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190-923: Containment was a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II . The name was loosely related to the term cordon sanitaire , which was containment of the Soviet Union in the interwar period . As a component of the Cold War, this policy caused a response from the Soviet Union to increase communist influence in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Containment represented

380-469: A " limited war " policy. His focus shifted to negotiating a settlement, which was finally reached in 1953. For his part, MacArthur denounced Truman's "no-win policy." Many Republicans, including John Foster Dulles , were concerned that Truman had been too timid. In 1952, Dulles called for rollback and the eventual liberation of Eastern Europe. Dulles was named secretary of state by incoming President Eisenhower, but Eisenhower's decision not to intervene during

570-454: A 1917 speech called for the immediate end of the war on the basis of the restoration of pre-1914 status quo , Wilson in a letter to the pontiff on 27 August 1917 rejected the pope's call for peace as he wrote: "Our response must be based on stern facts and upon nothing else...America wanted not a mere cessation of arms, but a stable and enduring peace". Wilson argued that he was rejecting the pope's peace message on moral grounds as he argued that

760-542: A basis of Colombian era empire (roughly from 1492 to the 19th century), and predicted the 20th century to be domain of land power. The Heartland theory hypothesized a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland—which would not need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to remain coherent. The basic notions of Mackinder's doctrine involve considering the geography of the Earth as being divided into two sections:

950-642: A distinction between Germany's "criminal" government and the German people. At least part of the distinction was due to his knowledge of the political crisis in Germany. In 1914, the majority of the Social Democrats (SPD) – the largest party in the Reichstag – supported the war, believing the government's statements that Russia was about to attack Germany. The SPD joined the other Reichstag parties in

1140-476: A fixed geography. French geography is focused on the evolution of polymorphic territories being the result of mankind's actions. It also relies on the consideration of long time periods through a refusal to take specific events into account. This method has been theorized by Professor Lacoste according to three principles: Representation ; Diachronie; and Diatopie. In The Spirit of the Laws , Montesquieu outlined

1330-623: A fleet, were conducive to control over the sea. He proposed six conditions required for a nation to have sea power : Mahan distinguished a key region of the world in the Eurasian context, namely, the Central Zone of Asia lying between 30° and 40° north and stretching from Asia Minor to Japan. In this zone independent countries still survived – Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. Mahan regarded those countries, located between Britain and Russia, as if between "Scylla and Charybdis". Of

1520-572: A foreign policy vision for Britain with his Eurocentric analysis of historical geography. His formulation of the Heartland Theory was set out in his article entitled " The Geographical Pivot of History ", published in England in 1904. Mackinder's doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies (he coined the term sea power ) in world conflict. He saw navy as

1710-564: A foundation for the German variant of geopolitics, geopolitik . Influenced by the American geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, Ratzel wrote of aspirations for German naval reach, agreeing that sea power was self-sustaining, as the profit from trade would pay for the merchant marine, unlike land power. The geopolitical theory of Ratzel has been criticized as being too sweeping, and his interpretation of human history and geography being too simple and mechanistic. Critically, he also underestimated

1900-463: A global vision. However, in complete opposition to Ratzel's vision, Reclus considers geography not to be unchanging; it is supposed to evolve commensurately to the development of human society. His marginal political views resulted in his rejection by academia. French geographer and geopolitician Jacques Ancel (1879–1936) is considered to be the first theoretician of geopolitics in France, and gave

2090-416: A global war or it may be a Soviet campaign for limited objectives. In either case, we should take no avoidable initiative which would cause it to become a war of annihilation, and if we have the forces to defeat a Soviet drive for limited objectives it may well be to our interest not to let it become a global war. There were three alternative policies to containment under discussion in the late 1940s. The first

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2280-535: A great power. In Foch's viewpoint, France's need for sécurité took precedence over the rights of the Rhinelanders for self-determination. As the Rhineland was overwhelmingly German in population and its people did not wish to be severed from Germany, both Wilson and Lloyd George were completely opposed to Clemenceau's plans for the Rhineland, which they claimed would create "an Alsace-Lorraine in reverse" with

