THE HEARTLANDS (Sir Halford John Mackinder)

15 April 2022

John J Mearsheimer has been spot on for years.

https://youtu.be/XgiZXgYzI84

He has a theoretical framework understanding that he can lay over any IR security problem and explain it and offer solutions. But those that be (the people who1 govern us), they don't listen, not to him, and not to the people in this "democracy" of ours  We are there to vote them in and give our support to their madness and a sense of legitimacy.

You could argue they flannel us with distractions like covid or wokism. So there is geopolitics, propaganda, and democracy. Mearsheimer is right, but rejected by government and the people. We are dissenters, heretics, free-thinkers, driven by facts and reason, not short-term hubris.

There are many determinants of foreign policy. Geography is very deterministic.

The Rus were dealt a really poor hand. They are like The Hordes, a people of the plains, the Eurasian landmass is their land. The plain continues to the West onto the plain of central Europe, with - as I see it so maybe I've misunderstood - defensive natural barriers for Russia, but these are just beyond Russia's grasp.  Russia has 2,000 kilometers of long and vulnerable borderland that it must defend to stop any invasion from a well-funded and technologically sophisticated Western European sea-power - originally the British until Chrchill ceded to the American maritime power in 1945.

What are these natural defences? The Carpathian mountains - but alas, they're in Romania! Access to the Black Sea - it's in Ukraine! (or was). The Suwalki Gap which also gives access to the Baltic Sea - it's the other side of the Balkans (but Russia has Kaliningrad at the other end of the Gap - see a map)!

And so on - there are nine such gateways that enemies use to routinely invade Russia (identified in a Zeihan Youtube pres.), and Russia must have them all under lock and key, to feel secure. They've been invaded 50 times and more.

They'd need to plug the Transnistrie gap, a Russian separatist enclave in tiny Moldovia. Russia's also been invaded by the Swedes through the three Baltic countries so there are three NATO countries Putin would also need to invade (was he really planning this? Surely not.)  The French through Belarus. Twice by the Germans through the Polish gap. The Bessarabian gap in Romania favoured by the Turks. Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia complete the nontep.

Now, it has NATO at its door, bristling with weapons. The Soviet Union had all nine of these gaps in its land mass, but Russia today has only Crimea and Kaliningrad. It needs to move West and take the seven remaining, five in NATO lands.

So this is about geography, as it affects security, ie Geopolitics. It's about security and insecurity, existence and (ominously) whatever it takes to survive. And this is the starting point of Mearsheimer's position. He is an "offensive structural realist". (Russian demographics - second worse in the world after China - is another factor, for another time.)

Geography means Russia needs to expand westwards into central Europe and capture the nine gateways. So it's not about personal ambition or nationalism or imperialism or historic revenge, it is a purely rational strategy to ensure national survival, it is about Russia's understandable insecurity.

And how does America respond to this? America is insecure too, being at the top of the greasy pole - it wants to rub out any regional competitors ... but what to put in their place? America responds with a deaf ear and aggression, as usual. Surely America has learnt by now that confrontation is followed by failure. And as a consequence of confrontation, America is throwing Russia into the arms of China, the new rising world hegemon, or so they tell us. China, with maybe Pakistan and Iran and even Turkey too, why not in its axis. But America needs Russia, as does Europe, for different reasons.

Contrast Russia's geography and insecurity with America's. The Americans feel supremely secure and confident, with oceans West and East, and Canada and Mexico North and South, so they are unassailable. Russians, on the other hand, are tremendously insecure: their citadel has no walls and Ukraine - where NATO could site Weapons of Mass Destruction - is just 500 kms away ... a lobster without a shell, ready for the pot, an egg without a shell.

Surely, this is understood and something cleverer than war, a response based in cooperation, as prefered by France and Germany, can be the tool to peace? I feel like there should be a parable in the bible to help understanding of this, next to Noah's Ark...maybe that sounds daft, but this whole conflict does go all the way back to a story about The People of the Trees v. The People of the Seas  (though I can't find an internet reference).

In its orginal form, trees and seas, and the separating rimlands in between, is a neat geopolitical theory known as The Heartland Theory. One side or the other must take or defend the rimlands that separate them to win the heartland, giving that side victory and World Hegemon accolade. It is almost a board game. (Except the winner, America, is in the Americas, not the heartland of Asia, Africa, Eurasia.)

Sir Halford John Mackinder was a British geographer who wrote a paper in 1904 called "The Geographical Pivot of History." Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland.

Many many strategists have been drawn to this theory:
a) it gets to the crux of the ambitions and weaknesses of world super-powers and explains the hatred for Russia
b) the Theory was passed onto George Kennan and thence Truman, and goes deep into the second world war, WW1 and WW2 ; and American understanding of how to deal with Germany, Russia and China (heartland powers) ; and Japan and UK (rimland)
c) Mackinder was a Scottish MP.

"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the World."

Russia is the great Eurasian land-power. It is, by its geopolitical nature, eternally opposed to America, the liberal Atlantic sea-power. The worry is that Russia use its wealth of natural resources and manpower (intermi al decline now) to conquer the rimlands - which offer up 2,000 kilometers of central European near-abroad for Russia to plug and defend - to defeat the seapowers of Western Europe. America can only rest once Russia is contained and kept out of central Europe. Hence Truman's policy of containment.

By an identical logic, China - or the Eastern side of the heartland this time - is to be contained within its first island ring, of great strategic importance, consisting of Japan, S Korea, Taiwan and the Phillipines; and down as far as Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. So it is vitally important in the containment strategy for China to keep these countries "on program". And any American war alliance would extend to Australia, India, Russia (sic) and Turkey, not to mention Western Europe and UK.

Here is some reading on The Heartlands Theory.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2019/01/halford-mackinder-father-geopolitics

https://youtu.be/MkrLUFAcjH0
(view from place 4'27")

The right-wing ideologue Aleksandr Dugin
https://youtu.be/TrafXfDL2CA

Peter Zeihan
https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo