British Geo-Politicism

British patriots must reject Racism and embrace Geo-Politics.

Geopolitics attempts to explain why some countries have power and other countries do not. The connection between spatial qualities of countries and international relations has been observed since the Greeks (Spencer 42). However, the formal links between geography and political science began about 100 years ago.

In 1890 Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote The Influence of Sea Power upon Hisory, Sea power was necessary to facilitate trade and peaceful commerce, therefore Mahan believed that the country that possessed power would be one that could control the seas. Thus, the development of a strong navy was an essential ingredient to a powerful state as was the country's location. He believed that the country with the most power would be one whose relative location was accessible and connected with a long coastline and good harbours. Mahan saw power as belonging north of the Suez and Panama Canals.

Sir Halford Mackinder proposed what would become the most widely discussed concept of geopolitical studies. Mackinder was interested in political motion and he observed that the spatial distribution of strategic opportunities in the world was unequal. Mackinder's thesis, developed in his 1904 book Democratic ideals and Reality, disregarded Mahan's theory. Advances in technology were forcing a reevaluation of spatial concepts and military strategies. With the advent of railroads, countries no longer depended on the navy to move large armies. Thus, Mackinder believed that the focus of warfare would be shifted from the sea to the hinterland (interiors). Mackinder developed a "pivot area" which was the northern and interior parts of the Eurasian continent where the rivers flow to the Arctic or to salt seas and lakes. He believed that with the advent of railroads, this area would be pivotal as it would be easy to defend and hard to conquer. Later, he called the pivot area the "Heartland" and devised his famous Heartland Theory: "He who controls the Heartland controls the World Island (Eurasia and Africa); He who controls the World Island, controls the world." Mackinder anticipated that Germany would be a threat to controlling the resources of Eastern Europe and the Heartland.

General Karl Hauschofer was a leading proponent of Mackinder's Heartland Theory and he developed a theory of pan regions. Hauschofer divided the world into three pan regions which were blocs of power based on complementarily between the North and South. The Northern core region was connected to a Southern periphery. The three pan regions were Anglo America and its periphery, Latin America; Europe (controlled by Germany) and its periphery, Africa and India; and Japan and its periphery, Southeast Asia. Hauschofer began teaching in Munich during World War I and it was here that Rudolf Hess heard Hauschofer's lectures and later introduced him to Adolph Hitler Hitler, ignoring the subtleties of Hauschofer's teaching, used these theories to advance the Nazi cause of world domination. The Nazi's,used quasi-scientific justification based on the works of Hauschofer and Ratzel as justification for territorial expansion.

The idea of pan-regions appears a superior development on Mackinder’s Heartland idea, but Haushoffer’s theory had two great flaws. The first was to classify Britain and America as one and the same, the second was naming Africa as the periphery of Europe (Germany) rather than that of Britain. As the interface between European civilisation and the maritime world, Britain uniquely has had the mission of creating a trans-continental maritime order. America could never hope to truly assume this position, a colony that cut itself off from the motherland, for all its resources never able to achieve the depth of greatness that can only be borne of a high culture. And so it has swung between isolationism and continental adventurism ( against Thayer’s advice), driven by the money power that has dominated America in the absence of monarchy.

Africa is Britain’s periphery, but the relationship does not have to be exploitative. Mutual advantage is possible and the sea is the key to this advantage. Mackinder was wrong to classify Africa as part of the World Island, sub-Saharan Africa is as surely dis-joined from this geo-political concept as is Britain. Yet both regions, Britain and Africa, are linked by the dynamic of this maritime civilisation putting to sea and and dominating the Atlantic seaways.