Transcript political models

POLITICAL MODELS
Heartland-Rimland Model
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In 1904, British geographer Halford Mackinder
proposed what would become known as the
Heartland-Rimland model
It was an effort to define the global geopolitical
landscape and determine areas of potential future
conflict
He stated that agricultural land was the primary
commodity that states were interested in
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The Heartland was the Eastern European Steppe, a
very productive area of grain agriculture mostly
controlled by the Russian Empire at that time & the
mineral and timber rich region across the Urals into
Siberia
It was this portion of the Earth’s surface that boarding
Rimland states such as the German Empire, the AustroHungarian Empire and Romania were potential invaders
of
Rimland also contained other landwolves eager to
grab at neighboring territories such as France and Italy
& seawolves, such as Great Britain & Japan
Predictive Power of the Model
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In effect, Mackinder accurately predicted the battle
lines of the Eastern Front during WW I
In 1921 he revised the model expanding the
Heartland further into Central Europe
From 1904 onward Mackinder points out that the
areas of future conflict are the borderlines between
the Heartland and the Rimland
The prediction comes true again in 1931 with the
invasion by the Japanese which some identify as the
start of WWII
Shatterbelt Theory
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Proposed in 1950 by Saul Cohen
He modified Mackinder’s Heartland into the “Pivot
Area” and Rimland into the “Inner Crescent”
The rest of the world became the Outer Crescent
including the US
His concept was that the Cold War conflicts would
likely occur within the Inner Crescent
He pointed out several Inner Crescent areas of
geopolitical weakness he called Shatterbelts
Containment Theory
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Conflict areas like the Soviet Union and China would
attempt top capture to create buffer states, lands that
would protect them by creating a surrounding buffer of
sympathetic countries
U.S. diplomat George Kennen first proposed the
strategic policy of containment in 1947
He proposed the U.S. and its allies would attempt to
build a containment wall around the core communist
states
Anytime the USSR or China attempted to expand the
realm of influence politically the forces of NATO would
be deployed to stop them
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It was successful at first and communist movements
were stopped in Greece, Iran and Malaysia
However, Communist reached a military stalemate
in Korea in 1953 and won military victories
That along with communist takeovers in countries like
Hungary, Angola, Cuba and Nicaragua were
evidence their were limitations to the containment
theory (communism spread to the outer cresent)
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The U.S. and its allied states had to contain these
soviet controlled satellite states to prevent
communism from spreading
They feared the domino effect where one state
would fall to communism and then inspire and
support communist uprisings
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Despite the failings of the containment approach.
Communism was limited due to the number of buffer
states