did not imagine Halford John Mackinder, Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, that one of his articles published in 1904 by the magazine ‘Geographical Journal’ would be destined to exert a great influence on geopolitical thought in the 20th century. And not only that, but in 2022 it would still be used by some experts to explain the conflicts maintained by countries like Russia, including those in Ukraine. In the text of it, entitled ‘The Geographical Pivot of History‘ (‘The geographical pivot of history’), the geographer reflected on what were the factors for a power to control world power.
The final idea that Mackinder defended is that whoever manages to control what he called the
“World-Island”, a territory that extends from Siberia to present-day Ukraine, would become the main power on the planet and would dominate the other countries. The British geographer baptized this area with other names such as the ‘Pivot Area’, the ‘Cardial Region’, the ‘Heartland’ or the ‘Continental Heart’, which he delimited by making a detailed study of the great empires throughout the history.
For Mackinder, the ‘Heartland’ was mainly Central Asia and Eastern Europe, which in turn was surrounded by a middle strip where the land and sea realms met. The theory established that, to control that area, whoever had the land power would have many more advantages over the people who had the maritime domain that emerged from the fifteenth century with the development of navigation and the discovery of America. This was because the ‘Pivot Area’ was practically inaccessible by sea, and therefore land-based means of communication – first the horse and then the train – could invade it more quickly and exploit its many resources.
In recent decades, in fact, this vast region has been associated with the vertiginous rise of China, which has become the strongest candidate to achieve the title of superpower in the near future – if it is not already – according to what they declare. top analysts. Some experts also believe that the movements of the USSR and the subsequent ones in Russia after the disintegration of the communist giant are somehow related to this theory and this large area.
United States and the Russian Empire
We cannot forget that Mackinder reached this conclusion in 1904, although he continued to defend it until his death in 1947, shortly after the end of World War II. In 1942, in fact, he summed it up with this sentence: “Whoever rules in Eastern Europe will dominate the Heartland; who rules the Heartland will dominate the World-Island; Whoever rules the World-Island will control the world.” In other words, whoever manages to conquer that vast and resource-rich area located between Siberia and Ukraine will become the world’s leading power.
Its impact was such that some countries took it into account when designing their foreign policies throughout the 20th century. Among them, Nazi Germany, through the geographer and war veteran Karl Haushofer, who adopted it as a military strategy. In fact, part of the criticism of Mackinder arose as a result of a report published in the British magazine ‘New Statesman’ that tried to prove how the Third Reich had developed a strategy based on the theories developed by Haushofer, who in turn had inspired by our protagonist.
Although many analysts assure that his theory has become obsolete, since it can be quarantined after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, we cannot forget that it was raised at a specific moment in history when the world was changing at breakneck speed. It started from the premise that the supremacy that the British Empire had established at the beginning of the 20th century was in danger in the face of other states with the real capacity to control a continent, such as the United States, which had just jumped on the bandwagon of the great world powers after the Cuban War, and the Russian Empire.
economic resources
Both then bid for first place in the world ranking with the British archipelago, which according to Mackinder, had little chance of having a great continental power due to its geographical location, despite its colonies in Africa. In this struggle, Great Britain would have ended up ceding to the United States the hegemony of the American continent within the framework of the Monroe Doctrine, with the aim of focusing precisely on extending its influence throughout the aforementioned ‘pivot area’.
His vision was based on the fact that this area concentrated more than half of the world’s economic resources and was one of the main routes of exchange, so it could live isolated in some way from the rest of the world, as if it were an island that depends of himself, and, at the same time, expand if he so wished. In addition, its size and strategic position were ideal for controlling the rest of the planet. “The interior spaces of the Russian Empire and Mongolia are so immense, and their potential in population, wheat, cotton, fuel and metals so incalculably great, that it is inevitable that a vast economic world, more or less isolated, will develop there, inaccessible to the ocean trade,” he argued.
Discovery of America
In his historical analysis, Mackinder argued that the great empires throughout the Ancient and Middle Ages had a strong component of land expansion and all of them came from or had controlled that area of Central Asia before expanding throughout the world. He spoke mainly of the great invasions suffered by Europe and Asia until the fifteenth century, which started from that region and remained at the top of the pyramid while they managed to control it.
Among those examples would be, for example, the Indians, the Persians and the Huns. The latter even forced China to build its great wall. In the 13th century, one could mention the Mongols of Genghis Khan, who also began their conquests from that ‘Pivot Area’ and reached no less than southern China, Iran, Turkey and the current countries of Romania and Ukraine. That territory was, therefore, the springboard to dominate everything, but then there was a change in trend with the development of navigation and the discovery of America.
The boat became the main means of transportation around the world, as it was faster and more efficient than the horse. At that time, Mackinder believes that the ‘Heartland’ lost its advantage as a platform for expansion to the rest of the world. Proof of this is that England, Holland, France and, above all, Spain, gained ground against the powers that had dominated the ‘Pivot Area’. Do not forget that there was a whole new continent to conquer and exploit that Europe and Asia did not know before.
The ‘Heartland’ theory, however, makes sense again with the arrival of the railway throughout the 19th century, as it restored to this vast region its value as a center of world power. The movement time of the armies and the transport of the products was shortened and the area between Siberia and the Ukraine recovered its value. As a result of this, a balance would have been produced that established a land and a maritime power that began to bid for control of the «World-Island».
Russia
According to the map drawn by the British geographer at the beginning of the 20th century, it included, more specifically, the agricultural areas of the European part of Russia, the huge territories of Central Asia, and the forests along with the plains of Siberia. At that time, it was a region very rich in resources that had not yet been exploited, such as wood, a large quantity of minerals and, above all, coal, the main source of energy during the Industrial Revolution and until the first decades of the 20th century.
It should be noted that Mackinder showed a special fascination for power and, above all, for the influence of Russia both in the time of the tsars and in the Soviet era from 1922, since it was located precisely in that area and had (and has) ) the largest land area in the world. It currently has more than 17 million square kilometers, three million more than the second, Canada, waiting to see what happens with Ukraine.