GEOPOLITICS AND THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
OF
MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

BY

SEMRA RANÂ GÖKMEN

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

AUGUST 2010
[Link] Geopolitics

2.4.1. From the late Nineteenth Century to the Second World War

American geopolitics was determined by the famous Monroe Doctrine until the First

World War. The Doctrine was put forth by President James Monroe in his annual

message to Congress in 1823 where he acknowledged that the Old World and New

World had different systems and must remain distinct spheres. The Doctrine declared

that the United States would not interfere in the wars between European powers and

any attempt by a European power to control the Western Hemisphere would be

viewed as a hostile act against the United States.88

However, while the centuries-long power struggle was escalating in Europe, the new

power of the Fourth World was developing. The Spanish-American war of 1898 was

the first American overseas war of conquest and thus constituted the first crack in the

doctrine. As a result of emerging need, America‘s first strategists and geopolitical

theorists started to generate theories by the turn of the century. With the aim of

strengthening the power of their country, these strategists set about ―developing

88
―Monroe Doctrine," Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 15 June 2010, [Link]
checked/ topic/390243/Monroe-Doctrine

44
doctrines for a neo-ocean naval supremacy, and the American navy had begun to

challenge the notion that Britain ‗rules the waves.‘‖89

The first well-known strategist/geopolitical theorist of the USA was Alfred Thayer

Mahan (1840-1914), a naval officer and historian who in 1890 published his college

lectures in a book entitled The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. In

the book, Mahan argued for the importance/supremacy of sea power over land power,

and that naval superiority was the fundamental principle and basis of foreign policy.

Mahan‘s work won immediate recognition and was widely read in Great Britain and

Germany.90 Although Mackinder in his famous address of 1904 paid little attention to

the Forth World, both the British and the Germans took Mahan‘s discussion on land

powers versus sea powers seriously. Mahan influenced the buildup of naval forces in

the years prior to World War I, especially in Germany. Moreover, Mahan‘s

distinction between land and sea-powers continued to influence geopolitical thinkers

throughout the Cold War, as Mahan had also advocated an alliance with Britain to

counterbalance Eurasian land-powers.91

Mahan harbored many imperialist beliefs and wanted the US to become a world

power. The way he envisioned for the US to attain this goal was through the buildup

89
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, New York: Basic Books, 1997, p. 3.
90
"Alfred Thayer Mahan," Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 15 June 2010,
[Link] checked/ topic/357900/Alfred-Thayer-Mahan.
91
Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, p. 20.
45
of its naval forces. In other words, in order to become a world power, the USA first

had to establish its strength on the high seas. He also asserted the idea that

international law and means of law and diplomacy are of secondary importance

whereas power is the basis for foreign policy.

The beginning of the First World War officially marked the end, or from another

vantage point the extension, of the Monroe Doctrine. The USA argued that it entered

into the First World War as the result of its international moral responsibilities.92 It

was with this step that the USA became an active player in world politics.

US intervention also marked the beginning of the idealist enterprise in world politics.

During the interwar period idealism/liberalism, associated with the thoughts of

President Woodrow Wilson, predominated. According to this philosophy each nation

had the right to self-determination. Instead of applying racial codes nations were

defined in cultural terms, such as having common history, traditions, and language.

Wilson‘s views brought an end to the age of empires in the sense that national self-

determination became the order of the day. According to this geopolitical vision the

new geopolitical subject was peoples/nations, with their geopolitical institutions

being their nation-states. The new regime also required alliances in order to prevent

92
Defay, Jeopolitik, p. 24

46
the disaster from occurring again. Thus nations established a ―league‖ for themselves

and other nations at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The mindset behind that

outlook as summarized by Kearns is as follows:

A people that had shown determination, distinctiveness and defensibility

The geographer of the Wilsonian idealist enterprise was Isaiah Bowman, who was a

key consultant to the government, most notably at the Treaty of Versailles. Shortly

after entering the First World War, President Wilson created an Inquiry Committee,

which produced 1,200 maps focusing on the ethnic, political, and historical

boundaries of Europe.94 Bowman was a key member of the Committee. He later

became the director of the American Geographical Society in 1915 and worked there

for the subsequent 20 years. At the Paris Peace Conference Bowman participated in

the American Delegation as Chief Territorial Specialist and played a significant role

in the post-war mapmaking efforts.

During the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, the prevailing trend was to draw better

boundaries for a better fit of nations and states in order to establish unitary nation-

93
Kearns, ―Imperial Geopolitics…,‖ p. 177
94
Dodds, Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, p. 127.

47
states. The USA was both the model and the guarantor of the new system which

aimed at engineering a fit between ethnicity and space95

Bowman also played a significant role in the foundation of Council on Foreign

Relations and the publication of its famous journal Foreign Affairs, which became ―a

major outlet for foreign policy experts to consider the affairs of the United States in

the wider world.‖96 Bowman‘s book New World: Problems in Political Geography,

published in 1922, sketched out the implications of the 1919 peace settlement and

implicitly foresaw an increasing role for the USA regarding world politics.97

Bowman believed, contrary to the isolationists, that America should play a central

role in the development and evolution of the world economy. For Bowman, power, if

it was going to be exercised effectively over territories, would have to be informed

by a commitment to free trade and diffused through international institutions. He was

later to be instrumental in providing specialist advice to the Roosevelt administration

in the early 1940s, leading to the establishment of the United Nations. According to

Dodds, the location of United Nations in the American city of New York was

testimony to how geographers such as Bowman were able to promote American

national interests as simultaneously representing something more universal.98

95
Kearns, ―Imperial Geopolitics…,‖ p. 177.
96
Dodds, Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, p. 130
97
Short, An Introduction to Political Geography, p. 19.
98
Dodds, Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, p. 130.

