Episode 3: Escape from the World-Island: Geopolitics and Geoeconomics

The triumphalism following the end of the Cold War led some to believe we had reached The End of History, and that great powers had moved beyond a world shaped by geopolitics and geoeconomics. Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography in 2012 challenged this view, arguing that geography still shapes how states see the world, and can either strengthen them or limit their ambitions. This is the core of geopolitics, an idea developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by thinkers such as Rudolf Kjellén and Sir Halford Mackinder.

Drawing on the achievements of the Mongol Empire - see our discussion of its chief strategist, Subotai, in Season 4, Episode 1 - Mackinder believed that whoever rules the Heartland (Eurasia), commands the 'World Island' and thus the world. This was problematic for maritime powers, and later Nicholas Spykman argued that it was actually whoever controlled the Rimland, the coastal regions surrounding Eurasia, who controlled the destinies of the world. This was reflected in George Kennan’s logic behind the Cold War containment strategy toward the Soviet Union. Its legacy remains in thinking about China, but does the Belt and Road Initiative suggest an attempt by China to break out of this singular characterisation and reduce its vulnerability to classical containment?

Professor Scott Smitson is Director of the Grand Strategy Program at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He served for 21 years in the US Army, including as a strategist at US Central and Southern Commands and the Joint Staff. He has also served for a period as a US Officer embedded in the UK's Ministry of Defence Strategic Plans team.

1. Sir Julian Corbett and the British Way of War, with Professor Andrew Lambert.
2. Leo VI (the Wise) and the Beginning of Western Strategy, with Dr Georgios Chatzelis
3. Admiral Liu Huaqing and China’s Island Chain Strategy, with Professor Christopher Yung
4. Neptune’s Prophet: Alfred Thayer Mahan, with Cdr Dr Benjamin Armstrong
5. Modernising the Royal Navy: Admiral Lord Fisher, with Dr Richard Dunley
6. George C Marshall: Strategic Planning for War and Peace, with Professor Bill Johnsen.

1. Nicholas J. Spykman, Geography of the Peace, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1944.

2. Halford Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4, April 1904, pp. 421–437. 

3. Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Random House, 2012. 

4. Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means: Geo-economics and Statecraft, Harvard University Press, 2017. 

5. US Air Force, China Aerospace Studies Institute, In Their Own Words: Science of Military Strategy 2020, January 2022.