Approach Number One – Current Justifications of Classical Geopolitics
28 Nov 2011
As described in this and next week’s introduction (see Competing Views of Geopolitics), every international relations-centered school of thought now faces a major question – does it have sufficient explanatory power to help characterize and navigate the major structural changes occurring in the international environment. The geopolitical school, despite both its pedigree and historical prominence, is no exception. Geopolitical thinkers, however, are divided not only over what geopolitics actually means, but on how to apply it best. Defenders of classical geopolitics remain in force, but believers in critical geopolitics and new non-Western models of it are nipping at their heels. This week we will explore the intellectual scaffolding that defines these three approaches to geopolitics, beginning with contemporary defenses of classical geopolitics.
As Pascale Venier’s external pagerecent survey of geopolitical thought makes clear, geopolitics has a troubled history. One wonders if Friedrich Ratzel, the father of modern geopolitics as a genre, would have anticipated this fate. The concept of Lebensraum, for example, was one unfortunate consequence of Ratzel’s thinking. In the English-speaking world, Sir Halford Mackinder complemented his German counterpart’s labors by publishing his game-changing essay external page“The Geographical Pivot of History” which (1904) originated the so-called ‘heartland thesis.’ The underlying idea behind this thesis was that “geographical causation” was at the center of universal history. In a nutshell, the power that controlled both Eastern Europe and the Central Asian ‘heartland’ would be able to dominate ‘the World Island’ (Europe, Africa, and Asia), and therefore the world itself. If one believed this proposition, then the chief foreign policy imperative of ‘maritime’ powers like the United States and Great Britain became to prevent continental powers such as Wilhelmine Germany and Tsarist Russia from gaining control of that area of the Eurasian continent. In the United States, thinking about geopolitics called to mind Alfred Thayer Mahan’s work on the importance of naval power in history and Nicholas Spykman, who followed in Mackinder’s footsteps and played a central role in re-orienting American foreign policy during and after WWII “from isolationism to ‘interventionist globalism.’”
These early precursors of geopolitical thought little knew if their approach would flourish or not. In truth, it has attracted prominent adherents. Two major contemporary proponents of geopolitical theory are Colin Gray, the British-American strategy analyst, and former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. To better appreciate their thinking on the subject, let’s look at two representative selections from their work: Gray’s essay, external page“The Continued Primacy of Geography” and Chapter 2 of Brzezinski’s classic, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.
Both of these works defend the idea that the specific spatial physiognomy of the Earth has determinate political consequences that are beyond the power of human beings to shape. As Haushofer memorably put it,
‘. . . geopolitics takes the place of political passion … and reshapes the work of the arbitrary transgression of human will. The natural world, beaten back with sword or pitchfork, irrepressibly reasserts itself in the face of the earth. This is geopolitics!’
Today’s works – as illustrative defenses of this classical vision – argue that we do not fundamentally need to revise the way we understand the political consequences of geography. Major structural changes may indeed be occurring in today’s international environment, but from a geopolitical standpoint they are just superstructural in nature. When considering the spatial character of international politics, the changes are either more marginal than they appear or are an outright illusion.
The primacy of geography
When turning to external page“The Continued Primacy of Geography”we quickly see Gray argue that geographical factors, though not deterministic, “are pervasive in world politics.” Geography may not require political behavior of any kind, but it “conditions, shapes and influences the course of a polity’s historical choices.” Statesmen may seem to be free to pursue the foreign policies of their choice, but different geographical settings actually impose distinctive constraints and opportunities on them.
After making this fundamental argument, Gray spends the rest of his essay defending it against four main counterarguments: 1) advances in transportation and communications technology have ‘conquered geography,’ rendering traditional concerns of distance, terrain and climate irrelevant; 2) a converging ‘global culture’ is eroding the territorial basis of political communities; 3) conflict is becoming far more economic than military-political; and 4) changes in the nature of warfare, such as the importance of air power, make the dichotomy between maritime and naval powers obsolete. (History has favored nations with powerful navies rather than armies, or so Gray argues.) In the opinion of our author, none of these arguments undermines the continued relevance of geopolitical theory.
First, technology has not eclipsed the fundamental political significance of controlling populations that must inevitably inhabit a physical geographic space. And though there have been impressive technological advances in the transportation of troops and light weaponry in recent decades, this has not been the case for the heavy artillery, armor and large quantities of ammunition needed for prolonged military engagements. Reality, in other words, hasn’t really changed.
Second, expansive concepts such as global citizenship show few signs of undermining territorial nationalism as the world’s most powerful political force. Even now “hearts do not beat faster at the sight of the UN or EU flags” and there is little evidence to suggest that this will change anytime soon.
Third, economic conflicts have not in any serious way superseded military-political ones. It remains as true today as it ever did that “polities that elect to devote little of their wealth to military defense tend, ultimately, to lose the basis of that wealth.”
Last, even with the advent of air power, which the geopolitical thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th century knew little about, the geopolitical fundamentals of the game have not changed. Yes, “aircraft can bombard, and they can execute missions rapidly,” but they “cannot transport goods in bulk or goods of great weight” or “exercise control of the ground continuously or reliably.” In other words, air power can be extremely powerful but only in support of conventional naval and land operations.
