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Russia is unable to control China. No one can occupy China because of the country’s strategic depth and demographic resources. Mackinder, writing in 1919, was afraid of the German-Russian (Soviet) alliance, which of course materialised with tragic consequences for world peace twenty years later. He was concerned about the continental potential of this alliance and the aspirations of the revisionist Soviet Union controlling the Heartland. Peace was to depend on maintaining the independence of the states squeezed between Russia and Germany that should create a defensive federation and obtain support from sea powers, despite their disintegrating tendencies.
Earlier, there were two main expansion routes from the Heartland: the Pontic steppe between the Urals and the Caspian Sea (now southern Russia and further through modern Ukraine), and the other – located more to the south, i.e. the Anatolian-Balkan route (present-day Turkey). Through these routes, the nomads reached Europe and Asia Minor. Reasoning in this spirit, Mackinder warned in 1919 that if a power dominating the Black and the Baltic Sea basins masters the Heartland, it would be able to seize the ultimate world power. A quarter of a century after Mackinder had described this rule, the Soviet Union was very close to meeting this requirement; maybe only Moscow lacked the control of Turkey and the Turkish Straits, protected by the United States after 1945.
When the Turks conquered Constantinople, crossed the Dardanelles, conquered the Balkans and conquered Hungary, the Black Sea was closed to Genoa and Venice, ending the period when – since ancient times – sailors and merchants from the Mediteranean had been a constant presence on the Black Sea. Under the Ottomans, the Heartland and geopolitical Land “reached” the northern shores of the Black Sea and the Dinaric Mountains.
It is worth considering in the context of the provisions of current Russian policy in this region and specific events after 2008: the war with Georgia, the war in eastern Ukraine, the occupation of Crimea, the expansion of the naval port in Novorossiysk, the construction of a bridge across Kerch to Crimea, communication across the Sea of Azov and the Basin of the Kuban River with occupied Crimea, ideas emerging to take from Ukraine the area of the so-called Novorossiya (the area along the Black Sea coast from Mariupol to Odessa and the Dniester estuary, which would cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea, just as the policy of Tsarina Catherine finally cut off Poland from communication with the Black Sea Coast in the 18th century), a military presence in Transnistria, the intervention in Syria and northern Iraq, and control of the seaport in Syria, a new opening in relations with Turkey and Iran.
It is also worth considering the teachings of Mackinder in the context of China’s growing role in the Black Sea region as part of the implementation of the New Silk Road: cooperation in the 17+1 format, Beijing’s bilateral relations with Hungary, and its increasing closeness with Turkey, which seems to play an increasingly important role in this continental project.
If the Baltic Sea becomes closed to naval power by the Land power, then the influence of the World Ocean is gone from its basin. This was the case in the past, e.g. after the Kiel Canal was built by Germany. Then it is difficult to get support from the sea power for the policy of the countries of the water basin opposing the land power subordinating the area around the Baltic. The Kaliningrad Oblast – the legacy of the Second World War – a strategic bridgehead weakening Poland, also enables blocking of the communication line across the Baltic with the sea power of the United States. Anti-access/Area denial systems can be effectively placed here.
Additionally, having A2AD anti-access systems, it may push out the sea hegemon’s ability to guarantee security to countries located deeper in the landmasses of Eurasia, and thus the US will lose influence, in particular in countries located in the basins of the marginal seas of Europe: the Baltic and the Black Sea. This improves prospects of the Land’s imperial influence almost into Western Europe itself, directly to the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium and to the Danube Valley and the entire eastern Mediteranean.
China in the 21st century certainly has sufficient demographic potential, a powerful economy and wants to connect the entire Eurasia area to the ends of Europe through modern communication routes, often using modern technologies. China’s aspirations meet the model requirements of inner Eurasia’s dominance.
Mackinder definitely did not exclude (maybe again prophetically) the possibility that in the future a continental power would rise, attempting to conquer the Heartland and the inner zone (the Rimland), and if this intention is accomplished, a land empire with such a strategic position will have global hegemony over all continents. Unlike the twentieth century, Russia has no chance, and the real source of destabilisation of the old order and the ambition to create a new order after pushing out the American naval power comes from the shores of the West Pacific and the Chinese interior.
Naval power through deliberate policy can try to delay or prevent the scenario of creating a connected supercontinent. One way to counteract the expansion of the continental empire so that it does not pose a threat to maritime powers is to defend influence in areas adjacent to the World Ocean, i.e. the coast and its marginal seas – such as the Baltic and Black Sea. Under this policy, the land empire must not be allowed to communicate the Heartland and the interior of the land of Eurasia, which can be understood in the realities of the 21st century as China communicating the entire length of the Heartland from the Pacific coast to Western Europe (and the North Atlantic), and the Mediteranean (and from there on the Atlantic) to the European Rimland, but also from the Chinese coast to the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.
