Classical Geopolitics, Realism and The Balance of Power Theory

Journal of Strategic Studies
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Classical geopolitics, realism and the balance of

power theory
Zhengyu Wu
To cite this article: Zhengyu Wu (2018) Classical geopolitics, realism and the balance of power
theory, Journal of Strategic Studies, 41:6, 786-823, DOI: 10.1080/01402390.2017.1379398
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THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES
2018, VOL. 41, NO. 6, 786–823
https://doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2017.1379398
ARTICLE
Classical geopolitics, realism and the balance of

power theory
Zhengyu Wu
School of International Studies, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
ABSTRACT
Since the end of World War II, classical geopolitics as a particular form of realism
has been disengaged from the development of mainstream realist theories. This
disengagement has not only concealed the value of classical geopolitics as a
framework of analysis for policy and strategy, but also created an increasing rift
between theory and policy in contemporary realist theories. This paper seeks to
reengage classical geopolitics with mainstream realist theories by clarifying its
realist traits and analytical characteristics, (re)stating its core propositions and
probing into its potential contribution to the development of mainstream realist
theories. This paper contends that classical geopolitics, while having a distinc-
tive pedigree, can arguably be considered an integral part of the family of realist
theories in view of its basic theoretical assumptions concerning international
anarchy, the unit of analysis and power politics. As a framework of analysis,
classical geopolitics incorporates three interrelated strategic propositions.
Those three propositions not only constitute the theoretical core of classical
geopolitics, but also manifest a peculiar balance-of-power conception that is
essentially distinct from those proposed by mainstream realist theories. This
paper argues that those three propositions combined promise to fill in promi-
nent lacuna in the balance-of-power research programme, and also have sig-
nificant implications for contemporary world politics.
KEYWORDS Classical geopolitics; realism; balance of power; sea power; land power; the heartland;
the rimland; grand strategy
Geopolitics is a controversial concept. Two distinct versions of geopolitics

now contend with one another in their academic formats: the critical and the
classical. On the one hand, critical geopolitics is ‘devoted to the study of how
geographical space is represented and signified by political agents as a part of
a larger project of accruing, managing and aggrandizing power’; on the other,
classical geopolitics ‘treats geographical space as an existential pre-condition
for all politics’, for which reason ‘it must serve as the point of departure for all
political analysis and policy formulation’.1 To be precise, classical geopolitics is
1
Mark Bassin, ‘The Two Faces of Contemporary Geopolitics’, Progress in Human Geography 28/5 (2004),
620, 621. For classical geopolitics, see: Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics: The Geography of International
Relations (London: Rowman & Littlefield 2015); Colin S. Gray and Geoffrey Sloan (eds.), Geopolitics,
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES 787
actually what we think of as ‘geopolitics’ in conventional usage, and the label

‘classical’ is added to distinguish it from the progressive and left-leaning
critical geopolitics. In this paper, geopolitics is used as a synonym of classical
geopolitics unless further clarification. As an academic pursuit, geopolitics is
actually a particular body of thought that ‘addresses the questions at the
confluence of three disparate academic disciplines and their fundamental
concerns: geography, history and strategic studies’.2 Out of this body of
thought we can expect to develop a framework of analysis for policy and
strategy in world politics. In view of its theoretical core, geopolitics can
arguably be considered an integral branch of realist theories in International
Relations (IR), that is, a particular form of realism that is based on the influence
of the natural environments defined by geography and technology.3 This is so
not only because such prominent realists as like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew
Brzezinski have claimed ‘geopolitics’ to rationalise strategic analyses or justify
policy recommendations, also because geopolitics as a particular body of
thought shares with mainstream realist theories the same theoretical assump-
tions or ‘biases’.
Notwithstanding the congruence, since the end of the Second World
War, classical geopolitics has been disengaged from mainstream realist
theories for two particular reasons.4 First, geopolitics as a whole has been
tainted by its association with Nazi’s foreign policy during World War II.
Geopolitik, the German science of geopolitics, was believed to take geo-
political study to a perverted extreme by claiming that geographic fea-
tures of the earth justified racialist German expansion. The consequence
of the Nazi degeneration was that geopolitics as a viable academic
Geography and Strategy (London: Frank Cass Publishers 1999); Geoffrey Parker, Western Geopolitical
Thought in the Twentieth Century (London: St. Martin’s Press 1985). For critical geopolitics, see:
Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Simon Dalby and Paul Routledge (eds.), The Geopolitics Reader (London:
Routledge 1998); Gearoid O’Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space
(London: Routledge 1996); John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge, Mastering Space: Hegemony, Territory
and International Political Economy (London: Routledge 1995).
2
Geoffrey Sloan, Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History (London: Routledge 2017), 7. For many years,
geopolitics has been suffering from abuse without rigorous definition or clarification. This situation has
obstructed the progress of the study of geopolitics. For an excellent discussion of the definitions of
geopolitics, see: Sloan, Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History 1–2. Also see: Mackubin T. Owens,
‘In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, Orbis 59/4 (2015), 469–73; Oyvind Osterud, ‘The Uses and Abuses of
Geopolitics’, Journal of Peace Research 25/2 (1988), 191–2. For the evolution of classical realist thought
including classical geopolitics, see: Jonathan Haslam, No Virtue Like Necessity: Realist Thought in
International Relations since Machiavelli (New Haven: Yale University Press 2013).
3
Ashworth, ‘Realism and the Spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics and the Reality of the
League of Nations’, 295. For the congruence between classical geopolitics and mainstream realist,
especially classical realist, theories in International Relations, also see: Owens, ‘In Defense of Classical
Geopolitics’, 463–78; Lucian M. Ashworth, ‘Mapping a New World: Geography and the Interwar Study
of International Relations’, International Studies Quarterly 57/1 (2013), 138–49; Colin S. Gray, ‘In
Defense of the Heartland: Sir Halford Mackinder and His Critics a Hundred Years On’, Comparative
Strategy 23/1 (2004), 9–25; Leslie W. Hepple, ‘The Revival of Geopolitics’, Political Geography Quarterly
Supplement to 5/4 (1986), S21–36.
4
Jakub J. Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press
2011), 3.
788 Z. WU
pursuit became a war casualty, and the study of geopolitics was consid-
ered to be a perversion of its intellectual inception.5 This association,
unsurprisingly, pushed the postwar realists to deliberately distance them-
selves from geopolitical analysis and geopolitical theorising. Second, the
social scientific turn of international studies since the 1950s contributed
fundamentally to the divergence between geopolitics and realist theories.
With the introduction of social scientific approaches, the desire to sim-
plify theory led to the abandonment of geopolitics because of its con-
tingency and the difficulty of categorising it. The majority of theories that
were constructed by social scientific approaches are characterised by the
absence of geopolitics. A theory becomes a constructed reality that may
or may not reflect the reality, and the system becomes an abstract set of
rules that compels powers into patterned behavior.6 In this sense, geo-
politics plays no role in influencing the actions of states.
The disappearance of classical geopolitics from realist theories does not
indicate its demise, however. On the contrary, classical geopolitics as a
framework of analysis has been active and influential in the circles of policy
and strategy in the postwar years. This disengagement, in fact, is indicative
of the rift between theory and policy in mainstream realist theories.7 To
reclaim policy relevance, some prominent realists like Robert Jervis, Stephen
Walt and John Mearsheimer have tried to bring geography – such as
geographic distance, spatial proximity and ‘the stopping power of water’ –
back into theories. Nonetheless, since geography, in general, appears only as
an intervening variable in the theories, those scholars have hardly fulfilled
their theoretical aspirations.8 Indeed, the divergence between classical geo-
politics and mainstream realist theories is pernicious in a double sense: on
the one hand, realist theories, being deprived of geopolitical analysis, are
becoming too abstract to offer value as a roadmap for strategists; on the
other, geopolitics as ‘an aid to statecraft’, due to its long-time disengage-
ment with mainstream realist theories, risks degenerating into a marginal
5
Ladis Kristof, ‘The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 4/1 (1960), 19. For
German geopolitik and its association with Nazi’s expansionist foreign policies before 1945, see: David
T Murphy, The Heroic Earth: Geopolitical Thought in Weimar Germany, 1918–1933 (Kent, Ohio: Kent
State University Press 1997); Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest (New York:
Farrar & Rinehart 1942).
6
Kenneth Waltz, ‘Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory’, Journal of International Affairs 44/1 (1990), 33.
For social scientific approaches to international relations, see: Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and
Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press 1994); Martin Hollis and Steve Smith, Explaining and Understanding
International Relations (London: Clarendon Press 1991).
7
Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change, 15.
8
For the efforts to bring geography back into theories, see: John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great
Power Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Company 2001); Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1987); Robert Jervis, ‘Cooperation under the Security Dilemma’,
World Politics 30/ 2 (1978), 167–214.
subject or even obscurity.9 However unfortunate the situation is, the (re)
engagement of classical geopolitics with mainstream realist theories is
possible only if we can clarify its intrinsic features or characteristics, (re)
state its core propositions and probe into its potential contributions to the
development of mainstream realist theories. That is exactly what this paper
attempts to do.
This paper is structured as follows. The first section attempts to clarify the
realist features and analytical characteristics of classical geopolitics. It argues
that classical geopolitics, in essence, is a particular form of realism based on the
influence of the natural environments defined by geography, technology as
well as their variegated and constant interactions. The second, third and fourth
sections are sequentially focused on clarifying three interrelated core proposi-
tions of classical geopolitics, that is, the inextricable linkage between maritime
supremacy and the continental balance of power, the essential significance of
the continental commitment and the dual character of the heartland power.
Those three propositions combined not only constitute the theoretical core of
classical geopolitics, but also reveal a balance-of-power conception that is
distinct from those proposed by mainstream realist theories. The fifth section
probes into the potential contribution of classical geopolitics to the develop-
ment of mainstream realist theories. It argues that classical geopolitics promises
to fill in important lacuna in contemporary balance-of-power research pro-
gramme. The sixth section, based on the three core propositions of classical
geopolitics, attempts to clarify and illustrate the implications of classical geo-
politics for policy and strategy in contemporary world politics.
Classical geopolitics and realism

