麥金德的世界

 麥金德的世界

Mackinder’s World

2000 年 2 月

麥金德的世界

作者：Francis P. Sempa

哈爾福德·麥金德的思想大約一個世紀前開始見諸報端，現在已成為政治地理學領域的經典思想。政策制定者和學者現在記住它們，主要是因為這個看似簡單的公式：控制東歐就能控制“心臟地帶”，從而控制“世界島”（歐亞大陸），並最終控制世界。他的全部思想，包括他自己後來的重新考慮，形成了一個複雜而有力的作品體系。作者是賓州檢察院副院長，他回顧了麥金德的職業生涯。 〜編輯。

如果不穩固掌握地理知識，就不可能研究國際關係。世界歷史中的地理因素是最根本的，因為它是最恆定的。人口增加和減少，自然資源被發現和消耗，政治制度頻繁變化，帝國和國家崛起和衰落，技術衰落和進步，但大陸、島嶼、海洋和大洋的位置在有記載的歷史中並沒有發生重大變化。這就是為什麼偉大的國家如果忽視地理研究就會面臨危險。

沒有人比偉大的英國地理學家哈爾福德·約翰·麥金德更了解地理與世界歷史之間的重要關係。麥金德於 1861 年出生於英國蓋恩斯伯勒，就讀於蓋恩斯伯勒文法學校和埃普瑟姆學院，1880 年進入牛津大學。根據 WH 帕克的說法，麥金德小時候“對自然現像有著強烈的好奇心……熱愛旅行和探險的歷史，對國際事務感興趣，對繪製地圖充滿熱情。”1

影像在牛津大學，麥金德受到了邁克爾·薩德勒和亨利·諾蒂奇·莫斯利的影響，兩人都是推動地理學成為英國獨立學科的關鍵人物。 1886 年，麥金德被任命為自然科學和經濟史講師，同年加入皇家地理學會。根據麥金德的傳記作者之一布萊恩·W·布盧埃特 (Brian W. Blouet) 的說法，皇家地理學會的會員「由對世界及其事務有著普遍興趣的人士、陸軍和海軍軍官、商人、學者、學校教師、外交官和殖民地行政人員組成」。2第二年（1887年），麥金德撰寫了他的第一篇重要論文《論地理學的範圍和方法》，被稱為「英國地理學發展史上的經典文獻」。3在該論文中，麥金德認為「合理的」政治地理「建立在自然地理之上並繼之而來」。他寫道：「在任何地方，政治問題都將取決於實體調查的結果。」政治地理學的功能是「追蹤人與環境之間的相互作用」。麥金德解釋說，環境包括「地球表面的構造」、氣候和天氣條件以及自然資源的存在與否。4

《論地理學的範圍和方法》中提到的四個想法是理解麥金德後續地緣政治作品的關鍵。

首先，麥金德表達了他的觀點：地理學家的目標是「回顧過去，以便解讀現在」。

第二，他指出人類的地理大發現已經接近尾聲；我們的地圖上只剩下很少的「空白」。

第三，麥金德把兩類政治征服者分別描述為「陸地狼和海狼」。

第四，他認識到技術進步使得「現代國家規模龐大」成為可能。5

麥金德後來在這四個思想的基礎上建構了他著名的全球理論。

1887年6月，麥金德被任命為牛津大學地理學講師，開始教授地理對歐洲歷史的影響。 1892年他訪問了美國，並在賓州大學、斯沃斯莫爾學院、德雷塞爾大學、哈佛大學、普林斯頓大學和約翰霍普金斯大學講課。同年，他被任命為牛津大學雷丁學院校長，任職十一年。 1893年至1894年間，麥金德就歐洲和亞洲的地理與歷史的關係作了十次系列演講。五年後，他協助創立了牛津大學地理學院，並參與了攀登非洲第二高峰肯亞山的探險活動。6

1902 年，麥金德寫了他的第一本重要著作。儘管用麥金德的話來說，該書主要關注的是“呈現英國的地理特徵和狀況”，但“英國的地位”、“戰略地理”和“帝國大英帝國”等章節包含了對全球事務的深刻見解，為麥金德後來的地緣政治著作奠定了基礎。在書中，他將英國描述為“屬於歐洲，但不在歐洲”，並且“位於歐洲大陸的海岸外”。麥金德寫道，英國在世界上的主導地位建立在其「制海權」的基礎上，因為「海洋的統一性是現代全球海上力量主導價值的簡單物理事實」。麥金德認為：“一種新的力量平衡正在形成”，其中包括“五大世界國家，即英國、法國、德國、俄羅斯和美國”。然而，麥金德認為，英國作為世界強國的地位受到了「永久的自然地理因素」的威脅，即「龐大的強國的存在，這些強國廣泛地依賴半數大陸的資源」（即俄羅斯和美國）。7

對英國主導地位和世界自由的威脅是麥金德在 1904 年 1 月 25 日向皇家地理學會提交的大膽、挑釁性論文《歷史的地理支點》的主題。他在這篇開創性著作的開頭指出，「地理探索」的最後階段（他稱之為「哥倫布時代」）即將結束。他寫道：“400 年來，世界地圖的輪廓已經大致準確完成。”此外，由於征服者、傳教士、礦工、農民和工程師“緊緊追隨旅行者的腳步”，世界首次成為一個“封閉的政治體系”。麥金德寫道，這意味著「每一次社會力量的爆發，都不會消散在周圍未知的空間和野蠻的混亂之中，而是會在地球的另一端得到尖銳的迴響，世界政治和經濟有機體中的薄弱環節將因此被摧毀」。換句話說，各國再也不能安全地忽視在地球遙遠地方發生的重大事件。

麥金德撰寫這篇“關鍵”論文的目的在於建立“更廣泛的地理概括和更廣泛的歷史概括之間的關聯”，提供“一個能夠表達世界歷史中地理因果關係某些方面的公式”，並“正確看待當前國際政治中的一些相互競爭的力量”。

麥金德把歐洲和亞洲描繪成一個偉大的大陸：「歐亞大陸」。他將歐亞大陸描述為：「一塊連綿不斷的陸地，北部被冰雪包圍，其他部分被水包圍，面積達兩千一百萬平方英里……」他指出，歐亞大陸的中部和北部面積「約 900 萬平方英里，……沒有通往海洋的水路，但另一方面，……一般來說，適合騎兵的機動性……」他進一步解釋說，「在這片邊緣，」海區和心臟區

麥金德指出，在五世紀到十六世紀之間，一連串的遊牧民族（匈奴人、阿瓦爾人、保加利亞人、馬札爾人、可薩人、巴齊納克人、庫曼人、蒙古人和卡爾梅克人）從中亞湧現，征服或威脅著「邊緣地帶」（歐洲、中東、西南、中國、東南亞國家）的西南亞民族。然而，從十五世紀末開始，「哥倫布時代的偉大航海家」利用海上力量包圍了中亞。麥金德解釋說，海上強國崛起的「廣泛政治影響是扭轉歐洲和亞洲的關係…」麥金德進一步解釋道：「中世紀的歐洲，南面是無法穿越的沙漠，西面是未知的海洋，北面和東北面是冰雪或森林覆蓋的荒地，而東部和東南部又不斷受到騎兵的優越性威脅。而現在，今天就出現在這個世界上，而歐洲和歐洲地區一直將其威脅倍陸地強國。

然而麥金德認為，人們常常忽略這樣一個事實：當歐洲向海外擴張時，以東歐和中亞為基礎的俄羅斯國家卻向南部和東部擴張，整合了廣闊的人力和自然資源。這片廣闊的空間很快就會“被鐵路網覆蓋”，從而大大增強陸上力量的機動性和戰略影響力。

