We may live in an age of globalisation and openness that transcends borders, one where the concepts of “invasion,” “annexation,” and “seizing territory” were supposed to have faded, but the conflict in Ukraine has proved otherwise.
British geographer Halford Mackinder considered Eurasia, and its central region, as one of the axes for the movement of history. Mackinder focused on the region’s steppes and forests and the effect of climatic factors in helping facilitate the crossing into Europe via this region.
In 1904, Halford Mackinder in his lecture titled “The Geographical Pivot of History” at the Royal Geographical Society propounded the ‘Heartland Theory’ wherein he argued that whoever controlled the area of Eastern Europe, then a part of the Russian Empire, will essentially control the world. He stated that the pivot on which the fate of world geopolitics rests is the “Heartland” of the Eurasian supercontinent, loosely identified as a vast area generally located between the European and Russian spheres of influence.
In his 1919 book, ‘Democratic Ideals and Reality’, Mackinder declared that the battle between Germany and Russia, and by extension between Central Europe and Russia, was not decided by World War I. In doing so, Mackinder virtually predicted World War II and the Cold War.
In 1943, writing in the Foreign Affairs in his article;’ “The Round World and the Winning of the Peace’, he asserted that the broad strip between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea formed the Western border of the Heartland of Eurasia,
Through these lands came a number of Asian invasions, such the one led by Attila the Hun, whose Huns reached Paris and Rome before he went on to establish the empire’s capital in Hungary. Then came the Avars, the Magyars, the Bulgarians, the Khazars and the Mongols. The ease with which invading powers from Asia could move, particularly between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea, was a result of the vast steppes to the South of Russia which led to Hungary and onto the heart of the European landmass
Obsessed with the need to secure “the Eastern gateway”, through which historically “invaders” have forced their way into Europe, the West has done much to secure this region and extend its influence, asserting control, and containing those who rule it.
The region between the Black and Baltic Seas represents the Eastern gateway leading to the West, but can be also viewed as the Western gateway leading to the East. Russia has not forgotten the invasions of Napoleon and Hitler via this gateway
Russia, on the other hand, haunted by fear of Western “invasion,” seems driven to extend the full sway of its influence to vital regions beyond its borders. The various changes in the international order since the 19th century have not changed the thinking of Russia and the West, nor have they constrained efforts on both their parts to extend influence over contested areas of Eastern Europe including Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine has long played an important, yet sometimes overlooked, role in the global security order. Today, the country is on the front lines of a renewed great-power rivalry that many analysts say will dominate international relations in the decades ahead. The centrality and importance of this region has given rise to occupations of its lands, impinging on the fates of its peoples
Despite the centuries of technological progress and human enlightenment, Mackinder’s view that geography remains the fundamental constituent of world order, just as it had been during the Peloponnesian War, in which sea power Athens faced off against Greece’s greatest land Army Sparta endures.
Throughout history, geography has been the stage on which nations and empires have collided. Geography remains the most fundamental factor in international politics because of its permanence. The current conflict has once again re-enforced its centrality, and enduring nature.