2470-500: A group of elder statesmen called The Wise Men . The group included Kennan, Acheson and other former Truman advisors. Rallies in support of the troops were discouraged for fear that a patriotic response would lead to demands for victory and rollback. Military responsibility was divided among three generals so that no powerful theater commander could emerge to challenge Johnson as MacArthur had challenged Truman. Nixon, who replaced Johnson in 1969, referred to his foreign policy as détente,

2660-410: A grouping would have the capacity to outstrip America economically and, in the end, militarily. That danger would have to be resisted even if the dominant power was apparently benevolent, for if its intentions ever changed, America would find itself with a grossly diminished capacity for effective resistance and a growing inability to shape events." The main interest of the American leaders is maintaining

2850-497: A large army and defeated the UN forces, pushing them back below the 38th parallel. Truman publicly hinted that he might use his "ace in the hole" of the atomic bomb, but Mao was unmoved. The episode was used to support the wisdom of the containment doctrine as opposed to rollback. The Communists were later pushed back to roughly around the original border, with minimal changes. Truman criticized MacArthur's focus on absolute victory and adopted

3040-736: A large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites and it has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia and powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin. According to Li Lingqun, a major feature of the People's Republic of China 's geopolitics

3230-416: A lasting peace would require "saving the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government" that wanted to "dominate the world". Notably, Wilson was vague about what he considered to be a "stable and enduring peace" other than it required the defeat of Germany. Wilson in his speeches and letters was always careful to make

3420-585: A major public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the First World War . After the speech, House worked to secure the acceptance of the Fourteen Points by Entente leaders. On October 16, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson and Sir William Wiseman , the head of British intelligence in America, had an interview. This interview was one reason why

3610-434: A middle-ground position between détente (relaxation of relations) and rollback (actively replacing a regime). The basis of the doctrine was articulated in a 1946 cable by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan during the post- World War II term of U.S. President Harry S. Truman . As a description of U.S. foreign policy , the word originated in a report Kennan submitted to US Defense Secretary James Forrestal in 1947, which

3800-692: A more aggressive approach to dealings with the Soviets and believed that détente was misguided and peaceful coexistence was tantamount to surrender. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, American policymakers worried that the Soviets were making a run for control of the Persian Gulf. Throughout the 1980s, under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine , the United States provided technical and economic assistance to

3990-610: A notable series of lectures at the European Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Paris and published Géopolitique in 1936. Like Reclus, Ancel rejects German determinist views on geopolitics (including Haushofer's doctrines). Braudel 's broad view used insights from other social sciences, employed the concept of the longue durée , and downplayed the importance of specific events. This method

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4180-767: A perspective grounded in three assumptions: Connected with this stream, and former member of Hérodote editorial board, the French geographer Michel Foucher developed a long term analysis of international borders. He coined various neologism among them: Horogenesis : Neologism that describes the concept of studying the birth of borders , Dyade : border shared by two neighbouring states (for instance US territory has two terrestrial dyades : one with Canada and one with Mexico). The main book of this searcher "Fronts et frontières" (Fronts and borders) first published in 1991, without equivalent remains untranslated in English. Michel Foucher

4370-691: A plan to protect the Armenians after the hoped for Allied victory, even though the United States was not at war with the Ottoman Empire. The parts of the 14 Points relating to the Near East where the emphasis was upon protecting minority rights were at least in part designed to rebut the criticism that the Wilson administration was indifferent to the genocide being waged in Anatolia. The purpose of

4560-589: A policy called Vietnamization . As the war continued, it grew less popular. A Democratic Congress forced Nixon, a Republican, to abandon the policy in 1973 by enacting the Case–Church Amendment , which ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam and led to successful communist invasions of South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. President Jimmy Carter came to office in 1977 and was committed to a foreign policy that emphasized human rights . However, in response to

