 "How Ukraine war was geopolitically inevitable")
It is intriguing that a lot of the conflicts that we see today taking place in the world had a seed a hundred years ago.
There were thinkers whose concepts cannot be brushed aside even today. No one can forget about Chanakya. Even the West had thinkers like Mahan, Sverdosky, Mackinder, and Spykman, to name a few.
Mackinder suggested long ago that geographical location, instead of a country’s economic prosperity, is the fundamental determinant of world dominance. Referred to as ‘Heartland’, whoever controls Eastern Europe, Eurasia, will have the ultimate power over the world. Currently, Russia, by virtue of its geographical location, is in a position to dominate as a global power.
Now correlate it with Ukraine.
Ukraine holds a pivotal position geographically recognised by the West. With control over the north of the Black Sea and a bridge to connect West Asia with Europe, Russia and the US are racing for global dominance. The West, expanding its influence, has reached Ukraine, taking advantage of Ukraine’s willingness to join NATO. Militarism in Ukraine would accord the West’s security, economic, and political advantages in this vital region. After a constant supply of military aid to Ukraine, stepping back would have repercussions and would send a negative signal of weakness to its allies in Eastern Europe as an uncertain and unreliable partner.
Ukrainian conflict rooted in Mackinder
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, many provinces gained independence, but Russia has sought to keep the neighbouring countries aligned with itself. The expansion of NATO was against the initial policy as it posed a direct threat of conflict to Russia, an economic threat, and a threat to resources — gaining strategic control in the Black Sea. When asked to join NATO, Russia was declined by the US, but it didn’t stop reaching Russia through its neighbours.
Ukraine’s strategic position and control over the Black Sea would solidify the West’s dominance in the European region. That is what Mackinder talked about. Also, Russia is like an impregnable fortress. Thus, there were two groups, one backed by Western countries who wanted to surround Russia and the other led by Moscow, which never wanted NATO at their doorstep.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsEconomic significance of Ukraine
Ukraine’s agricultural and industrial output and strategic location for trade and commerce made the region significant in the East Asia Economic Caucus and for Russia, but Kyiv refused to join.
Exports and the naval port present in Sevastopolon on the Black Sea side provide a vital strategy for Russia to have direct access to the Black Sea. The region also contains one of the densest networks of pipelines.
Putin used the power vacuum to get his territory back. This was essential for Russia in order to stop itself from being surrounded.
The conceptual conflict was implicit and took much of its present form in two turn-of-the-century writings: Alfred Thayer Mahan’s ‘The Influence of Sea Power Upon History’, written in 1890, and Halford John Mackinder’s defining article ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’ published in 1904. More recently, Nicholas Spykman, in 1942, propounded what came to be known as the Rimland thesis, which suggested that it was the coasts and peripheries of Eurasia—principally Europe and east Asia—that constituted the basis of geopolitical power defined as the ‘Heartland’ by J Mackinder.
The basic outlines of both Mahan’s and Mackinder’s concepts of world power are well known. Mahan posited that the determining factor in world power is sea power. The trade-oriented, maritime country, Mahan said, reliably prevails over the land-focused country. He thought that sea power was more important than land power in the fight for dominance. According to Mackinder’s theory of geopolitics, dominance of Eurasia enables dominance of the outlying continents (the “World Island”), and such a combination is tantamount to a World Empire, whereas Spykman talked of control of the ‘Rimland’, which is essential to controlling the world.
For the West, Ukraine is currently the key to Russia’s vulnerability. The United States and the Europeans view a strong, independent Ukraine as an important part of building a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace. The rapid expansion of the NATO alliance and the EU, particularly since the fall of the Soviet Union, aims to secure Europe and eliminate any future threat of Russia’s influence transforming itself into the Soviet Union again. NATO’s invitation to Ukraine has tilted the balance of power in order to bring the eastern gateway firmly under Western control. Russia, after the dissolution of the USSR, now seems resurgent, and the current conflict is aiming to push back the aggressive expansion of the West’s influence under the mask of trade and military alliance. Russia is unlikely to allow the West to expand any further east to achieve its objectives and is viewing this as an existential crisis.
The Russian President’s desire to irreversibly secure eastern Ukraine on the Russian mainland can be reduced to two main factors relating to these theories: access to warm water ports, aligning with Spykman’s ‘Rimland’, and the expansion and protection of Eastern land power, reflecting Mackinder’s ‘Heartland’. In a globalised world, the ability to trade with ease brings economic leverage, and leverage brings power.
Russia’s massive geographical region has also been a headache due to its year-round frozen ports and poor navigation of sea routes. The Crimean Port of Sevastopol is, hence, vital in providing warm water access to global shipping routes and allowing the Russian military presence in its critical naval port. Secondly, any westward territorial expansion is deemed advantageous to the Russian regime, which sees the US and NATO as threats.
Directing resources is an important decision taken by a powerful regime in any country. Resources are finite for any global superpower. For centuries, the exponents of sea power have prevailed by devoting the resources necessary to preserve freedom of navigation and to deny any Heartland aggressor use of the seas as a route for expansion.
The region between the Black and Baltic Seas represents the eastern gateway leading to the West, but it can also be viewed as the western gateway leading to the East. Putin remembers the invasions of Napoleon and Hitler through this gateway. Moscow has resorted to both soft and hard power in its efforts to consolidate a sphere of influence in the inner Eurasian heartland of the former USSR called the Eurasian Union.
In the present conflict, Russia quickly blockaded Ukraine by closing the Kerch Strait, which connects the smaller Sea of Azov to the Black Sea and established complete control of the Sea of Azov, and by stationing ships off Odessa and other Ukrainian ports, blocking Ukraine from the sea. This ensured that it eliminated the ability to resupply the Ukrainian military via the sea, which could have moved far more material quicker towards the fighting in the east rather than from the Polish border across the entire length of the country.
The Russian assimilation of Ukraine appears, on the surface, to be a war for land territory, but the central role the seas and naval power play in securing strategic security interests is also to be focused on. To be a major power, Russia needs to control not only the heartland but also the rimland and, thereafter, the seas. Hence, to paraphrase Mackinder:
“Those who control the Heartland, command the Rimland,
Those who control the Rimland, command the World Islands,
Those who control the World Islands, command the World”
Throughout history, geography has been the stage on which nations and empires have collided. Geography is the most fundamental factor in international politics because it is the most permanent. For that reason, geography also shapes the perspectives of leaders and, thereby, influences their decision-making in matters of foreign policy.
The writer is an earth and space scientist, advisor to several governments, author of 50 books, and mentor to 1,600 civil servants. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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