Geopolitics is as old as the study of politics itself. Aristotle, Plato and other
ancients clearly understood that politics is shaped and constrained by nature.
Nevertheless, modern geopolitics had its origins in fin de siècle Europe in
response to a series of technological changes, primarily the revolutions in
communication, transportation and weaponry, and to the creation of a ‘closed
political system’ as European geographic discoveries and imperialist competi-
tion extinguished the world’s ‘frontiers’.10 Fin de siècle geopolitics generated
three main strands of thought: Anglo-American geopolitics, German geopolitik
and French geopolitique. However, since the end of World War II, German
geopolitik, except for a few critical historical studies, has disappeared from
9
For the negative impact on geopolitics, see: Owens’, In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, 463–78;
Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press 2011);
Colin S. Gray, ‘Inescapable Geography’, Journal of Strategic Studies 22/2 (1999), 161–77.
10
Owens, ‘In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, 469. For the origins of modern geopolitics, see: Klaus
Dodds and David Atkinson (eds.), Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought (London:
Routledge 2000); Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century; Ladis Kristof, ‘The
Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 4/1 (1960), 15–51.
790 Z. WU
Geography and IR due to its disreputable history, while French geopolitique, in

spite of its manifestly humanistic traits, has also faded out, and its intellectual
legacy can be found out in Political Geography today.11 Only Anglo-American
geopolitics survived in the postwar era, and after an initial decline in the early
postwar years, it was progressively reclaimed from the 1970s onwards by such
prominent figures like Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Colin S. Gray.
What we think of as classical geopolitics today is largely referring to this
particular strand of thought.
Anglo-American geopolitics (or simply classical geopolitics henceforth) has a
highly recognised group of theorists. This school of thought was widely
acknowledged to be built up upon three prominent geopolitical thinkers’
contributions: the American naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan, the British
political geographer Halford John Mackinder and the American political scien-
tist Nicholas John Spykman.12 Those three theories are homogeneous in nature
and complementary in substance, thus can be theoretically treated as an
organic entirety. It was those three theories that laid the most important
foundation for subsequent geopolitical analysis and geopolitical theorising. In
terms of theoretical orientation, Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman are unan-
imously considered to be realists, and their realist credentials have been
elaborated in many writings.13 Those three theories share with mainstream
realist theories the same theoretical assumptions concerning international
anarchy, the unit of analysis and power politics. It is in this sense that classical
geopolitics embodied in Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman’s theories can be
arguably considered an integral part of realist IR theories. In other words,
classical geopolitics is actually a particular form of realism based on the
influence of the natural environments defined by geography and technology.14
11
Leslie W. Hepple, ‘The Revival of Geopolitics’, S23. For German geopolitik and French geopolitique, see:
Herman van der Wusten and Gertjan Dijkink, ‘German, British and French Geopolitics: The Enduring
Differences’, Geopolitics 7/3 (2000), 19–38; Geoffrey Parker, Geopolitics: Past, Present and Future
(London: Pinter 1998); Gertjian Dijkink, National Identity and Geopolitical Visions: Maps of Pride and
Pain (London: Routledge 1996).
12
For Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman, see: Francis P. Sempa, Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st
Century (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 2002). Also see: R. Gerald Hughes and Jesse
Heley, ‘Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder’, Journal of
Strategic Studies 38/6 (2015), 898–935; Colin S. Gray, ‘Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power,
and International Order’, Journal of Strategic Studies 38/6 (2015), 873–97; Jon Sumida, ‘Alfred Thayer
Mahan, Geopolitician’, Journal of Strategic Studies 22/2 (1999), 39–62.
13
For the realist credentials of Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman’s geopolitical theories, see: Gray,
‘Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power, and International Order’, 873–97; Ashworth,
‘Realism and the Spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics and the Reality of the League of
Nations’, 279–301; Greg Russell, ‘Alfred Thayer Mahan and American Geopolitics: The Conservatism
and Realism of an Imperialist’, Geopolitics 11/1 (2006), 119–40.
14
Ashworth, ‘Realism and the Spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics and the Reality of the
League of Nations’, 295. Realism is not a theory, but a school of theories that share a few common
theoretical assumptions. For a summary of the canonical definitions of realism in IR, see: Jack
Donnelly, Realism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000), 6–9.
For the evolution of contemporary realist theories, see: Stefano Guzzini, Realism in International
Relations and International Political Economy (London: Routledge 1998).
The primary feature of realist IR theories is the assumption of interna-

tional anarchy which implies chaos or disorder.15 Such lack of order is
usually associated with the existence of a state of war and linked to the
Hobbesian analogy of politics in the absence of a sovereign. For the realists,
international relations, like the Hobbesian state of nature, represents a
perpetual conflict between states and resembles a wholly zero-sum game;
and the international system is actually a chaotic arena of war of all against
all.16 Though seldom clarifying it in the theoretical way as mainstream realist
theories did, classical geopolitics likewise assumes that international rela-
tions is the Hobbesian state of nature, and war is typical of international
activity as a whole. Thus, classical geopolitics described a world of sea power
vs. land power, maritime vs. continental, heartland vs. rimland, and so on.17
For classical geopolitics, states are in perpetual, existential competition,
which occasionally results in conflict. The power shift caused by changes
in technology as well as by the emergence of new centres of natural
resources and economic power, and ensuring competitions or conflicts
between those binaries, not only constitutes the enduring themes of classi-
cal geopolitics, but also is indicative of the nature of international anarchy
perceived by classical geopolitical thinkers.
For realist theories, the most justified unit of analysis is sovereign terri-
torial states, either dynastic states of early modern times or nation-states in
modern or contemporary world. States likewise constitute the basic unit of
analysis in classical geopolitics and are considered as spatial objects and
their interactions as producing spatial phenomena.18 Sates in classical geo-
politics, like those in realist theories, are egoistic and self-help actors by
assumption as well as by nature. In essence, classical geopolitics ‘consists of
the study of states as spatial phenomenon with a view to reaching an
understanding of the bases of their power and the nature of their interac-
tions with one another’.19 For realist theories, the most important actors in
international relations are great powers whose status is mostly defined by
territorial size and material resources. For classical geopolitics, great powers
as the most important actors are defined by geographic locations and
15
Donnelly, Realism and International Relations, 10. For the centrality of international anarchy in realist
theories, see: Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and International Political Economy; Kenneth
N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1979).
16
Helen Milner, ‘The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory: A Critique’, Review of
International Studies 17/1 (1991), 69. Also see: Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in
World Politics (New York: Palgrave 2002); Waltz, Theory of International Politics.
17
Gearoid O Tuathail, ‘At the End of Geopolitics? Reflections on a Plural Problematic at the Century’s
End’, Alternatives 22/1 (1997), 36. Also see: Robert D. Kaplan, ‘The Revenge of Geography’, Orbis 59/4
(2015), 479–90; Christopher J. Fettweis, ‘On Heartlands and Chessboards: Classical Geopolitics, Then
and Now’, Orbis 59/2 (2015), 233–48.
18
Parker, Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century, 2.
19
Geoffrey Parker, ‘Continuity and change in Western geopolitical thoughts during the 20th century’,
International Social Science Journal 43/127 (1991), 22. Also see: Parker, Geopolitics: Past, Present and
Future.
792 Z. WU
strategic orientations as well as by territorial size and material resources.20

Thus, the great powers in classical geopolitics are maritime or sea powers,
continental or land powers and land–sea hybrid powers. Most prominent
are the dominant maritime/sea power, the heartland continental power and
the rimland hybrid powers.
Like realist theories, classical geopolitics exhibits an unequivocally mate-
rialistic tendency characterised by power politics. Theoretically, classical
geopolitics integrates two distinct sets of variables: geography (including
natural and human geography) and technology (including material and
organisational technology). What classical geopolitics is concerned with is
the interactions between geography and technology and the political or
strategic implications resulting from those interactions.21 In the postwar
years, the most common misconception of classical geopolitics is to conflate
the geopolitical actors with the integrated power (technology) variables. To
be specific, classical geopolitics incorporates three main types of geopoliti-
cal actors (sea powers, land powers and land–sea hybrid powers) and
integrates at least five power (technology) variables (sea power, land
power, air power, aerospace power and cyber power).22 What it purports
to investigate or understand is the political and strategic implications of the
shift of those five power (technology) variables for the three types of
geopolitical actors in world politics. In other words, the shift of technology
may alter the political or strategic implications of the geographic determi-
nants of policy and strategy, they do not negate it since technology is
integral rather than extraneous to classical geopolitics.
Despite the same theoretical assumptions, classical geopolitics is
distinguished from mainstream realist theories by three characteristics.
First, classical geopolitics is holistic rather than reductionist, that is, it
integrates both the unit- and system-level variables.23 In theory, classical
geopolitics can be broadly defined as being the study of the interna-
tional scene from a spatial or geocentric perspective and the under-
standing of the whole being its ultimate object and justification. An
essential part of classical geopolitics is the examination of the compo-
nents, but this is undertaken for the purpose of reaching a clearer
understanding of the whole. Individual states can be seen as being
the bricks, ‘but it is the patterns and structures which they make in
20
Michael P. Gerace, ‘Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and after’,
Comparative Strategy 10/4 (1991), 350. Also see: Owens, ‘In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, 463–78.
21
Owens, ‘In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, 468. Also see: C. Dale Walton, Geopolitics and the Great
Powers in the 21st Century (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge 2007); Sempa, Geopolitics: From the Cold War
to the 21st Century.
22
Owens, ‘In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, 468. Also see: Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical
Change; Gray and Sloan (eds.), Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy.
23
For the level of analysis, see: Barry Buzan, ‘The Level of Analysis Problem in International Relations
Reconsidered’, in Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds.), International Relations Theory Today (Cambridge:
Polity Press 1995), 198–216.
combination which are the principal interests of geopolitical

investigation’.24 Second, classical geopolitics is dynamic rather than
static, thus equipped to explain changes as well as continuity in world
politics.25 What classical geopolitics describes is the nexus of geographic
factors and technological developments, and these categories tend to
be dynamic. The dynamic nature of classical geopolitics is often lost on
those critics. Some have suggested that nuclear weapons spelled the
end of geopolitics; others make similar assertions regarding information
technology. However, since technology is integral rather than extra-
neous to classical geopolitics, the emergence of new technologies may
alter the political or strategic implications of geography, they do not
make it irrelevant.26 Third, classical geopolitics is interdisciplinary by
nature. As a science of policy and strategy, classical geopolitics is a
synthesis of three distinct disciplines: Geography, History and
Strategy.27 What classical geopolitics is mainly concerned with is the
interaction between geography and technology, as well as the political
and strategic implications of that interaction. It attempts to draw atten-
tion to the significance of certain geographical patterns in political or
strategic history. From it certain explanations or predictions can be
deduced to help people to grasp the situation they are faced with, as
well as its political or strategic implications or consequences.28
As a theoretical framework, classical geopolitics incorporates a well-
established body of strategic propositions. Though frequently invoked
by scholars and pundits, those propositions have rarely been clarified.
This invocation without clarification at least partly entrenched the diver-
gence between classical geopolitics and realist theories. The edifice of
classical geopolitics, to be precise, was established on three interrelated
propositions: the inextricable linkage between maritime supremacy and
the continental balance of power; the indispensable significance of the
continental commitment for the dominant maritime power; and the dual
character of the heartland power in terms of strategic orientation. Those
propositions not only constitute the core of classical geopolitics, also
reveal a peculiar balance-of-power conception that is distinct from those
proposed by mainstream realist theories. Based on Mahan, Mackinder
and Spykman’s works, the following three sections (the second, third,
24
Parker, ‘Continuity and change in Western geopolitical thoughts during the 20th century’, 22.
25
For this point, see: John Gerald Ruggie, ‘Continuity and Transformation in World Polity: Toward a
Neorealist Synthesis’, in Robert O. Keohane (eds.), Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbian
University Press, 1986), 131–57.
26
Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change, 22.
27
For an excellent discussion of the interdisciplinary nature of (classical) geopolitics, see: Sloan,
Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History, 7–16.
28
Sloan, Geopolitics, Geography and Strategic History, 2.
794 Z. WU
and fourth sections) will sequentially elaborate on those three

propositions.
Maritime supremacy and the continental balance of power

In theoretical terms, classical geopolitics could be categorised as a form of
‘balance of power realism’ which postulates that a stable international
order depends fundamentally on the maintenance of an equilibrium of
power in the system.29 Nevertheless, unlike conventional balance of power
theories, the balance of power conception embodied in classical geopoli-
tics was neither abstract nor universally applicable. For Mahan, Mackinder
and Spykman, the balance of power principle applied only to the con-
tinent, that is, Europe before 1945 or Europe and East Asia since then, and
this continental balance of power was not a goal in itself, rather an
essential approach to maritime supremacy, or even a preponderance of
power, of the Anglo-American nations in the world.30 The policy corollary
of this was clear: maritime supremacy and the continental balance of
power were two inextricably linked pillars of Anglo-American supremacy
in the world; and there was no option between them if the dominant
maritime power (Great Britain before 1945 or the United States since then)
intended to maintain her overall supremacy in the system. The inextricable
linkage between maritime supremacy and the continental balance of
power constitutes the overriding common theme of Mahan, Mackinder
and Spykman’s geopolitical theories.31
29
For balance-of-power realism, see: Jack S. Levy, ‘Interstate War and Peace’, in Walter Carlsnaes,
Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons (eds.), Handbook of International Relations (London: SAGE
Publications Ltd 2012), 581–606. Also see: Jack S. Levy, ‘What Do Great Powers Balance Against
and When?’, in T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz and Michel Fortmann (eds.), Balance of Power: Theory and
Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2004), 29–51; Jack S. Levy,
‘Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Design’, in John A. Vasquez and
Colin Elman (eds.), Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall 2003), 128–53.
30
For the linkage between the British predominance and the European balance of power, see: Ludwig
Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle (New York: Random
House/Vintage 1962). Also see: Levy, ‘What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When?’, 29–51;
Levy, ‘Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Design’, 128–53.
31
For Mahan’s ‘philosophy of sea power’, see: Alfred T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History,
1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown 1890); Alfred T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French
Revolution and Empire, 1783–1812, 2 Volumes (Boston: Little, Brown 1892); Alfred T. Mahan, The Life
of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, 2 Volumes (Boston: Little, Brown 1897);
Alfred T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, 2 Volumes (Boston: Little, Brown 1905).
For Mackidner’s major works, see: Halford J. Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas (Oxford: Clarendon
Press 1902); Halford J. Mackinder, ‘The Geographical Pivot of History’, The Geographical Journal 23/4
(1904), 421–37; Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of
Reconstruction (New York: W. W. Norton 1962); Halford J. Mackinder, ‘The Round World and the
Winning of Peace’, Foreign Affairs 21/4 (1943), 595–605. For Spykman’s major works, see: Nicholas J.
Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co. 1944); Nicholas J. Spykman,
America’s Strategy in World Politics (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. 1942).
Though his most important writings appeared before the term ‘geopolitics’
was coined, Alfred Mahan, probably the most famous naval historian in modern
times, contributed substantially to modern geopolitics by his ‘philosophy of sea
power’.32 This philosophy was based on his detailed examination of a four-
century struggle between European continental power and insular sea power
for political control of Europe and its adjacent seas. First, it was the Austrian-
Spanish Hapsburgs who possessed overwhelming power that frightened all
others and threatened to unify the region. Next, Louis XIV’s France threatened
to achieve preponderance on the continent which, if successful, would permit
her to develop sea power and thereby become a danger to all Europe.33 Then, it
was Napoleon’s turn to seek the predominance of France not only in Europe
but throughout the world. Mahan illustrated the linkage between British
maritime supremacy and the European balance of power most vividly in his
examination of the Anglo-French struggle from 1792 to 1815. As Mahan
argued, France under Napoleon controlled by conquest or alliance most of
the continent and tried to close all continental ports to British ships, and
Napoleon’s intention was ‘to seize the navies of Europe and combine them in
a direct assault upon (British) maritime power’.34
Mahan understood that France’s domination of the European continent
presented Napoleon with the opportunity to utilise the resources of the
entire continent to wield superior naval power and thereby defeat the
British at sea. For Mahan, Napoleonic France threatened not just Great
Britain, but the world. European hegemony plus the defeat of British sea
power meant world domination. What was at stake was actually the global
balance of power.35 In Mahan’s view, the supremacy of sea power over land
power lies not only with the convenience and economy of water transporta-
tion, but also with the fact that ‘a really great national movement, like the
French revolution, or a really great military power under the incomparable
general, like the French empire under Napoleon, is not to be brought to
terms by ordinary military successes, which simply destroy the organized
forces opposite’.36 Though Mahan has been acclaimed as an ‘evangelist of
sea power’, this is true only in a specific sense. For Mahan, British maritime
supremacy depended not only on the size, population and productivity of
the land base, also on the European balance of power. If the European
continent was dominated by a single power, it could defeat Britain in her
32
Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press 1939), 203. For Mahan’s life, works and strategic thought, see: Jon Sumida, Inventing
Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1999); John B. Hattendorf (eds), The Influence of History
on Mahan (Newport: Naval War College Press 1991).
33
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, 139.
34
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1783–1812, Vol. II, 276.
35
Mahan, The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain, Vol. 1, 186.
36
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1783–1812, Vol. II, 409.
796 Z. WU
own element, or as Napoleon put it, ‘to conquer the sea by land’.37 That was
why Great Britain had to fight Napoleon to the end.
Both Mahan and Mackinder understood that the quantity and quality of the
land base would determine the magnitude of sea power. Nevertheless, while
Mahan believed that what had happened in the past would occur in the future
as well, Mackinder apprehended the spread of technology would put the shoe
on the other foot.38 Mackinder’s major contribution to geopolitics was the
heartland theory which he revised three times over the course of his career.
This theory was based on a comprehensive review of the historical struggles
between insular sea powers and peninsular land powers: Crete vs. Greece;
Celtic Britain vs. Rome; and Great Britain vs. European continental powers.39
His study revealed three geopolitical insights: sea power depends on secure
and resourceful land bases; a peninsular land power, freed from challenges by
other land powers and commanding greater resources, can defeat insular sea
powers; and the optimum strategic position is one combining insularity and
greater resources.40 Mackinder further indicated that the Eurasian–African land-
mass or the ‘World-Island’, which contained most of the world’s people and
resources, had the characteristic of potential insularity. A great land power in
command of the resources of the World-Island, and freed from challenges by
other land powers, could also become the preeminent sea power.41
Mackinder’s thesis is not simply a case of land power being superior to sea
power. To defeat the insular sea power, a land power had to be unchallenged
by land and had to possess sufficient resources to enable it to construct a fleet
powerful enough. Absent the two conditions, a strongly based insular sea
power like Britain would prevail. By this logic, a land power that gains control
over a large part of the World-Island could harness the vast resources of this
prominent land base to constructing the world’s most powerful navy and
overwhelming all remaining insular powers. Thus Great Britain must oppose
any European power unifying or achieving hegemony on the continent.42 As
Mackinder argued, the most strategically significant area of the World-Island
was the heartland, which he described as the potential seat of World Empire.
This great, unbroken plain of inner Eurasia, inaccessible to sea power and
37
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, 27.
38
Stephen B. Jones, ‘Global Strategic Views’, Geographical Review 45/4 (1955), 494.
39
For Mackinder’s life and thought, see: Gerry Kearns, Geopolitics and Empire: The Legacy of Halford
Mackinder (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009); Brian W. Blouet, Halford Mackinder: A Biography
(College Station, TX: A and M University Press 1987); W. H. Parker, Mackinder: Geography as an aid to
statecraft (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1982).
40
Sempa, Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century, 28.
41
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 70. Also see: Colin S. Gray, ‘In Defense of the Heartland: Sir
Halford Mackinder and His Critics a Hundred Years On’, Comparative Strategy 23/1 (2004), 9–25;
Geoffrey Sloan, ‘Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The Heartland theory then and now’, Journal of Strategic
Studies 22/2 (1999), 15–38.
42
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 150. Also see: Daniel Deudney, ‘Greater Britain or Greater
Synthesis’, Review of International Studies 27/2 (2001), 187–208; Gerace, ‘Between Mackinder and
Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and after’, 347–64.
suitable to highly mobile land power, provided its occupant the opportunities
to expand in all directions except northward. Mackinder conceded that pre-
vious heartland-based empires failed to achieve world domination, but it was
attributed to an insufficient base of manpower and a lack of relative mobility
vis-à-vis sea power. However, in the twentieth century, increased population
and the spread of railroads had removed those two obstacles.43
Since the development of modern technology enabled a heartland-based
empire, first to conquer other land powers, then to overwhelm sea powers
as Mackinder argued, the nations of Western Europe ‘must necessarily be
opposed to whatever Power attempts to organize the resources of East
Europe and the Heartland’.44 To put it simply, what Mackinder tried to
convey by his theory was the inextricable linkage between British maritime
supremacy and the European balance of power. Like Mackinder, Nicholas
Spykman similarly believed that the first line of defence of the United States
lies in the preservation of a balance of power in both Europe and East Asia.45
As Spykman indicated, the position of the United States vis-à-vis Europe and
East Asia as a whole is geopolitically similar to the position of Great Britain
vis-à-vis the European continent. Thus, the American have an invested
interest in the preservation of a balance of power in Europe and East Asia
as the British have an interest in the European continental balance.46 Based
on this geopolitical equivalence, Spykman argued that ‘a balance of power
in the transatlantic and transpacific zones is an absolute prerequisite for the
independence of the New World and the preservation of the power position
of the United States. There is no safe defensive position on this side of the
oceans’.47
Writing in 1942, Spykman unequivocally warned that ‘If the German-
Japanese Alliance should be victorious on the Eurasian landmass and
become free to turn its whole strength against the New World’, the United
States would be confronted with a complete encirclement over which she
would have no chance to prevail.48 To avoid this encirclement, Spykman
43
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 74. Also see: Sloan, ‘Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The Heartland
theory then and now’, 15–38; Arthur Butler Dugan, ‘Mackinder and His Critics Reconsidered’, The
Journal of Politics 24/2 (1962), 241–57.
44
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality,139.
45
Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics, 4. There have been few studies on Spykman in spite of
his great reputation. For studies on Spykman’s theory, see: Gray, ‘Nicholas John Spykman, the
Balance of Power, and International Order’, 873–97; Robert Art, ‘The United States, the Balance of
Power, and World War II: Was Spykman Right?’ Security Studies 14/3 (2005), 365–406; Gerace,
‘Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and after’, 347–64.
46
Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics, 124.
47
Spykman, America’s Strategy in World Politics, 457. Further on this point, also see: Walt W. Rostow, The
United States in the World Arena (New York: Harper & Row 1960); George F. Kennan, Realities of
American Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1954); George F. Kennan, American
Diplomacy 1900–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1951); Walter Lippmann, U. S. War Aims
(Boston: Little, Brown & Company 1944); Walter Lippmann, U. S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic
(Boston: Little, Brown & Company 1943).
48
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argued that ‘our constant concern in peacetime must be to see that no

nation or alliance of nations is allowed to emerge as a dominating power in
either of the two regions (Europe and East Asia) of the Old World from
which our security could be threatened’.49 Unlike Mackinder, Spykman had
never explicitly linked the continental balance of power with American
maritime supremacy, he had gone further. For Spykman, the balance of
power in Europe and East Asia was concerned not only with the safety
and security of the US homeland, also with her overall power position in the
world.50 Spykman believed that America’s safety and independence can be
preserved only by a policy ‘that will make it impossible for the Eurasian
landmass to harbour overwhelming dominant power in Europe and the Far
East’. What he did not mention is that this policy would also yield American
preponderance in the world.51
Sea power and the continental commitment

Over the centuries, while maritime powers can use sea power (as well as air
power since the early twentieth century) to defend themselves, they cannot
afford to allow a hegemonic continental rival to arise, one that could isolate
and then challenge them for dominion of the seas through control of the
continental domain. This explains why the dominant maritime powers,
though having little incentive to expand their influence on the continent,
regularly intervened on the continent to restore the balance of power there.
However, within maritime powers, there has regularly arisen tension
between those who have advocated a grand strategy with continental
commitments and those who have urged a pure maritime strategy without
continental entanglements. Here lies the divergence between Mahan on
one hand and Mackinder and Spykman on the other. This divergence also
parallels the current debate on US grand strategy between those advocating
offshore balancing and those advocating selective engagement. Here the
point of contention is still the continental commitment.52
For Mahan, sea power was essential in two ways: first, maritime econom-
ics (production, shipping and colonies) was the key to national prosperity,
while naval supremacy was essential to the protection of national interests
related to maritime economics; second, a nation with naval supremacy
49
Spykman, The Geography of the Peace, 34.
50
51
52
For discussions of the continental commitment, see: David French, The British Way in Warfare
1688–2000 (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd 1990); Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: The
Dilemma of British Defense Policy in the Era of the Two World Wars (London: Temple Smith 1972). For
the current debate between the offshore balancing and the selective engagement, see: Robert J. Art,
A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2003); Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of
Great Power Politics.
could always defeat a country that was militarily preeminent and that had
been substantiated by a series of war Britain had participated in between
1660 and 1815.53 Although Mahan sought to determine the significance of
sea power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations, much of
his work examined the basis of Britain’s predominance in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Based on historical examination, Mahan attributed
Britain’s rise between 1688 and 1815 to ‘her government using the tremen-
dous weapon of her sea power, – the reward of consistent policy persever-
ingly directed to one aim’.54 This perseverance had two prongs: on the one
hand, Britain remained aloof from entangling European continental alliances
in peacetime so that she could devote energy and resources to expanding
her interests outside Europe; on the other, Britain only intervened directly in
continental affairs when the balance of power was in jeopardy because of
the danger that one power or a coalition of powers was about to go to war
to impose hegemony on their neighbors.55
Though Mahan’s exposition of sea power as the key to Britain’s success
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been acknowledged to
be masterly, his presumption that what had happened in the past was
going to occur in the future as well is dubious in hindsight.56 Between
1688 and 1902, Britain could do so because the Royal Navy alone could
ensure the security of the British Isles and intervene effectively when
necessary to restore the balance of power in Europe. However, after 1850,
the spread of the industrial revolution on the European continent and the
impact of industrial technology on naval power began to erode the
security of the Royal Navy alone had once conferred on Britain.57 On
the one hand, Britain’s naval power, rooted in her economic strength,
could no longer remain supreme when other nations with greater
resources and manpower overhauled her previous industrial lead; on
the other, sea power itself was waning in relation to land power due to
the development of technology. By the beginning of the twentieth
century, Britain could no longer create such a stable balance that she
could afford to remain aloof from continental entanglements.58 Britain
53
Sumida, ‘Alfred Thayer Mahan, Geopolitician’, 39.
54
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, 76. Also see: Azar Gat, ‘From Sail to
Steam: Naval Theory and the Military Parallel 1882–1914’, in The Development of Military Thought: The
Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992); 173–225; Paul Kennedy, ‘Mahan versus
Mackinder: Two Interpretations of British Sea Power’, in Strategy and Diplomacy 1870–1945: Eight
Studies (London: Fontana 1984), 43–85.
55
Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1965), 636. For the two prongs of
British foreign policy throughout modern history, see: Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval
Mastery (London: Penguin Books Ltd 2001); Michael Sheehan, Balance of Power: History and Theory
(New York: Routledge 1996); Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power
Struggle.
56
William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1980), 274.
57
French, The British Way in Warfare 1688–2000, xiii.
58
Kennedy, ‘Mahan versus Mackinder: Two Interpretations of British Sea Power’, 57.
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was thus forced to join one of the continental alliances in 1904 and 1907,
respectively, and found no alternative to committing an unprecedented
scale army to fighting against Germany on the continent in 1914. Only
when absent from any serious threat posed by a real or potential hege-
mon on the continent in the post-Cold War years, have European naval
powers, mainly Great Britain, regained the capacity to project and sustain
naval powers beyond European waters.
Contrary to common belief, Mahan had never ignored the significance of
the land base for sea power. His list of six factors affecting the development
of sea power is an illustration of this understanding. Nor did he argue that
Britain had ever waged purely maritime war because the land forces were
essential for Britain’s home defence and expeditionary operations in the
continent and outside Europe.59 The major deficiency of Mahan’s ‘philoso-
phy of sea power’ lies with his conviction that sea power alone, without
serious continental commitment, could ensure Britain’s predominance. What
distinguishes Mackinder from Mahan was that Mackinder believed that, in a
world that had been remoulded by modern industrial technology, Britain
had to assume a continental commitment if she intended to maintain a
favourable European balance of power which was essential to her maritime
supremacy.60 The most important aspect of World War I, Mackinder poign-
antly argued, was not the Allies’ victory, but Germany’s near-successful
conquest of the heartland. Had Germany remained at peace in the west,
and directed all efforts eastward, the world would be overshadowed by a
Germany in command of the heartland. If Britain wanted to avert another
catastrophe in the future, Mackinder emphasised, she had no choice but to
assume serious continental commitment.61
Given the wartime experience, Mackinder argued, the most urgent thing
after World War I was to construct an effective security system for Eastern
Europe. His proposed solution to the problem was the formation of a tier of
independent states – the middle tier states as he called – between Germany
and Russia which would act as a strategic buffer separating the two giants.62
A tier of independent states in Eastern Europe alone could never prevent
another bid for continental supremacy as Mackinder clearly indicated. To be
an effective buffer, Mackinder emphasised, those states must cooperate with
each other, have access to the ocean and be supported by the ‘outer
nations’. Otherwise, the East European power vacuum would serve as the
59
Jones, ‘Global Strategic Views’, 494.
60
For Mahan’s viewpoints, see: Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, 64–5;
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1783–1812, Vol. II, 118–9.
For Mackinder’s position, see: Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, 358; Mackinder, Democratic
Ideals and Reality, 70. Further on this distinction, see: Kennedy, ‘Mahan versus Mackinder: Two
Interpretations of British Sea Power’, 43–85.
61
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 149, 150.
62
Sempa, Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century, 31.
spark to ignite yet another struggle for Eurasian hegemony.63 What deserves
notice is that Mackinder had very specific requirements (especially the
necessary support supposedly provided by sea powers) when he discussed
the middle tier states. Many critics very correctly pointed out that
Mackinder’s proposed solution, which was strategically similar to what the
peacemakers at Versailles arranged after the war, did not actually prevent
another catastrophe. What they failed to note, however, was that sea
powers, including Great Britain and the United States, had never made
good on his proposed support.64
By proposing a tier of independent states to act as a buffer between
Germany and Russia, and by specifying sea powers’ commitment to the sup-
port of the middle tier states, Mackinder made it clear that sea powers had to
assume serious commitment if they intended to maintain a viable balance of
power on the continent. This conception of commitment lies at the core of his
heartland theory. From a geopolitical perspective, what Spykman had achieved
for the United States is similar to what Mackinder had done so well for Great
Britain.65 Echoing Mackinder, Spykman pointed out that the balance of power
in the continent of Eurasia was not the benign product of a mysterious hidden
hand of history, but rather had to be sustained through continuous and
prudent effort. Spykman’s mostly original contribution to modern geopolitics
was the rimland theory which related vitally to American interest in depriving
any hostile powers of the ability to menace the Americas.66 Nonetheless,
Spykman never favoured any version of the so-called ‘offshore balancing
posture’ because he recognised that to balance power in Eurasia it was essen-
tial to balance there onshore. The rimland concept, supported and supportable
by flexible circumferential sea power, required commitment to the balancing of
power onshore beyond the coastline of Eurasia.
Since the turn of the twentieth century, debates over America’s grand
strategy have turned on the proper relations of a continental-sized state, far
removed from the power centres of the Eurasia, to those power centres.
Spykman’s position was very clear: the United States must be concerned
with the balance of power in Europe and East Asia not merely in war also in
peace despite this entails arduous commitments.67 Isolationism in the twen-
tieth century, if put into practice, would not guarantee peace or security as
Spykman argued, ‘it will be cheaper in the long run to remain a working
member of the European power zone than to withdraw for short
63
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 160, 165. For studies on Mackinder’s middle-tier states, see:
Sloan, ‘Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The heartland theory then and now’, 15–38; Blouet, Halford
Mackinder: A Biography, Chapter 10; Parker, Mackinder: Geography as an aid to statecraft, Chapter
6; Butler Dugan, ‘Mackinder and His Critics Reconsidered’, 241–57.
64
Dugan, ‘Mackinder and His Critics Reconsidered’, 252–257.
65
Gerace, ‘Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and after’, 350.
66
Gray, ‘Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power, and International Order’, 884.
67
Art, ‘The United States, the Balance of Power, and World War II: Was Spykman Right?’ 405.
802 Z. WU
intermissions to our insular domain only to be forced to apply later the

whole of our national strength to redress a balance that might have needed
but a slight weight at the beginning’.68 In the Post-Cold War years, the
policy debate in the United States between offshore balancers and selective
engagers is still around the same issue as that Spykman addressed more
than half a century ago. Though both offensive and defensive realists alike
strongly recommend that the United States today should pursue an offshore
balancing strategy, at least up to now, none of them has confronted
Spykman’s argument, let alone refuted it.69
The dual character of the heartland

