Heartland and Rimland Theory
Heartland theory states the power that control central Asia whereas Rimland gives the importance to the strip of coastal land that encircles Eurasia.
Heartland and Rimland Theory were further discuss below
Heartland Theory
Mackinder had concluded from his study of global physical map that three time fourth of earth surface consisted of water and only one fourth by land. Of this one fourth two third is accounted by World island term given by Mackinder to United landmass of Europe, Asia and Africa and some isolated islands of North and south America. The world island accounted for 7/8th of the total population. Mackinder vision the landmass of the world arranged in three tiers. These three tiers are explained below:
According to Mackinder the Heartland should be by barriers on all sides. So that it acts like a fortress standing in a sea and is in accessible
The Modified Concept of ”Strategic Heartland”
In 1919 Mackinder published a somewhat labored and extended version pf his 1904 paper in a book entitles ”The Democratic ideals and Reality”. In this book the renamed the ”pivot region” as the heartland. He wrote this book especially with a view to warn and instruct the statesman of the Allied countries. The Allied powers, at that time were engaged in discussing the terms of peace with Germany which had been defeated in the First World War.
The facts agitating Mackinder’s mind were that there Russian Empire had already collapsed in 1917, and her new Communist rulers had made peace with Germany almost on her own terms. Events of first world war, like when the navy of Great Britain had failed to force entry through the Turkish straits into the Black sea, and the Germany mines had excluded them from Baltic sea, made it clear to Mackinder that sea power was capable of controlling a much less extensive area of the world island than be had originally believed.
He redefined the Heartland as ”the region to which, under modern conditions, sea-power can be refused access though the western part of it lies without the region of Arctic and continental drainage.” Furthermore, in 1917 the German armies had advanced through the steppe corridor of south western Russia. This seemed Mackinder to re-emphasize the strategic importance of the East European gate of entry in the Heartland Convinced that the East European corridor offered the only key control the Heartland by an outside power. He discounted China and Japan, and emphasized that the real threat of the future control of the Heartland by an outside power lay only from the side of a strong and ambitious Germany.
The Heartland is the strongest fortress on the earth, commanding resources of a huge trans-continental area. Any power that could organize it effectively was, in Mackinder’s view, bond to emerge as a great colonies in world politics, head and shoulders above any other state. It is therefore held a key to world supremacy. It could subjugate each of the states of the marginal crescent one by one and thus emerge as the ruler of the world island. Any power that ruled the world island would thereby command two-third of the land area and seven-eights of the population of the world.
Mackinder’s Heartland: A critical appraisal
Although Mackinder has been greatest influence on a global strategic thinking in the modern times. he has nevertheless been variously criticized, both in respect of his facts and ideas. In the first place, he oversimplifies history in a rather deterministic fashion as a strategic between land and sea power, which in fact was far from the truth.
Secondly, Mackinder wrongly equated power potential with sheer geographical area, a factor that made him to over inflate the resource and power potential of the inner Asian Heartland. Thirdly, Mackinder overlooked the fact that the extremes of climate.
Another serious consequence of Mackinder’s thinking about the present in terms of the past technology was that at the beginning of the twentieth century he was still explaining global strategy in terms of Mercator projection map which created false picture regarding the unlimited expanse of arctic ice separating north from Eurasia. With the rapid march of science and technology, surface configuration of the earth has become very much less significant politically than it was at the time when Mackinder first presented his ”pivot area”.
Spykman Rimland Theory
In 1942, Mackinder’s Democratic ideals and reality was reprinted in the united states in its original form with a forceful introduction by the late Edward M. Earle of the institute of Advanced study in Princeton. Earl wrote ”there is no better statement anywhere of the facts of geography which conditioned the destiny of our world. working from the same premises as Mackinder, Spykman gave a very different interpretation of the relative importance of the Heartland surrounded by tier while partly continental and partly oceanic which Spykman renamed as Rimland.
Spykman underlined that the great importance that Mackinder has attached to the Heartland region was chiefly on account of two reason. First, because of his belief in the immense strategic advantages possessed by this vast area occupying a central geographical location and ”interior lines of communication made powerful and unified by land transportation to a point where is could being to compare with sea communication .” Secondly, because Mackinder envisaged the transformation of the vast steppe land, an area of low economic potential, to one of the economic development.
Spykman also criticized Mackinder’s theory that the Old World history is a continuing struggle between land power and sea power. Spykman wrote that there is need for a slogan for global power politics, it must be:
Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia.
Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.
to Spykman the Heartland appeared ”less important than the Rimland” and he was convinced that it is a combination of land and sea powers controlling the Rimland. that would probably control ”the essential power relations of the world inevitably so, because this combination would emerge as the owner of far greater resources, man power, and mobility, than the Heartland or any other combination.
Heartland and Rimland theory is hence have shaped geopolitical analysis, influencing strategies and policies by emphasizing the critical role of geographical positioning in the pursuit of global power. The ongoing discourse surrounding these theories underscores their enduring impact on the study of international relations and geopolitical strategies.