National Defence University of Malaysia

Week 8:
Geography and Strategy

Dr. Wong Chooi Ye, FPPP

1) Introduction;
2) Strategy; Grand Strategy;
3) Geography; Geopolitics; Geostrategy;
4) Mahan – Sea Power Theory;
5) Mackinder – Heartland Theory;
6) Ratzel – Living Space;
7) Spykman – Rimland Theory;
8) Case Theory – Geostrategy and Pakistan.
 Introduction
o Modern concepts of statecraft associated with the rise and decline
of Great Powers > the Cold War.
o Strategic environment changes over times:
✓ Russia – at loggerheads with the West over Ukraine;
✓ China – increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
o Increased economic interdependence:
✓ China has gone through a sustained period of accelerated
economic growth;
✓ US and other major Western economies have suffered
economic decline after 2008 global economic crisis.
 Introduction cont…
o There is a need to preserve the power of the US and its global
dominance.
o Focus on the rise of China & other non-Western world.
o The political implication of geographical space, the way that
geography may contribute to conflict or convey strategic
advantages → geopolitics.
o Geopolitics is a concept connected to the Great Powers as central
actors in world affairs.
 Strategy

o Edward Mead Earle (1943):

Strategy is the art of controlling and utilizing the resources of a
nation… including armed forces to the end that its vital interest
shall be effectively promoted and secured against enemies, actual,
potential or merely presumed.
 Strategy con’t…

o Hew Strachan (2011):

Strategy is oriented towards the future. It is a declaration of intent
and an indication of the possible means required to fulfil that
intent. But once strategy moves beyond the near term, it struggles
to define exactly what it intends to do… The operational plans of
military strategy look to the near term and work with specific
situations.
 Grand Strategy

o Liddell Hart (1935):

Grand strategy should both calculate and develop the economic
resources and manpower of nations in order to sustain the
fighting services… It should not only combine the various
instruments, but so regulate their use as to avoid damage to the
future state of peace – for its security and prosperity.
 Grand Strategy con’t…

o Edward Mead Earle (1943):

The highest type of strategy—sometimes called grand strategy—
is that which so integrates the policies and armaments of the
nation that the resort to war is either rendered unnecessary or is
undertaken with the maximum chance of victory.
 Grand Strategy con’t…

o Paul Kennedy (1991):

The crux of grand strategy lies therefore in policy (capacity of the
nation’s leaders to bring together all of the elements, both military
and non-military) for the preservation and enhancement of the
nation’s long-term (in wartime and peacetime) best interests.
 Grand Strategy con’t…

o Hew Strachan (2011):

Grand strategy can entertain ambitions and goals that are more
visionary and aspirational than pragmatic and immediate.
 Grand Strategy con’t…

o Williamson Murray (2011):

In a world where great states confront overstretch, they must make
hard choices. Thus, in the end, grand strategy is more often than
not about the ability to adjust to the reality that resources, will,
and interests inevitably find themselves out of balance in some
areas.
 Grand Strategy con’t…

o Hence, grand strategy – much broader, more long-term political

vision.
o Deliberating the proper balance of priorities of a state by
coordinating ends and means (Kennedy, 1991).
o Draws on all the military, diplomatic, cultural, & economic
means and instruments at the state’s disposal.
o Long-term, multi-dimensional plan for securing and enhancing
state’s power and prosperity.
o Security – securing and enhancing state’s interests, and securing it
against external threats and possible opponents.
 In all of this, geography matters.
o Trade & communication routes – strategically important for
large economies; location of the natural resources.
o Projection of power – geographical focus.
Major International Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOCs)
United States
Overseas
Military Bases
China Overseas Military Bases
Soviet Projection of Power, 1983
 Geography con’t…

o Halford Mackinder (1904):

For the first time we can perceive something of the real proportion
of features and events on the stage of the whole world, and may
seek a formula which shall express certain aspects…of
geographical causation in universal history.
 Geography con’t…

o Nicholas Spykman (1942):

Geography is the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy

of states, because it is the most permanent.
 Geography con’t…

o Colin Gray (1999):

1. All politics is geopolitics;

2. All strategy is geostrategy;
3. Geography is ‘out there’ objectively as environment or
‘terrain’ (physical geography); and
4. Geography also is ‘within us’, in here, as imagined
spatial relationships (human geography; civilisation).
Geopolitics
 Geopolitics con’t…

o Karl Haushofer (1942):

Not by accident is the word ‘Politik’ preceded by that little prefix
‘geo’. This prefix…relates politics to the soil. It rids politics of
arid theories and senseless phrases which might trap our political
leaders into hopeless utopias. It puts them back on solid ground.
Geopolitik demonstrates the dependence of all political
developments on the permanent reality of the soil.
 Geopolitics con’t…

o John Agnew (2003):

