Geopolitics and the Eurasian Alternative
Geopolitics

Geopolitics actually is an ancient concept. It is a method of political analysis, emphasizing the role played by geography in international relations. Theoretically geopolitics aim at establishing a political grammar of world politics, through a scientific discipline based on the objective reality of geography. Hence, geopolitics is often seen as a "realistic" attempt to establish world policy as an objective science based of some kind of "physico-spacial reference". Geopolitical theorists stress that natural political boundaries and access to important waterways are vital to a nation's survival.

The term geopolitics (Geopolitik in German) was developed by Rudolf Kjellen, a Swedish political scientist in 1905. As a subbranch of political geography, geopolitics focused on the spatial development and needs of the State. It combined Friedrich Ratzel's theory on the organic nature of the State along with Sir Halford J. Mackinder's Heartland Theory. The term was later borrowed by Karl Haushofer, a German geographer and follower of Friedrich Ratzel.

As a modern concept geopolitics received its classical form in the work of Friedrich Ratzel, Rudolf Kjellen, Harold J. Mackinder, Alfred T. Mahan and Karl Haushofer. The idea behind geopolitics is based on the assessment that geography is a crucial factor in the system of causes, forming the parameters of politics.

Friedrich Ratzel's influence on modern geography is legendary. Robert E. Dickinson writes about Ratzel: "There is no doubt that Friedrich Ratzel has been the greatest single contributor to the development of the Geography of Man." (Robert E. Dickinson, The Makers of Modern Geography. New York: Friederich A. Praeger, 1969. p.64)

In his analysis from 1890 (Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. New York: Dover, 1987) Alfred Thayer Mahan argued that the rise of British Power in the 18th and 19th century was attributed to the country's island position, which gave it advances in regard to world trade. Mahan argued that the basis of British world power was its capacity through its navy to control the waterways, which at that time was the main communication structures in the world. Mahan explained Britian's victory in the Napoleon war on the ground control of the main communication network of the world is the main advantage in the great struggle regarding European power hegemony that lied behind the Napoleon wars. Mahan's writing encouraged President Theodore Roosevelt to develop U.S. Naval power in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Sir Halford Mackinder, argued in 1904 that the new trend in the modern industry and particularly the development of the railroad as the main infrastructure and communicative meant a change in the balance between land and sea power and favor the dominance of land powers in the twentieth century. In a famous article titled "the Geographical Pivot of History" (Halford J. Mackinder, "The Geographical Pivot of History." Geographical Journal, vol.23. 1904. pp.421-444), Mackinder also identified East Europe and Central Russia as the heartland of the world and claimed that the power that controlled Russia would rule the world. This claim however was contested my other scholars and geopolitical theorists.

In the 1920s, the German General and geographer Karl Haushofer developed Geopolitik as a policy for Germany and Europe. Haushofer developed his idea of geopolitics through a study of the emergence of the modern Japanese state. His concept of Lebensraum (living space) was actually developed by Ratzel, who is often called the founder of political geography. In 1924 Gerneral Haushofer founded and edited the journal "Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik" and then became a professor of geopolitics. The journal, and Haushofer's career, only lasted until 1944. Haushofers ideas were were only of limited influence on the National Socialist regime for it had his own concept of geography and the expansion of the state. Haushofer's son Albrecht was indicted in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler so the elder Haushofer was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Following the war, Haushofer was interrogated by the allies and in 1946, distraught over the death of this son, Haushofer committed suicide. Nevertheless Haushofer is still accused of providing the academic and scientific support for the expansion of the Third Reich.

The concept of geopolitics is of theoretical interest today due to two reasons:
a) The physical, spacial parameters of the world, as an object of social science analysis might still provide us with a special pathway into the scientific study of international policy.
b) Because it is important to identify a pattern of "objective" correlation within the international order, which can save modern social analysis from the pitfall of relativism.

Eurasia

"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the World." Sir Halford Mackinder, the English geographer who wrote "Democratic Ideals and reality" , put this lapidary motto at the basis of his own global geopolitical concept.

