The Geographical Axis of History

Sir Halford John Mackinder was an English geographer, lecturer at Oxford University, member of the British House of Commons, and one of the founders of geopolitics as a science. In his seminal work, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Mackinder introduced the concept of the Heartland, designating the central part of Eurasia, around which lie the inner arc (Europe—Arabia—Indochina) and the peripheral arc (the Americas—Africa—Oceania). He wrote that he who controls the Heartland controls the world. But what territory serves as a counterweight to the Heartland? This is Rimland—the states that possess the strip of coastline bordering the Heartland and stand opposed to it. Their irreconcilable contradictions gave rise to, and continue to give rise to, the geopolitical problems we observe even today.