The geopolitical imagination...has never exercised absolute power
over the course of world politics, in the sense of transcending the
effects of technological, economic and other material
determinants…the modern geopolitical imagination has, however,
provided meaning and rationalization to practice by political
elites the world over. It has defined the ‘ideological space’, to use
Immanuel Wallerstein’s phrase, from which the geographic
categories upon which the world is organized and works are
derived.
 Geopolitics con’t…

o Rudolph Kiellen (Swedish geographer) – states have to face two

strategic imperatives to survive and thrive:

✓ Demography, or management of people (ethnopolitik); &

✓ Management of territorial expansion (geopolitik).
 Geostrategy

o Gray (1999):
Politics and strategy are in compliance with geographical
influences because ‘geography is the mother of strategy’. ‘All
politics is geopolitics. All strategy is geostrategy’.

o Brzezinski (1998):
‘The strategic management of geopolitical interests’ .
 Geostrategy con’t…

o Sun Tzu: “to be successful in

war, the commanders have to
understanding the environment
and geography before deploying
armed forces”.
 Imperial Competition VS Geopolitics
o Beginning of 20th century – new development of the imperial
expansion of the European powers (Britain, France, Russian
empire) – mapping and reclaiming most part of the globe.
o Rise of Great Powers – claimed special responsibility for
managing international affairs.
o Led to competition with each other, heightened international
tensions:
✓ Scramble for Africa – UK, France, & other European
powers;
✓ Colonial Great Game in Central Asia (UK vs Russia
Empire)
 Imperial Competition VS Geopolitics con’t…

o > 20th century, Alfred T. Mahan (American naval strategist) -

sea power was of crucial strategic importance; advocated US
join the imperial expansion.
✓ US entered naval arm race; engaged in Cuba, Puerto Rico,
the Philippines.
✓ Sea Power Theory.
 Imperial Competition VS Geopolitics con’t…

o Mackinder (geographer, politician) – new technologies (eg:

railways) were increasing the strategic significance of land
over sea.
✓ Increasing land power (Germany, Russia empire);
✓ Threatening sea power’s global dominance (Britain).
o Heartland Theory – ‘Who rules East Europe commands the
Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World
Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World’.
 Imperial Competition VS Geopolitics con’t…

o Friedrich Ratzel (German geographer) – size of countries;

importance of population growth.
✓ Concept of Lebensraum (‘living space’) – Aryan races
populating German territory threatening Germany.
✓ Modern Germany should secure additional land and
resources to counter threat from Russia.
 Geopolitics VS Grand Strategy

o Central tenets during WWII & Cold War.

o Hart: “the higher level of wartime strategy, coordination of all
the resources of a state towards the political ends of a war”.
o Spykman:
✓ Control over the rimland (Central Europe) could counter
possible Soviet dominance of the continent.
✓ US vs SU → Cold War
 Geopolitics VS Grand Strategy con’t…

o Deterrence:
✓ US military strategy based on out-arming and out-spending
the SU;
✓ Expanding nuclear and conventional capabilities to deter
the SU from using its own nuclear weapons.
✓ Had no connection to geopolitical reasoning.
 Geopolitics VS Grand Strategy con’t…

o Containment:
✓ Strategy – countering SU influence ‘by the adroit and
vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly
shifting geographical and political points’ (Kennan, 1947).
✓ Soviet influence had to be countered everywhere; one state
turning communist could easily spread communism to
neighbouring states until a entire world region would fall
(Domino Theory).
✓ A form of geopolitics, driven by ideological concerns;
required US engagement across all areas of the globe.
 Geopolitics VS Grand Strategy con’t…

o Today…long-term decline of a hegemonic power (US

exhausted defence budgets); rise of new challengers (economic
rise of China).
o International politics are affected.
✓ China needs to secure resources (energy security).
✓ Presence in the Middle East regions, growing energy
relationship with Russia.
✓ New leverage to Syria & Iran; Russia’s assertiveness over
Ukraine.
✓ Sea routes controlled by US → region tensions over
China’s territorial claim in the SCS.
Case Study: Geo-Strategy and Pakistan
How does China see Pakistan?
 Conclusion
• Geographical setting of nations is an important
calculation in the practice and conduct of strategy.
• Mastering the immediate challenge of the geography must
be the first task for states before giving attention to the
enemy.
• Geo-strategy plays important role in foreign policy of
states.
• Also a determinant factor in economic progress of
nations.
• Geo-strategy calculations are needed in the peace and war
time.