1006Rethinking-4.pdf

(435 KB) Pobierz
The Heartland Theory and the Present-Day Geopolitical
Structure of Central Eurasia
The Planet’s Pivot Area in Mackinder’s Theory
The geopolitical situation of the early 21st century gave a new boost to
studies of the regional structuralization principles for the geopolitical and
geo-economic space of the entire Eurasian continent.
1
This revived the
conceptions formulated by Halford Mackinder in the early 20th century and
his opponent, Nicholas Spykman, somewhat later. They offered very original
approaches to the regional geopolitical structuralization of the Eurasian
continent and the identification of the functional value of its spatial
segments.
Mackinder interpreted the world historical processes based on the idea that
the world was inherently divided into isolated areas each of which had a
special function to perform. He asserted that the European civilization was
the product of outside pressure. His account of Europe and European history,
regarding it as the result of many centuries of struggle against invasions from
Asia, proceeded from the same idea.
2
He believed that Europe’s advance and
expansion was stimulated by the need to respond to the pressure coming
from the center of Asia. Accordingly, it was the Heartland (where the
continental masses of Eurasia were concentrated) that served as the pivot of
all the geopolitical transformations of historical dimensions within the
World Island.
For example, Brzezinski,
The Grand Chessboard;
Svante E. Cornell, “Geopolitics and
Strategic Alignments in the Caucasus and Central Asia Perceptions,”
Journal of
International Affairs,
Vol. IV, No. 2 (1999), pp. 100-125; Darabadi, “Central Eurasia;”
Dugin,
Osnovy geopolitiki;
Ismailov and Esenov, “Central Eurasia in the New
Geopolitical and Geo-Economic Dimensions;” Laruelle, “Pereosmyslenie imperii;”
A.S. Panarin, “Evraziyskiy proekt v mirosistemnom kontekste” [The Eurasian Project
in the World Systemic Context],
Vostok,
No. 2 (1995), pp. 66-79; Andrei P. Tsygankov,
Pathways after Empire: National Identity and Foreign Economic Policy in the Post-Soviet
World
(Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers), 2002.
2
Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History.”
1
Rethinking Central Eurasia
85
He pointed out that the Heartland was in the most advantageous geopolitical
location. Aware of the relative nature of the conception “central location,”
Mackinder pointed out that in the context of the global geopolitical
processes, the Eurasian continent is found in the center of the world, with the
Heartland occupying the center of the Eurasian continent. His doctrine
suggested that the geopolitical subject (actor) that dominated the Heartland
would possess the necessary geopolitical and economic potential to
ultimately control the World Island and the planet.
According to Mackinder, a retrospective analysis of military-political and
socioeconomic processes in the Heartland revealed its obvious objective
geopolitical and geo-economic unity.
3
He pointed to the pivotal nature of the
vast Eurasian region: inaccessible to sea-going vessels, but an easy target for
the nomads in antiquity. Mackinder was convinced that Eurasia possessed
sustainable conditions for the development of military and industrial powers.
When structuring the geopolitical expanse in the form of a system of
concentric circles, Mackinder conventionally placed the Pivot in the planet’s
center, which included the river basins of the Volga, Yenisey, Amu Darya,
Syr Darya, and two seas (the Caspian and the Aral).
4
“This Pivot was thus
all but impregnable to attacks by sea powers, yet was able to sustain large
populations itself. The nations that arose from within it depended on horse
and camel to negotiate its vast expanses, which gave them the mobility to
mount raids on Europe, which could not mobilize in return.”
5
For historical and geopolitical reasons, the Pivot became the natural center of
force. Mackinder also identified the “inner crescent,” coinciding with the
Eurasian coastal areas. He described these as the area of the most intensive
civilizational development. It included Europe and Southern, Southwestern,
and Eastern Asia. There was also the “outer crescent,” which included
Britain, South and North America, Southern Africa, Australasia and Japan,
zones geographically and culturally alien to inner Eurasia. He believed that
the historical processes were concentrated on the Heartland, territory
3
Halford J. Mackinder, “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace,”
Foreign
Affairs,
Vol. 21, No. 4 (1943), pp. 595-605.
4
Ibid.
5
Megoran and Sharapova, “Mackinder’s ‘Heartland’,” p. 12.
86
Eldar Ismailov and Vladimer Papava
populated by Turkic tribes whose inroads forced Europe to unite, and the
homeland of all the nomadic empires of the past.
6
Proceeding from the above, Mackinder insisted on preventive measures of
various means to remain in control of the situation in the Pivot. One of them
consisted of controlling the “inner crescent.” He put his idea of Eastern
Europe as the key to the Heartland in a nutshell by saying: “whoever rules
East Europe commands the Heartland; whoever rules the Heartland
commands the World-Island; whoever rules the World-Island commands the
World.”
