Why Geopolitics (Sloan & Gray, 1999)
Why Geopolitics (Sloan & Gray, 1999)
Why Geopolitics (Sloan & Gray, 1999)
Why geopolitics?
a b
Geoffrey Sloan & Colin S. Gray
a
Deputy Head of the Department of Strategic
Studies and International Affairs , Britannia
Royal Naval College , Dartmouth
b
The Director of the Centre for Security
Studies , The University of Hull
Published online: 24 Jan 2008.
To cite this article: Geoffrey Sloan & Colin S. Gray (1999) Why geopolitics?,
Journal of Strategic Studies, 22:2-3, 1-11, DOI: 10.1080/01402399908437751
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Why Geopolitics?
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The popularity of geopolitical theory from 1945 to the present has been
rather like the length of hemline on a woman's skirt; it has fallen and risen
with the vagaries of fashion. The current vogue can be traced to 1979 when
Henry Kissinger published the first volume of his memoirs titled The White
House Years. It was significant that this book made continual use of the term
'geopolitics'. This was important for two reasons: first, Kissinger used it as
a method of analysis to combat the American liberal policies of idealism;
second, it was utilised as a means of presenting an alternative to the
conservative policies of an ideological anti-Communism. Kissinger claimed
for geopolitics a synonymity with global equilibrium and permanent
national interests in the world balance of power. He defined geopolitics as
follows: 'by geopolitical I mean an approach that pays attention to the
requirements of equilibrium'.1 The revival of the word 'geopolitics' by
Kissinger resulted in two discernible paths of development. 'It led, by
example and reaction, to further reflection on global strategy in the
geopolitical tradition. Secondly, and perhaps in the end more significantly,
it popularized the word geopolitics, which entered the language in a way
which it never had before, though at the substantial price of ambiguity and
confusion of meanings.'2
This special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies has two related
aims. First to make a contribution to dispelling the ambiguity and confusion
that still surrounds the term geopolitics. Second, to illuminate the
relationships between geopolitics, geography and strategy, and to show how
the practice and study of strategy requires a continuing exchange between
history and theory. In essence, geopolitics is an attempt to draw attention to
the importance of certain geographical patterns in political history. It is a
2 Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy
theory of spatial relationships and historical causation. From it explanations
have been deduced which suggest the contemporary and future political
relevance of various geographical concepts. Furthermore, it can be argued
that geopolitics combines historical knowledge with a sophisticated
capacity for theorising. The result has been a powerful analytical
framework.
One of the aims of geopolitics is to emphasise that political
predominance is a question not just of having power in the sense of human
or material resources, but also of the geographical context within which that
power is exercised: 'in nearly all international transactions involving some
element of opposition, resistance, struggle or conflict, the factors of
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location, space and distance between the interacting parties have been
significant variables. This significance is embodied in the maxim, "power is
local". This is to say, political demands are projected through space from
one location to another upon the earth's surface.'3
This is not to say that the geographical environment determines the
objectives or strategies of the foreign or internal policies of a particular
state. States do not find themselves in a geographical strait-jacket; instead,
geography or geographical configurations present opportunities for policy-
makers and politicians. This was recognised by one of the founders of
modern geopolitical theory, Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947). Writing in
1890 he claimed that:
the course of politics is the product of two sets of forces, impelling
and guiding. The impetus is from the past, in the history embedded in
a people's character and tradition. The present guides the movement
by economic wants and geographical opportunities. Statesmen and
diplomatists succeed and fail pretty much as they recognise the
irresistible power of these forces.4
The extent to which geographical opportunities will be exploited depends
on strategy. That is a concern with the deployment and use of armed forces
to attain particular political objectives.
Political objectives are a consequence of choices made by policy-
makers. It is from these choices that political and strategic importance is
attached to geographical configurations and locations. It also reflects the
nature of politics as a decision-making process. In this process the
geographical factors which influence politics are a product of policy-makers
selecting particular objectives and attempting to realise them by the
conscious formulation of strategies. This relationship between the
geographical environment and the decision-making process is a dynamic
Why Geopolitics? 3
one; it is dependent upon changing levels of transport and weapons
technology. This dynamic aspect is one of the most important links between
geopolitical theory, geography and strategy. It illustrates the pivotal nature
of the continuing exchange between theory and history.