4750-463: A position which conceded as much to the Allies as it could, but took away the poison.... It was all keyed upon the secret treaties." In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments , an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of

4940-467: A psychological analysis by Deborah Larson, Truman felt a need to prove his decisiveness and feared that aides would make unfavorable comparisons between him and his predecessor, Roosevelt. "I am here to make decisions, and whether they prove right or wrong I am going to take them", he once said. The drama surrounding the announcement of the Truman Doctrine catered to the president's self-image of

5130-536: A relaxation of tension. Although it continued to aim at restraining the Soviet Union, it was based on political realism, thinking in terms of national interest, as opposed to crusades against communism or for democracy. Emphasis was placed on talks with the Soviet Union concerning nuclear weapons called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks . Nixon reduced U.S. military presence in Vietnam to the minimum required to contain communist advances, in

5320-468: A report elaborating on the Long Telegram and proposing concrete policy recommendations based on its analysis. This report, which recommended "restraining and confining" Soviet influence, was presented to Truman on September 24, 1946. In January 1947, Kennan drafted an essay entitled " The Sources of Soviet Conduct ." Navy Secretary James Forrestal gave permission for the report to be published in

5510-449: A sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. VII. Belgium,

5700-565: A speech setting out the UK's war aims which bore some similarity to Wilson's speech but which proposed reparations be paid by the Central Powers and which was more vague in its promises to the non-Turkish subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The Fourteen Points in the speech were based on the research of the Inquiry , a team of about 150 advisers led by foreign-policy adviser Edward M. House , into

5890-537: A state. However, the success of the Inchon landing inspired the U.S. and the United Nations to adopt a rollback strategy instead and to overthrow communist North Korea, thus allowing nationwide elections under UN auspices. General Douglas MacArthur then advanced across the 38th Parallel into North Korea. The Chinese, fearful of a possible U.S. presence on their border or even an invasion by them, then sent in

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6080-552: A strong and decisive leader, but his real decision-making process was more complex and gradual. The timing of the speech was not a response to any particular Soviet action but to the fact that the Republican Party had just gained control of Congress. Truman was little involved in drafting the speech and did not himself adopt the hard-line attitude that it suggested until several months later. The British, with their own position weakened by economic distress, urgently called on

6270-461: A threat from German (Teuton), Russian (Slav), and Japanese expansionism: The "fatal" relationship of Russia, Japan, and Germany "has now assumed through the urgency of natural forces a coalition directed against the survival of Saxon supremacy." It is "a dreadful Dreibund". Lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at England, the center of

6460-530: A topic of debate among historians. The German-born American historian Gerhard Weinberg noted that the entire question of the "justice" of the Treaty of Versailles as a source of European discord is irrelevant. Weinberg noted that the vast majority of Germans in the interwar period believed that their country had actually won World War One with the Reich only being defeated by the alleged " stab-in-the-back " that

6650-486: A waste of American resources. Wilson argued that Germany was an advanced, industrial nation while the Ottoman Empire was a backward nation with almost no modern industries, and as such the defeat of Germany would automatically lead to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Both Roosevelt and Cabot Lodge argued in various speeches and columns that the United States had a moral duty to stop the Armenian genocide by declaring war on

6840-503: Is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain, and predict international political behavior through geographical variables. These include area studies , climate , topography , demography , natural resources , and applied science of the region being evaluated. Geopolitics focuses on political power linked to geographic space, in particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history . Topics of geopolitics include relations between

7030-534: Is addressed by Bert Chapman in Geopolitics: A Guide To the Issues , in which Chapman makes note that academic and professional International Relations journals are more amenable to the study and analysis of Geopolitics, and in particular Classical geopolitics, than contemporary academic journals in the field of political geography. In disciplines outside geography, geopolitics is not negatively viewed (as it often

7220-409: Is among academic geographers such as Carolyn Gallaher or Klaus Dodds ) as a tool of imperialism or associated with Nazism, but rather viewed as a valid and consistent manner of assessing major international geopolitical circumstances and events, not necessarily related to armed conflict or military operations. French geopolitical doctrines broadly opposed to German Geopolitik and reject the idea of

