THE RIMLAND THESIS - The Revenge of Geography - page 78

ber and intensity of contacts, which holds out the greater likelihood of both political con-
flict and cooperation.
Mackinder argues that once the world becomes “a closed political system, the ultimate
geographical reality would make itself felt.” 20 By that he means the recognition of the
World-Island as a single unit in geopolitics, with North America as the most significant of
the continental satellites in the surrounding seas. It is the Northern Hemisphere that Mac-
kinder is talking about here, as all of mainland Eurasia and much of Africa—the com-
ponents of the World-Island—fall inside it. Spykman's Rimland thesis fits neatly with this
scenario, with the marginal zones of Europe, the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and
the Far East together dominating the seaboard continuum around Eurasia in the Indian and
Pacific oceans, buttressed by their substantial populations, economic development, and hy-
drocarbon resources: together, they check the Heartland power of Russia, even as Russia
gains the warming waters of its northern Arctic seaboard. 21 Just as the Arctic will be a hub
of planes and ships connecting North America with the northern reaches of the World-Is-
land, the Greater Indian Ocean will form the maritime interstate of the World-Island's com-
mercial and military traffic, connecting Africa and the Middle East with East Asia.
Still, the Eurasian Rimland will not be united in any strictly political sense. In a world
of multiple regional hegemons, the danger with which both Mackinder and Spykman were
concerned, that of a single land power dominating Eurasia, or a single sea power domin-
ating the Eurasian Rimland, appears nowhere on the horizon. Not even the Chinese, with
their rising sea power, appear capable of this achievement, checked as they will be by the
American, Indian, Japanese, Australian, and other navies. Nevertheless, as we shall see,
a world of subtle power arrangements, where trade and economics will erode sheer milit-
ary might, will still be one of geopolitics governed by geography, especially in the world's
oceans, which will be more crowded than ever. To see this maritime world better, we will
next turn to another thinker from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.