Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and Kansas. Whereas Lewis and Clark's 1804-1806 exploration of the Louisiana and Ore-
gon territories brought America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and thus laid the ideational
foundation of a modern, continental nation-state, Coronado's exploration—south-to-north
rather than east-to-west—while earlier in time, was in its own way postmodern: for it was
not bounded by any national consciousness, and provided an orientation for a future uni-
versal state stretching from semitropical Mexico to temperate North America. Francisco
Vázquez de Coronado was in search of gold, plunder, and easy wealth. His was a mediev-
al mentality. But the new Hispanic migrants heading north are not medieval. They are in
search of jobs—which often entail backbreaking manual labor—and thus they are willing
to work hard for material gain. They are being transformed by the Anglo-Protestant work
ethic just as they transform America's Anglo-Protestant culture.
The quality and fluidity of this cultural and binational interaction will, arguably, more than
any other individual dynamic, determine how well America interacts with Mackinder's
World-Island (Eurasia and Africa). American foreign policy will likely be both wise and
unwise by turns in the course of the decades. But American economic power, cultural
power, moral power, and even political and military power will be substantially affected
by whether we can develop into a cohesive, bilingual supra-state-of-sorts with Mexico and
Canada or, instead, become trapped by a dysfunctional, vast, and increasingly unruly bor-
der region that engenders civilizational tension between America's still dominant Anglo-
Protestant culture and its Hispanic counterpart. Huntington's fears are justified; it is his
solution that is partly wrong.
Keep in mind that, as we know from Paul Bracken and others, the earth's political geo-
graphy increasingly constitutes a closed, claustrophobic system. Cultural and political in-
terchanges across the seas will become more and more organic. Thus, if the United States
and Mexico do not eventually come together to the degree that the U.S. and Canada already
have—if we do not have Mexico as an intimate and dependable ally in world forums—it
will adversely affect America's other relationships, especially as Mexico's (and Central
America's) population grows at a much higher rate than ours, and thus Mexico will assume
more importance as time goes on. Braudel's exploration of the sixteenth-century Mediter-
ranean makes clear the role that natural forces like geography play over time: that is why
Mexico must play a central function in any grand strategy we decide upon.
Think of the future world as roughly resembling the millet system of the old Ottoman
Empire: a “network of geographically intermingled communities,” in Toynbee's words,
the others as never before. As we have seen, future decades will see rail, road, and pipelines
connecting all of Eurasia through a Central Asian and particularly an Afghan hub. An or-
ganic and united Eurasia will demand as a balancer an organic and united North America,