7410-542: Is an expert of the African Union for borders affairs. More or less connected with this school, Stéphane Rosière can be quoted as the editor in Chief of the online journal L'Espace politique , this journal created in 2007 became the most prominent French journal of political geography and Geopolitics with Hérodote. French philosopher Michel Foucault's dispositif introduced for the purpose of biopolitical research

7600-718: Is attempting to change the laws of the sea to advance claims in the South China Sea . Another geopolitical issue is PRC's claims over the territories of Taiwan against the government of the Republic of China . Various analysts state that China created the Belt and Road Initiative as a geostrategic effort to take a larger role in global affairs, and undermine what the Communist Party perceives as American hegemony . It has also been argued that China co-founded

7790-525: Is based on loose justifications. This has been observed in particular by critics of contemporary academic geography, and proponents of a "neo"-classical geopolitics in particular. These include Haverluk et al., who argue that the stigmatization of geopolitics in academia is unhelpful as geopolitics as a field of positivist inquiry maintains potential in researching and resolving topical, often politicized issues such as conflict resolution and prevention, and mitigating climate change . Negative associations with

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7980-556: Is considered to be the first having coined the term in English as early as 1902 and later published in England in 1904 in his book Foundations of Modern Europe . Sir Halford Mackinder 's Heartland Theory initially received little attention outside the world of geography, but some thinkers have claimed that it subsequently influenced the foreign policies of world powers. Those scholars who look to MacKinder through critical lenses accept him as an organic strategist who tried to build

8170-525: Is encountered at any point. Kennan's cable was hailed in the State Department as "the appreciation of the situation that had long been needed." Kennan himself attributed the enthusiastic reception to timing: "Six months earlier the message would probably have been received in the State Department with raised eyebrows and lips pursed in disapproval. Six months later, it would probably have sounded redundant." Clark Clifford and George Elsey produced

8360-522: Is forever impaired. VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine , which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality . X. The people of Austria-Hungary , whose place among

8550-637: Is more like Britain's than Russia's in the New Great Game, where Russia plays the role that the Russian Empire originally did. Chen stated, "Regardless of the prospect, China through the BRI is deep in playing a 'New Great Game' in Central Asia that differs considerably from its historical precedent about 150 years ago when Britain and Russia jostled with each other on the Eurasian steppes." In

8740-539: Is war) in 1976. This book symbolizes the birth of this new school of geopolitics (if not so far the first French school of geopolitics as Ancel was very isolated in the 1930s–40s). Initially linked with communist party evolved to a less liberal approach. At the end of the 1980s he founded the Institut Français de Géopolitique (French Institute for Geopolitics) that publishes the Hérodote revue. While rejecting

8930-528: The Burgfrieden ("peace-within-a-castle-under-siege") in which the parties agreed not criticize the government in its handling of the war. The SPD made it clear, however, that their support was for a defensive war only and that they opposed a war of conquest. From the beginning, the left wing of the Social Democrats opposed the war on the grounds that the German working class had no quarrel with

9120-531: The 1898 U.S. annexation of the Philippines whilst condemning the rebellion of the Philippine nationalist Emilio Aguinaldo , and strongly believed that the U.S. was morally obliged to impose Western ways of life and governance on such countries, so that eventually they could govern independently. In Germany, the 14 Points became a symbol of the promised basis of the peace after the war and, throughout

9310-657: The 1956 Hungarian Revolution , which was put down by the Soviet Army , made containment a bipartisan doctrine. Eisenhower relied on clandestine CIA actions to undermine hostile governments and used economic and military foreign aid to strengthen governments supporting the American position in the Cold War. In the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the top officials in Washington debated using rollback to get rid of Soviet nuclear missiles, which were threatening

9500-487: The American Revolution ) would be sympathetic towards the goals and aspirations they held. A common belief among anti-colonial nationalist leaders was the U.S., once it had assisted them in gaining independence from colonial rule or foreign influence, would establish new relationships which would be more favorable and equitable than what had existed beforehand. However, the nationalist interpretations of both