In addition to continental commitment, there has been another significant,
yet largely ignored, division that occursdifference between Mackinder and
Spykman over the strategic character of the heartland. This ignorance has
much to do with the conflation of Spykman’s framework with that of
Mackinder’s. To be specific, Spykman’s theory has been considered consis-
tent with that of Mackinder’s. This understanding asserts a basic compat-
ibility between those two frameworks. Spykman is seen as only modifying
Mackinder’s framework while remaining compatible with its basic logic.70
Thus, the rimland is seen as being the area that the heartland seeks to
control, which puts it into conflict with sea powers. Spykman’s contribution
lies only in pointing to the danger of the heartland coming into control of
this area because it would result in the strategic encirclement of the United
States.71 This interpretation of Spykman’s theory is wrong, however. The
rimland and the inner crescent, albeit overlapping significantly, are not
geopolitically equivalent. More importantly, the role of rimland in
Spykman’s framework is different from that of the inner crescent in
Mackinder’s. Furthermore, how the sea power–heartland conflict is under-
stood by Mackinder differs fundamentally from how it is seen by Spykman.
Confusing the two led to a misunderstanding of the nature of the heartland.
The principal conflict around which Mackinder’s geopolitical framework is
constructed occurs between sea power and the heartland. His major focus is
on the shifting balance of power between them, which is explained by new
68
69
For the deficiency of the offshore balancing strategy, see: Hal Brands, ‘Fools Rush Out? The Flawed
Logic of Offshore Balancing’, The Washington Quarterly 38/2 (2015), 7–28; Williamson Murray and
Peter Mansoor, ‘U.S. Grand Strategy in the 21st Century: The Case for a Continental Commitment’,
Orbis 59/1 (2014), 19–34.
70
For typical interpretations of Spykman’s geopolitics along this path, see: Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics:
The Geography of International Relations, 26–7; Geoffrey R. Sloan, Geopolitics in United States Strategic
Policy, 1890–1987 (New York: St. Martin’s 1988), 17–8.
71
For this kind of interpretation of Spykman’s geopolitical framework, see: James T. Lowe, Geopolitics
and War: Mackinder’s Philosophy of Power (Washington, DC: University Press of America 1981)), 70–1;
J. R. V. Prescott, The Geography of State Policies (London: Hutchinson University Library 1968), 28–40.
technologies that present new opportunities for the power potential of

those geographically disposed to exploit them. Of key importance in
Mackinder’s framework is the heartland concept, a core landlocked area
that includes Russia, Eastern Europe, Mongolia and Tibet. The heartland is
the core of a larger unit, the Eurasian landmass, which is demographically
superior to and has a larger resource base than any other geographic unit.72
Britain’s dominant role as a sea power, Mackinder argued, was based on the
happy accident that the European continent had historically remained
divided, and consequently there was never a land power strong enough
to build a fleet to threaten Britain. However, this had all changed with
geopolitical developments. The increased population and advanced over-
land transportation such as railways, Mackinder apprehended, were threa-
tened to upset the balance between sea power and the heartland. With
those developments, the heartland power could expand outward and con-
trol the Eurasian littoral areas. It would then have access to the sea on a
wide basis with a superior resource base.73
Mackinder’s logic is simple and clear. Since the World Island could be
controlled from the heartland, it followed that a land power controlling the
heartland would be in a position to dominate the World Island, which in
turn could be used as a resource-rich base from which to build a fleet to
deliver the final blow to sea powers. It was this possibility that put sea
powers into conflict with heartland-based Eurasian contenders.74 This is the
central conflict animating Mackinder’s geopolitics. Except for the heartland,
there are two other categories in Mackinder’s framework: the inner crescent
and the outer crescent. However, as Mackinder indicated, the inner crescent
was just a passive area that sea power and the heartland struggle over. Its
significance lies only in that, by controlling this area, sea power could
prevent the heartland power from organising the entire Eurasian continent
into one unit.75 Within Mackinder’s framework, the inner crescent is sub-
sidiary to both the heartland and the outer crescent, and the subsidiary
status of the inner crescent quite corresponds to the centrality of the sea
power–heartland conflict. It is in this sense that the change of the status of
the inner crescent will lead naturally to the shift of the significance of the
sea power–heartland conflict. That is exactly what Spykman had achieved by
his rimland theory.
Spykman also believed that the super-continent (the World Island in
Mackinder’s terminology) comprises both the heartland and the inner mar-
ginal crescent roughly as was identified by Mackinder. However, Spykman
revised the geopolitical categories used by Mackinder. The inner crescent
72
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 110–111.
73
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 73–74.
74
Colin S. Gray, The Geopolitics of Superpower (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press 1988), 42.
75
804 Z. WU
and coastlands were united into one category: the rimland, which is linked
together by the string of marginal seas that separates it from the oceans; the
outer crescent is replaced by the offshore continents, but Britain and Japan
are excluded from this category and are seen as offshore islands.76 For
Mackinder, the inner crescent is subsidiary to both the heartland and the
outer crescent; for Spykman, however, the primary engine of power in world
politics lies in the rimland, not in the barren heartland. As Spykman argued,
the power struggles in history ‘have always been fought in reference to the
relations between heartland and rimland; the power consternation within
the rimland itself; the influence of maritime presence on the littoral; finally,
the participation in that presence exerted by the Western Hemisphere’.77 In
other words, the rimland was never a passive area sandwiched between the
heartland and sea power as Mackinder designated; rather, it is composed of
geopolitical actors who were often in opposition to both the heartland and
sea power.
In Spykman’s framework, the rimland is not only a primary stake of assets in
the ageless games of nations, also the principal source of strength in and for
the enduring struggle that is permanent to the nature of international
politics.78 Corresponding to this, Spykman accepted the existence of the sea
power–heartland conflicts in history, but denied it is the overriding theme:
‘There has never really been a simple land power-sea power opposition. The
historical alignment has always been in terms of some members of the rim-
land with Great Britain against some members of the rimland with Russia, or
Britain and Russia together against a dominant rimland power’.79 All geopo-
litical frameworks seek to indicate the recurring patterns of conflicts in world
politics. In Mackinder’s framework, there is only one conflict: that between sea
power and the heartland. In Spykman’s framework, however, there are two:
that between sea power and the heartland with the rimland divided between
them; and between a rimland power against both sea power and the heart-
land. The pattern that prevails depends on the distribution of power within
the rimland.80 This difference not only distinguished Spykman’s geopolitical
framework from that of Mackinder’s, also led to the divergence between
Spykman and Mackinder over the strategic character of the heartland.
For Spykman, it is the rimland, not the heartland, that presented the
danger of encirclement for the United States, and it was possible only with
the rise of dominant powers within the rimland like Nazi’s Germany and
Imperial Japan. While the Axis powers of the rimland would leave the United
States encircled, they would also encircle the Soviet Union because the
76
77
78
Gray, ‘Nicholas John Spykman, the Balance of Power, and International Order’, 884.
79
80
Gerace, ‘Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and After’, 354.
German–Japanese success in World War II would have pushed the USSR

back behind Lake Baikal or even the Urals.81 In Spykman’s framework,
sometimes the rimland is split between sea powers and heartland, and
sometimes both are allied against the rimland. This basic dualism also
changes the character of the heartland power. For Mackinder, Russia as
the heartland power was designated as the natural adversary of sea powers.
For Spykman, however, the dualism of the rimland meant that the character
of Russia as the heartland power was dualistic as well.82 As the direct
successor to the nomadic peoples in the heartland, according to Spykman,
Russia’s central position enabled it to apply enormous pressure on those
peripheral nations by the actual or potential threat of territorial expansion;
however, so long as Russia did not intend to establish some form of
hegemony over those peripheral nations, then it was also the most effective
base to preserve the peace on the Eurasian continent.83
Spykman’s principal contribution was that he emphasised that the histor-
ical alignments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had not been the
way Mackinder had pictured them. Each of the great struggles of the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries, against Napoleonic France, and then against
Imperial and Nazi Germany, saw British (plus American in the twentieth
century) sea power allied with Russian land power against a hegemonic
power in the rimland.84 Geopolitical interpretations are conditioned by the
framework one reasons from. From Mackinder’s perspective, since the sea
power–heartland conflict is the overriding theme that defines all, its dissipa-
tion leaves only an absence of conflict without a foreseeable replacement.
From Spykman’s standpoint, the dissipation of one pattern of conflict will be
replaced by another in accordance with new centres of power in the world.
The shift between the two recurring patterns of conflict depends on
whether there is imbalanced power within the rimland.85 From this perspec-
tive, it can be tentatively argued that the emergence of an imbalanced
power centre (China) within the rimland and the continuing weakness of
Russia today have, to a large degree, restored the harmony of interest
between Russia as the heartland power and the United States as the
dominant maritime power. The nucleus of this strategic uniformity is to
prevent the rise and challenge of a land–sea hybrid power located on the
rimland.
81
82
Makcinder’s viewpoint on Russia as the heartland continental power had changed significantly at the
last stage of his career. In his 1943 version of the heartland theory, Mackinder had pointed out the
possibility that the postwar cooperation between sea powers and the heartland power (the Soviet
Union) could constitute an effective bulwark against the revival of German militarism. See:
Mackinder, ‘The Round World and the Winning of Peace’, 595–605.
83
84
Harold Sprout, ‘Geopolitical Theories Compared’, Naval War College Review 7/5 (1954), 32.
85
806 Z. WU
Classical geopolitics and the balance of power theory