48
Although Alfred Mahan and Bowman were influential names in geopolitics, the

person who brought the traditional geopolitical mindset to the USA was Nicholas

Spykman. As Hoffman puts it, Spykman was the scholar who taught the Americans

that foreign policy is about power and the struggle for power rather than ideals.99

Spykman‘s central ambition was to apply European geopolitical mindset to the

American case.

Writing at a time when American isolation was coming to an end and the issue of

what kind of policy the US should follow in world politics was on the agenda, Dutch-

born American scholar Spykman warned Americans that the end of the First World

War was not the end of power politics and argued that the time of isolation and

passivity in foreign affairs was definitely over for the USA.

Spykman, just like Mahan, believed that the statesman conducting foreign policy

should concern himself with values of justice, fairness, and tolerance only to the

extent that they contribute to or at least do not interfere with the primary objective of

their state‘s power. He acknowledged power as the basic controlling factor in

relations among states.

99
Stanley Hoffman, ―An American Social Science:International Relations,‖ Daedalus, Vol. 106,
No.3, p. 44.

49
Nicholas Spykman moreover argued that geography was the most important factor in

world politics. He put forward the relation between geography and foreign politics

and argued that the effect of size, world location, and regional location played a very

important role in a state‘s foreign policy, as they determine the options that a country

might choose and follow as a foreign policy path. For Spykman a state cannot escape

from its geography however skilled its Foreign Office is, as ―geography does not

argue, it simply is.‖100

He thus analyzed the geographical locations of states, their frontiers, climate, and

topography, and sought for formulas to be followed in foreign policy. He argued that

there are three types of states in terms of regional locations: landlocked states, island

states and states that have both sea and land frontiers. The security problem of the

landlocked states was defined exclusively in terms of land defense and in terms of

immediate neighbors. Regarding the island states he categorized two main sub-types:

island states situated near the mainland and island states that have a wide ocean

barrier. The example for the first type was the UK, while that of the latter was the

USA. He argued that the character, nature, and type of a state‘s primary defense

problem depended on various factors such as the length of its frontiers, its world and

regional location, and its topography and climate. Climate and topography together

determine the nature of the borders and whether contacts will take place in a zone of

exposure or a zone of protection. States like the US, Canada and Russia had difficult

100
Nicholas Spykman, ―Geography and Foreign Policy,‖ The American Political Science Review, Vol.
32, No.2, April, 1938, p. 236.

50
defense problems since they had to maintain both land forces and sea forces. Because

geography affects the foreign policy of a country in multiple ways, Spykman argued

that in attempting to classify a state one must take into account all of these

conditioning factors.

He also, like Mackinder, offered a geographical division of the world that foresaw an

Old World, consisting of the Eurasian continent, Africa, and Australia, and the New

World, consisting of the Americas. According to him, the US dominated the Old

World and he thus proposed ―an active, non-isolationist US foreign policy to

construct and maintain a balance of power in the Old World in order to prevent a

challenge to the United States.‖ 101 Spykman is also referred as the Rimland theorist

as he identified Mackinder‘s ―inner crescent‖ as the ―Rimland‖ and defined it as the

key geopolitical arena.

As early as 1942, at a time when anti-Japanese and anti-German propaganda was at

its heights, Spykman announced that once Germany and Japan had been defeated

they should both been included into an anti-Soviet alliance, in order to prevent the

USSR gaining a too favorable position in Eurasia.102 Drawing upon Mackinder, he

believed that the balance of power in Eurasia would directly affect the security of the

101
Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, p. 22
102
Bordonaro, ―Rediscovering Spykman,‖ 15 June 2010, [Link] Exploring geopolitics .org/
Publication_Bordonaro_Federico_Rediscovering_Spykman Rimland _Geography_Peace_Foreign_
[Link]

51
USA. For this reason Spykman is also often referred as the ―godfather of

containment.‖

It is important to note that although Wilson, together with his geographers and some

major thinkers, generated the liberalist/idealist international project and tried to put it

into application, his efforts also entailed a certain contradiction. The liberalist

Wilsonian American enterprise foresaw a universal league of states, which also

meant the extension of Monroe doctrine to a ―world doctrine.‖103 The USA also

turned to a geopolitical mindset because after the war it took its place on the

international stage as one of two superpowers. As I will be arguing later on,

dominant powers, by their nature, apply geopolitics.

The term geopolitics was imported to the USA from Europe by the Dutch-born

scholar Spykman. Although the term itself was not used in the USA in the period

between the end of the Second World War and détente, the mindset developed

around geopolitical aspects of foreign politics survived, but followed a different path

under the auspices of Cold War US Administration, which constitutes the topic of the

following section.

103
Ola Tunander, ―Swedish-German Geopolitics For a New Century: Rudolf Kjellen‘s ‗The State as a
Living Organism‘,‖ Review of International Studies, No. 27, 2001, p. 463.
52