7
The history of the Pivot, whose conception will be assessed below, suggests
that its spatial-functional parameters have been in constant change. Even
though the process that took place within the area confirms what Mackinder
said about the functional unity of Eastern Europe and the Heartland, the real
meaning of the latter does not stem from the imperative nature of Eastern
Europe when it comes to control over the Heartland, but from their
structural unity. In other words, at all stages of the Heartland’s development,
especially today, Eastern Europe remains a spatial element of its structure. Its
geopolitical unity is the
sine qua non
of the Pivot’s functional validity on a
Eurasian scale.
Mackinder’s later works support the thesis of Eastern Europe as part of the
Heartland.
8
Within a very short period of time he revised his theory twice in
an effort to adapt it to the changing geopolitical realities. He readjusted the
Pivot (see Fig. 1) and included the Black and Baltic Sea basins (Eastern
Europe) in the Heartland.
9
This means that his famous formula should be
6
S.A. Pletniova,
Kochevniki srednevekov’ia: Poiski istoricheskikh zakonomernostey
[Nomads
of the Middle Ages: A Search for Consistent Historical Patterns] (Moscow: Nauka
Publishers, 1982).
7
Mackinder,
Democratic Ideals and Reality,
p. 113.
8
Mackinder, “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace.”
9
He included in Eastern Europe some of the East European states that formed part of
the Ottoman Empire (the southeastern European states – the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the
Hungarian Kingdom, the Rumanian Princedom, the Princedom of Montenegro, the
Kingdom of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia) and of the Russian
Empire (the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Finland, the Central
(Ukrainian) Rada, the Byelorussian Rada and the governorships of Bessarabia, Lifland,
Kourland, and Estland).
Rethinking Central Eurasia
87
rephrased as: Whoever rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
whoever rules the World-Island commands the World.
Figure 1: Halford Mackinder’s Pivot in 1904 and 1919
10
This appeared to be confirmed in the mid-20th century when, after World
War II, the Soviet Union expanded its domination zone westwards.
COMECON and the Warsaw Pact meant that the classical Heartland
merged with Eastern Europe. They disintegrated along with the Soviet
Union at the turn of the 1990s, giving rise to new geopolitical and geo-
economic conditions in the World-Island. This did not, however, set Eastern
Europe apart from the Heartland. The geopolitical transformations of the
late 20th century isolated Russia as a Eurasian geopolitical subject in the
northeastern part of the continent and narrowed down the Pivot in its central
part, that is, in three relatively independent regional segments of the latter –
Central (Eastern according to Mackinder) Europe, the Central Caucasus, and
10
The map is borrowed from (Megoran and Sharapova, “Mackinder’s “Heartland,” p.
9).
88
Eldar Ismailov and Vladimer Papava
Central Asia. To be more precise, the main relatively altered functions of the
Heartland concentrated in the newly emergent spaces of its system-forming
segments. This launched another cycle of their integration and revival as a
whole entity.
11
Early in the 20th century (during World War I) and in the latter half of the
same century, the geopolitical logic created first by the domination of the
Ottoman and Russian empires and later by the Soviet one in Eastern Europe
suggested a division into Western Europe (the countries outside the
Ottoman and Russian/Soviet domination zones) and Eastern Europe (the
countries completely dominated by the Ottoman and Russian/Soviet
empires). The geopolitical logic created by the disintegration of the empires
and Russia’s isolation in the northeastern part of Eurasia excluded the former
COMECON countries and post-Soviet countries from the East European
expanse (with the exception of Russia’s European part). The isolation of the
last Eurasian geopolitical subject and its domination sphere in the northeast
of the European continent, first, shifted the Pivot from the continent’s north
to the center; and thus, called for conceptual changes. Indeed, that part of
Europe’s political expanse controlled by the last empire (the Soviet Union)
should be identified as Central Europe and then included in the
contemporary Pivot (Central Eurasia), while Russia, as part of the World-
Island that occupies Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, should be described
as a Northern Eurasian Power. In this context Turkey, which is located in
the southern parts of the East Europe and West Asia, becomes the Southern
Eurasian Power.
Spykman also paid much attention to the role of the Pivot of the Eurasian
continent in world history.
12
He relied on what Mackinder wrote before him
to produce his own version of the basic geopolitical model. It differed
The discussion about the Heartland’s new expanses is still ongoing; there is the
opinion that it has shrunk to cover the territory of Central Asia (for example, Ehsan
Ahrari, “The Strategic Future of Central Asia: A View from Washington,”
Journal of
International Affairs,
Vol. 56, No. 2 (2003), pp. 164-165; G. Sloan, “Sir Halford J.
Mackinder: The Heartland Theory Then and Now,”
Journal of Strategic Studies,
Vol. 22,
No. 2/3 (1999), pp. 15-38).
12
Nicholas J. Spykman,
America’s Strategy in World Politics
(New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Company, 1942); Nicholas J. Spykman,
The Geography of the Peace
(New
York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1944).
11

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin