Power Politics and Geopolitics
- so much was changing in the late 19th C in Europe and in the world. It was very exciting, but there were causes for concern and even fear. The old rules and certainties were no longer applicable.
- some of the features:
- with industrialisation, the power of nations and armies was increasing exponentially; the problem of survival of nations was becoming more difficult and urgent.
- the world was shrinking as faster transportation and communications were bringing everyone closer together,
- ideas about the nature of human life and societies were being transformed by darwinism and social darwinism—i.e., that life was a constant struggle and that international relations was a never-ending struggle for survival by national political entities (nations) in which morality and justice were not too important in comparison with the need to muster greater power and resources than one’s rivals.
- ‘science’, the source of new knowledge and of new technology, was held in high regard (it was even replacing religion as the entity to which many people looked for understanding and for guidance). Increasingly, humans and their societies were to be studied by methods which would be ‘scientific’—the social sciences. The results of these approaches were supposed to produce ‘laws’; the laws would not only provide knowledge but also provide applications. Like technology, these applications would provide advantages to those nations that defined them and put them to use. The impact of Darwin’s theories on all the emerging social sciences was profound. This is especially true of geography, one of the new social sciences that was being created; we want to look at some of its effects shortly.
- in the 19th C, there was the concept of ‘great powers’; these powers made the important decisions and smaller, ‘second rate’ powers were expected and compelled to accept those decisions. By the end of the century, the unifications of Germany and Italy had created a club of 6 ‘great powers’ in Europe (Britain, Germany France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy—Italy was admitted more as a courtesy than as a reality); the U.S. clearly belonged but it remained mostly aloof from Europe.
World Power
- however, a whole new scale of national state was clearly on the horizon for the 20th C—Russia and the U.S. These had larger populations (over 100 million each—Britain a little over 40 million, France about 60 million, Germany over 60 million) and enormous resources; they were in fact continental powers. Russia had always been larger than other European states, but the size had been offset by the fact that Russia was very backward in industrial terms and thus in military terms also. However, by the 1890s, although still behind other parts of northern Europe, Russia was beginning to industrialise. As it caught up industrially, Russia’s size would begin to have its impact in terms of power. The label for these new larger entities was ‘world powers’.
- the problem nagging people in Germany, Britain and France was how would they get the additional resources—i.e., like poker chips—to remain in the game. They were threatened with being reduced to ‘second class or second rate’ status. If you want to understand the frenzy for acquiring empire in the late 19th C, these concerns were probably more important than anything else; colonies were believed to provide extra resources, human and material, to keep European great powers in the game of world powers.
- an alternative to colonies was put forward for Germany—MittelEuropa. The idea was that Germany should create a dominant position in Europe which would bring most of Europe under German leadership and dominance. Initially, it could be based on economic dominance, but this could be used to pull Germanic areas (Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Austria) into closer political ties and even eventually to annex them. France would have to be reduced (perhaps take advantage of any war to annex the industrial north-eastern corner) to the point where it would become an economic satellite and a shadow of its former power and standing.
Political Geography and Geopolitics
- political geography was one of the newly emerging social sciences. Its proponents felt that the political boundaries and political structures which existed in the world were the product of natural ‘laws’. Thus, international relations were thought to be subject to and the product of the operation of these laws, the discovery of which was the major task of the new discipline.
- all the people we shall discuss were convinced that geography was a crucial determinant of international affairs; they also felt that the leaders, to say nothing of the general public, were grossly and dangerously ignorant of how important geography was. Thus all were trying frantically to raise consciousness of geography and its vital role.
Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904) was a major force in developing political geography in Germany.
- Ratzel was a determinist. He believed that the land moulded the people who lived there and produced commonality of interests, needs etc which led to the creation of ‘nations’.
- as with other political geographers, he was concerned with nation/states. In fact, he argued that national states were organisms and as such were subject to the same darwinist pressures, requirements etc. as other living organisms. This model carried many ramifications: nations were born, grew and matured; nations could also die. As with all organisms, nations require land, space, in order to survive. It was Ratzel who first coined and used the term ‘lebensraum—living space’ in 1897. It was not very well defined however.