在這樣的地緣歷史背景下，麥金德把歐亞大陸的中北部核心區確定為世界政治的「樞紐地區」或「樞紐國家」。他將與樞紐地區緊鄰的德國、奧地利、土耳其、印度和中國置於「內新月」區域，將英國、南非、澳洲、美國、加拿大和日本等島國置於「外新月」區域。他隨後警告說：「如果權力平衡被打破，有利於樞紐國家，那麼其將擴張到歐亞邊緣地區，從而可以利用廣闊的大陸資源來建造艦隊，世界帝國將近在眼前。」麥金德認為，要么是俄德聯盟，要么是中日帝國（征服了俄羅斯領土）爭奪世界霸權。無論哪種情況，「海洋優勢」都會被添加到「大陸資源」中，從而為產生一個在陸地和海上都稱霸的大國創造必要的地緣政治條件。

「我是以地理學家的身份發表上述言論的，」麥金德在論文結尾處承認。但他在評估世界局勢時小心避免地理決定論：“任何特定時期的政治力量的實際平衡是......一方面是經濟和戰略地理條件的產物，另一方面是競爭民族的相對數量、活力、裝備和組織的產物。”8

“任何特定時期的政治力量的實際平衡......一方面是經濟和戰略地理條件的產物，另一方面是競爭民族的相對數量、活力、裝備和組織的產物。”

 

麥金德的「樞紐」論文導致皇家地理學會的一名會員「遺憾地看到這裡的一些空置空間」。不幸的是，正如 WH Parker 所指出的，「麥金德的論文在英語世界被遺忘了……長達三十五年。」直到第二次世界大戰期間和戰後，英國人和美國人才開始欣賞麥金德的「樞紐」論文及其 1919 年的傑作《民主的理想與現實》的智慧和先見之明。

在向皇家地理學會提交「樞紐」論文的幾個月前，麥金德被任命為倫敦經濟學院院長，並一直擔任該職位到 1908 年。 1910 年，他被選為下議院議員，並任職至 1922 年。 1919 年，正值俄國內戰肆虐，外交大臣寇松勳爵選擇麥金德擔任英國駐南俄高級專員。在那篇文章中，麥金德提倡英國支持的反布爾什維克聯盟的想法，因為他擔心，如果布爾什維克鞏固了對俄羅斯的控制，“那麼……很有可能製造出這樣一種武器，並可能對世界構成危險。”他警告說：“如今，來自莫斯科的威脅越來越大，這種狀況將使這個世界成為民主國家極不安全的地方……”9在當時的英國決策者中，只有溫斯頓·邱吉爾對麥金德的反布爾什維克戰略表示強烈支持。

在擔任倫敦政治經濟學院院長和議會期間，麥金德繼續思考和撰寫有關地理和世界事務的文章。他的論文和著作包括：《人力作為國家和帝國實力的標準》（1905 年）、《我們自己的島嶼：地理學初步研究》（1906 年）、《論帝國主義思維》（1907 年）、《大不列顛的地理環境》（1908 年）、《萊茵河：其河流條件》（1909 年）的《河國》（3909 年）。 09 年）、《新地圖》（1915 年）、《國際重建的一些地理面向》（1917 年）、《這場史無前例的戰爭》（1917 年）和《歐洲新地圖》（1918 年）。

第一次世界大戰結束後不久，麥金德寫道：10可以說是地理學家所寫的國際政治的最重要的著作。麥金德在這裡大大擴展了他 1904 年的「樞紐」論文，並借鑒了第一次世界大戰中學到的最新教訓。在書的前言中，麥金德指出「轉向」文件中表達的思想仍然具有現實意義：「戰爭確立了、而不是動搖了我以前的觀點。」在隨後的約兩百頁的篇幅中，麥金德對歷史和地理進行了精彩的綜合分析，經受住了時間的考驗。

麥金德在書的開頭強調了地理對於歷史和全球政治研究的至關重要性。他寫道：“歷史上的大規模戰爭，都是國家間發展不平衡直接或間接造成的結果，而這種發展不平衡，在很大程度上，是全球生育力和戰略機遇分配不均的結果。” “地理事實”向麥金德表明：“陸地和海洋的分佈、土地肥沃程度和自然通道的分佈，有利於帝國的成長，並最終衡量世界帝國的建議。重大特徵的相對重要性…」來揭示這些「地理現實」。

麥金德指出，儘管“在有記載的人類歷史中，地理的物理事實基本上保持不變”，但只是在20世紀初，地球才在政治上成為一個“封閉系統”。他寫道：“現在，即使是地球另一端的人，也能感受到每一次衝擊、災難或多餘的事情……從今以後，人類的每一個行為都將以同樣的方式在世界各地得到回應。”

從地理角度來看，麥金德在《民主的理想與現實》中所描繪的世界是這樣的：（1）一片海洋，覆蓋了地球的十二分之九； （2）一個包括歐洲、亞洲和非洲的大洲；（3） 英國、日本、北美洲、南美洲和澳洲等幾個較小的島嶼。麥金德把這片大洲稱為“世界島”，他又把這個大洲細分為六個區域：歐洲海岸（西歐和中歐）、季風或亞洲海岸（印度、中國、東南亞、朝鮮和東西伯利亞）、阿拉伯（阿拉伯半島）、撒哈拉（北非）、南部心臟地帶（撒哈拉以南的非洲）以及最重要的心臟地帶（歐亞半島北部的論文北部）。

麥金德用地緣歷史的類比方法顯示了歐亞—非洲「世界島」在地球上的地位的重要意義。他解釋說，「世界島」之於北美，就如同多利安人統治下的希臘之於克里特島，羅馬帝國之於英國，即一個無可爭議的半島陸地強國對抗一個島嶼海上強國。在這兩個歷史例子中，基礎強大的、無人可挑戰的陸上力量都擊敗了基礎較弱的海上力量。但這並非簡單地是陸權優於海權的情況。取得勝利的陸上強國必須不受陸上勢力的挑戰，並且必須擁有足夠的資源來建造一支足夠強大的艦隊，擊敗島嶼上的海上強國。缺少上述兩個條件，強大的島嶼強國將佔上風，英國擊敗拿破崙統治下的法國就是明證，後者雖然擁有巨大的資源，但卻面臨著來自東部（俄羅斯）陸地力量的巨大挑戰，使得它無法利用這些資源壓倒英國的海上力量。

事實上，在麥金德看來，最佳地理位置是島國與更多資源的結合，這正是「世界島」的位置。他解釋說，戰略家「不能再將歐洲與亞洲和非洲區分開來。舊世界已經成為一個孤立的整體，或者說是一個單元，是我們地球上最大的地理單元。」在第一次世界大戰中，如果德國征服了俄羅斯和法國，「它就會在比歷史上任何一個國家都更廣泛的基礎上建立起自己的海上力量，事實上是在最廣泛的基礎上」。儘管德國輸掉了戰爭，麥金德還是警告說：“我們不應該考慮這樣的可能性：未來某一天，歐洲大陸的大部分地區可能會統一在一個國家的統治之下，一個不可戰勝的海上強國可能會以此為基礎建立起來嗎？”麥金德寫道：“這是對世界自由的終極威脅。”

「世界島」最具戰略意義的地理特徵是心臟地帶，麥金德將其描述為「大陸北部和中部的一大片連續區域……從西伯利亞冰冷平坦的海岸到俾路支和波斯炎熱陡峭的海岸」。該地區的主要河流（勒拿河、葉尼塞河、鄂畢河、伏爾加河和烏拉爾河）要么流入冰凍的北冰洋，要么流入內海（里海和鹹海），從而使心臟地帶「無法通過海洋航行到達」。心臟地帶還包括一片巨大的“低地”平原，形成了“從西伯利亞通往歐洲的寬闊門戶”，適合高度機動的陸地力量。

