britain s command of the seas. He harbored that these lessons could be applied to US foreign policy, particularly in the quest to expand US markets overseas. He envisioned the US as the geopolitical successor to the British Empire 21. He was one of the significant proponents of the vigorous foreign policy. What concerned Mahan most was ensuring that the US government could guarantee access to new international markets. Securing such access would require three things: a merchant navy, which could carry American products to new markets across the great highways of the high seas, and a network of naval base capable of providing fuel and supplies for the enlarged navy, and maintaining open lines of communications between the US and its 21 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, New York: Basic Books, 1997, p. 3. 56
new markets. He understood that predominant Anglo-American sea power in its broadest sense was the key to ensuring the geopolitical pluralism of Eurasia. Consequent upon that, he urged US leaders to recognize that US security and interests were affected by the balance of power in Europe and Asia. Mahan also foresaw the then-emerging First World War and the underlying geopolitical conditions leading to the Second World War. He recognized that Germany s central position in Europe, its unrivalled industrial and military might on the continent, and its quest for sea power would posed a threat in the near future to Great Britain and ultimately the US. The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain is the danger point, not only of European politics but of world politics as well. Mahan also grasped as early as 1901 the fundamental geopolitical realities of the Cold War that emerged from the ashes of the first two world wars. He envisioned an expansionist Russia needing to be contained by an alliance of the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, which is precisely what, happened between 1945 and 1991. Mahan s prescience did not end there, however. He also recognized the power potential of China and foresaw a time when the US would need to be concerned with China s rise 22. In the 1890s, Mahan s ideas resonated with leading politicians, including Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Tracy. Following the successful conclusion of the Spanish American War in 1898, the US gained control of territories that could serve as the coaling stations and naval bases such as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Mahan s work influenced strategists in other countries as well, leading to naval buildups in England, Germany, and Japan in particular. Mahan affected the development of maritime strengths in the years preceding World War I, particularly in Germany. Although Mahan saw military might as a means for avoiding war, the global growth inspired by his theories very clearly set the growth for World War I. Like Germany before the First World War, China in the 21st century has embraced Mahan. 22 Francis P. Sempa, The Geopolitical Vision of Alfred Thayar Mahan, The Diplomat, 30 December 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-geopolitical-vision-of-alfred-thayer-mahan/ (Accessed on 18 March 2015). 57
The Monroe Doctrine as US foreign policy choice lost its relevance with the World War I as it denoted the start of the idealist enterprise in world politics. Idealism and Liberalism became mainstay of the US policy during the inter war period as President Woodrow Wilson was himself promoting the liberal and moral values in the world politics. The US justified its participation in the First World War on moral grounds and this policy stance made US a dynamic player in world politics. Isaiah Bowman advocated bringing geographic consciousness among the foreign policy officials of the US government. He believed that scholarly study of political geography can provide foreign policy officials with a desirable global view. Geography, for Bowman, was about seeing the world as a unitary space. In general, he has established the value of relationship of geographers and geographical knowledge to political power. In 1922, his book entitled New World: Problems in Political Geography was published which pointed out the complex consequences of the 1919 peace settlement. He also foresaw an ever expanding role of the US in the world politics 23. As against isolationists, he believed in the potential of US as being playing a significant role in the advancement and development of the global economy. He argues that the power should be emphatically exercised to control the territories only with the aim to ensure free trade diffused through international institutions. Mahan and Bowman had made great contributions in American geopolitics, but Nicholas Spykman imparted traditional geopolitical attitude to the US. Spykman was a political scientist who founded the classical realist school as he instructed the Americans that foreign policy is about power and the battle for power as opposed to ideals 24. He drew heavily upon geographical concepts to identify the ways in which geopolitical interactions are structured and developed. His writings made American geopolitics acquired a change its foreign policy standpoint and he is considered to be the godfather of containment. He was acknowledged for his significant observations about geopolitics which includes his understanding of the heartland, the rimland, offshore continents, the 23 John Rennie Short, The World Through Maps: A History of Cartography, New York: Firefly Books, 2003, p. 19. 24 Stanley Hoffman, An American Social Science: International Relations, Daedalus, Vol. 106, No. 3, 1977, p.44. 58