- the feeling among Germans that they were overcrowded had become widespread. This had a couple of ramifications:
- the capacity of the agricultural land to carry population had been reached and this was causing migration into the cities, a trend that was regarded as very bad as agrarian life was thought to be the real source of German culture, vitality and strength.
- alternately, people were migrating to other countries (the U.S. especially); they were being assimilated and lost to the fatherland.
- on the question of acquiring ‘lebensraum’ Ratzel came down on the side of colonies rather than a drive towards the east in Europe.
- moreover, he was opposed to incorporating all Germans into Germany just because they were Germans. This led him to oppose some of the more far-reaching claims of the ‘Greater Germany’ nationalists who felt that any area in Europe that had Germans (there were communities of Germans, some quite small, throughout central Europe) should become part of Germany. He helped found the Pan-German League in the 1890s but was soon alienated by the racists who took over; he dropped out. However, his term, ‘lebensraum’, was adopted by these others and given a rather different meaning than he ever intended.
- as well, the connections to the Nazis is not direct! Ratzel was not a racist, nor a ‘volkisch’ fanatic. He did not accept the idea that a ‘nation’ should be based solely on the homogeneous ethnic group (i.e., tribe). As a young man, he had taken an extended tour of the U.S. (in the 1870s) and this greatly influenced his thinking. He was impressed by the advantages and vitality of mixing different ethnic people in the U.S. Besides, he argued that what really bound people together and made them a nation was the connection to the land and the specific space that they occupied, not genetic ties. He used the example of Switzerland to point out that people of several different ethnic and genetic heritages nevertheless were moulded into a nation by their geographical position and the effects that their environment had. People could not escape their geography.
Rudolf Kjellén (1864-1922) was a Swede, but greatly influenced by Ratzel.
- Kjellén was a political scientist who was trying to make that discipline more ‘scientific’. He adopted Ratzel’s idea of the national state as an organism; his major concern as a political scientist was to analyse the state in all its manifestations and dimensions. He proposed that this should be done in 5 separate areas and approaches. One of these areas of analysis was what he termed ‘geopolitics’ in 1899. In this area, he intended to analyse the geographical components and influences. He set out to implement his comprehensive and rather grandiose scheme of analysis, but because of political and academic involvements, his work on geopolitics was the only aspect completed for publication.
- Kjellén was strongly pro-German, especially during WW1. By everything (morality, laws of geopolitics, the fact that he felt Germany was the trend of the future while Britain and France represented the past, the legacy of the French Revolution which he abhorred etc.) Germany should win the war. He was devastated by Germany’s defeat.
- Kjellén was not widely influential in Sweden. With his death, his approach in political science came to an end. However, his strong pro-German views had been noted in Germany and his ideas on geopolitics (including the term itself) strongly influenced General Haushofer whose life’s work came to be the promotion of geopolitics.
John Seeley was an English historian.
- our interest in Seeley stems from his book, The Expansion of England (published in the early 1880s). Seeley was concerned about Britain’s future in the quantum leap in the scale of national states. His analysis of England’s history was that it was its empire which had enabled England to be ‘great’ in spite of the relatively small size of its land and population as compared to its rivals on the continent.
- he argued that Britain was standing at a crossroads; one road was to do nothing and Britain would gradually decline into second rate status as other states in the past had done, such as Venice. The only way for Britain to remain great was to rediscover and revitalise its imperial mission. This meant stopping the disintegration of the Empire and unifying it into a much larger and more powerful entity.
- this book is often credited with helping to stimulate the imperial federation movement and the support for imperial acquisitions in the scramble period (however, Seeley did not consider these areas of Africa or even India as being the important thing. He was talking about the white dominions with their settlers of British origins.).
Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947)
- Mackinder had a number of careers. In England, he helped establish geography as a university subject and get it taught in the schools; he subsequently tried politics and was involved with an early think tank; he also served on a number of commissions after WW1.