By walking through his realist’s argument in the way that he does, Gray concludes that the basic insights provided by the geopolitical thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries do not require fundamental revision or adaptation for today’s context. If structural changes to the international system are indeed occurring, they are doing so at the margins and at the level of intangibles. Indeed, “so pervasive are geographical images and facts for statecraft and strategy,” Gray concludes, that it is hard for him “to understand why geopolitical analysis is controversial.”
A timeless focus on Eurasia
Another prominent and contemporary proponent of classical geopolitics is Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives has become a classic in many eyes. Brzezinski’s eponymous chessboard is the landmass of Eurasia, to which he turns directly in Chapter Two. “Ever since the continents began interacting politically some five hundred years ago,” he writes, “Eurasia has been the center of world power.” The reasons for this assertion are not mysterious, at least to the author. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world’s population, 75% of its known energy resources, and 60 percent of its GDP. If one power were able to control all of Eurasia, it would “almost automatically” be able to subordinate Africa and render “the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral.” Classical geopoliticians, Brzezinski tells us, have long understood this logic and have sought either to implement it or prevent others from doing so. Historically, however, no power has ever been able to dominate Eurasia completely. It has always been and remains “too large, too populous, culturally too varied, and composed of too many historically ambitious and politically energetic states” to be engulfed by an aspiring hegemon. When seen especially from an American perspective, this frustrating grail quest puts “a premium on geostrategic skill, [and] on the careful, selective, and very deliberate deployment of America’s resources” For Brzezinski, playing “chess” adroitly in this arena will be critical for America’s long-term national security, and therefore should be the fundamental, overriding concern of American foreign policy.
But despite this seemingly shopworn and familiar focus on the Eurasian landmass, Brzezinski’s geopolitical approach is different from the geopolitical theories first generated near the turn of the 20th century. Yes, physical territoriality is still all-important, but Mackinder for example focused on determining what part of Eurasia -- or “pivot area” – should be considered the point of departure for continental domination. Today’s great powers have more complex identities than the narrow nationalistic ones of the past and they are more concerned with economic rather than force-dependent prowess over the Eurasian landmass as a whole. Nevertheless, these updated realities don’t change the fundamentals, or so Brzezinski argues. Preventing the emergence of a hegemon is imperative, not only for the U.S. but also for the world.
To do this, the focus should not be on controlling one pivotal area but on positively engaging with geostrategically dynamic states that can affect the distribution of power in Eurasia as a whole. Brzezinski identified these key states as Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and South Korea. Azerbaijan and the Ukraine were (and remain) pivotal because their independence from Russian suzerainty blocks its influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Turkey was (and is) vital because of the stabilizing role it plays in the highly competitive Black Sea region, because of its ability to still prevent Russian naval access to the Mediterranean, and because of its general ability to counterbalance others. Iran, despite its hostility to the U.S., is still able to block northern powers such as Russia from foraying into the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. And, on the other side of the continent, South Korea remains critical to the forward defense of Japan and an essential component of America’s ability to check Chinese influence in the Far East. One can criticize a Cold Warrior such as Brzezinski for still obsessing over a resurgent Russia and rising China, and one should wonder whether in a post-911 edition of his text he might have given greater prominence to Central Asia, but he could (and still can) reply with genuine conviction that it’s the fundamentals that matter, which here means the centrality of what once was called “the world island” to the West’s foreign policy.
Conclusion
When looking at the two sample texts selected here, it’s obvious that classical geopolitics continues to have its adherents. They believe, and with some justification, that the basic insights provided by the geopolitical thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries do not require fundamental revision or adaptation for today’s context. They therefore largely parrot the giants of classical geopolitical thought in emphasizing the enduring importance of geography in international relations. Geography may not be destiny, but it remains pervasive in world politics, particularly in the Eurasian landmass. But whereas Colin Gray focuses on the continuity between the classical approaches and geopolitics today, Brzezinski admits a modest departure. For him, a hundred years of political and technological developments may demand some nips and tucks to Mackinder’s famous formula, “He who rules Eurasia rules the world.” According to Brzezinski, the key now is to engage positively with a handful of states that deserve our attention and resources. When it comes to the fundamentals, it appears he continues to be right.
Recommended Reading
external pageTerritorial Shock: Towards a Theory of Change , in L’espace Politique; Gertjan Dijkink, 2011
From Hegemony to the New Geopolitical Competition ; Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 2008
external pageEnd of Dreams, Return of History , in Policy Review; Robert Kagan, 2007
The Emerging Pattern of Geopolitics ; Strategic Studies Institute, 2007
China’s Rise and the Return of Geopolitics ; SWP, 2006
external pageTerritory and War: State Size and Patterns of Interstate Conflict ; David Lake and Angela Mahoney, 2004
Thinking about Geography: Some Competing Geopolitical Models for the 21st Century; US NATO Defense College, Peter R Faber, 2005
external pageGeopolitical Realities and US Foreign Policy , in Political Geography; Saul Cohen, 2003
external pageDreams of the Eurasian Heartland: The Re-emergence of Geopolitics, in Foreign Affairs; Charles Clover, 1999
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives; Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1997
external pageNuclear Strategy and the Case for a Theory of Victory , in International Security; Colin Gray, 1979
external pageA Geographical Model for Political Systems Analysis , in Geographical Review; Saul Cohen and Lewis Rosenthal, 1971