Dr Nick Megoran, on Democratic Ideals and Reality
Halford Mackinder’s Democratic Ideals and Reality was one of the two major polemical works published in 1919 (the other was the much more famous The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes). Now it’s available again, thanks to the magic of print-on-demand imprint Faber Finds.
Mackinder’s book was a warning for world domination, and may have led unwittingly to Hitler’s ambition. Dr Nick Megoran, lecturer in political geography at Newcastle University, here describes Mackinder the man, and explains why, even today, his controversial text continues to polarise opinion.
In the months immediately following World War I, numerous books were written that sought to understand and shape the post-war world. Although a few, such as Keynes’ The Economic Consequences of the Peace, remain well known, most are not remembered today. With the republication of Democratic Ideals and Reality, the most significant geographical text of that era is made available anew to the reading public.
Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947) enjoyed a number of parallel careers. As a politician, diplomat, industrialist and explorer he was only moderately successful, but it is chiefly as a geographical thinker that his legacy was established. He advanced moribund Victorian geography by developing a holistic vision that dynamically melded human and physical geography. For Mackinder, the physical divisions of the earth created ‘natural areas’ in which discreet human societies emerged. These societies passed down through the blood cultural characteristics from generation to generation. Over time, they expanded from their core areas and came into competition with each other.
To Mackinder’s mind, the crucial natural region for early twentieth-century international relations was the ‘Heartland’, essentially most of Russia and Central Asia. A ‘natural fortress’ that was virtually impregnable to attack, it was so endowed with fabulous resources that the state able to control it would be gifted with such advantages in ‘the eternal struggle for existence’ that ‘the empire of the world’ would be in sight. As an ardent supporter of British imperialism, Mackinder was profoundly concerned that this scenario would spell the demise of British supremacy. To counter this, Mackinder advocated policies to prevent the expansion of Heartland powers, and measures to ‘reduce the German people to its proper position in the world’ and thereby prevent it over-running the Heartland.
At the heart of Mackinder’s text was a profound contradiction in his view of democracy. He was committed to the world as a ‘safe place for democracies’, yet insisted that Anglo-British military power be used to achieve this and ensure their continued supremacy. He doubted the ability of democratically-elected civilian governments to grasp, and act upon, the geographical realities necessary for democracy to survive. Unsurprisingly, Democratic Ideals and Reality has drawn extremes of praise and opprobrium to this day.
For his admirers, Mackinder’s Heartland theory uncovered the geographical key to modern history. Although he did not use the word of his own work, he is credited as the founder of modern ‘geopolitics’. In Hitler’s grab for world empire, the Cold War, and recent struggles for control of Afghanistan, many students of global strategy see the enduring vindication of Mackinder’s thesis. As a gifted communicator he was one of the forerunners of today’s ‘defence intellectual’, the academic pundit pithily delivering distilled strategic wisdom to public audiences. His role in establishing geography as a respectable academic discipline in Britain is beyond doubt.
But Mackinder is loathed as much as he is loved. His critics argue that history has disproved his theory. Nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles have rendered the ‘Heartland’ useless as a fortress, and although the Soviet Union controlled the region for some seven decades it was unable to translate this putative advantage into ultimate Cold War triumph.
Mackinder’s politics have drawn even greater criticism. Opponents charge him with racism in both his personal dealings with Africans and by considering non-European civilisations and polities as inferior. They argue that far from being an objective discovery of the geographical realities behind politics, the Heartland theory was a subjective defence of British imperialism against growing challenges abroad and at home. In drawing upon evolutionary models it rendered imperialism not as a contested and dubious political choice, but as simply the inevitable human counterpart to natural selection.
What is undeniably remarkable about Mackinder’s Heartland thesis, however, is its apparent irrepressibility and adaptability. It has repeatedly resurfaced in surprising places, most commonly amongst right-wing political movements. 1930s German geopolitical thinkers and 1950s Pentagon strategists studied it, as did 1970s South American military juntas and 1990s Russian nationalists.
More recently, theorists of American space power, and Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Kazakh political scientists, have turned to Mackinder for insights into the relations between geography and strategy at the start of the twenty-first century. With the re-issuing of Democratic Ideals and Reality, a new generation of readers will have access to this most controversial of geographical interventions.
Dr Nick Megoran is a lecturer in political geography at Newcastle University.