Mackinder, of course, was thinking about the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, because his attention was then concentrated in Russia. Now the calculation must concern the Pacific and all of Eurasia, for the sake of China’s power. The mastery of China’s communication and the economic heartland will give them entry to the Rimland in several places all at once: Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran, the Danube Valley and the Hungarian Plain, the Baltic-Black Sea bridge, the Mediterranean Sea (Piraeus) and further to Europe. This can give a completely sufficient basis to conquer the World Island and rule over the whole world in accordance with Mackinder’s “equation” from 1919.
The power of the continental Soviet Union was on the rise, Britain’s naval power was broken, Japan’s naval power was defeated and humiliated. Only the United States and its power ruling the World Ocean remained intact. For several decades (1945-1989), the United States confronted and defended the World Island at Rimland points in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Asia Minor and the Levant – exactly as described by Mackinder.
Further events, however, did not go according to Mackinder’s theses, but much more according to those promulgated by Spykman: in the Asian Rimland, we were dealing with the development of China, and in the European Rimland with the consolidation of Western Europe, both in the rimland area and deeper – amongst the states formerly influenced by the Soviets. The power of the Heartland with the fall of Russia in the 1990s was marginalised due to the lack of Russian economic potential.
In contrast, this status may change if the interior of Eurasia and the Heartland become a coherent and connected trading system – although this time outside the control of an economically weak and uncommunicative Russia, and beyond the control of the distant Sea, but falling under the control of China, which, unlike the Soviet Powers have at their disposal all three of the required elements: human resources, economic resources and the technological capability to create a system of efficient communication within Eurasia.
If this happened, then there would be the potential to change the layout of all Eastern Europe in the same Russia and the entire Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium Poland’s role in the European Intermarium.
With the emergence of the New Silk Road, Ukraine may prove better located in the 21st century than Poland, and the United States will be able to choose between Poland and Ukraine favorably sharing the interests of both major Intermarium nations.
In the 21st century, the unloading force in Eurasia is different than in Mackinder’s time and the Englishman’s theses should be adapted to new times. Below are nine points of net geopolitical assessment, which are different than in Mackinder’s time and affect the result of the geostrategic equation, which should create mental maps of the leaders of the Polish Republic in a fast-moving future.
First of all: Russia and China neighbour each other, and Russia is much weaker than China; economically it is even nine-ten times weaker than China. The disproportion is increasing rapidly. Poland is dealing with such a situation for the first time in history. Russia will feel increasingly threatened by China’s influence in Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Russian Far East, especially if these areas are better connected by the New Silk Road project under China’s leadership. The current Russian-Chinese alliance is only tactical and in the long run will be unsustainable with such disproportion in potential, because it will objectify Russia and subordinate China to its interests. The project of the New Silk Road at this stage does not prejudge whether Russia will weaken in relation to it, or will strengthen against its rivals, including Poland.
Russia is so weak that it poses no threat to China or the US in the sense that it has no chance to dominate the Heartland and all of Eurasia (i.e. unlike during the Cold War), but still has a pin-up position rotating towards Europe and Asia, and the power of China and the USA. Thus, it can “pivot” and politically orientate itself on each of these powers using its geographical location (its geographical dividend), which Mackinder also wrote about in 1904. This was at a time when Russia was weaker than Germany and when Berlin threatened British naval power far more than Russia, which was weaker than Germany.
A somewhat similar situation might be happening today with China that is stronger than Russia and which has a developing rivalry with the US sea hegemon. Hence, in relation to China, there is a potential for a reorienting of Russia and the Russian alliance with the US, potentially at the expense of the interests of Poland and the nations on the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium. In particular, this may hurt when they are engaged in natural competition with Russia in the CEE region which we saw after 1941, and finally in Yalta and Potsdam in 1945.
It should be remembered that attempts to talk with White Russia over the interests of the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium nations were also undertaken in the years 1918-1921 – at a time when Entente was determined to support the Whites in the civil war, to rebuild Russia and to recreate a Russian state counteracting Germany’s power in Europe.
Secondly, if the threat to the core interests of the naval power comes from the Rimland, as we are now dealing with China, then according to Spykman’s teachings, the threat from Rimland will always be more important to the Americans than that coming from the Heartland, because it threatens to push the US out of the zone faster and more effectively from Eurasia immediately, and not slowly building a network of impacts through the land space towards the shores of the continent, which will take time and give the opportunity to construct a “layered” containment, as was done quite effectively against the Soviet Union. In such a situation, the interests of the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium nations, located at the other end of Eurasia, always give way to the interests of defending the Rimland at all costs, and in this case, Asia and the Pacific may also need the United States for this reason, accommodating Russia in exchange for the free license to act at will in Europe.
It is hard to imagine any anti-Chinese Russian-American cooperation without a concession for Russia on the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium, especially since after 1991 the empire lost its foothold in Europe and the influence in former satellite states, mainly to the Americans.
Thirdly: China is located on the Pacific Ocean, it is not in Europe like Germany in the 20th century, so a possible Russian-Chinese continental alliance (with all its tactics, not long-term sustainability) is not the same for Poland as was a German-Russian alliance. China does not neighbour Poland.
Both countries – China and Russia – neighbour each other, which, as in the Soviet-German alliance, threatens each other in the event of a progressing destabilisation of the balance of power in Eurasia, which would trigger a tragic spiral of consecutive security dilemmas. This is what happened in Europe in the 20th century.