Furthermore, geography can be described as the mother of strategy, in
that the geographical configuration of land and sea, with respect to a state's
strategic policy, or an alliance between states, can exercise a twofold
strategic conditioning influence: on locations important for defence, and on
the routes and geographical configurations which favour an attacking force,
be it on land or sea. Geography, it is worth adding, is pertinent at the tactical,
operational, and strategic levels of conflict, although its use or misuse by
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what has given airpower the value-added clout it offers to joint force
commanders today. The second perspective is in many ways the antithesis
of the first. As early as 1919 Mackinder claimed that air power had an
advantage over land mobility, but it had a boomerang nature since it
proceeds from and to a land base after flight, and those land bases can be
captured by land power. Lambeth also maintains that carrier-borne aircraft
cannot conduct a sustained an air campaign. Therefore the great challenge
for the future will be whether countries such as the United States can build
partnerships and otherwise plan ahead for access in many parts of the
world. This, Lambeth argues, will be critical if air power is to meet its
promise in future conflicts.
Everett Dollman's is perhaps the most ambitious of the essays on
geopolitical theory. For the first time an attempt has been made to discern
the geopolitical dimensions of space. This has led to the coining of the
adjective 'astropolitical'. Dollman uses Mackinder's heartland theory as his
geopolitical template. He argues that the vast resources of solar space
represent the heartland of the astropolitical model. Earth space, like Eastern
Europe in Mackinder's design, is the most critical arena for astropolitics.
Control of earth space not only guarantees long-term control of the outer
reaches of space, it provides a near-term advantage on the terrestrial
battlefield. From early warning and detection of missile and force
movements, to target planning and battle damage assessment, space-based
intelligence gathering assets, Dollman argues, already have proved
themselves as legitimate force multipliers.
There is also a pertinent Mahanian geopolitical analogy. Mahan argued
that control of certain bodies of water were particularly important for
economic and military reasons. Space, Dollman argues, like the sea, can be
traversed potentially in any direction, but because of gravity wells and the
forbidding cost of lifting weight into orbit, over time space-faring nations
Why Geopolitics? 5
will develop specific pathways for the heaviest traffic. Indeed, space
highways and 'chokepoints' are clearly discernible already.
For much of the post-1945 period geopolitics has been something of an
intellectual pariah. It is worth noting that between the 1940s and the
publication of Colin Gray's The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era in 1977
(with the exception of Sen's Basic Principles of Geopolitics and History,
published in India in 1975) no book title in English used the term
geopolitics. The effect of this condition of neglect was compounded by the
advent of critical theory and postmodernism which emerged in International
Relations in the 1980s.
The emergence of these approaches was a reaction to two things: first to
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accessibility.
What has this to do with geopolitics? Lonsdale argues convincingly that
information power is unlikely to become transformative in its effects and
produce strategic results independently. Instead it will develop its own
geopolitical logic and will supplement and enable success in the other
existing environments of strategy. In short, in its own unique way it will
become territorialised.
The aim of the second part of this Special Issue is to explore the
relationship between geography and strategy and to draw geopolitical
conclusions from it. Colin Gray sets out in a comprehensive manner the
relationship between geography and strategy. He argues that geography
cannot be an optional extra for consideration by the strategic theorist or
planner, because it drives the character and potential contemporary reach of
tactical, hence operational, prowess.
What is innovative about Gray's approach is that he first fixes the nature
of strategy as the dialogue between policy and military power. He argues
that in reconciling political objectives with military ones, the strategist must
deal with a realm of great complexity and uncertainty. Policy, in a sense,
must be more important than strategy, just as strategy must be superior to
operations and tactics. Strategy would be literally senseless in the absence
of policy. Having located strategy in the hierarchy between policy and
military power, the geographical dimension of strategy is then elucidated.
He argues that strategy is inherently geographical and that even when other
dimensions are examined they are each subject to the influence of what can
be termed fairly as geographical influence. In no sense is this a claim for
geography as the 'master dimension' of strategy. Gray's argument simply is
that geography always matters for strategic experience, and on occasion it
will matter hugely.