Geopolitics - as it is studied in the American and European (and since recently also Russian) military and diplomatic academies and institutes - is based on the fact that between Russia (Eurasia) and the West (Atlantism, the US) there is an irremovable contradiction, such as existed between Rome and Carthage, Athenes and Sparta in the ancient times, or between Great Britain and Continental Europe (including Russia) in the modern epoch. Geopolitics states that the kind of a civilization is to a very great extent predetermined by its geography, landscape, climate, structure of space. The insular and coastal peoples, the seafarers' races create commercial societies - dynamical, technologically developed, innovative, but gravitating around plutocracy, egoism and individualism. The peoples dwelling in the depth of continents, in the steppes, forests, plains and wildernesses, on the contrary, are static, conservative, contemplative, yet valiant and inclined to communitarian-counciliary principles. "Leviathan" in the terminology of geopolitical science symbolizes a maritime, "mobile", commercial civilization, e.g. Athenes, Carthago, England, the US, in contraposition to "Behemoth" - symbol of a continental, "static", non-commercial civilization, e.g. Sparta, Rome, the Holy Empire, the Golden Horde, Russia. This polarity of West and East, sea and land, island and continent, atlantism and eurasism predetermines the dynamics of the fundamental lines of world politics. Eurasists and atlantists are opposed to each other defending two different, alternative, mutually excluding images of the world and its future. It is this opposition which defines the historical outline of the XXI century. Not always these lines are evident, and sometimes, in the most complex cases, one has to apply some smart enough methodology to find out where the hidden concerns of eurasism lay, and where those of atlantism. Thus the great opposition of civilizations (maritime and overland) is as old as history. And only the final ruin of one of the poles marks by itself the end of this history - that end which was hurriedly declared by the American liberals (F.Fukuyama) after the demolition of the bipolar world of Yalta.

The US with very clearly acknowledge itself as the contemporary and historically most successful by the issuing of "sea power", apogee of the commercial civilization of liberal ploting. After the second world war it replaced England, queen of the seas, having bought from her the main strategic spots of check over maritime, insular and coastal spaces of the planet. The whole tradition of Anglo-Saxon and American geopolitics (from Mahan and Mackinder to Spykman, Brzeszinski and Wolfowitz) sees foreign policy through the eyes of atlantism, moving step by step towards the final triumph of the "sea power", towards the globalization of their civilization kind.

The Anglo-Saxon World surrounding the Atlantic, including Great Britain and America, lead by a capitalist elite has been leading a war against Europe since the beginning of the 20th century. According to the classic Geopolitical doctine Eurasia ist the Key to World Power and the Atlantist powers are trying to gain it. With the end of Second World War Europe has become (trans-) atlantic under the hegemony of the US-led Leviathan NATO. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has achieved an unprecedented position of global supremacy. To regain its souvereignity Europe has to end its status of a protectorate of the United States by turning away from the Atlantic towards the Russian and Muslim East and to get rid of American supremacy. By creating a global police force operating beneath the auspices of NATO and the United Nations, it is possible to defend and thus facilitate the interests of Americanisation throughout the world. It is only right, therefore, that we emulate their example by both defending and advancing our own interests in a similar manner.

Internationalism must be met with an inter-national force of Eurasian solidarity, an explosion of non-sectarian militancy in which dogmatism and reaction will have no place. In other words, opponents of globalisation - regardless of their various political affiliations - must stand shoulder to shoulder in the struggle against Americanisation at all levels of society. Europe must find emancipation from the New American International Law. How right was Carl Schmitt in the past when he wrote: "Behind the facade of general norms of international law lies, in reality , the system of Anglo-Saxon imperialism". More than ever before, in the New World Order, behind the facade of international law lies in reality the system of American imperialism. What Europe needs is a "Monroe Doctrine for Europe" as an answer to the New World Order and American totalitarian ambitions for Weltherrschaft. Or as General de Gaulle once said : "A truly free Europe, is Europe free from American hegemony".

This inevitably leads to the question of the role of Russia for Europes future. Straddling the Eurasian continent, deprived of nearly all its former superpower glory, economically devastated, politically adrift Russia today poses a unique challenge to geostrategy. Eurasism (in its strict historical meaning) is a philosophical current arisen in the 1920s among the Russian emigrates. Eurasianism is a clear answer to the Atlantic strategy. Against the establishing of the atlantist world order and globalisation stand the supporters of the multi-polar world - the eurasists. The eurasists defend on principle the necessity to preserve the existence of every people on earth, the blossoming variety of cultures and religious traditions, the unquestionable right of the peoples to independently choose their path of historical development. The eurasists greet the generality of cultures and systems of values, the open dialogue among peoples and civilizations, the organic combination between the devotion to traditions and the creative impulse.

"At a planetary level Eurasianism means active and universal opposition to globalisation, and is equal to the 'anti-globalist movement'. Eurasianism defends the blossoming complexity of peoples, religions and nations. All anti-globalist tendencies are intrinsically 'Eurasianist'. We are consequent supporters of 'Eurasianist federalism'. This means a combination of strategic unity and ethno-cultural autonomies." (Alexander Dugin)

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