THE INFLUENCE OF MACKINDER’S THEORY ON CURRENT U.S. DEPLOYMENT IN EURASIA: PROBLEMS AND PERSPECTIVES

Fabrizio VIELMINI

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Fabrizio Vielmini, Ph.D. candidate at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Centre d’Études du Monde Russe, Soviétique et Post-Soviétique (Paris, France)

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Mackinder’s basic ideas about the Eurasian Heartland remain the most pertinent vision to understand the strategic changes which have occurred over post-Soviet space, as well as the current U.S. military deployment inside it. In fact, the 1904 “Pivot” theory (and its successive revisions as the “Heartland” theory) suggested a range of concepts that were destined to enter the standard lexicon of international relations during and, to an even greater extent, after the end of the Cold War.

The starting point of this analysis is that the end of bipolar world has created an international situation which, from the point of view of a U.S. power resolute in maintaining world hegemony, closely resembles the British situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. In order to understand this we have first to assess the similar structure of these two powers, which we can call “Atlantic” for the sake of simplification. These are chiefly maritime commercial powers, based on the imposition of a precise economic constitution characterized by the application of free trade principles to the world economy. These principles correspond to certain advantages, such as financial and technical skills, that they possess over all others actors. Nevertheless these powers are fundamentally fragile, and the description remains more theoretical than practical. The U.S. share of world economy is today shrinking as was the British vis-à-vis Germany. To compensate for this, military force thus remains crucial to maintaining the hegemonic position of the maritime world power. Another central feature of this kind of power is its effort to impose a universal liberal economic constitution that goes parallel with a pretension to the moral superiority of………………

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