正如他1904年的「樞紐」論文一樣，麥金德在《民主的理想與現實》中用歷史來闡述地理的戰略意義。他指出，從西元五世紀的匈奴人開始，一波又一波的流動部落從心臟地帶湧出，征服或威脅歐洲和亞洲的沿海地區。然而，這些部落缺乏足夠的人力和組織來征服整個世界島，或者其中的大部分（儘管蒙古人幾乎做到了）。兩項現代化發展——人口增長和陸上交通工具（鐵路、汽車）的先進——有可能打破陸權與海權之間的平衡，並且用麥金德的話來說，構成了「人與世界更廣泛的地理現實之​​間關係的革命」。

麥金德描述了十九世紀拿破崙戰敗後直至德意志帝國崛起期間，英國海上強國如何試圖遏制俄羅斯陸上強國，這場地緣政治鬥爭後來被稱為「大博弈」。 1871 年後德國崛起為世界強國，改變了英國政治家的地緣政治焦點，並為第一次世界大戰奠定了基礎。對麥金德來說，從戰略角度來看，那場戰爭最重要的方面是德國幾乎成功征服了東歐和心臟地帶。如果德國放棄施里芬計劃，名義上與法國和英國保持和平，並將所有的精力和資源轉向東方，那麼世界將「被德國控制的東歐所掩蓋」。麥金德警告說：“英國和美國的島國人民直到為時已晚才會意識到這一戰略危險。”

麥金德認為，在「大博弈」和第一次世界大戰期間，英國的政策具有一致的地理基礎。 “我們反對……俄羅斯沙皇統治，”麥金德解釋說，“因為半個世紀以來，俄羅斯一直是東歐和歐洲中心地帶的主宰和威脅力量。” “我們反對……德國帝國，因為德國從沙皇手中奪取了領導權，並粉碎了反抗的斯拉夫人，並主宰東歐和中心地帶。”就統治了世界島；誰統治了世界島，誰就統治了世界。

戰後安置與重建是《民主的理想與現實》最後一部分的重點。麥金德擔心，凡爾賽的政治家們未能為東歐建立有效的安全體系，這將意味著在經歷了第一次世界大戰的可怕苦難之後，西方民主國家「僅僅獲得了短暫的喘息機會，而我們的後代將不得不重新集結力量，圍攻中心地帶」。對於那些認為德國的失敗將改變德國征服和權力慾望的人，麥金德明智地回答道：“他是一個樂觀的人......他會相信世界未來的和平取決於任何國家心態的改變。”對於那些認為新的國際聯盟及其宣稱的理想能夠保障和平的人，麥金德預言性地反駁道：“在今天的條件下，即使是國際聯盟的書面世界大戰也不足以保證世界聯盟的心臟大戰”。

麥金德對東歐問題提出的解決方案是基於“對地球地理現實的考慮”，即在德國和俄羅斯之間建立一層“獨立國家”，形成“一個獨立的廣闊區域，從亞得里亞海和黑海延伸到波羅的海…”。麥金德寫道，這個「德國與俄羅斯之間的領土緩衝區」必須有通往海洋的通道，而且必須得到「外部國家」（即英國和美國）的支持。11否則，東歐的權力真空將再次成為點燃歐亞霸權新一輪鬥爭的導火線。

不幸的是，在1920年代和1930年代，麥金德的思想對英國和美國影響不大。然而，在德國，情況並非如此。麥金德的全球視野引起了慕尼黑地緣政治研究所卡爾·豪斯霍弗及其同事的關注和讚揚。德國地緣政治學家受到奧斯瓦爾德·斯賓格勒、弗里德里希·拉採爾和魯道夫·謝倫等人的著作的影響，借鑒了麥金德的理論和概念，以促進德國的擴張。 1920 世紀 1920 年代和 1930 年代，豪斯霍費爾與希特勒的親密顧問魯道夫·赫斯關係密切。但尚不清楚德國地緣政治家在多大程度上影響了元首的全球戰略。豪斯霍弗認為麥金德是「最偉大的地理世界觀」的創始人。豪斯霍費爾在談到《歷史的地理樞紐》時驚呼道：“我從來沒有見過比這幾頁地緣政治傑作更偉大的作品。”德國地緣政治學家將世界劃分為“泛區域”，每個區域由一個大國主宰。豪斯霍費爾主張形成「歐亞大大陸群」；本質上，這是德國、日本和俄羅斯之間的聯盟，最終將壓倒大英帝國。12

在兩次世界大戰之間，麥金德被授予爵士稱號（1920 年），失去議會席位（1922 年），擔任帝國航運委員會主席（1920-1939 年），入選帝國經濟委員會（1925-1931 年），成為樞密顧問官（1926 年），並繼續從事地理及相關主題的寫作和寫作和演講和相關主題。他在戰間時期的著作包括：《地理作為教育的關鍵學科》（1921 年）；“印度次大陸”（1922年）現代世界的國家：1914 年後地理和歷史的基本研究(1924 年)以及《人類的棲息地》（1931年）。十三

1939 年 8 月的蘇德互不侵犯條約、第二次世界大戰的開始以及德國隨後對蘇聯的入侵引起了美國對麥金德著作的關注。 1941 年和 1942 年，《新聞周刊》、《讀者文摘》和《生活》發表文章，突出提到了麥金德和他的著作。《民主的理想與現實》於1942年重印。同年，《外交事務》雜誌主編漢密爾頓·菲什·阿姆斯特朗請麥金德寫一篇文章來更新他的“心臟地帶”理論。這篇題為《圓形世界與贏得和平》的文章發表於 1943 年 7 月，是麥金德對其全球觀的最後一次重要表述。

麥金德寫道：“我關於‘心臟地帶’的概念……比起二十年或四十年前，在今天更加有效、更加實用。”14他從地理角度將心臟地帶描述為“歐亞大陸的北部和內陸”，“從北極海岸延伸到中部沙漠”，向西延伸至“波羅的海和黑海之間的寬闊地峽”。他解釋說，「中心地帶」的概念是基於「自然地理的三個不同面向」。

第一，「地球上最廣闊的低地平原」。

第二，「大型通航河流流經平原，但無法流入海洋」。

第三，「草原地區…為發展陸上交通的高流動性提供了理想條件」。

麥金德寫道，本質上，「心臟地帶」相當於蘇聯領土減去葉尼塞河以東的土地。

麥金德認為，如果蘇聯在戰爭中擊敗了德國，「那麼她必定會成為世界上最強大的陸上強國」。他解釋說：“心臟地帶是地球上最偉大的天然堡壘，而且歷史上第一次配備了數量和質量都相當的駐軍。”

麥金德認為，第二個地理特徵“幾乎與心臟地帶具有同等重要性”，那就是“中部海洋”，包括加拿大和美國的東半部、北大西洋盆地及其“四個附屬海域（地中海、波羅的海、北冰洋和加勒比海）”、英國和法國（這是對麥金德撰寫這篇文章六年後成立的北約聯盟的一個引人注目的描述）。

麥金德完成了他的最新全球草圖，並確定了另外三個地理特徵。第一條是“沙漠和荒野帶”，從撒哈拉沙漠向東延伸至阿拉伯、西藏和蒙古，再到西伯利亞東部、阿拉斯加、加拿大部分地區和美國西部。第二個區域包括南美洲、南大西洋和非洲。第三個區域包括中國和印度的「季風地區」。他表示希望這些地區能夠繁榮昌盛，以平衡全球其他地區的經濟。他寫道：“人類的地球是平衡的，因為平衡而幸福，因此也是自由的。”15

麥金德表示希望俄羅斯中心地帶能夠在戰後與中部海洋強國合作，阻止德國未來的侵略。但事實證明，他的理論和概念很容易適應美國和蘇聯之間正在興起的冷戰鬥爭。第二次世界大戰期間和戰後美國戰略家借鑒了麥金德的世界觀，制定和實施了對蘇俄的「遏制」政策。16安東尼·J·皮爾斯 (Anthony J. Pierce) 在 1962 年版《民主的理想與現實》的序言中自信地斷言，「在美國和英國，自 1942 年以來，大多數全球戰略或政治地理研究全部或部分地以麥金德的理論為基礎」。17「當然，麥金德也遭到了批評, 18但正如科林·格雷所指出的，“麥金德對於地理背景下歷史性權力關係轉變的解釋，比起他眾多批評者的攻擊，更加經受住了時間的考驗。”19