In essence, classical geopolitics embodied in Mahan, Mackinder and
Spykman’s theories was constructed mainly around the balance of power
principle.86 This is where classical geopolitics and mainstream realist the-
ories converge. Since its inception, the balance of power has attracted more
scholarly effort than any other single proposition about international poli-
tics. However, within the tradition of balance of power, one can identify
three main strands: balance of power theory, theories of power balances
and theories of balancing.87 Balance of power theory is concerned with the
recurrence of balances of power in the system; theories of power balances
seek to explain the emergence of systemic balances of power; and theories
of balancing seek to explain the conditions that lead states to adopt
balancing strategies. Those three subgenres of theories related to the
balance of power, albeit intersecting with one another, are logically and
analytically distinct.88 After decades of great efforts, contemporary realists
have developed a refined (systemic) balance of power theory, as well as a
large variety of theories of balancing. Though both kinds of theory contain
some form of theories of power balances, mainstream realist theories, so far
at least, have generally made little progress in explaining the recurrent
emergence of balances of power in the system. This is prominent lacuna
that classical geopolitics is promising to fill in.
The most sophisticated balance of power theory was presented by
Kenneth Waltz. This theory assumes an anarchical structure at the systemic
level and the motive of survival at the unit level. From these two assump-
tions, Waltz deduces two sets of expectations. First, given anarchical struc-
ture and the motive of survival, states will behave in a way which will tend
to establish balances of power. Second, states will compete and be
socialised into similar action patterns by emulating the most successful
86
As indicated previously, classical geopolitics is holistic rather than reductionist by nature. It integrates
both the unit- and system-level variables. The three canonical classical geopolitical thinkers, Mahan,
Mackinder, and Spykman, would have conceded that the internal makeup and dynamic of a country
has effects on its internal and external policies. Mahan’s distinction between a state-sponsored navy
and a naturally grown navy, Mackinder’s definition of a country as ‘a Going Concern’, and Spykman’s
discussion of American grand strategy are typical examples in this respect.
87
For classical balance of power theories, see: Michael Sheehan, The Balance of Power: History and
Theory (London: Routledge 1996); Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
1979); Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 4th ed. (New York: Knopf 1967); Dehio, The
Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle; Inis L. Claude Jr., Power and
International Relations (New York: Random House 1962); Edward V. Gulick, Europe’s Classical
Balance of Power (New York: Norton 1955).
88
For the definition of balance of power theory, see: G. John Ikenberry, ‘Introduction’, in G. John
Ikenberry, (eds.), America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press 2002), 7–8. For the definition of theories power balances, see: Daniel H. Nexon, ‘The Balance of
Power in the Balance’, World Politics 61/2 (2009), 338. For the definition of theories of balancing, see:
T. V. Paul, ‘Introduction’, in T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michael Fortmann (eds.), Balance of Power
Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2004), 2.
ones.89 Although Waltz’s theory argues that rough balances of power tend
to recur in the system, it says little about how and why this systemic balance
of power would form in view of a variety of obstacles. This theory locates
the dynamics that contribute to systemic balances of power in the anarchi-
cal structure of the international system. That is, a systemic characteristic –
anarchy – leads more or less directly to a systemic outcome – the recurrent
formation of balances of power in the system.90 Specifically, Waltz only
states that any time two or more states that wish to survive, exist in an
anarchic system, balances of power will automatically form. In this sense,
what Waltz’s balance of power theory argues is that anarchy is an under-
lying cause of the formation of balances of power, as it is understood to be
an underlying or permissive cause of war.
However, just as a purely systemic theory of war cannot explain how or why
a particular war occurs, a purely systemic balance of power theory cannot
explain how or why a particular balance of power forms. This deficiency not
only made Waltz’s balance of power theory a focal point of debates and
criticisms since its publication also stimulated a variety of neoclassical realists
to invoke unit-level variables to amend Waltz’s deficiency.91 In theory, invoking
unit-level factors – such as domestic political structures, economic arrange-
ments and governing ideologies – to explain specific outcomes does not
contradict the logic of Waltz’s structural realist theory. As Waltz argued, ‘system
theory explains why different units behave similarly (given their different
placement in the system). Unit level theory explains why different units behave
dissimilarly, despite their similar placement’.92 Nonetheless, since neoclassical
realists so far have been unable to integrate unit-level and system-level vari-
ables into an organic theory as Waltz envisioned, what they actually created is a
group of disparate theories of balancing that seek to explain the conditions that
lead states to adopt balancing strategies. This sort of theory is logically and
analytically distinct from theories of power balances that specifically seek to
explain the emergence of systemic balances of power. In other words, neoclas-
sical realists have been unable to amend the deficiency of Waltz’s theory.
Compared to mainstream realist theories, classical geopolitics embodied in
Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman’s theories presented a well-developed
89
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 124, 128. For two excellent studies on Waltz’s structural realist
theory, especially on his balance of power theory, see: Guzzini, Realism in International Relations and
International Political Economy125–41; Barry Buzan, Charles Jones and Richard Little, The Logic of
Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York: Columbia University Press 1993), 22–80.
90
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 118, 122. Also see: Susan B. Martin, ‘From Balance of Power to
Balancing Behavior: The Long and Winding Road’, in Andrew K. Hanami (eds.), Perspectives on
Structural Realism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2003), 61–82; Stephen Haggard, ‘Structuralism
and Its Critics’, in Emmanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford (eds.), Progress in Postwar International
Relations (New York: Columbia University Press 1991), 403–38.
91
Martin, ‘From Balance of Power to Balancing Behavior: The Long and Winding Road’, 63. For
neoclassical realism, see: Brian Rathbun, ‘A Rose by Any Other Name: Neoclassical Realism as the
Logical and Necessary Extension of Structural Realism’, Security Studies 17/22 (2008), 294–321;
808 Z. WU
theory of power balances. This theory contains two implicit scope conditions
as conventional balance of power theories usually do: first, the balance of
power is referring to the equilibrium among great powers; second, the
balance of power applies only to the continent, that is, Europe before 1945
or Europe and East Asia since then.93 What distinguishes this theory of power
balances from those proposed by mainstream realist theories is the indispen-
sable role played by the dominant maritime power (Great Britain before 1945
or the United States since then) as the balancer. In this sense, the theory of
power balances manifested in classical geopolitics is similar to the semi-
automatic conception of the operation of a balance of power system pro-
posed by Inis L. Claude Jr, a prominent classical realist.94 However, unlike
Claude’s purely theoretical summary based on historical teachings, the theory
of power balances manifested in classical geopolitics not only explained why
the dominant maritime powers in history found it necessary to intervene
regularly into continental affairs to preserve the balance of power system
there, also illustrated, in broad strokes, how this policy goal could be realised.
The basic rationale for the dominant maritime power like Great Britain or the
United States to intervene regularly into continental affairs lies with the inex-
tricable linkage between maritime supremacy and the continental balance of
power. As Mackinder argued, sea power ultimately depends on a secure and
resourceful land base, a greater peninsular land base, united under a single
power and free from challenges from other land powers, will eventually prevail
over the less strongly based insular power.95 History had revealed that land
power, in general, had two basic strategies for overcoming its seaborne foes: a
land power could either conquer all the bases of a sea power, thus creating an
internal sea under its control (e.g., Macedonia or Rome), or it could conquer a
greater resource base than possessed by the sea power and then use this base
to build a fleet to confront the sea power (Dorian Greeks, Sparta).96 Thus, the
dominant maritime power like Great Britain or the United States often per-
ceived that their overall interests would be severely threatened if any single
state achieved a hegemonic position in Europe or East Asia because such a
Bernard I. Finel, ‘Black Box or Pandora’s Box: State Level Variables and Progressivity in Realist
Research Programs’, Security Studies 11/2 (2001), 187–227.
92
Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 72. For the linkage between structural realism and neoclassical
realism, see: Gideon Rose, ‘Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy’, World Politics 51/1
(1998), 144–172; Colin Elman, ‘Horses for courses: Why Nor Neorealist Theories of Foreign Policy?’
Security Studies 6/1 (1996), 7–53.
93
All versions of balance of power theory contain, implicitly or explicitly, those two scope condition, see:
Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, ‘The End of Balance-of-Power Theory? A Comment on Wohlforth et al.’s ‘Testing
Balance-of-Power Theory in World History’, European Journal of International Relations 15/2 (2009), 364.
94
Claude Jr., Power and International Relation, 47. Further on this point, see: Levy, ‘What Do Great
Powers Balance Against and When?’ in T. V. Paul, James J. Wirtz and Michel Fortmann (eds.), Balance
of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2004), 29–51.
95
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 70. Also see: Gray, ‘In Defense of the Heartland: Sir Halford
Mackinder and His Critics a Hundred Years On’, 9–25; Deudney, ‘Greater Britain or Greater Synthesis’,
187–208; Sloan, ‘Sir Halford J. Mackinder: The Heartland theory then and now’, 15–38.
position would provide the resources that would enable the continental state
to mount a serious challenge to their dominances. That is why Great Britain or
the United States historically played the balancer in balance of power theory.
Although Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman could concur that maritime
supremacy and the continental balance of power are interrelated, there is a
divergence between Mahan as an ‘evangelist of sea power’ and Mackinder
and Spykman as the proponents of land power over how this goal could be
realised. For Mahan, sea power alone, without continental commitments,
could ensure Britain’s prevalence over continental adversaries. However, for
Mackinder and Spykman, the development of modern technology meant
that sea powers could no longer maintain a stable balance of power that
would allow them to stay away from continental entanglements.97 In hind-
sight, Mahan actually ignored a number of non-naval factors which were
significant for Britain’s prevalence between 1688 and 1815. In all but one of
the six wars she fought against France, French power was drained not just
by the Royal Navy but by Britain’s continental allies. Thus it is misleading to
attribute Britain’s victories to sea power alone. Even Mahan himself never
argued that Britain could prevail over continental adversaries by purely
maritime wars. This was revealed by his study of the American War of
Independence. Mahan attributed the prevalence of the French navy in
that war largely to the fact that France was undistracted by having to
maintain substantial armies in Europe.98
For Great Britain before 1945 and the United States since then, sea power
alone is not powerful enough to ensure their prevalence over continental
adversaries and their overall predominance in the system. Throughout
history, the prevalence of sea powers was based not merely on their own
naval and land forces, also on the forces of their continental allies, that is, on
the grand coalition organised and led by them. The balance of power, in
essence, is a basic guarantee of the survival of the system of sovereign
states; thus sea powers could always find allies and partners in the struggle
against the challengers to the continental balance of power. Among those
real or potential continental allies and partners, the most prominent one
since the late eighteenth century is Russia, the natural inhabitant of the
Eurasian heartland and the most formidable continental power. Throughout
96
Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, especially Chapter 3, 4, 5. Also see:Hughes and Heley,
‘Between Man and Nature: The Enduring Wisdom of Sir Halford J. Mackinder’, 898–935; Ashworth,
‘Realism and the Spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics and the Reality of the League of
Nations’, 279–301.
97
French, The British Way in Warfare 1688–2000, xiii. Also see: Murray and Mansoor, ‘U.S. Grand Strategy
in the 21st Century: The Case for a Continental Commitment’, 19–34; Robert Art, ‘The United States,
the Balance of Power, and World War II: Was Spykman Right?’ Security Studies 14/3 (2005), 365–406.
98
Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, 505, 538. Also see: Gerald S. Graham,
Tides of Empire: Discussions on the Expansion of Britain Overseas (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University
Press 1972); Correlli Barnett, Britain and Her Army: A Military, Political and Social History of the British
Army, 1509–1970 (London: Allen Lane 1970).
810 Z. WU
history, Russia as the heartland power shares at least one common interest
with sea powers like Great Britain or the United States; the nucleus of this
congruence of interest is to prevent the rise and challenge of a potential
hegemon on the rimland. In this sense, the divergence between Mackinder
and Spykman over the strategic character of Russia as the heartland power
is largely false in the historical context because history has proven recur-
rently the dual character of Russia as the heartland power.99
For centuries since the Treaty of Utrecht, the balance of power has been
considered an international public good, and its primary function is to
ensure the survival of the system of sovereign states. Although scholars
often refer to Claude’s distinction among automatic, semiautomatic and
manual balancing systems, that distinction is rather blurred. The idea of
states operating automatically, without constant vigilance and deliberate
policy choice is not plausible. Claude himself notes that ‘most writers who
indulge in the language of automatism would, in fact, agree that equilibrium
within a balance of power system is a diplomatic contrivance’.100
Throughout history, the dominant maritime powers have played an indis-
pensable role in maintaining the continental balance of power. This con-
tinental balance of power, on one hand, helped to preserve the relative
security of the naval and economic strength of the dominant maritime
powers; on the other, this egoistic policy also contributed substantially to
preserving the system of sovereign states. It is in this sense that the con-
tinental balance of power as an international public goods was mainly, if not
exclusively, provided by the dominant maritime powers throughout history,
and this provision also constitutes a significant source of the legitimacy of
their overall supremacy in the system.101
Implications for contemporary world politics