- our interest is in his ‘heartland theory’ which he first put forward in 1904. The heartland he was talking about was in eastern Europe although its exact location shifted a bit in various versions he put forward over the years. It was centred mostly in the European areas of Russia, but could include areas farther west as well. He argued that if the people and resources were properly organised with efficient government and fully developed industrialisation, the heartland was geographically situated to dominate the entire ‘world island’—everything from western Europe to the Pacific, the entire Eurasian land mass and potentially the world.
- this had not yet happened for a couple of reasons; the Russian gov’t was not efficient, and Russia was far behind in industrialisation. Nevertheless, it was a growing threat in the 19th C.
- the opposition to this world-domination by the heartland came from the peripheral states, especially in the 19th C from Britain. The peripheral states were small but they had the advantage of seapower. They could use this to harass the heartland power and could make alliances (this was just after the Anglo-Japanese alliance had been created).
- however, the balance was beginning to shift; the railroad, he thought, would overcome the disadvantages that land power had had previously and thus seapower would diminish in significance. Also, Russian inefficiency and lack of industrialisation could and would be overcome. He even suggested, then or later, that a German-Russian alliance would allow German efficiency and industrial prowess to modernise Russia and thus realise the tremendous potential that the population and natural resources, as well as geographical position provided. Thus, the danger of world domination was getting closer.
- Mackinder did see the U.S. as a counterweight and potential great addition to the peripheral states. In fact, he forecast that the U.S. could replace Britain as the mainstay of the periphery. However, U.S. isolationism and freedom from real threat of attack by the heartland power meant that it was not likely to involve itself that much and assume leadership of the peripheral states.
- Mackinder was an active imperial federationist. Thus, he was adopting the Seeley prescription. He talked about the ‘Britains’ of the empire and their unification, at least in the areas of defence and naval policies and forces.
General Karl Haushofer (1869-1946)
- he had been a general in the German army during WW1; he spent time in Japan as military attache and had been greatly impressed by the energy, social discipline and the devotion to duty (bushido) of Japanese people.
- he turned to academic life after the war and especially made geopolitics his life’s work. In his development of geopolitics, he brought together the ideas of Ratzel, Kjellén and Mackinder.
- he saw geopolitics as being applied geography; he thought that a major cause of Germany’s defeat was the lack of geographical knowledge and geopolitical awareness; because of this lack, Germany found itself in the war with its particular alignment of allies and enemies and this brought its defeat. (For example, he argued that Germany should never allow itself to be lined up against Russia—the heartland.)
- to try to correct this lack, he founded a geopolitical institute at the University of Munich and in his development of geopolitical theory, he drew on all these thinkers.
- Haushofer had taught Rudolph Hess and they became close friends. Haushofer came to be seen later in the 1930s and during the war, as providing many, perhaps most, of the geopolitical ideas for the Nazis. As a result, his influence was greatly exaggerated.
- Haushofer did publicise the concept of lebensraum, but that term was used by many others, including the Volkisch fanatics and racists who were much more direct connections to the Nazis.
- Haushofer did try to influence the Nazis, and Hess was a pipeline into the Nazi inner circles. As the Nazis gained influence and then came to power, Haushofer tried to soft-pedal the areas where his ideas differed from the Nazis. The Nazis set up their own ‘geopolitical’ think tanks and organisations; probably with Hess’ influence, Haushofer was given a role and some leadership positions. But the Nazis wanted to Nazify everything and that included ‘geopolitical theory’. They began to point out the shortcomings and ‘errors’ of Haushofer’s geopolitics; increasingly, he was shoved out. In fact, by the outbreak of the war, he was really out of it completely.
- Haushofer was not a racist. In fact, his wife was half Jewish. As a result of Hess’ intervention, she was given ‘honorary German’ status, but that was unacceptable to the anti-Semitic fanatics in the Nazi party when such marriages had been made illegal by the Nuremburg Laws.
- Nazi geopoliticians rejected Haushofer’s geopolitics because it failed to incorporate the ‘race principle’ adequately. Like Ratzel, at base Haushofer was a geographical determinist and argued that people cannot escape their geography. The Nazi racists, on the other hand, argued that the major determinants of history and almost everything was genes and genetic heritage— ‘race’; genes could even nullify geography.