Perhaps the most innovative aspect of this approach is the way in which
Why Geopolitics? 1
geography and strategy are related to geopolitical theory. Gray argues that
the principal glory of the 'grand narrative' of geopolitical theory is the
ability to tie apparently disparate phenomena together in meaningful ways.
He suggests that it is exactly the meaningful character of geopolitical
theories that renders them so controversial.
Another important focus is what Clausewitz called the relationship
between a logic of policy and a grammar of war. Gray underlines the point
that the grammar of strategy literally and inalienably is dictated by the
distinctive requirements of physical geography. Furthermore, he argues that
to plan and act globally, rather than regionally or locally, is not to transcend
geography, let alone geopolitics, in fact quite the reverse. A global
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After the Second World War both Karl Haushofer - until his suicide in
1946 - and his surviving son, Heinz, claimed that after 1938 Haushofer had
worked for the Nazis only under duress. Yet Holger Herwig manages with
the use of new primary sources to reveal another reality in which Haushofer
used German geopolitics as a tool of political propaganda. For example, one
month after the launch of Operation 'Barbarossa' in June 1941 Haushofer
maintained that this operation constituted the greatest task of geopolitics,
the rejuvenation of space in the 'Old World'. Furthermore, it constituted a
bold attempt: ' positively and creatively to turn the task of forging Eurasia
and Eurafrica into reality'.
These statements contributed greatly to the tendency, since 1945, for
writers to perceive all geopolitical theory as synonymous with German
geopolitics. However, two features made German geopolitics unique: first
the subordination of all facts of political knowledge to the primacy of
geography; second, the assertion that the German Reich was a superior
polity whose destiny was quite separate from that of any other European
state. As a result of these characteristics the shadows were cast long.
Geopolitical theory became an intellectual pariah for the best part of 35
years.
In the final contribution to this Special Issue, John Erickson gives a
compelling account of the phoenix-like rise of geopolitics in a country that
formerly was in the forefront of demonising it. The former Soviet Union
currently manifests an obsessive preoccupation with geopolitics. Erickson
maintains that with the collapse of Communism Russia suffered a huge
crisis of identity and a challenge to its security requirements of truly historic
dimensions. The withdrawal from the centre of Europe, from Prague to
Smolensk, has reduced Russia in Europe to the geostrategic condition that
obtained three centuries ago. To deal with this revolutionary situation there
has been a recourse to geopolitical thinking. In particular, Erickson shows
10 Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy
how there has been a restitution of the geopolitical approach coupled with
the introduction of the term national security. For the Russians national
security embraces the idea of the state as a tool assuring 'the best possible
conditions' for the individual, for society, and for the state itself, as
conditioned by the entire spectrum of active geopolitical factors.
In post-Soviet Russia geopolitics also has been subject to an astonishing
process of institutionalisation. The Section of Geopolitics and Security of
the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences was established for all practical
purposes by the Russian General Staff on 22 November 1991, its
membership composed of senior Russian officers associated with the
General Staff. This new institutional prominence is fused, as Erickson
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Above all else, Mackinder underlined the point that geopolitics, geography,
and strategy serve together.
NOTES
1. H. Kissinger, The White House Years (Boston: Little Brown 1979) p.914.
2. L.W. Hepple, 'The Revival of Geopolitics', Political Geography Quarterly 5/4 (Oct. 1986)
p.522.
3. H. and M. Sprout, 'Geography and International Relations in an Era of Revolutionary
Change', Journal of Conflict Resolution 6/1 (March 1960) p.145.
4. H.J. Mackinder, 'The Physical Basis of Political Geography', Scottish Geographical
Magazine 6 (1890) p.84.
5. C. Brown, Understanding International Relations (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press 1997)
p.53.
6. K. Haushofer, 'Pflight und Anspruch der Geopolitik als Wissenschaft', Zeitschrift für
Geopolitk 12 (1935) p.443.
7. H.J. Mackinder, 'Geography, an Art and a Philosophy', Geography 27 (1942) pp.129-30.