9690-729: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank to compete with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in development finance . According to Bobo Lo , the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been advertised as a "political organization of a new type" claimed to transcend geopolitics. Political scientist Pak Nung Wong says that a major form of geopolitics between

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9880-559: The Bolshevik government, which seemed intent on promoting worldwide revolution. In March 1919, French Premier Georges Clemenceau called for a cordon sanitaire , a ring of non-communist states, to isolate Soviet Russia . Translating that phrase, US President Woodrow Wilson called for a "quarantine." The World War I allies launched an incursion into Russia , as after the Bolshevik Revolution, Vladimir Lenin withdrew

10070-545: The CIO , but they were purged in 1947 and 1948. Wallace ran against Truman on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, but his campaign was increasingly dominated by Communists, which helped to discredit détente. The third policy was rollback , an aggressive effort to undercut or destroy the Soviet Union itself. Military rollback against the Soviet Union was proposed by James Burnham and other conservative strategists in

10260-406: The Carnegie Endowment , Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng wrote in 2018 that China has not fundamentally challenged any Russian interests in Central Asia. Fourteen Points The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I . The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to

10450-533: The Central Powers to surrender in the expectation of a just settlement. The German government rejected the 14 Points as the basis of a peace settlement. The duumvirate that ruled Germany that consisted of Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff were supremely confident that the offensive planned for March 1918 code-named Operation Michael would win the war. The German spring offensive of 1918 did make gains, but fell far short of being

10640-607: The Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees. XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations , which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea , and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for

10830-550: The Reich . As a consolation prize, Clemenceau was offered a military alliance with the British empire and the United States, under which Anglo-American forces would come to France's aid in the event of German aggression. However, the British acceptance of the alliance was made conditional upon the American acceptance of the alliance, and the United States Senate voted against the alliance with France, thus rendering

11020-575: The Russian Academy of Sciences , Vadim Tsymbursky (1957–2009), coined the term "island-Russia" and developed the "Great Limitrophe " concept. Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov (retired), a Russian geopolitics specialist of the early 21st century, headed the Academy of Geopolitical Problems ( Russian : Академия геополитических проблем ), which analyzes the international and domestic situations and develops geopolitical doctrine. Earlier, he headed

11210-430: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , containment was again made a priority. The wording of the Carter Doctrine (1980) intentionally echoed that of the Truman Doctrine. Following the communist victory in Vietnam, Democrats began to view further communist advances as inevitable, but Republicans returned to the rollback doctrine. Ronald Reagan , a long-time advocate of rollback, was elected U.S. president in 1980. He took

11400-484: The Truman Doctrine . Portraying the issue as a mighty clash between "totalitarian regimes" and "free peoples", the speech marks the adoption of containment as official US policy. Congress appropriated the money. Truman's motives on that occasion have been the subject of considerable scholarship and several schools of interpretation. In the orthodox explanation of Herbert Feis , a series of aggressive Soviet actions in 1945–1947 in Poland, Iran, Turkey, and elsewhere awakened

11590-554: The White Army . The incursion was unpopular at home and lacked a cohesive strategy, leading the allies to ultimately withdraw from Russia. The U.S. initially refused to recognize the Soviet Union, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt reversed the policy in 1933 in the hope to expand American export markets. The Munich Agreement of 1938 was a failed attempt to contain Nazi expansion in Europe. The U.S. tried to contain Japanese expansion in Asia from 1937 to 1941, and Japan reacted with its attack on Pearl Harbor . After Germany invaded

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11780-442: The World Island or Core, comprising Eurasia and Africa ; and the Peripheral "islands", including the Americas , Australia , Japan , the British Isles , and Oceania . Not only was the Periphery noticeably smaller than the World Island, it necessarily required much sea transport to function at the technological level of the World Island—which contained sufficient natural resources for a developed economy. Mackinder posited that

