On the night of February 23rd to 24th, 2022, everything seemed to be going as Putin had planned. At the same time, the course of events was the nightmare of Halford Mackinder’s worst dreams. Mackinder was the Nestor of world geopolitics, a faithful son of the sea of Albion (then a sea hegemon) and (more than 100 years ago) the creator of the most famous geopolitical maxim: “Whoever rules East Europe commands the Heartland; whoever rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; whoever rules the World-Island commands the World.” To speak in the language of the 21st century, whoever controls Eurasia has the greatest agency over the rules on which the world operates and sets the rules for key strategic flows between its regions and exchanges between states.