The value of classical geopolitics lies not merely with its potential contribu-
tion to the balance-of-power research programme, also with its relevance to
contemporary world politics. The global structure today, in key respects, is
similar to that analysed by Mahan, Mackinder and Spykman. In the early
twenty-first century, most of the Eurasian heartland is controlled by a
weakened, but still powerful Russia. The Eurasian rimland is divided into a
series of geopolitical regions with Europe and East Asia as two cores. The
United States dominates the western hemisphere and participates in the
99
For the dual character of Russia in history, see: Paul W. Schroeder, Systems, Stability, and Statecraft:
Essays on the International History of Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2004); Gerace,
‘Between Mackinder and Spykman: Geopolitics, Containment, and after’, 347–64; Dehio, The
Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle.
100
Claude Jr., Power and International Relations, 49.
101
Dehio, The Precarious Balance, 71.
power balance in Europe and East Asia. However, unlike the early twentieth
century, East Asia is replacing Europe as the centre of geopolitical activity.
East Asia today is not only the most economically dynamic area in the world,
it also contains four great powers and six nuclear states. As Europe in
previous centuries, East Asia is becoming the focus of geopolitical games
in the twenty-first century. Those games are still revolving around the three
traditional actors: the dominant maritime power, the heartland power and
the rimland hybrid power. The most significant policy implications of classi-
cal geopolitics for contemporary world politics are largely concerned with
the international obligation of the United States as the dominant maritime
power in the system; the flawed logic of the so-called ‘offshore balancing’;
and the essentially strategic significance of Russia as the heartland power to
the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe and East Asia.102
When Robert Kaplan asserts that ‘the aim of geopolitics is to achieve a
balance of power’, he probably misreads those classical geopolitical texts.
Classical geopolitical thinkers did discuss balance, but only for other countries;
the only structure they desired for their homelands was one of positive
imbalance.103 In strict logic, a preponderance is not a balance. However,
history revealed that balancing coalitions had never formed against the
dominant maritime powers, rather against those land-based military powers
like the Habsburgs Monarchy; France under Louis XIV or Napoleon; and
Germany under Wilhelm or Hitler.104 Two categories of factors, rather than a
balancing coalition, have served as constraints on the balancer’s external
behaviour. First, a number of domestic factors that were peculiar to sea
powers – such as distrust of large standing armies, suspicion of continental
involvement and a preference for naval power, unsuited to continental con-
quest – have acted to restrain them. Second, the balancer’s influence derives
largely from its ability to add a winning margin to one side of the scale, only if
allied to another state or alliance can it exert a decisive influence, thus there
are clear limits to what the balancer can achieve in such a situation.105 From
this perspective, the question ‘why there is no balance against U. S.
102
For the policy relevance of classical geopolitics to contemporary world politics, see: Phil Kelly,
Classical Geopolitics: A New Analytical Model (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2016); Saul
Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations; Grygiel, Great Powers and
Geopolitical Change; Michael Sheehan, The International Politics of Space (London: Routledge 2007);
Walton, Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the 21st Century; Ceorge J. Demko and William B. Wood
(eds.), Geopolitical Perspectives on the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: West view Press 1999); Gray and
Sloan (eds.), Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy; Geoffrey Sloan, Geopolitics in United States Strategic
Policy 1890–1987 (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books 1988).
103
Robert D. Kaplan, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us about Coming Conflicts and the
Battle against Fate (New York, NY: Random House 2012), 61. This is an important characteristic of
classical geopolitics, see: Owens, ‘In Defense of Classical Geopolitics’, 463–478; Fettweis, ‘On
Heartlands and Chessboards: Classical Geopolitics, Then and Now’, 233–48.
812 Z. WU
dominance today?’ is largely wrong. Instead, the correct question that should
be asked about the United States is ‘how well does she perform in maintain-
ing the balance of power in Europe or East Asia today?’
For the dominant maritime powers, their leadership in the system
entailed them to behave in a way that would contribute to the continental
balance of power, and this role largely constitutes an essential source of
legitimacy for their preponderance in the system. As Sir Eyre Crowe argued,
naval supremacy could possibly ‘provoke other powers to form an anti-
British combination’, and against such a combination, ‘no single nation
could in the long run stand’, and the danger could only be averted, if
Britain’s policy conformed with ‘the primary and vital interests of a majority,
or as many as possible, of the other nations’. As Crowe indicated, this meant
that Britain had to act as the natural protector of smaller nations and
guarantor of their national independence and had to be a determined
champion of universal free trade; and the conjunction of the two functions
passed to Great Britain a special responsibility to maintain the balance of
power in Europe.106 In this sense, it can be argued that no balancing
coalition would be formed against the United States if she could fulfil her
duty by preserving the balance of power in Europe and East Asia today.
However, if the United States retreated from the duty imposed by her
position in the system, then slowly but probably her preponderance in the
system would stimulate a balancing coalition against herself.
For students of American grand strategy, classical geopolitics also helps
to reveal the flawed logic of offshore balancing. Offshore balancing agrees
that the United States must prevent an unfriendly power from dominating
any of core regions in the Eurasia. However, it argues that permanent US
deployments and alliance commitments in those regions are not necessary
or desirable to this end. Rather, Washington should rely mainly on local
actors to maintain the regional balances of power. Only when a crucial
regional balance collapses or threatens to collapse should the United
104
A series of prominent studies made by Jack S. Levy, William R. Thompson have unequivocally proven
this point, see: Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson, ‘Balancing on Land and at Sea: Do States Ally
against the Leading Global Power?’ International Security 35/1 (2010), 7–43; Jack S. Levy and William
R. Thompson, ‘Hegemonic Threats and Great-Power Balancing in Europe, 1495–1999’, Security Studies
14/1 (2005), 1–33.
105
Michael Sheehan, ‘The Place of the Balancer in Balance of Power Theory’, Review of International
Studies 15/2 (1989), 127–28. Also see: Levy, ‘What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When?’ in T.
V. Paul, James J. Wirtz and Michel Fortmann (eds.), Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st
Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2004), 29–51; Levy, ‘Balances and Balancing: Concepts,
Propositions, and Research Design’, 128–153.
106
Eyre Crowe, ‘Memorandum on the Present State of British Relations with France and Germany, 1
January 1907’, in G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley (eds.), British Documents on the Origins of the
War, Vol. 3, The Testing of the Entente, 1904–6 (London: HMSO 1928), 402, 403. Also see: Zhengyu Wu,
‘The Crowe Memorandum, the Rebalance to Asia, and Sino-US Relations’, Journal of Strategic Studies
39/3 (2016), 389–416; T.G. Otte, ‘Eyre Crowe and British Foreign Policy: A Cognitive Map’, in T.G. Otte
and Constantine A. Pagedas (eds.), Personalities, War and Diplomacy (London: Frank Cass 1997),
14–37.
States intervene with military forces. Once they restore the balance, US
forces should retreat offshore again.107 Offshore balancing, in essence,
parallels the ‘naval isolationism’ which was a derivative of Mahan’s ‘philoso-
phy of sea power’. This doctrine should be distinguished from the ‘con-
tinental isolationism’ which would defend America at its shores. Naval
isolationism is the belief that superior sea (and air) power can keep an
enemy off the oceans and hence that American shores are safe without
sending armies to lands overseas. This belief is doubtful given the increasing
proliferation of modern technology like nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the
need to maintain a favourable balance of power in Europe and East Asia is
largely deemphasised. Finally, offshore balancing is an approach that is
devoid of any positional balancing of power, therefore, it lacks spatial
design. Mahan’s own views on Asia at the early twentieth century did not
support such a position, and Mackinder and Spykman, as indicated pre-
viously, had regarded it as definitely unsound.108
The soundness of offshore balancing relies fundamentally on the auto-
matic conception of the balance of power which derives directly from
Waltz’s theory.109 However, Waltz’s balance of power theory has been
notoriously irrefutable because it says little about how and why the systemic
balance of power would form given a variety of obstacles. Rather, the
historical evidence unequivocally indicates that the European balance of
power relied on the regular interventions by the dominant maritime
powers.110 Besides, two geopolitical shifts have made offshore balancing
irrelevant especially to contemporary East Asia which is becoming the
primary focus of US grand strategy. First, relying on local actors to maintain
the regional balance of power presumes that there are several powers of
similar size. However, East Asia today is highly imbalanced, containing no
powers that can rival or compete effectively with a rising China. Thus, the
United States cannot find local actors to whom it may pass the balancing
duty. Second, the proliferation of modern technology means that the United
States has no way to re-enact a D-Day victory in East Asia today. This
proliferation, on one hand, has left the United States no enough time for
mobilisation and deployment as it once had and, on the other, implies that
it probably cannot find way back once she gets offshore.111
107
Brands, ‘Fools Rush Out? The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing’, 10. For major theses of the
offshore balancing, see: Barry Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press 2014); Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from
1940 to the Present (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006); Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power
Politics.
108
Jones, ‘Global Strategic Views’, 494. For critiques of the offshore balancing, see: Art, A Grand Strategy
for the United States (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), esp. 181–222. Also see: Brands, ‘Fools
Rush Out? The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing’, 7–28; Murray and Mansoor, ‘U.S. Grand Strategy
in the 21st Century: The Case for a Continental Commitment’, 19–34.
814 Z. WU
Offshore balancing, in theory, is a US alone rather than a coalition