11970-424: The propaganda of Nazi Germany . The key concepts of Haushofer's Geopolitik were Lebensraum, autarky , pan-regions , and organic borders. States have, Haushofer argued, an undeniable right to seek natural borders which would guarantee autarky . Haushofer's influence within the Nazi Party has been challenged, given that Haushofer failed to incorporate the Nazis' racial ideology into his work. Popular views of

12160-429: The "harshness" of the Treaty of Versailles has been vastly exaggerated, noting that Germany lost far more land to Poland under the Oder-Neisse line , imposed in 1945, than the Reich had lost to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles, yet the Oder-Neisse line did not cause another war. In 1991, Germany signed a treaty with Poland under which the Oder-Neisse line was accepted as the permanent German-Polish frontier, despite

12350-447: The 1946 elections, President Truman, a Democrat, made a dramatic speech that is often considered to mark the beginning of the Cold War . In March 1947, he requested that Congress appropriate $ 400 million in aid to the Greek and Turkish governments, which were fighting communist subversion. Truman pledged to, "support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." This pledge became known as

12540-443: The Afghan guerrillas ( mujahideen ) fighting against the Soviet army. The conclusion of the Cold War in 1992 marked the official end of the containment policy, but the U.S. kept its bases in the areas around Russia, such as those in Iceland, Germany, and Turkey. Much of the policy later helped influence U.S. foreign policy towards China in the 21st century. Geopolitics At the level of international relations, geopolitics

12730-502: The Allied leaders were only self-interested. The publication was especially embarrassing for the Allies as the former government of Russia had signed no secret treaties with Germany, the Austrian empire, and the Ottoman Empire, and thus the war aims of the Central powers remained secret. Lenin accused the Allied leaders of being selfish while presenting himself as an idealist who sought the betterment of ordinary people by rejecting imperialism. Wilson, similar to other world leaders, feared

12920-409: The Allies to divide up the German-Polish border in a manner consistent with the principles of the 14 points as inevitably some people ended up being struck on the "wrong" side of the frontier. Before 1914, Germany had 1 million Poles living within its borders; after 1918 Poland had 1 million Germans living within its borders. Before 1914, Eastern Europe had dominated by the three great empires, namely

13110-432: The American public to the new danger to freedom to which Truman responded. In the revisionist view of William Appleman Williams , Truman's speech was an expression of longstanding American expansionism. In the realpolitik view of Lynn E. Davis , Truman was a naive idealist who unnecessarily provoked the Soviets by couching disputes in terms like democracy and freedom that were alien to the communist vision. According to

13300-468: The Armenian genocide together with the related genocides against the Pontic Greeks and the Assyrians was to achieve the "homogenization" of Asia Minor. Colonel House advised Wilson that the genocidal "homogenization" of Anatolia required an American response, writing to the president: "It is necessary to free the subject races of the Turkish empire from oppression and misrule. This implies at very least autonomy for Armenia". House wrote in his diary: "After

13490-414: The Austrian, Russian and German empires with the first two being supra-national states where the focal point in the state ideologies was loyalty to the ruling families, namely the House of Habsburg and the House of Romanov. The German-speaking element formed the dominant group in the Austrian empire while the way that the Russian empire defined loyalty to the House of Romanov as the main criterion had allowed

13680-556: The British Empire. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents. Two national security advisors from the Cold War period, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski , argued to continue the United States' geopolitical focus on Eurasia and, particularly Russia, despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War . Both continued their influence on geopolitics after

13870-690: The Catholic Centre Party and various left-liberal parties in July 1917 for the Reichstag Peace Resolution , which called for a negotiated peace without annexations. The resolution was only symbolic with no binding power over the government, but it was an important step towards the Reichstag developing a voice for peace and for parliamentarization. President Wilson subsequently initiated a secret series of studies named

