Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Mackinder is vital to an understanding of Cold War geography; whereas Spykman has a
more organic conception of the entire globe, and thus is more relevant than Mackinder in
an age in which every place can affect every other place.
The strategic and geographic heart of the New World is what Spykman calls the “Amer-
ican Mediterranean,” that is, the Greater Caribbean Sea, including the Gulf of Mexico. Just
as Athens gained effective control of the Greek archipelago by dominating the Aegean,
and Rome took command of the Western world by dominating the European Mediter-
ranean, America, Spykman explains, became a world power when it was able, finally, in the
Spanish-American War of 1898, to take unquestioned control of the “middle sea,” or Carib-
bean, from European colonial states, which would allow for the construction of the Panama
Canal soon after. “No serious threat against the position of the United States can arise in the
region itself,” he says about the Caribbean basin. “The islands are of limited size, and the
topography of Central America, like that of the Balkan peninsula … favors small political
units. Even the countries of large size like Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela are precluded
by topography, climate, and absence of strategic raw materials from becoming great nav-
al powers.” The U.S. Navy can blockade the eastern boundary of the Caribbean and cut
these states off from world markets, thus they are in the final analysis dependent on the
United States. Spykman's strength, as well as that of other thinkers I cover here, is the abil-
ity to see through the hurly-burly of current events and reveal basic truths. And the basic
geographical truth of the Western Hemisphere, he says, is that the division inside it is not
between North America and South America, but between the area north of the equatorial
jungle dominated by the Amazon and the area south of it. It follows that Colombia and
Venezuela, as well as the Guianas, although they are on the northern coast of South Amer-
ica, are functionally part of North America and the American Mediterranean. Their geopol-
itical world is the Caribbean, and they have relatively little to do with the countries south of
the Amazonian jungle, despite sharing the same continent: for like the European Mediter-
ranean, the American Mediterranean does not divide but unites. Just as North Africa is part
of the Mediterranean world, but is blocked by the Sahara Desert from being part of Africa
proper, the northern coast of South America is part of the Caribbean world, and is severed
by geography from South America proper. As Spykman explains:
The mountain ranges which bend eastward from the Andes, separate the Amazon
basin from the valleys of the Magdalena and the Orinoco and form the southern
boundaries of the Guianas. Beyond this lies the enormous impenetrable jungle
and tropical forest of the Amazon valley. The river and its tributaries offer an
excellent system of communications from west to east but they do not provide
transportation for movements north and south.
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