dynamics of Eurasia, and his efforts to provide revisions to some of the concepts advanced by Mackinder. Spykman drew upon Mackinder s theory to advance the notion that a heartland existed which could be identified although he rejected Mackinder s belief that the heartland was amenable to unification through land transportation systems. According to Spykman, the occupier of the heartland had a unique and important defensive position, but he didn t recognize the very great advantages attributed to the heartland by Mackinder. Spykman contended that periphery of Eurasia but not its core is more important for acquiring global power. This periphery has been called by Spykman as a rimland. He predicted that a rimland states such as Japan is likely to become superpowers over time. Because rimland states have greater contact with the outside world or the countries that are not part of the heartland itself, they receive more in terms of innovation than did the heartland countries. Rimland states also possess a wealth of natural resources and though Spykman agreed with Mackinder on this particular concept but he gave greater credence to the capacity of rimland states to capitalize on their natural advantages and resources. Spykman also took the position that the so-called offshore continents of Africa and Australia would play a far more significant role in shaping geopolitics. According to Spykman, Africa and Australia are the places which possessed enormous wealth in the form of natural resources that were largely ignored in terms of their capacity for achieving anything resembling superpower status. However, Spykman also recognized that these offshore continents had not yet achieved anything of significance in terms of great power politics. It was to the US that he turned in his discussion of offshore continents as well as to Great Britain and Japan. All three of these entities were regarded by Spykman as very much capable of becoming world powers or, in the case of Great Britain, having long been a major imperialist world power. He felt that controlling the heartland was going to be ultimately less significant than controlling the rimland. He also believed that controlling Eurasia would allow a country or a coalition of countries to control the destinies of the world. Spykman predicted that it would be Great Britain, 59
Russia, and the US who would be the dominant actors with respect to the Eurasian heartland 25. He cautioned Americans that the end of the First World War was not the end of power politics and contended that the season of isolation and passivity in foreign policy was unquestionably over for the US. Thus, he proposed a dynamic, non-isolationist US foreign policy arrangement to build and keep up a balance of power in the Eurasia with a specific end goal to prevent a challenge to the United States 26. In addition, Spykman saw an important role for the United States in the future and forecast before World War II came to a close that Japan and Germany would lose the war, that China would emerge as a major power in Asia and that there would be ongoing conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. He was convinced that conflict between the US and the Soviet Union was inevitable because both countries had grandiose ambitions in the geopolitical arena. Spykman believed that it was essential for the US to remain strong and determined in an effort to offset the likely aggression of the Soviet Union and to defend Japan against China. The import of term geopolitics from Europe to the US politics was made by Spykman. During the period from the end of the Second World War to the détente, though the term itself was never used in the US foreign policy but the outlook of various foreign policy issues still revolves around various geopolitical orientations. The US, like Germany and Britain, adopted geopolitical outlook, followed an alternate path after Cold War. Geopolitics has also been applied in the Cold War era as well as post-cold War period by great powers according to the inclination of their foreign policy choices. Geopolitics: A Cold War Perspective After the end of Second World War, the subject matter of Geopolitics was seen with suspicion and disgust because of its close association with Nazism. The Cold War period also saw the decline of use of geopolitics as a concept in the international relations. Even the study of political geography had been banned in most of the 25 26 Nicholas Spykman, Geography and Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 32, No.2, April, 1938, p. 236. Flint, n.12, p. 22. 60
educational institutions in US as well as in Europe. Although the term geopolitics was used once in a while during the Cold War period until Kissinger brought it into its over utilization in the 1970s, but still the fact cannot be denied that the kind of mindset associated with the term geopolitics keep on influencing the political practice during the second half of the twentieth century. A large literature has been produced over the Cold War geopolitics has come into forth during this period as it marked the geopolitical and ideological confrontations between two superpowers of the time. Both the superpowers produced their own geopolitical perspectives that guided and legitimized their activities as world powers during the Cold War period. Even the policy statements of statesmen and governments of respective powers have taken the shape of coherent ideologies over time and these geopolitical perspectives seemed appealing to the world. Thus, through their different geopolitical perspectives these powers mobilized as well as define the world politics suited to their interests. From the very beginning of the Cold War period, the statesmen as well as policy makers of US portrayed image of the US as a defender or crusader of the world while they depicted the communist regime of the Soviet Union as an ailment which is going to conclude the world under its influence. Consequently, the US has assigned to itself the task of defending the world from the evils of communism and for that purpose it separated the world into friendly and unfriendly spaces. Whereas the geopolitical perspective of the Soviet Union, affiliated with the worldview of Marx and Engels, viewed this geopolitical confrontation as the last event of the history of class struggle and foresaw the historical victory of the communism over capitalism. Containment remained the dominant assumption in American foreign policy from the end of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union. A number of senior advisers to the president of the US, including Henry Kissinger and Zbignew Brzezinski were committed to maintaining this policy. But George Kennan is credited with having articulated the American geopolitical strategy of containment as a response to the post- World War II activities of the Soviet Union and as a major initiative designed to prevent Soviet influence from taking root in the developing world and among the non-aligned 61
