Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
THE ALLURE OF SEA POWER
Whereas Mackinder's emphasis was on land power because of emerging technological de-
velopments in rail and road transport, the same Industrial Revolution made American Navy
captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, a slightly older contemporary of Mackinder, a proponent of
sea power. Mahan thought sea power not only more important than land power in the fight
for dominance, but also less threatening to international stability. Mahan noted that it is “the
limited capacity of navies to extend coercive force inland” that makes them no menace to
liberty. Mahan thought that instead of the Heartland of Eurasia being the geographical pivot
of empires, it was conversely the Indian and Pacific oceans that constituted the hinges of
geopolitical destiny. For these oceans would allow for a maritime nation to project power
around the Eurasian Rimland, affecting political developments inland—thanks to the same
rail and road feeder networks—deep into Central Asia. Nicholas Spykman, with his own
emphasis on the Rimland around the Indian and Pacific oceans, was as profoundly influen-
ced by Mahan as he was by Mackinder.
Though Mackinder was awed by the strength of Russia, given its control of the Heartland,
Mahan, whose topic
The Problem of Asia
preceded Mackinder's “The Geographical Pivot
of History” article by four years, espied Russia's vulnerability, given its distance from the
warm waters of the Indian Ocean. Russia's “irremediable remoteness from an open sea has
helped put it in a disadvantageous position for the accumulation of wealth,” and, as Mahan
goes on, “This being so, it is natural and proper that she should be dissatisfied, and dissatis-
faction readily takes the form of aggression.” Thus does Mahan reveal the deepest psycho-
logical currents—based, in fact, on geography—of the Russian national character. Mahan
calls the nations lying to the south of Russia and north of the Indian Ocean the “debatable
ground” of Asia, “the zone of conflict between Russian landpower and British seapower.”
(Spykman, four decades later, will call this area the Rimland.) Of this debatable ground, Ma-
han emphasizes the importance of China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey. It is no coincidence
that in 1900 he is able to identify the pivotal states of geopolitical significance in our own
time: for geography is unchangeable.
Geography helped dictate a containment strategy against the Soviet Union from the south-
ern tier of Eurasian states during the Cold War that involved all of these Rimland nations;
and geography helps determine the importance of China, as a state and civilization extend-
ing from the Eurasian Heartland to the warm waters of the Pacific Rim, even as geography
helps determine Afghanistan and Iran as two Heartland nations critical to the destiny of the
Middle East. It was Mahan who, in 1902, first used the term “Middle East” to denote the
area between Arabia and India that held particular importance for naval strategy. India, he
points out, located in the center of the Indian Ocean littoral, with its rear flanks protected by
the Himalayan mountain system, is critical for the seaward penetration of both the Middle