近期和目前的政治觀察家和戰略家證實了麥金德思想的持續影響力。 1974年，RE沃特斯寫道：“心臟地帶理論是西方軍事思想的首要前提。”20 1975 年，索爾·科恩 (Saul B. Cohen) 指出：“大多數西方戰略家仍然以麥金德最初所描述的方式看待世界。”21茲比格涅夫‧布熱津斯基的《遊戲計畫》（1986 年）和《大棋局》（1997 年）提出的全球觀點幾乎完全基於麥金德的概念。《民主理想與現實》一書中表達的所有地緣政治憂慮都已經實現。”22 20 世紀 80 年代和 90 年代， 《戰略評論》和《國家利益》等具有影響力的期刊發表了多篇文章，其中作者將麥金德的理論和概念應用於當代全球問題。23 1988 年，受人尊敬的戰略家科林·格雷斷言：“英國地理學家哈爾福德·麥金德爵士的地緣政治思想……為理解主要的國際安全問題提供了一種遠遠優於競爭對手的思想架構。”24 1992年，尤金·羅斯托評論：「麥金德地圖仍然是分析全球政治的不可或缺的工具」。25 1994 年，前國務院地理學家喬治·J·德姆科 (George J. Demko) 寫道：“麥金德的地理思想仍然為理解國際政治進程提供了重要參考。”26亨利·基辛格在其著作《外交》（1994 年）中最後警告說：“無論誰來統治俄羅斯，它都橫跨哈爾福德·麥金德所稱的地緣政治心臟地帶……”27保羅·甘迺迪、羅伯特·蔡斯和艾米莉·希爾在 1996 年《外交事務》上發表的一篇關於冷戰後「樞紐國家」的文章中引用了麥金德的理論。28最後，國防大學於 1996 年出版了《民主的理想與現實》。

二十世紀的全球政治在某種程度上受到麥金德的地緣政治觀的影響。依照他的概念，對歐亞大陸主宰權的持續爭奪是第一次世界大戰、第二次世界大戰和冷戰的地緣政治本質。先是英國，然後是美國，都先後組織大聯盟，抵抗德意志德國、納粹德國和蘇聯相繼發起的爭奪歐亞霸權的企圖。二十一世紀的大國鬥爭很可能重複這個模式。

中華人民共和國位於麥金德所說的「樞紐地區」或「心臟地帶」的門口，擁有入海通道，擁有充足的人力和自然資源，可以在新世紀的某個時候爭奪歐亞大陸的主宰權。俄羅斯雖然目前正經歷新的困難時期，但仍然佔據著“心臟地帶”，擁有豐富的人力和自然資源，以及數千枚核武。西歐、中歐和東歐國家正走向經濟統一，或許還有政治統一，而德國將發揮主導作用。然而，無論出現什麼樣的具體權力格局，美國的外交政策將繼續受到麥金德的以歐亞大陸為基礎的世界霸權的地緣政治願景的影響。

1944 年，美國地理學會授予麥金德查爾斯·戴利獎章，並於 1944 年 3 月 31 日在美國駐倫敦大使館將其頒發給麥金德。美國大使約翰溫南特評價麥金德是第一位充分利用地理作為治國理政和戰略輔助的學者。一年後，皇家地理學會授予麥金德贊助人獎章，學會會長指出「身為政治地理學家，他的聲譽享譽全球」。29麥金德於 1947 年 3 月 6 日去世，享年八十六歲。五十多年後，當我們進入新世紀時，政治家和戰略家仍然在麥金德的世界中運作。

結束註釋

1 .WH Parker，Mackinder：《地理作為治國之道的輔助》（牛津：Clarendon Press，1982），第 1-2 頁。

2。Brian W. Blouet， （德克薩斯州大學城：德克薩斯 A&M 大學出版社，1987 年），第 153 頁。 33

3 .Parker，Mackinder，第 8 頁。

4 .Halford J. Mackinder，《論地理學的範圍與方法》，載（紐約：WW Norton & Company，1962 年），第 213、214、217 頁。

5。同上，第 211、218、236、237 頁。

6 .有關麥金德的教育和教學職位的詳細信息，請參閱帕克、麥金德和布盧埃特的《麥金德：傳記》。

7。Halford J. Mackinder，（康乃狄克州韋斯特波特：格林伍德出版社，1969 年；最初由 D. Appleton and Co. 於 1902 年出版），第 vii、12、350-51、358 頁。

8。哈爾福德·J·麥金德，《歷史的地理樞紐》，載《民主的理想與現實》，第241-42、255、257-58、262-64頁。

9。Parker，Mackinder，第 149、158、170 頁。

10。哈爾福德‧約翰‧麥金德爵士，《民主的理想與現實：重建政治研究》（倫敦，康斯特布爾出版社，1919 年）。

11。同上，第 1-2、4、28-29、29-30、65-66、62、70、73、74、150、139、154、155、114、182、158、165、160 頁。

12。Hans W. Weigert，（紐約，牛津大學出版社，1942 年），第 116、186 頁。

13。請參閱 Blouet 著《麥金德傳記》，第 207-215 頁。

14。麥金德，《圓形世界與和平的贏得》，載《民主的理想與現實》，第 34 頁。 276.

15。同上，第 268-69、272-73、274-75、277-78 頁。

16。這些戰略家包括尼古拉斯·斯皮克曼、詹姆斯·伯納姆、喬治·凱南、愛德華·米德·厄爾、奧馬爾·布雷德利將軍和威廉·C·布利特。

17。麥金德，《民主的理想與現實》，第 39 頁。二十一。

18。有關對麥金德的批評的出色總結，請參閱 Parker, Mackinder，第 211-247 頁。

19。Colin S. Gray，（肯塔基州列剋星敦：肯塔基大學出版社，1988 年）第 154 頁。 4.

20。引自 Parker, Mackinder，第 154 頁。 192.

21。柯恩 (Saul B. Cohen)，《分裂世界中的地理與政治》（紐約：牛津大學出版社，1975 年）第 21 頁。 44.

22。羅伯特‧尼斯貝特（紐約：Basic Books，1980 年），第 34 頁。 331.

23。例如，請參閱 Eugene V. Rostow，《論峰會與大戰略》，《戰略評論》 （1986 年秋季），第 9-20 頁;弗朗西斯·P·森帕，《地緣政治與美國戰略：重新評估》，《戰略評論》 （1987 年春季），第 27-38 頁；威廉·C·博迪·博迪在 Thomas Owens，《不確定時代的軍事規劃》，《戰略評論》 （1990 年春季），第 9-22 頁；亨利·C·巴特利特和 G·保羅·霍爾曼，《後冷戰世界的軍事規劃：我們能從地緣政治中學到什麼》，《戰略評論》（1991 年冬季），第 26-36 頁 196-991 年冬季），第 26-36 頁；冬季），第 9-18 頁； Mackubin Thomas Owens，《邁向海洋大戰略：新安全環境的範式》，《戰略評論》（1993 年春季），第 7-19 頁； Francis P. Sempa，《預防性遏制》，《戰略評論》（1994 年夏季），第 83-85 頁； Colin S. Gray，《戰略評論》 （1994 年夏季），第 83-85 頁； Colin S. Gray，《北約 195》； ，《中歐與東歐》，《戰略評論》 （1996 年秋季），第 71-72 頁； Francis P. Sempa， 《大棋局》載於《戰略評論》（1998 年春季），第 71-74 頁；科林·S·羅曼，《讓蘇聯弗朗西斯第 623 383 年 13673》；帕，《地緣政治家》， 《國家利益》 （1992年秋季），第 96-102 頁。

24。格雷，《超級大國的地緣政治》，第 4 頁。

25。尤金·V·羅斯托（華盛頓特區：國防大學出版社，1993 年），第 33 頁。 13.