nations 27. Kennan argued that containment was not meant to inhibit the Soviet Union s capacity for growth and development, but rather to prevent that country from imposing its own particular ideology on its neighbours or on other countries seeking developmental assistance. Kennan while working with President Harry Truman felt that the Soviets could be contained in part by providing economic and other types of assistance to developing countries and by preventing the Soviet Union from gaining too much influence over regional or global affairs. Kennan s X article conveyed the belief that Soviet policies were unlikely to reflect a love of peace and stability and that containment therefore was designed to confront the Soviets with unalterable counter-force at every point where they showed signs of encroaching on the interests of a peaceful and stable world 28. Another geopolitical scholar who supported containment was Paul Nitze which laid out the principles of containment. Nitze asserted that the Soviets were trying not just to achieve parity but rather strategic prowess via the arms race and other activities. Consequently, it was Nitze s view that it was necessary to prevent the Soviets from achieving superior nuclear weaponry even at the cost of an arms race. Moreover, Kissinger felt that achieving détente in terms of development and expansion of nuclear weapons would be an ideal result of a policy of containment. Kissinger did not feel nor did President Nixon that détente represent a departure from or an abandonment of containment s vision of the Soviet Union. Kissinger and Brzezinski believed that the Soviets could no longer be dealt with directly through the use of American military power either deterrent power or the actual deployment of American military forces. Additionally, Nixon Doctrine proposed the appointment of surrogate powers to perform the job of containment in various regions of the world such as the Shah of Iran in the Persian Gulf and China in the Far East. Brzezinski, who worked in the administration of Jimmy Carter, called Soviet global strategy a unique organic imperialism that was derived from territorial insecurity. He further called for maintenance of the three pillars 27 28 George F. Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct, 1947, Gerard Toal, and et. al., eds., The Geopolitics Reader, London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 159-169. Walter Hixson, George F. Kennan: Cold War Iconoclast, New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 6. 62
of containment: a continuing US diplomatic and military presence on the Eurasian continents with a NATO alliance, a strong and resurgent Europe, and an independent China. The policy of containment evolved over time as the US moved away from direct military confrontation of communist expansionism in South Korea and Vietnam to a less militaristic response that employed economic and foreign aid as a means of leading the non-aligned nations into the Western sphere of influence. At the same time, the continued willingness of the US to participate in the arms race which lasted into the Reagan administration was very much a military response to the perceived Soviet threat. Containment emerges as a strategy that was designed to offset Soviet hegemonic ambitions in terms of the Eurasian heartland and countries within the periphery or the rimland. It is an excellent example of great power politics being played out in a bipolar world wherein two determined superpowers are willing to compete almost indefinitely for dominance. The whole period of Cold War observed the different geopolitical moves as well as counter moves of the two superpowers to control the world politics. Both of them continually articulated various propagandas to increase their areas of influence till the demise of the Soviet Union. Brzezinski argued that the confrontations between the US and the Soviet Union symbolized the execution of the geopoliticians fondest theories. The Cold War pitted the world s leading maritime power i.e. US, dominant over both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; against the world s leading land power i.e. Soviet Union, paramount on the Eurasian heartland. The geopolitical dimension could not have been clearer with the world at stake. The winner would truly dominate the globe 29. Thus, the collapse of USSR denoted the end of the Cold War ideological geopolitical order and made the USA the victor, although it didn t win any battle. Geopolitics gets to be well known at the times of progress, crisis, and war. This can be particularly observed during the disintegration procedure of the Soviet Union toward the 29 Brzezinski, n.21, p. 6. 63
end of the Cold War, through which the investigation of geopolitics turned into a pattern again after almost a large portion of a century of disregard. Geopolitics: A Post-Cold War Perspective The Post-Cold War characterized by the end of numerous old phenomena, the beginning of new processes and the refashioning of many other things. From the mid 1990s onwards, various issues regarding globalization, culture, and identity came into forefront which had remained solidified for so long because of the Cold War geopolitics. The process of globalization made the world to observe the occurrence of two contradictory procedures of integration and fragmentation simultaneously. In the post- Cold War, it was contended by various scholars that the concept of nation-states has lost its relevance and anticipated about the withering away of territorial borders. At the same time, some other thinkers emphasized for their getting to be more grounded than at any other time. Nonetheless, in the post-cold War period, people remained conscious about the importance and strength of the geographical boundaries, and they understood the fact that the principles of the old world were being superseded by the anarchic system of the purported New World Order. Dodds also contended that in spite of arguments made for extreme type of globalization, geography kept on mattering. Geopolitics was abruptly seen on the high motivation once more, turning into the new form. In the post Cold War period, Soviet Union as an adversary was no more there, search as well as formation of another adversary determined the essential geopolitical characteristic for the post-cold War period. After the Cold War and the geopolitical certainties that it had provided, Global geopolitics had to be interpreted in new ways. The end of Cold War marked outgrowth of the various developments that again revived the craving for geopolitics amongst various researchers. Various views were put forth by thinkers to define the world geopolitical scenario in post-cold War period like the end of history by Francis Fukuyama, beginning of clash of civilizations by Huntington and principles of the Grand Chessboard by Brzezinski. 64