Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
trol from the Heartland to the Rimland. In his landmark work,
Nuclear Weapons and For-
eign Policy
, published in 1957, the young Henry Kissinger writes that “limited war repres-
ents the only means for preventing the Soviet bloc, at an acceptable cost, from overrun-
ning the peripheral areas of Eurasia,” especially since, as Kissinger continues, the Soviet
Union as the Heartland power possesses “interior lines of communications” that allow it
Afghanistan, Vietnam—battlegrounds all in the history of the Cold War, and all were on
the periphery of Soviet and Chinese communism. This was Mackinder's world, but with
the sensibility of Spykman.
As Spykman looks out from the vantage point of 1942 beyond World War II, we see the
anxious foresight of which the geographical discipline is capable. Even as the Allies are
losing and the utter destruction of Hitler's war machine is a priority, Spykman worries
aloud about the implications of leaving Germany demilitarized. “A Russian state from the
Urals to the North Sea,” he explains, “can be no great improvement over a German state
from the North Sea to the Urals.” Russian airfields on the English Channel would be as
dangerous as German airfields to the security of Great Britain. Therefore, a powerful Ger-
many will be necessary following Hitler. Likewise, even as the United States has another
three years of vicious island fighting with the Japanese military ahead of it, Spykman is
recommending a postwar alliance with Japan against the continental powers of Russia and
particularly a rising China. Japan is a net importer of food, and inadequate in oil and coal
production, but with a great naval tradition, making it both vulnerable and useful. A large,
offshore island nation of East Asia, it could serve the same function for the United States in
the Far East as Britain serves in Europe. Spykman underscores the necessity of a Japanese
ally against a powerful China, even as in the early 1940s China is weak and reeling under
Japanese military devastation:
A modern, vitalized, and militarized China … is going to be a threat not only
to Japan, but also to the position of the Western Powers in the Asiatic Medi-
terranean. China will be a continental power of huge dimensions in control of
a large section of the littoral of that middle sea. Her geographic position will
be similar to that of the United States in regard to the American Mediterranean.
When China becomes strong, her present economic penetration in that region
will undoubtedly take on political overtones. It is quite possible to envisage the
day when this body of water will be controlled not by British, American, or
Japanese sea power but by Chinese air power.
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