China is on the other side of Eurasia, away from Poland, so the threat does not have the same dimension as in the 20th century from neighbouring Germany and Russia (the Soviet Union).
Fourth: the interest of Poland is the collapse of Russia, and the goal of the United States is only to weaken and strengthen Russia’s “readiness to give in”, accepting the primacy of the United States in the international system, or in the event of a break with the liberal American led order, it is primarily all to help in stopping China as US main opponent in Eurasia. Such a relationship between the US and Russia can strengthen Russia, and this is not in the interest of Poland.
Fifthly: China has showed up in Europe and is entering the continent with capital and investment, followed by political influence over time. This causes more factors of strength to appear than in the days of Mackinder, when China did not have the potential to do so on the other side of Eurasia. Now there will be the following forces in the vicinity of the Polish state, affecting the interests of the country: US, Russia, Germany and China. Turkey may soon appear on the Black Sea coast of the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium and in the Danube Delta. Ankara until recently counted in the politics of the region only because of having the Bosphorus and the Dardanelle Straits. This will change and will cause a different (more complex) force interaction in the European Intermarium in the 21st century compared to the 20th century.
Sixth: the post-Cold War unipolar moment has come to an end. The Americans have struggled to maintain primacy, but China’s economic power is greater than Nazi Germany and imperial Japan combined by more than 50% now and growing; it is also at least twice the economic strength of the Soviet Union. The Chinese project of the New Silk Road is not a plan of expansion through the use of force and war, as it was by the neighbours of Poland – Germany and Russia (the Soviets) – and it is not known what real impact it will bring in relation to the sphere of infrastructure and communication of space in the region. Although one should not have any illusions about age-old rights related to capital and organisational domination.
Seventhly, if the Eurasian supercontinent consolidates, then with the further development of transport networks as a whole it will become one interconnected economic space. The United States located outside Eurasia, while remaining powerful, will no longer be the only superpower in the pursuit of its own interests and will probably balance flexibly with the whole of Eurasia (and not separately with Europe and Asia as it does now – which will change the way the elites on the Potomac think and the organisation of the diplomatic service and the State Department) as Great Britain did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries towards Europe, with much of Eurasia’s land area remaining out of reach of the military, and thus the political and economic influence of the maritime power.
Eighth: with the further weakening of the United States, there is the potential of a German-Chinese agreement in which Poland does not create new logistics centres, does not use the generated turnover and remains peripheral/semi-peripheral. In this scenario, Russia also benefits by seeking the so-called “Roundabout concept”, and thus leads to a situation in which there are neither logistics centres in Poland serving Europe nor any connections. The collapse of the Atlantic community will then intensify rivalry with Germany for new Eurasian markets, investment flowing from there and for political influence in Central and Eastern Europe, and above all, who determines the rules of the game in its area.
Ninth: the existence of Ukraine by changing Mackinder’s prescription can lead to rivalry between Poland and Ukraine for supremacy on the Baltic-Black Sea Intermarium over who has better relations with the United States as a guarantor of security, or with China as a new factor of strength in the region, and also to economic rivalry for emerging markets in the east. This will create the potential to play the interests of Poland and Ukraine by the external powers of the USA and China and neighbouring Germany. Not without significance will be the excellent geographic location of Ukraine connecting the northern land entrance to Europe and the Black Sea basin, close to the Danube Delta and further the Caspian Sea – closer to the mainland of Eurasia and closer to the Turkish Straits. The area of the Black Sea and the surrounding area will gain in importance (and the Baltic connecting with the old centre of the world, the Atlantic will be relatively losing to the Black Sea) with the shifting of the burden of economic turnover to the Pacific connected west with Europe by a new land communication strip.
Mackinder, of course, was right when he wrote that people tired of wars expect the world to be finally organised in a way that guarantees development and peaceful coexistence. Then there is the temptation to believe that this time it will certainly be a lasting peace. The people tired of the war were certainly determined that there would be no more war, and free world and free global trade seemed to be a denial of the conflict. This was also the case when Mackinder wrote words about the need for peace in 1919 immediately after the terrible world war. People probably also felt the same in 1945 after the next World War.
It is hardly surprising that in the years 1989–1991, when the Cold War ended and history was to reach a happy end arranged by the West and liberal democracies – peace appeared to have been achieved forever. However, international tension began to materialise again in the ominous Mackinder cycle, at first slowly, starting from 2008, and then faster. Along with this there appeared a reshuffle internationally in search of a new balance. Shuffling in the international arena and the resulting wars are the result of the unequal growth of powers, and these are the result of unequal geographical locations, the productivity of different economies and the unequal use of strategic opportunities. It is obvious that there is no equality in international relations. In fact, the most important differences result from geography and places occupied in geographical space and the resulting uneven division of the global supply and labor chains and ensuing profits and control of the economic system. As Mackinder wrote bluntly- it is geography that is to be blamed that peace cannot be permanent.
Autor
Jacek Bartosiak
CEO and Founder of Strategy&Future, author of bestselling books.
Strategy&Future
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