The growing economic rivalry between the United States and Russia for influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia is prompting policy-makers to turn to century-old notions for guidance as they develop responses to geopolitical developments. One such idea, advanced by a prominent player in the so-called Great Game of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, holds that the Eurasia region is the "geographic pivot of history."
The so-called "heartland" theory was first advanced in January 1904 lecture delivered by Sir Halford Mackinder, then the director of the London School of Economics and one of the most prominent British geographers of the era. In his lecture, Mackinder asserted that the ability to efficiently administer the Eurasian heartland would give the controlling state decisive influence over the global development agenda. Concurrently, maintaining stability in the Eurasian heartland would go a long way towards determining global security conditions, Mackinder argued.
At the time that Mackinder developed the heartland theory, Russia stood on the verge of completing Trans-Siberian railroad. To Mackinder, world history was essentially the story of an eternal struggle between what he called the "seaman" and the "landman." The emergence of railroads, he argued, allowed land powers to be almost as mobile as naval powers. By using "interior lines," the state occupying the "central position" on the so-called Eurasian island could project power more rapidly than could naval powers, such as Britain.
For Mackinder, a staunch supporter of the British imperial system, the
Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York; and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.
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