Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
In other words, because of air power and the expeditionary ability of, in particular, the
American military to deploy quickly anywhere, the entire earth is in play. But it isn't only
in play for us, but for everyone in Mackinder's “closed system,” thanks to communications
technology, of which air power is related. Nevertheless, the planet is too big a system to
be dominated by one hegemon, so, as Spykman writes, there will a “regional decentraliz-
ation of power,” with each big area affecting the other. He intuits a world of multiple he-
gemons: similar to the multipolarity that we now all talk about, and which exists already
in an economic and political sense, but not quite yet in a military one, because of the great
distance still separating the United States from other national militaries. But an emerging
world of regional behemoths: the United States, the European Union, China, India, and
Russia—with middle powers such as Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil—would bear
out his observations.
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What will be the dynamics of such a world? Spykman practices futurology in the best
way possible, by staring at maps from different angles. His most arresting insights come
from a northern polar map. “Two significant features clearly stand out: the concentration
of the land masses in the Northern Hemisphere, and their starfishlike dispersion from the
North Pole as a center toward Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, South America and Cape
Horn, and Australia.” Looking at this projection, land is nearly everywhere; whereas if you
stare at a southern polar projection, it is water that is nearly everywhere. The northern polar
map shows how the northern continents are relatively close to one another, and the south-
ern continents are far apart. Of course, in this projection the distance between the south-
ern continents is exaggerated, yet the map is still symbolic of how far away Australia is
from South America, and South America from Africa. Thus, the geographically close re-
lationship between North America and Eurasia is dynamic and constitutes “the base lines
of world politics,” while those between the southern continents are much less important.
Again, he is not saying that South America and Africa are insignificant in and of them-
selves, only that their relationships with each other are. South America and Africa achieve
significance in geopolitics only in their relationships with the northern continents. But the
real message about this polar map is the organic relationship between North America and
Eurasia. We think of the vast Pacific as separating the west coast of North America from
East Asia. But the polar route indicates that it is just a matter of flying north to Alaska and
then south, down across the Russian Far East, to the temperate zone of Japan, Korea, and
China. The Arctic, especially if it warms, will give new meaning to sea power and espe-
cially air power in future decades. Supersonic transport may cut the distance between the
west coast of the United States and cities in Asia by two-thirds. The increased use of po-
lar routes will lock the United States, Russia, and China in an ever tighter embrace. Geo-
graphy, because it will be more accessible, will, counterintuitively, become more crucial.
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Globalization, understood as the breaking down of walls, results in an increase in the num-