26。George J. Demko 和 William B. Wood 編輯。 （科羅拉多州博爾德：Westview Press，1994 年），第頁4.

27。亨利‧基辛格，（紐約：西蒙舒斯特出版社，1994 年）第 23 頁。 814.

28。保羅甘迺迪、羅伯特蔡斯和艾米麗希爾，《關鍵國家和美國戰略》，1996 年 1 月/2 月《外交事務》。

29。帕克，麥金德，第 154 頁。 54，55。

 

作者是一名律師，擔任賓州高級副檢察長，擁有斯克蘭頓大學和迪金森法學院的學位。他撰寫了大量有關國家安全議題的文章，在《戰略評論》、《國家利益》、《國家評論》和《總統研究季刊》上發表文章。森帕先生曾擔任斯克蘭頓大學和威爾克斯大學政治學兼任教授。

February 2000

Mackinder's World

By Francis P. Sempa

Halford Mackinder’s ideas, which began to appear in print almost a century ago, have assumed classic status in the world of political geography. Policy makers and scholars remember them now mainly for the seemingly simple formula that control of Eastern Europe would bring command of the “Heartland,” thus control of the “World-Island” (Eurasia), and ultimately the world. His ideas in their entirety, including his own later reconsiderations, form a complex, powerful body of work. The author, who is deputy attorney general for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, revisits Mackinder’s professional career.  ~ Ed.

The study of international relations is impossible without a firm grasp of geography. The geographic factor in world history is the most fundamental because it is the most constant. Populations increase and decrease, natural resources are discovered and expended, political systems frequently change, empires and states rise and fall, technologies decline and advance, but the location of continents, islands, seas and oceans has not changed significantly throughout recorded history. That is why great nations neglect the study of geography at their peril.

No one understood better the important relationship between geography and world history than the great British geographer, Halford John Mackinder. Born in Gainsborough, England, in 1861, Mackinder attended Gainsborough Grammar School and Epsom College before entering Oxford in 1880. As a boy, according to W. H. Parker, Mackinder had “a strong curiosity about natural phenomena, … a love of the history of travel and exploration, an interest in international affairs, and a passion for making maps.”1

imageAt Oxford, Mackinder fell under the influence of Michael Sadler and Henry Nottidge Mosely, key figures in the effort to establish geography as an independent field of study in England. Mackinder was appointed a lecturer in natural science and economic history in 1886 and that same year joined the Royal Geographical Society. According to Brian W. Blouet, one of Mackinder’s biographers, the membership of the Royal Geographical Society “consisted of men with a general interest in the world and its affairs, officers from the army and navy, businessmen, academics, schoolteachers, diplomats, and colonial administrators.”2 The next year (1887), Mackinder wrote his first major paper, “On the Scope and Methods of Geography,” which has been called “a classic document in the history of the development of British geography.”3 In that paper, Mackinder argued that “rational” political geography was “built upon and subsequent to physical geography.” “Everywhere,” he wrote, “political questions will depend on the results of the physical inquiry.” Political geography’s function was “to trace the interaction between man and his environment.” That environment, Mackinder explained, included the “configuration of the earth’s surface,” climate and weather conditions, and the presence or absence of natural resources.4

Four of the ideas mentioned in “On the Scope and Methods of Geography” are key to understanding Mackinder’s subsequent geopolitical writings.

First, Mackinder expressed his view that the goal of a geographer was to “look at the past [so] that he may interpret the present.”

Second, he noted that man’s great geographical discoveries were nearing an end; there were very few “blanks remaining on our maps.”

Third, Mackinder described the two kinds of political conquerors as “land-wolves and sea-wolves.”

And, fourth, he recognized that technological improvements made possible “the great size of modern states.”5

Upon the foundation of those four ideas Mackinder later constructed his famous global theory.

In June 1887, Mackinder was appointed Reader in Geography at Oxford, and he began to lecture on the influence of geography on European history. He visited the United States in 1892, lecturing at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore, Drexel, Harvard, Princeton and Johns Hopkins. The same year, he was appointed Principal of Reading College at Oxford, a position he held for eleven years. In 1893-1894, Mackinder gave a series of ten lectures on the relations of geography to history in Europe and Asia. Five years later, he helped found the School of Geography at Oxford, and participated in an expedition that climbed Mount Kenya, Africa’s second-highest peak.6

In 1902, Mackinder wrote his first major book, . Although primarily concerned, in Mackinder’s words, “to present a picture of the physical features and conditions” of Britain, the book’s chapters on “The Position of Britain,” “Strategic Geography,” and “Imperial Britain” contain insights on global affairs that foreshadowed Mackinder’s subsequent geopolitical works. In the book, he described Britain as being “of Europe, yet not in Europe,” and as lying “off the shores of the great continent.” British predominance in the world rested on its “command of the sea,” wrote Mackinder, because “[t]he unity of the ocean is the simple physical fact underlying the dominant value of sea-power in the modern globe-wide world.” “A new balance of power is being evolved,” Mackinder opined, and it included “five great world states, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and America.” Mackinder suggested, however, that Britain’s position as the preeminent world power was endangered due to “permanent facts of physical geography” in the form of “the presence of vast Powers, broad-based on the resources of half continents” (i.e., Russia and the United States).7

The threat to British preeminence and to the liberty of the world was the subject of Mackinder’s bold, provocative essay, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” which he delivered to the Royal Geographical Society on January 25, 1904. He began this seminal work by noting that the last stage of “geographical exploration” (which he called the “Columbian epoch”) was nearing its end. “In 400 years,” he wrote, “the outline of the map of the world has been completed with approximate accuracy.” Moreover, since conquerors, missionaries, miners, farmers and engineers “followed so closely in the travelers’ footsteps,” the world was for the first time a “closed political system.” This meant, wrote Mackinder, that “every explosion of social forces, instead of being dissipated in a surrounding circuit of unknown space and barbaric chaos, will be sharply re-echoed from the far side of the globe, and weak elements in the political and economic organism of the world will be shattered in consequence.” Nations, in other words, could no longer safely ignore major events that occurred in far away places of the globe.

Mackinder’s avowed purposes in writing the “pivot” paper were to establish “a correlation between the larger geographical and the larger historical generalizations,” to provide “a formula which shall express certain aspects… of geographical causation in universal history,” and to set “into perspective some of the competing forces in current international politics.”

Mackinder pictured Europe and Asia as one great continent: “Euro-Asia.” He described Euro-Asia as: “a continuous land, ice-girt in the north, water-girt elsewhere, measuring twenty-one million square miles….” The center and north of Euro-Asia, he pointed out, measure “some nine million square miles, … have no available waterways to the ocean, but, on the other hand, … are generally favorable to the mobility of horsemen…. ” To the “east and south of this heart-land,” he further explained, “are marginal regions, ranged in a vast crescent, accessible to shipmen.”

Mackinder noted that between the fifth and sixteenth centuries, a “succession of … nomadic peoples” (Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars, Patzinaks, Cumans, Mongols and Kalmuks) emerged from Central Asia to conquer or threaten the states and peoples located in the “marginal crescent” (Europe, the Middle East, southwest Asia, China, southeast Asia, Korea and Japan). Beginning in the late fifteenth century, however, the “great mariners of the Columbian generation” used seapower to envelop Central Asia. “The broad political effect” of the rise of sea powers, explained Mackinder, “was to reverse the relations of Europe and Asia….” “[W]hereas in the Middle Ages Europe was caged between an impassable desert to south, an unknown ocean to west, and icy or forested wastes to north and north-east, and in the east and south-east was constantly threatened by the superior mobility of the horsemen,” Mackinder further explained, “she now emerged upon the world, multiplying more than thirty-fold the sea surface and coastal lands to which she had access, and wrapping her influence around the Euro-Asiatic land-power which had hitherto threatened her very existence.”