concept. This strategy, if implemented, would put the United States into
political, strategic as well as physical isolation. However, the prevalence of
sea powers in history was based not merely on their own forces, also on the
contributions made by their continental allies. Among those continental
allies, the most prominent one since the late eighteenth century is Russia,
the natural inhabitant of the heartland, and the most formidable continental
power. This is another policy implication of classical geopolitics for contem-
porary world politics. As Spykman argued, Russia’s strategic character is
dual: Russia’s unique geographical position enabled it to apply enormous
pressures on states located on the rimland; however, so long as Russia did
not intend to establish some form of hegemony over those states on its
periphery, then Russia was also the most effective base to preserve the
peace on the Eurasia. The dual character of Russia has been proven recur-
rently throughout history. Since the late eighteenth century, Russia, like
Britain, had been an indispensable patron saint of the European states
system. The survival of the European balance of power, in a strict sense,
was accredited not only to Britain, also to Russia.112
This dual character of Russia as the heartland power testifies to her
strategic significance to the balance of power in Europe and East Asia
today. In fact, Russia as the heartland power has been vigilant of the rise
of an independent power centre in either Europe or East Asia. During the
cold war, the Soviet Union had protested against both America’s military
presence in Europe and European integration into an independent power
centre. This was to prevent the emergence of a unified Europe without
Russia. In a similar vein, the Soviet Union’s policy towards Japan before
and during World War II and its stationing of millions of troops on the
Sino-Soviet border during the Cold War also illustrate Russia’s vigilance
over the imbalance in East Asia. With history in mind, it can be argued
that the end of the Cold War as well as the constant weakening of Russia
today has largely restored the harmony of interest between Russia as the
heartland power and the United States as the dominant maritime power.
The nucleus of this harmony is to prevent the rise and challenge of a
109
For this point, see: Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present;
Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
110
For this point, see: Dehio, The Precarious Balance: Four Centuries of the European Power Struggle. Also
see: Levy and Thompson, ‘Balancing on Land and at Sea: Do States Ally against the Leading Global
Power?’ International Security 35/1 (2010), 7–43; Levy and Thompson, ‘Hegemonic Threats and Great-
Power Balancing in Europe, 1495–1999’, 1–33.
111
For the key role of the United States to the balance of power in East Asia after the Second World
War, see: James E. Auer & Robyn Lim, ‘The Maritime Basis of American Security in East Asia’, Naval
War College Review 54/1 (2001), 39–58; Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America,
and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia (New York: W. W. Norton & Company 2012); John Bradford, ‘The
Maritime Strategy of the United States: Implications for Indo-Pacific Sea-Lanes’, Contemporary
Southeast Asia 33/2 (2011), 183–208.
great power located on the rimland. This type of challenge will not
merely apply a great amount of pressure on the United States and also
bring Russia to endure the similar pressure given its unique geographic
position.
Conclusion: a case for classical geopolitics

As a framework of analysis, classical (the Anglo-American) geopolitics has
been oriented primarily at the global level. It was less focused on the state per
se and more concerned with the recurring patterns of power development
and interactions within a broader geopolitical context. By discerning broad
geopolitical patterns, such a framework can help strategists and policymakers
to develop better strategic or policy options. However, since the end of World
War II, classical geopolitics as a framework of analysis, while boasting much
influence and popularity within the circles of strategy and policy, has been
criticised and then marginalised, on two grounds: its alleged association with
Nazi foreign policy during World War II and its failure to meet the rigid social
scientific standards for theory. Whatever the truth in general, those two
critiques are not so tenable today as they once were.
Far from being identical, the basic propositions upon which the ideas of
the Nazi’s foreign policy and the geopoliticians were based were very differ-
ent. Recent studies have indicated that Geopolitik was not the geography of
Nazism in the way in which it was assumed to be by many western scholars
during World War II.113 Geopolitics is and will be a subjective science, that is, a
science animated by, and in the service of, a philosophical truth. Modern
geopolitics, like politics, is not tied to any specific ideology or doctrine, but it is
never neutral. It is always influenced or guided by a certain moral or political
philosophy. Thus, the real problem with geopolitics should be moral and/or
political in nature. As the postwar IR evolved in a positivist direction, classical
geopolitics was doomed to be marginalised. This is because a theory, by
positivistic standards, was conceptualised as an invention constructed to
explain a law, a causal relationship among variables.114 If a theory incorpo-
rates geopolitical factors, it would come closer to being a description and lose
its explanatory power. This has implied abandoning geopolitical factors and
concentrating on those variables that are generated independently of the
natural environments. Thus, classical geopolitics has lost its value with the rise
of social science, not with its irrelevance to politics or international relations.
112
Spykman, The Geography of the Peace, 57. Also see: Gerace, ‘Between Mackinder and Spykman:
Geopolitics, Containment, and after’, 347–64. For the dual role of Russia in the European states
system, see: Schroeder, Systems, Stability, and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern
Europe. Especially see: Paul W. Schroeder, ‘Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?’
American Historical Review 97/3 (1992), 683–706; Paul W. Schroeder, ‘The Nineteenth Century System:
Balance of Power or Political Equilibrium?’ Review of International Studies 15/2 (1989), 135–153.
816 Z. WU
In the post-Cold War years, there have appeared two new criticisms
against classical geopolitics. First, since the pursuit of prosperity is supplant-
ing the quest for power in international affairs, geopolitics is doomed to be
supplanted or superseded by some sort of geoeconomics. Second, although
a geopolitical perspective may have been useful in the past, advances in
technology, particularly airpower, nuclear weapons, space and information
technology, now render it moot.115 Despite eye-catching effects, those
criticisms are actually based on a misconception of classical geopolitics
which conflates the geopolitical actors (unit of analysis) with the integrated
power (technology) variables. In theory, classical geopolitics is a theory of
the recurring patterns of development and interactions of various geopoli-
tical actors. It integrates three types of geopolitical actors (sea powers, land
powers and land–sea hybrid powers) and at least five power (technology)
variables (sea power, land power, air power, aerospace power and cyber
power).116 In other words, economics and technology are integral rather
than extraneous to classical geopolitics. The emergence of new centres of
economic power and changes in communication, transport and weapons
technology do alter the geopolitical calculations of a state, thus compel
geopolitical thinkers to adjust their framework of analysis to the changed
environments, they do not negate it.
As an academic pursuit, classical geopolitics is a synthesis of geography,
history and strategy. This is why it has continuing pertinence for policy and
strategy. It does not obey the artificial boundaries of disciplinary knowledge.
The relevance of classical geopolitics is predicated on the fact that geopo-
litical realities, especially the interaction among geography, technology and
human activities, continue to matter for policy and strategy. Indeed, the
study of classical geopolitics is not as popular today as it was half a century
ago, but its ups and downs are tied more to academic mood swings than to
fundamental changes in the way states interact. As a framework of analysis,
classical geopolitics purports to help strategists and policymakers to better
grasp the temporal and spatial settings or environments. It admits that
geography and technology define limits and opportunities in international
113
For revisionist studies on German Geopolitik, see: David Thomas Murphy, ‘Hitler’s Geostrategist?: The
Myth of Karl Haushofer and the “Institut für Geopolitik”’, Historian 76/1 (2014), 1–25; Mark Bassin,
‘Race contra Space: The Conflict between German Geopolitik and National Socialism’, Political
Geography Quarterly 6/2 (1987), 115–134.
114
For the positivistic standards for theory and its application to geopolitical studies and theorising,
see: Fettweis, ‘On Heartlands and Chessboards: Classical Geopolitics, Then and Now’, 233–248; Waltz,
‘Realist Thought and Neorealist Theory’, 21–37.
115
For those two critical viewpoints on classical geopolitics, see: Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer Harris,
War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2016);
Martin Libicki, ‘The Emerging Primacy of Information’, Orbis 40/2 (1996), 261–74; Edward N. Luttwak,
‘From Geopolitics to Geo-economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce’, The National Interest
20/2 (1990), 17–24; Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, Foundations of International Politics
(Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand 1962).
politics, but it integrates human choice and activities as well. It is in this

sense that classical geopolitics has never been deterministic as many critics
claimed. For classical geopolitics, ‘the actual balance of political power at
any given time is, of course, the product, on the one hand, of geographical
conditions, both economic and strategic, and, on the other hand, of the
relative number, virility, equipment, and organization of the competing
peoples’.117
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Mr Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at Center for Strategic
and Budgetary Assessments, and Professor Andrew Erickson from US Naval War
College for their kindly help with the original draft. The author also likes to express
his sincere gratitude to Professor Peter Dutton, Director of China Maritime Studies
Institute at US Naval War College, for his long-time friendly encouragement and help.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Zhengyu Wu is a professor of International Politics in School of International Studies,
Renmin University of China (Beijing, China), where he has taught since 2002. He was
a visiting professor in Department of War Studies at King’s College London and a
visiting scholar in Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies at University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and Department of Politics at Durham University. Professor Wu
received his PhD in Department of History at Nanjing University (Nanjing, China) and
completed postdoctoral study at London School of Economics and Political Science.
His current research fields include Theory of International Politics, Geopolitics and
Grand Strategy and East Asian Maritime Security. His major books include Geopolitics
and Grand Strategy (2012); The Logic of Hegemony: Geopolitics and American Grand
Strategy in the Postwar Era (2010) and A Study of Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of
International Politics (2003). He also is the author of numerous Chinese and English
articles and contributed book chapters.
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Classical Geopolitics, Realism and The Balance of Power Theory

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Journal of Strategic Studies

ISSN: 0140-2390 (Print) 1743-937X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjss20

Classical geopolitics, realism and the balance of

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Classical geopolitics, realism and the balance of

Geopolitics is a controversial concept. Two distinct versions of geopolitics

actually what we think of as ‘geopolitics’ in conventional usage, and the label

Classical geopolitics and realism

Geography and IR due to its disreputable history, while French geopolitique, in

The primary feature of realist IR theories is the assumption of interna-

strategic orientations as well as by territorial size and material resources.20

combination which are the principal interests of geopolitical

and fourth sections) will sequentially elaborate on those three

Maritime supremacy and the continental balance of power

argued that ‘our constant concern in peacetime must be to see that no

Sea power and the continental commitment

intermissions to our insular domain only to be forced to apply later the

The dual character of the heartland

technologies that present new opportunities for the power potential of

German–Japanese success in World War II would have pushed the USSR

Classical geopolitics and the balance of power theory

Implications for contemporary world politics

Oﬀshore balancing, in theory, is a US alone rather than a coalition

Conclusion: a case for classical geopolitics

politics, but it integrates human choice and activities as well. It is in this

Donnelly, Jack, Realism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University

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