The following essay will critically review two papers, beginning with a summary of each, before evaluating any key similarities and contrasts between them.
‘The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century’ written by Emre İşeri, was published in 2009. İşeri starts by explaining the offensive realism theory and why he wrote this paper with that theoretical approach. He establishes that states who seek global hegemony will not stop until they have done so, more so to ensure maximum security rather than solely wanting to dominate. However, due to competitors, achieving global hegemony is virtually impossible. The U.S has competition from the Eastern hemisphere, Russia and China being two significant countries, both of which are analyzed in the latter part of the paper. İşeri introduces the U.S grand strategy, and considers both war time and peacetime strategies as contributors, He uses the U.S led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the BTC pipeline political support as two strategies that overall helped the U.S grand strategy. The main aims of the strategy are outlined, one being to create links across Eurasia, with the final goal of primacy. This leads onto a larger aspect of the paper, involving global oil markets and how Halford Mackinder’s’ Heartland Theory influences modern day geopolitics and the grand strategy. The Middle East has the cheapest available oil in the world, as America relies heavily on international oil, the government had to intervene to ensure the supply of oil to global markets. After the USSR ended, the Caspian region was noticed for its huge natural resources supply. However, Isaari argues that the US’s interest in the Eurasian Heartland and Caspian region go beyond energy resources, and the Eurasian landmass was very important to the U.S as it had huge power related to it. Kazakstan drew attention from the U.S due to its oil, and the U.S aimed to produce multiple pipelines to get the oil out of the landlocked area, enhancing the U.S position in international energy market in doing so.
The second paper, written in 1904 by Halford Mackinder, contains the fundamental ideas that influence modern day geopolitics. ‘The Geographical pivot of history’ is an article made up of Mackinder’s interpretations of historical processes that took place globally, with the basis that the world was split into specific areas, all serving a different purpose. His article expresses how geographical conditions impacted world events. He recognizes the Heartland area, interior Asia and eastern Europe, as the most geopolitical advantageous location, and suggests control over this area would lead to control over the world due to obtaining ownership of geopolitical and economic potential. Mackinder talks about the balance between land and sea power, and how geographical obstacles could be overthrown with the advance in modern technologies, such as railways, resulting in the overall decline of sea power and development in continental nations. He suggested the pivotal area of the Eurasian region was inaccessible to sea vessels, therefore easily targeted by nomads in the ancient past, forming nomadic empires.
After reading the two papers, there are some obvious similarities and links, as well as contrasts within the content. In Mackinder’s paper, he expands the idea of land based power being more effective than sea based power, which is also discussed in İşeri’s paper, making this a key similarity. Mackinder makes clear that railways used to be used in aid of supplying fuel to sea based transport around the world, but after transcontinental railways were built they influenced the importance of land power, especially in the Eurasian heartland as road making materials were not available, and railways replaced camels and horses in the Steppe, enabling vast areas of land to be covered. Railways created advantages for tsarist Russia as it could use them to make full use of the country’s internal resources. The ability to transport said resources east was obtained, a strategy its rival Great Britain could not compete with, therefore creating an end to the geopolitical advantage of western sea powers. Comparing this to İşeri’s paper, he mentions Mackinder’s warning to U.K citizens about declining naval power as well as emphasizing the importance of large independent mobile machines such as planes and cars, and how these are vital to economic activities, more so than sea based transportation. As well as LIMM’s, a large focus in İşeri’s paper is the contemporary geopolitics of oil, which is obviously the main source of fuel for modern transport. Both China and the U.S have increasing demands for oil, as pointed out by İşeri, and after the decline of the Soviet Union, the Caspian region has become the new Centre of interest, in particular, Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has a significant geopolitical location, as well as untapped oil fields that are land locked and have to be transported through pipelines. This is another example in İşeri’s paper of how the land is being used to transport the oil, as it cannot be accessed by sea vessels.
Another main similarity between these papers, is the influence that Mackinder’s Heartland theory has had on modern geopolitics. For example, the U.S cold war foreign policy was influenced by Mackinder’s ideas after they were expanded on by Nicholas Spykman in 1940, when he wrote a book based on the Heartland Thesis, as explained in İşeri’s paper. As well as this, Mackinder’s heartland theory suggested that control over Eurasia would allow global dominance, which ties in with the importance of the Eurasian landmass to the U.S. as part of its grand strategy. İşeri stated that the U. S’s geostrategic interest in the Caspian region was not solely about a supply energy resources, but also contained political objectives to ensure other countries did not from transport unification with each other, and ranked their relationship with the U.S higher than with other political groups, ensuring primacy for the U.S.
İşeri’s paper clearly states the aims in the introduction, and follows through with them concisely with a well-structured layout and subtitled paragraphs. The arguments throughout the paper are set out in a logical order, making the paper easy to follow and understand. İşeri gives background information about Mackinder and his theory, to provide a basis for the following information about the U.S grand strategy and how his theory interlocks with it. The global oil markets are clearly spoken about, and each competitor is analysed, with specific reasons for each countries interest. Regarding referencing, İşeri keeps a continuous method to reference other work he used. This can be contrasted with Mackinder’s paper, as his work was original referencing was not required.
Mackinder’s paper was written in 1904, which is obvious when considering the structure, content and vocabulary, when combined makes it more difficult to interpret in comparison to the modern paper. Similarly, due to the age of this paper, many advances in geopolitics have taken place, and interests have changed. For example, his article is focused on the effects geography had on politics in the past whereas İşeri’s paper focuses on global oil markets and the competition between great powers to dominate areas with energy resources.
Mackinder’s main thesis, that collaborates with the title, does not make a lot of sense until he speaks of the ‘marginal lands’
In conclusion, the two papers discussed have similarities that have been pointed out and evaluated. One being Mackinder’s idea of land based power overpowering sea based power as it did when railways created great developments over vast Eurasia, the same way contemporary economics rely more on LIMM’s. As well as this, the development of pipelines helped transport oil from the land locked area of Kazakhstan. Mackinder’s heartland theory also appears in İşeri’s paper, as it had an influence on the cold war foreign policy. Some contrasts between the papers are the focus of oil in İşeri’s work, showing how interests in geopolitics have changed over time. As well as this, Mackinder’s work is original so does not contain any ideas but his own, whereas İşeri’s paper was influenced by others, including Mackinder himself.