Often unappreciated, however, Mackinder believed, was the fact that while Europe expanded overseas, the Russian state based in Eastern Europe and Central Asia expanded to the south and east, organizing a vast space of great human and natural resources. That vast space would soon be “covered with a network of railways,” thereby greatly enhancing the mobility and strategic reach of land power.

With that geo-historical background, Mackinder identified the northern-central core of Euro-Asia as the “pivot region” or “pivot state” of world politics. He placed Germany, Austria, Turkey, India and China, lands immediately adjacent to the pivot region, in an “inner crescent,” and the insular nations of Britain, South Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada and Japan in an “outer crescent.” He then warned that, “[t]he oversetting of the balance of power in favour of the pivot state, resulting in its expansion over the marginal lands of Euro-Asia, would permit the use of vast continental resources for fleet-building, and the empire of the world would then be in sight.” Mackinder suggested that either a Russo-German alliance or a Sino-Japanese empire (which conquered Russian territory) could contend for world hegemony. In either case, “oceanic frontage” would be added to “the resources of the great continent,” thereby creating the geopolitical conditions necessary for producing a great power that was supreme both on land and at sea.

“I have spoken as a geographer,” Mackinder acknowledged toward the end of the paper. But he carefully avoided geographical determinism in assessing the world situation: “The actual balance of political power at any given time is… the product, on the one hand, of geographical conditions, both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand, of the relative number, virility, equipment and organization of the competing peoples.”8

“The actual balance of political power at any given time is… the product, on the one hand, of geographical conditions, both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand, of the relative number, virility, equipment and organization of the competing peoples.”

 

Mackinder’s “pivot” paper caused one member of the Royal Geographical Society to “look with regret on some of the space which is unoccupied here.” Unfortunately, as W. H. Parker has pointed out, “in the English-speaking world Mackinder’s paper lay forgotten . . . for thirty-five years.” It was only during and after the Second World War that Englishmen and Americans began to appreciate the wisdom and prescience of Mackinder’s “pivot” paper and his 1919 masterpiece, Democratic Ideals and Reality.

A few months before he delivered the “pivot” paper to the Royal Geographical Society, Mackinder was appointed the director of the London School of Economics, a post that he held until 1908. In 1910 he was elected to the House of Commons, where he served until 1922. In 1919, as civil war raged in Russia, Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, chose Mackinder to be British High Commissioner for South Russia. In that post, Mackinder promoted the idea of a British-supported anti-Bolshevik alliance because he feared that if the Bolsheviks consolidated their control of Russia “there is… great risk that such a weapon may be forged as may become a danger to the world.” “[T]here is to-day,” he warned, “a growing threat from Moscow of a state of affairs which will render this world a very unsafe place for democracies. . . .”9 Among British policy makers of the time, only Winston Churchill voiced strong support for Mackinder’s anti-Bolshevik strategy.

During his directorship of the London School of Economics and his stay in Parliament, Mackinder continued to think and write on geography and world affairs. His articles and books included: “Man-Power as a Measure of National and Imperial Strength” (1905), Our Own Islands: An Elementary Study in Geography (1906), “On Thinking Imperially” (1907), “The Geographical Environment of Great Britain” (1908), The Rhine: Its Valley and History (1908), “Geographical Conditions Affecting the British Empire” (1909), “The Geographical Conditions of the Defence of the United Kingdom” (1909), “The New Map” (1915), “Some Geographical Aspects of International Reconstruction” (1917), “This Unprecedented War” (1917), and “The New Map of Europe” (1918).

Shortly after the end of the First World War, Mackinder wrote ,10 arguably the most important work on international politics ever written by a geographer. Here Mackinder greatly expanded on his 1904 “pivot” paper, drawing on recent lessons learned from the Great War. In the book’s preface, referring to the continuing relevance of the ideas expressed in the “pivot” paper, Mackinder opined that “the war has established, and not shaken, my former points of view.” In the two hundred or so pages that followed, Mackinder presented a masterful synthesis of historical and geographical analyses that has withstood the test of time.

Early in the book, Mackinder emphasized the paramount importance of geography to the study of history and global politics. “The great wars of history,” he wrote, “are the outcome, direct or indirect, of the unequal growth of nations, and that unequal growth… in large measure … is the result of the uneven distribution of fertility and strategical opportunity upon the face of the globe.” The “facts of geography” indicated to Mackinder that “the grouping of lands and seas, and of fertility and natural pathways, is such as to lend itself to the growth of empires, and in the end of a single world empire.” In order to prevent future world conflicts, he advised, “we must recognize these geographical realities and take steps to counter their influence.” He proposed to reveal those “geographical realities” by measuring “the relative significance of the great features of our globe as tested by the events of history….”

Mackinder pointed out that although the “physical facts of geography have remained substantially the same during … recorded human history,” it was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that the globe became, in political terms, a “closed system.” “Every shock, every disaster or superfluity,“ he wrote, ”is now felt even to the antipodes…. Every deed of humanity will henceforth be echoed and re-echoed in like manner round the world.”

In geographical terms, Mackinder’s world as sketched in Democratic Ideals and Reality consisted of the following: (1) one ocean covering nine-twelfths of the globe; (2) one great continent encompassing Europe, Asia and Africa; and (3) several smaller islands including Britain, Japan, North America, South America and Australia. The one great continent, which Mackinder called “the World-Island”, he further subdivided into six regions: the European coastland (Western and Central Europe), the Monsoon or Asian coastland (India, China, Southeast Asia, Korea and eastern Siberia), Arabia (the Arabian peninsula), the Sahara (North Africa), the Southern Heartland (Africa south of the Sahara), and, most important, the Heartland (the northern-central core of Eurasia which he had called the “pivot region” in his 1904 paper).

Mackinder showed the significance of the position of the Eurasian-African “World-Island” on the globe by geo-historical analogy. The “World-Island” was to North America, he explained, what Greece under the Dorians had been to Crete, and what the Roman Empire had been to Britain, i.e., an unchallenged peninsular land power versus an insular sea power. In both of those instances of history, strongly-based unchallenged land power defeated the less strongly-based sea power. But it was not simply a case of land power being superior to seapower. The victorious land power had to be unchallenged by land, and had to possess sufficient resources to enable it to construct a fleet powerful enough to defeat the insular sea power. Absent those two conditions, a strongly-based insular power would prevail, as evidenced by the British defeat of Napoleon’s France, the latter of which, while possessing tremendous resources, faced a significant land power challenge to the east (Russia) which prevented it from harnessing those resources to overwhelm British seapower.

Indeed, in Mackinder’s view, the optimum geographical position combined insularity with greater resources, and that was precisely the position of the “World-Island.” Strategists, he explained, “must no longer think of Europe apart from Asia and Africa. The Old World has become insular, or in other words a unit, incomparably the largest geographical unit on our globe.” In the First World War, had Germany conquered Russia and France, “she would have established her sea-power on a wider base than any in history, and in fact on the widest possible base.” Although Germany lost the war, Mackinder cautioned, “must we not still reckon with the possibility that a large part of the Great Continent might some day be united under a single sway, and that an invincible sea-power might be based upon it?” “[T]hat,” Mackinder wrote, “is the great ultimate threat to the world’s liberty.”

The most strategically significant geographic feature of the “World-Island” was the Heartland, which Mackinder described as “a great continuous patch in the north and center of the continent… from the icy, flat shore of Siberia to the torrid, steep coasts of Baluchistan and Persia.” This region’s great rivers (Lena, Yenisei, Obi, Volga and Ural) emptied either into the frozen Arctic Ocean or inland seas (the Caspian and Aral), thereby rendering the Heartland “inaccessible to navigation from the ocean.” The Heartland also included a great “lowland” plain that formed “a broad gateway from Siberia into Europe,” which is suitable to highly mobile land power.