- following Mackinder’s heartland theory, Haushofer thought that Germany’s best course was to ally itself (or at least remain on good terms) with Russia. As noted, he thought that the estrangement with Russia had been a major blunder and factor in Germany’s defeat in WW1. He was pleased with the axis alliance with Japan, and then when the Non-Aggression Pact was signed with the Soviet Union, he felt that things were definitely on the right track. Although he did not like the Soviet Union, he thought it was flying in the face of geographical laws to be in conflict with the heartland power. As a partner, Germany would be left to dominate the central and western European part of the ‘world island’. Japan was striving to build its own empire in south Asia and could act as a buffer at the eastern end. Japan would also act as a distraction for the U.S. and keep it from interfering in what went on in Europe.
- Haushofer was dismayed by Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and that confirmed his withdrawal from active participation. In any case, Hess’ famous flight to Britain to try to arrange a peace between Germany and Britain would have ended his role.
- Haushofer’s son, Albrecht, was also a geopolitical activist. He was never a member of the Nazi Party, but he was an advisor of Ribbontrop. Ribbontrop had supported the idea of an alliance with Britain, which Hitler too toyed with from time to time. Albrecht made many trips to Britain in the late 1930s to cultivate contacts and to canvas the possibilities. He became even more disillusioned with Hitler as the war and Hitler’s policies evolved; Albrecht began a double game of working with the opposition. He was tied into the assassination plot against Hitler and after hiding out for some months, was captured by the Gestapo late in 1944 and murdered along with other remaining plotters in April 1945, just before the end of the war.
Geopolitics in the United States
- by the late 1930s, Haushofer had attracted a good deal of attention in the U.S. The idea that one could discover and use the laws that govern international relations through the study of geopolitics intrigued many academics. But the interest spread wider as leading magazines like Time and Readers’ Digest began to do feature stories on Haushofer.
- late in the 1930s, courses and even whole academic programmes on geopolitics (usually within existing Geography departments) began to be established at a number of American universities. This interest (and concern) mushroomed once the U.S. joined the war.
- this interest led them to discover Mackinder also and his ‘heartland’ theory. Although Mackinder had republished his ‘heartland thesis’ with a few refinements in the early 1920s, it had not been further developed and had received little attention. Now, Americans were clamouring to hear more, so Mackinder restated his heartland thesis with a few further refinements and was sent to tour the U.S. as part of the British gov’t’s attempts to keep the Americans interested in the war.
- there was not too great an application of Mackinder’s thesis during the war because the Soviet Union was an ally. However, it is claimed that Mackinder’s thesis was a major influence in developing American thinking after the development of the Cold War. It is argued that the theory helped to provide the basis for the theory of containment—to provide a ring around the periphery of the ‘world island’ as the means to prevent the power of the heartland from dominating the world. It was in this context that the domino theory came to have such prominence. That is, the line of this peripheral barrier had to be held. If a break was allowed to occur in Vietnam, then Thailand, Burma etc. would also give and a major breach in the dam would occur. That would make it much more difficult, perhaps even impossible, to maintain the rest of the barrier.
Germania triumphans and the more extreme elements
- there were other far more extreme groups in Germany by the late 19th C: anti-Semites, ‘volkisch’ racial fanatics and so on
- this was a utopian novel of the future published in 1895 but written as a purported history of a series of wars beginning in 1903.
- it anticipated in stunning detail many Nazi deeds and policies in eastern Europe after the invasion of Poland. According to the plot of the novel, part of Russia was acquired as a result of a war. Then policies of germanization were implemented, all Jews were expelled, Russians were restricted to menial occupations only while Germans had all the more advanced occupations and economic activities reserved for them. Later, most of Poland was acquired in the same way and the same policies applied there. These were precisely the policies adopted by the Nazis in eastern Europe under their occupation!
- the point here is that it was these much more extreme groups that provided the direct links to the Nazis, but many similar ideas and aspirations were widely shared in Germany.