One of the unfortunate consequences of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was the advent of the pseudoscience known as geopolitics. Drawing inspiration from Darwin’s concepts of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest”, the progenitors of geopolitics argued that all of history was shaped by a competitive “struggle of nations”. Contrasting with the harmonious vision of international relations advocated by Enlightenment thinkers and classical economists, this approach saw all countries as potential predators, with the most successful countries ultimately subduing the rest.
Beginning in the late 19th century, major Western universities created departments of geopolitics with the goal of training future leaders in this emerging “science.” German thinkers like Karl Haushofer, eager to establish the German claim to a “place in the sun,” were enthusiastic supporters. But geopolitics also captivated British intellectuals like Halford Mackinder, who sought to preserve Britain’s naval supremacy. In his 1904 essay The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinder famously asserted: “Whoever rules in Eastern Europe will dominate the continental pivot (also called heartland); whoever rules the continental pivot will dominate the World-Island; whoever rules the World-Island will control the world.” The ambition to challenge the UK later led Germany to launch two world wars to wrest control of the Eurasian heartland from Russia.
As the British Empire began to decline, geopolitics found a new home in the United States. But while thinkers like Mackinder focused on the heart of Eurasia, the political scientist Nicholas Spykman highlighted the centrality of the continental rim (also called the rimland), which encompassed all the surrounding coastal regions of western Europe, the Middle East, and the eastern Pacific. In 1944, Spykman revised Mackinder’s assertion, stating: “He who controls the continental ring rules Eurasia; who governs Eurasia controls the destinies of the world”. With this in mind, the United States set out to control the continental belt of Eurasia.
John Maynard Keynes in his controversial 1919 book The Economic Consequences of Peace refrained from blaming Germany for World War I, even though Germany was clearly the aggressor, having violated Belgium’s neutrality. By contrast, Keynes viewed war as an inevitable result of the geopolitical mindset. For him, geopolitics was the “snake” in the garden of liberal internationalism. Keynes reproached the peacemakers for their failure to repair the devastation caused by war.
Today, the world’s military and political institutions find themselves once again under the sway of the geopolitical mindset. Inspired by the theories of Mackinder and Spykman, foreign policy experts from Washington, London, Moscow and Beijing believe that the future of international relations depends on the power struggle between the United States and China, which they see as a battle between the democracy and autocracy. Similarly, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine could be described as an attempt to maintain control over the continental pivot (heartland), while the NATO response could represent the counterattack of the continental ring (rimland). Western powers also appear to be locked in an AI war with China, the outcome of which is reportedly going to decide who gets to rule the world.
This perception of international relations has already generated serious economic consequences. First, the war in Ukraine has caused energy and food prices to rise rapidly, triggering a cost-of-living crisis, slowing economic growth and stoking inflation. Any war, even indirect war (proxy war), inevitably leads to a decrease in the standard of living of the civilian population. The only question is whether this decline is caused by higher taxes or runaway inflation.
While the West may be willing to pay this price for a greater sense of security or morality, what about the developing world? Despite not being directly involved in the war in Ukraine, the developing countries of the world have suffered extensive collateral damage in the form of rising energy and food prices, without a global redistributive mechanism in place to compensate them. for said damage. The impact has been especially severe in countries in North Africa and the Middle East that are highly dependent on food imports from Russia and Ukraine and now face severe food shortages.
Rising food prices have often been the main catalyst for political unrest in poor countries. An estimated 48 countries experienced internal political unrest or civil war during the 2008-2012 global food crisis. Today, the political ramifications of food shortages are clearly evident in Sudan, where more than a million people have been displaced as the army and rival paramilitary groups battle for control of the country’s scarce resources.
Economic sanctions originated during World War I as a means to block enemy foreign trade. However, in situations short of full-scale world war, their implementation makes an open, globalized economy unattainable. Considering that sanctions make it impossible to guarantee the security of supply chains, it is thought that it is better to limit trade relations to those with “friendly” countries. But world leaders appear not to have considered the economic and political ramifications of reorienting international trade and finance away from efficiency and toward national security.
Geopolitics represents an approach to international relations that is inherently pessimistic, as it is willing to accept the risk of large-scale destruction to secure a future that could otherwise be achieved through cooperation and goodwill. Keynes’s prescient warning against the rash embrace of violence should resonate with political leaders around the world: “it is not enough that the state of affairs we seek to promote is better than the state that preceded it; it must be better enough to offset the ills of the transition.”
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English translation: Rocío L. Barrientos
Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023.
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