As in his 1904 “pivot” paper, Mackinder in Democratic Ideals and Reality, used history to illustrate the strategic significance of geography. He noted that beginning with the Huns in the fifth century, successive waves of mobile hordes emerged from the Heartland to conquer or threaten the coastlands of Europe and Asia. Those hordes, however, lacked sufficient manpower and organization to conquer the whole World-Island, or a large part of it (although the Mongols came close to doing so). Two modern developments—increased population and advanced means of overland transportation (railroads, motorcars)—threatened to upset the balance between land power and seapower, and constituted, in Mackinder’s words, “a revolution in the relations of man to the larger geographical realities of the world.”

Mackinder described how during the nineteenth century following the defeat of Napoleon and until the rise of the German empire, British sea-power sought to contain Russian land-power, a geopolitical struggle that has since been called the “great game.” Germany’s rise to world power after 1871 shifted the geopolitical focus of British statesmen and set the stage for the First World War. For Mackinder, the most important aspect of that war, for the purposes of strategy, was Germany’s near successful conquest of Eastern Europe and the Heartland. Had Germany discarded the Schlieffen Plan, remained nominally at peace with France and Britain, and directed all her efforts and resources eastward, the world would be “overshadowed by a German East Europe in command of the Heartland.” “The British and American insular peoples,” warned Mackinder, “would not have realized the strategical danger until too late.”

Mackinder perceived a consistent geographical basis for British policy during the “great game” and the First World War. “We were opposed to the… Russian Czardom,” explained Mackinder, “because Russia was the dominating, threatening force both in East Europe and the Heartland for a half century.” “We were opposed to the… German Kaiserdom, because Germany took the lead from the Czardom, and would have crushed the revolting Slavs, and dominated East Europe and the Heartland.” This strategic insight formed the basis of Mackinder’s memorable advice to the Western statesmen at Versailles: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland: Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island: Who rules the World-Island commands the World.”

The postwar settlement and reconstruction was the focus of the final part of Democratic Ideals and Reality. Mackinder worried that failure by the statesmen at Versailles to construct an effective security system for Eastern Europe would mean that after the terrible sufferings of the First World War, the Western democracies “shall merely have gained a respite, and our descendants will find themselves under the necessity of marshaling their power afresh for the siege of the Heartland.” To those who argued that Germany’s defeat would alter the German desire for conquest and power, Mackinder sagely replied: “He would be a sanguine man…who would trust the future peace of the world to a change in the mentality of any nation.” To those who argued that peace would be secured by the new League of Nations and its professed ideals, Mackinder prophetically remonstrated: “No mere scraps of paper, even though they be the written constitution of a League of Nations, are, under the conditions of to-day, a sufficient guarantee that the Heartland will not again become the center of a world war.”

Mackinder’s proposed solution to the problem of Eastern Europe, which he derived from “a consideration of the realities presented by the geography of our globe,” was the formation of a “tier of independent states between Germany and Russia,” which would form “a broad wedge of independence, extending from the Adriatic and Black Seas to the Baltic….” This “territorial buffer between Germany and Russia,” wrote Mackinder, must have access to the ocean, and must be supported by the “outer nations” (i.e., Britain and the United States).11 Otherwise, the East European power vacuum would again serve as the spark to ignite yet another struggle for Eurasian hegemony.

During the 1920s and 1930s, unfortunately, Mackinder’s ideas had little influence in Britain or the United States. That was not the case, however, in Germany where Mackinder’s global view attracted the attention and praise of Karl Haushofer and his associates at Munich’s Institute of Geopolitics. The German geopoliticians, influenced by the writings of Oswald Spengler, Friedrich Ratzel and Rudolf Kjellen, adapted Mackinder’s theories and concepts to promote German expansion. Haushofer in the 1920s and 1930s was close to Rudolf Hess, a close adviser to Hitler. But it is unclear to what extent the German geopoliticians influenced the Führer’s global strategy. Haushofer considered Mackinder the author of “the greatest of all geographical world views.” “Never,” exclaimed Haushofer referring to “The Geographical Pivot of History,” “have I seen anything greater than these few pages of a geopolitical masterwork.” The German geopoliticians divided the world into “Pan Regions” each of which was dominated by a great power. Haushofer advocated the formation of a “Eurasiatic great continental bloc”; in essence, an alliance between Germany, Japan and Russia that would eventually overwhelm the British Empire.12

During the inter-war period, Mackinder was knighted (1920), lost his seat in Parliament (1922), chaired the Imperial Shipping Committee (1920-1939), sat on the Imperial Economic Committee (1925-1931), was made a Privy Councilor (1926), and continued to write and lecture on geography and related topics. His inter-war writings included: “Geography as a Pivotal Subject in Education” (1921); “The Sub-Continent of India”(1922); The Nations of the Modern World: An Elementary Study in Geography and History After 1914 (1924); and “The Human Habitat”(1931).13

The Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, the beginning of the Second World War and Germany’s subsequent invasion of the Soviet Union drew attention in the United States to Mackinder’s works. In 1941 and 1942, Newsweek, Reader’s Digest and Life published articles which prominently mentioned Mackinder and his writings. Democratic Ideals and Reality was reprinted in 1942. That same year, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs, asked Mackinder to write an article to update his Heartland theory. That article, entitled “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” appeared in July 1943, and was Mackinder’s last significant statement of his global views.

“[M]y concept of the Heartland,” wrote Mackinder, “… is more valid and useful today than it was either twenty or forty years ago.”14 He described the Heartland in geographical terms as “the northern part and the interior of Euro-Asia,” extending “from the Arctic coast down to the central deserts,” flowing westward to “the broad isthmus between the Baltic and Black Seas.” The Heartland concept, he explained, is based on “three separate aspects of physical geography.”

First, “the widest lowland plain on the face of the globe.”

Second, “great navigable rivers [that] flow across that plain [but have] no access to the ocean.”

And third, “a grassland zone which… presented ideal conditions for the development of high mobility” by land transportation.

The Heartland, in essence, wrote Mackinder, was equivalent to the territory of the Soviet Union, minus the land east of the Yenisei River.

If the Soviet Union defeated Germany in the war, opined Mackinder, “she must rank as the greatest land Power on the globe.” “The Heartland is the greatest natural fortress on earth,” he explained, and “[f]or the first time in history it is manned by a garrison sufficient both in number and quality.”

A second geographical feature which Mackinder estimated to be “of almost equal significance” to the Heartland was the “Midland Ocean,” consisting of the eastern half of Canada and the United States, the North Atlantic basin and its “four subsidiaries (Mediterranean, Baltic, Arctic and Caribbean Seas),” Britain and France (a remarkable description of the NATO alliance that was formed six years after Mackinder wrote his article).

