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DEFINING GEOSTRATEGY Academics, theorists, and practitioners of geopolitics have agreed upon no standard definition for "geostrategy." Most all definitions, however, emphasize the merger of Strategic considerations with geopolitical factors. While geopolitics is ostensibly neutral, examining the geographic and political features of different regions, especially the impact of geography on politics, geostrategy involves comprehensive planning, assigning means for achieving national goals or securing assets of Military or political significance. HISTORY OF GEOSTRATEGY Precursors Herodotus talks about a Greek plan to gain the " Empire of the Sea ." Alexander Hamilton was a geostrategic thinker. Thomas Jefferson understood the Balance Of Power , although he did not design a good Navy with which to preserve it. Golden Age Between 1890 and 1919 the world became a geostrategist's Paradise . The international system featured rising and falling Great Power s, many with global reach. There were no new Frontier s for the great powers to Explore or Colonize . From this point forward, international politics would feature the struggles of state against state. World War Two After the Second World War , the term "geopolitics" fell into disrepute, because of its association with Nazi '' Geopolitik ''. Virtually no books published between the end of WWII and the mid-1970's used the word "geopolitics" or "geostrategy" in their titles, and geopoliticians did not label themselves or their works as such. The most prominent German geopolitician was General Karl Haushofer . After WWII, during the Allied Occupation Of Germany , the United States investigated many officials and public figures to determine if they should face charges of War Crimes at the Nuremberg Trials . Haushofer, an academic primarily, was interrogated by Father Edmund A. Walsh , a professor of geopolitics from the Georgetown School Of Foreign Service , at the request of the U.S. authorities. Despite his involvement in crafting one of the justifications for Nazi aggression, Fr. Walsh determined that Haushofer ought not stand trial. As the Cold War began, N.J. Spykman and George F. Kennan laid down the foundations for the U.S. policy of Containment , which would dominate Western geostrategic thought for the next forty years. Post-Cold War To Be Written ... NOTABLE GEOSTRATEGISTS The below geostrategists were instrumental in founding and developing the major geostrategic Doctrine s in the discipline's history. While there have been many other geostrategists, these have been the most influential in shaping and developing the field as a whole. Alfred Thayer Mahan Alfred Thayer Mahan Halford J. Mackinder Halford J. Mackinder Friedrich Ratzel Influenced by the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, as well as the German geographers Karl Ritter and Alexander Von Humboldt , Friedrich Ratzel would lay the foundations for '' Geopolitik '', Germany 's unique strain of Geopolitics . Ratzel wrote on the natural division between Land Power s and Sea Power s, agreeing with Mahan that sea power was self-sustaining, as the profit from Trade would support the development of a Merchant Marine . However, his key contribution were the development of the concepts of '' Raum '' and Organic State Theory . He theorized that states were Organic and growing, and that Border s were only temporary, representing pauses in their natural movement. ''Raum'' was the land, Spiritual ly connected to a Nation (in this case, the German peoples), from which the people could draw sustenance, find adjacent inferior nations which would support them, and which would be fertilized by their ''kultur'' (culture). Ratzel's ideas would influence the works of his student Rudolf Kjellén, as well as those of General Karl Haushofer. Rudolf Kjellén Rudolf Kjellén was a Swedish political scientist and student of Friedrich Ratzel. He first coined the term "geopolitics." His writings would play a decisive role in influencing General Karl Haushofer 's ''geopolitik'', and indirectly the future Nazi foreign policy. His writings focused on five central concepts that would underlie German ''geopolitik'': #''Reich'' was a territorial concept that was comprised of ''Raum'' ('' Lebensraum ''), and strategic military shape; #'' Volk '' was a racial conception of the state; #''Haushalt'' was a call for Autarky based on land, formulated in reaction to the vicissitudes of International Markets ; #''Geselleschaft'' was the social aspect of a nation’s organization and cultural appeal, Kjellén Anthropomorphizing inter-state relations more than Ratzel had; and, #''Regierung'' was the form of Government whose Bureaucracy and Army would contribute to the people’s pacification and coordination. General Karl Haushofer Karl Haushofer Nicholas J. Spykman Nicholas J. Spykman was an Dutch -American geostrategist, known as the "godfather of Containment ." His geostrategic work, ''The Geography of the Peace'' (1944), argued that the balance of power in Eurasia directly affected United States security. N.J. Spykman based his geostrategic ideas on those of Sir Halford Mackinder's Heartland theory. Spykman's key contribution was to alter the strategic valuation of the Heartland vs. the "Rimland" (a geographic area analogous to Mackinder's "Inner or Marginal Crescent"). Spykman does not see the heartland as a region which will be unified by powerful Transport or Communication infrastructure in the near future. As such, it won't be in a position to compete with the United States' Sea Power , despite its uniquely defensive position. The rimland possessed all of the key resources and populations—its domination was key to the control of Eurasia. His strategy was for Offshore powers, and perhaps Russia as well, to resist the consolidation of control over the rimland by any one power. Balanced power would lead to peace. George F. Kennan George F. Kennan , U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, laid out the seminal Cold War geostrategy in his '' Long Telegram '' and '' The Sources Of Soviet Conduct ''. He coined the term " Containment ", which would become the guiding idea for U.S. grand strategy over the next forty years, although the term would come to mean something significantly different from Kennan's original formulation. Kennan advocated what was called "strongpoint containment." In his view, the United States and its allies needed to protect the productive industrial areas of the world from Soviet domination. He noted that of the five centers of industrial strength in the world—the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, and Russia—the only contested area was that of Germany. Kennan was concerned about maintaining the Balance Of Power between the U.S. and the USSR , and in his view, only these few industrialized areas mattered. Here Kennan differed from Paul Nitze , whose seminal Cold War document, NSC-68 , called for "undifferentiated or global containment," along with a massive military buildup. Kennan saw the Soviet Union as an Ideological and political challenger rather than a true military threat. There was no reason to fight the Soviets throughout Eurasia , because those regions were not productive, and the Soviet Union was already exhausted from WWII , limiting its ability to project power abroad. Therefore, Kennan disapproved of U.S. involvement in Vietnam , and later spoke out critically against Reagan 's military buildup. Henry Kissinger ''''', 5 February 2006 Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Brzezinski laid out his most significant contribution to post- Cold War geostrategy in his 1997 book ''The Grand Chessboard''. He defined four regions of Eurasia , and in which ways the United States ought to design its policy toward each region in order to maintain its global primacy. The four regions (echoing Mackinder and Spykman) are:
In his subsequent book, ''The Choice'', Brzezinski updates his geostrategy in light of Globalization , 9/11 and the intervening six years between the two books. CRITICISMS OF GEOSTRATEGY To Be Written ... SEE ALSO Other geostrategists Listed below are other geostrategists whose works, while not developing the foundations of geostrategy as a discipline for their respective eras, were important for their insights of influence nonetheless:
Geostrategy by country The following articles discuss geostrategy from the sole perspective and history of a single country, taking into account each respective country's unique strategic goals:
Geostrategy by region These articles discuss geostrategy in regions of the world. They discuss the various historical and current strategic interests that competing outside states have had in each region. (They do not discuss strategy from a specific point-of-view, see above.) Geostrategy by topic These articles discuss geostrategy as it relates to a specific strategic means or resource: See also: Geostrategic places Listed here are geographic features that are of enduring strategic value: REFERENCES Further reading
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