Completing his updated global sketch, Mackinder identified three additional geographic features. The first was “a girdle of deserts and wildernesses” extending from the Sahara Desert eastward to Arabia, Tibet, and Mongolia to eastern Siberia, Alaska, part of Canada, and the western United States. The second consisted of South America, the South Atlantic Ocean, and Africa. And the third encompassed the “Monsoon lands” of China and India. He expressed the hope that those lands would prosper and, thereby, balance the other regions of the globe. “A balanced globe of human beings,” he wrote, “[a]nd happy, because balanced and thus free.”15

Mackinder expressed the hope that Heartland Russia would cooperate with the Midland Ocean powers in the postwar world and, thereby, prevent future German aggression. But his theories and concepts proved readily adaptable to the emerging Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. American strategists during and after the Second World War borrowed aspects of Mackinder’s world view in formulating and implementing the policy of “containment” of Soviet Russia.16 Anthony J. Pierce, in his introduction to the 1962 edition of Democratic Ideals and Reality, could confidently assert that “[i]n America and in England, since 1942, most studies of global strategy or political geography have been based, in whole or in part, upon [Mackinder’s] theories.17 “Mackinder, of course, had his share of critics,18 but as Colin Gray has pointed out, “Mackinder’s interpretations of historically shifting power relationships in their geographical setting have stood the test of time much better than have the slings and arrows of his legion of critics.”19

More recent and current political observers and strategists attest to the continuing influence of Mackinder’s ideas. In 1974, R. E. Walters wrote that “the Heartland theory stands as the first premise in Western military thought.”20 In 1975, Saul B. Cohen noted that “most Western strategists continue to view the world as initially described by Mackinder.”21 Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Game Plan (1986) and The Grand Chessboard (1997) present global views almost wholly based on Mackinder’s concepts. In 1980, Robert Nisbet claimed that “[e]very geopolitical apprehension that Sir Halford Mackinder expressed some six decades ago in his Democratic Ideals and Reality has been fulfilled.”22 The influential journals, Strategic Review and The National Interest, published several articles in the 1980s and 1990s wherein the authors applied Mackinder’s theories and concepts to contemporary global issues.23 In 1988, the respected strategist Colin Gray asserted that “[t]he geopolitical ideas of the British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder … provide an intellectual architecture, far superior to rival conceptions, for understanding the principal international security issues.”24 In 1992, Eugene Rostow remarked that “Mackinder’s map remains an indispensable tool of analysis” of global politics.25 In 1994, the former State Department Geographer, George J. Demko, wrote that “the geographic ideas of … Mackinder, still provide important insights into international political processes.”26 Henry Kissinger in his book, Diplomacy (1994), concludes with a warning that “Russia, regardless of who governs it, sits astride territory Halford Mackinder called the geopolitical heartland….”27 Paul Kennedy, Robert Chase, and Emily Hill invoked Mackinder’s theories in a 1996 Foreign Affairs article on post-Cold War “pivot states.”28 Finally, in 1996 the National Defense University issued a reprint of Democratic Ideals and Reality.

Twentieth century global politics were shaped, in part, by Mackinder’s geopolitical vision. Following his concepts, the continuing struggle for Eurasian mastery was the geopolitical essence of the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War. First Great Britain, then the United States, organized great coalitions to oppose successive bids for Eurasian hegemony launched by Wilhelmine Germany, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The Great Power struggles of the twenty-first century will likely repeat this pattern.

The People’s Republic of China, situated at the gates of Mackinder’s “pivot region” or Heartland, and with access to the sea, possesses sufficient human and natural resources to make a bid for Eurasian mastery sometime in this new century. Russia, though currently undergoing a new time of troubles, still occupies the Heartland and possesses vast human and natural resources, as well as thousands of nuclear weapons. The nations of Western, Central and Eastern Europe are moving toward economic unity and, perhaps, political unity, with Germany playing a leading role. Whatever specific power constellation emerges, however, U.S. foreign policy will continue to be shaped by Mackinder’s geopolitical vision of a Eurasian-based world hegemon.

In 1944, the American Geographical Society awarded Mackinder the Charles P. Daley Medal, which was presented to him at the American Embassy in London on March 31, 1944. Ambassador John Winant remarked that Mackinder was the first scholar who fully enlisted geography as an aid to statecraft and strategy. A year later, the Royal Geographical Society awarded Mackinder the Patron’s Medal, and its president noted that ”[a]s a political geographer his reputation is … world wide.”29 Mackinder died on March 6, 1947, at the age of eighty-six. More than fifty years later, as we enter a new century, statesmen and strategists still operate in Mackinder’s world.

END NOTES

1. W. H. Parker, Mackinder: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp.1-2.

2. Brian W. Blouet, (College Station,Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1987), p. 33

3. Parker, Mackinder, p.8.

4. Halford J. Mackinder, “On the Scope and Methods of Geography,” in (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,1962), pp. 213, 214, 217.

5. Ibid., pp. 211, 218, 236, 237.

6. The details of Mackinder’s education and teaching positions are found in Parker, Mackinder, and Blouet, Mackinder: A Biography.

7. Halford J. Mackinder, (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1969; originally published 1902 by D. Appleton and Co.), pp. vii, 12, 350-51, 358.

8. Halford J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” in Democratic Ideals and Reality, pp. 241-42, 255, 257-58,262-64.

9. Parker, Mackinder, pp. 149, 158, 170.

10. Sir Halford John Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction (London, Constable and Co. Ltd., 1919).

11. Ibid., pp. 1-2, 4, 28-29, 29-30, 65-66, 62, 70, 73, 74, 150, 139, 154, 155, 114, 182, 158, 165, 160.

12. Hans W. Weigert, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1942), pp. 116, 186.

13. See Blouet, Mackinder: A Biography, pp. 207-215.

14. Mackinder, “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,” in Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 276.

15. Ibid., pp. 268-69, 272-73, 274-75, 277-78.

16. Among those strategists were Nicholas Spykman, James Burnham, George Kennan, Edward Mead Earle, General Omar Bradley, and William C. Bullitt.

17. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. xxi.

18. For an excellent summary of criticisms of Mackinder, see Parker, Mackinder, pp. 211-247.

19. Colin S. Gray, (Lexington, Ky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1988) p. 4.

20. Quoted in Parker, Mackinder, p. 192.

21. Saul B. Cohen, Geography and Politics in a World Divided (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 44.

22. Robert Nisbet, (New York: Basic Books, 1980), p. 331.

23. See, for example, Eugene V. Rostow, “Of Summitry and Grand Strategy,” Strategic Review (Fall 1986), pp. 9-20; Francis P. Sempa, “Geopolitics and American Strategy: A Reassessment,” Strategic Review (Spring 1987), pp. 27-38; William C. Bodie, “The American Strategy Schism,” Strategic Review (Spring 1988), pp. 9-15; Mackubin Thomas Owens, “Force Planning in an Era of Uncertainty,” Strategic Review (Spring 1990), pp. 9-22; Henry C. Bartlett and G. Paul Holman, “Force Planning for the Post-Cold War World: What Can We Learn From Geopolitics,” Strategic Review (Winter 1991), pp. 26-36; Francis P. Sempa, “The Geopolitics of the Post-Cold War World,” Strategic Review (Winter 1992), pp. 9-18; Mackubin Thomas Owens, “Toward a Maritime Grand Strategy: Paradigm for a New Security Environment,” Strategic Review (Spring 1993), pp. 7-19; Francis P. Sempa, “Preventive Containment,” Strategic Review (Summer 1994), pp. 83-85; Colin S. Gray, “NATO: In Trouble at the Crossroads Again,” Strategic Review (Summer 1995), pp. 7-15; Francis P. Sempa, “Central and Eastern Europe,” Strategic Review (Fall 1996), pp. 71-72; Francis P. Sempa, review of The Grand Chessboard in Strategic Review (Spring 1998), pp. 71-74; Colin S. Gray, “Keeping the Soviets Landlocked: Geostrategy for a Maritime America,” The National Interest (Summer 1986), pp. 24-36; Francis P. Sempa, “The Geopolitics Man,” The National Interest (Fall 1992), pp. 96-102.

24. Gray, The Geopolitics of Super Power, p.4.

25. Eugene V. Rostow, (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1993), p. 13.

26.George J. Demko and William B. Wood, ed. (Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 1994), p. 4.

27. Henry Kissinger, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994) p. 814.

28. Paul Kennedy, Robert Chase, and Emily Hill, “Pivotal States and U.S. Strategy,” January/February 1996 Foreign Affairs.

29. Parker, Mackinder, p. 54, 55.

 

The author, an attorney who is a senior deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, earned degrees from the University of Scranton and the Dickinson School of Law. He has written extensively on national security questions, publishing articles in Strategic Review, The National Interest, National Review, and Presidential Studies Quarterly. Mr. Sempa has filled the position of adjunct professor of political science at the University of Scranton and at Wilkes University.