14060-570: The Cold War, Kissinger argues, both sides of the Atlantic recognized that, "unless America is organically involved in Europe, it would later be obliged to involve itself under circumstances which would be far less favorable to both sides of the Atlantic. That is even more true today. Germany has become so strong that existing European institutions cannot strike a balance between Germany and its European partners all by themselves. Nor can Europe, even with

14250-619: The Democratic nominee, answered that rollback risked nuclear war. Johnson explained containment doctrine by quoting the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but not further." Goldwater lost to Johnson in the 1964 election by a wide margin. Johnson adhered closely to containment during the Vietnam War . Rejecting proposals by General William Westmoreland for U.S. ground forces to advance into Laos and cut communist supply lines, Johnson gathered

14440-487: The Fourteen Points and Wilson's views regarding colonialism proved to be misguided. In actuality, Wilson had never established a goal of opposing European colonial powers and breaking up their empires, nor was he trying to fuel anti-colonial nationalist independence movements. It was not Wilson's objective or desire to confront European colonial powers over such matters, as Wilson had no intention of supporting any demands for self-determination and sovereignty that conflicted with

14630-469: The Fourteen Points as the basis for negotiating the Treaty of Versailles , which ended the war. In his speech to Congress, President Wilson declared fourteen points which he regarded as the only possible basis of an enduring peace: I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in

14820-510: The Fourteen Points, he also had more practical objectives in mind. He hoped to keep Russia in the war by convincing the Bolsheviks that they would receive a better peace from the Allies, to bolster Allied morale, and to undermine German war support. The address was well received in the United States and Allied nations and even by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin , as a landmark of enlightenment in international relations. Wilson subsequently used

15010-539: The Fourteen Points. The speech was delivered 10 months before the Armistice with Germany and became the basis for the terms of the German surrender, as negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The speech was widely disseminated as an instrument of Allied propaganda and was translated into many languages for global dissemination. Copies were also dropped behind German lines, to encourage

15200-462: The French soldiers while waving about tricolores . At the Paris peace conference, both Wilson and Lloyd George supported Clemenceau's demand for the reunion of Alsace-Lorraine with France. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France. Under the terms of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925, Germany accepted as permanent the Franco-German border established by

15390-434: The German government accepted the Fourteen Points and the stated principles for peace negotiations. The report was made as negotiation points, and the Fourteen Points were later accepted by France and Italy on November 1, 1918. Britain later signed off on all of the points except the freedom of the seas . The United Kingdom also wanted Germany to make reparation payments for the war, and thought that should be added to

15580-650: The Inquiry , primarily focused on Europe, and carried out by a group in New York which included geographers, historians and political scientists; the group was directed by Edward M. House . Their job was to study Allied and American policy in virtually every region of the globe and analyze economic, social, and political facts likely to come up in discussions during the peace conference. The group produced and collected nearly 2,000 separate reports and documents plus at least 1,200 maps. Walter Lippmann of "the Inquiry" defined

15770-568: The Inquiry's general secretary, Walter Lippmann , and his colleagues, Isaiah Bowman , Sidney Mezes , and David Hunter Miller . Lippmann's draft territorial points were a direct response to the secret treaties of the European Allies, which Lippmann had been shown by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker . Lippmann's task, according to House, was "to take the secret treaties, analyze the parts which were tolerable, and separate them from those which were regarded as intolerable, and then develop

15960-583: The Kaiser to bring about democratic reforms as a way to ensure the responsibility for the defeat fell on the shoulders of others. Ludendorff in particular gave a somewhat distorted version of the 14 points as a way to entice Prince Max of Baden to form a new government that would seek an armistice. Indeed, in a note sent to Wilson, Prince Maximilian of Baden , the German imperial chancellor , in October 1918 requested an immediate armistice and peace negotiations on

16150-752: The Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation . Vladimir Karyakin, leading researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies , has proposed the term "geopolitics of the third wave". Aleksandr Dugin , a Russian political analyst who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff wrote " The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia " in 1997, which has had

16340-662: The National Security Council to formulate a revised security doctrine. Completed in April 1950, it became known as NSC 68 . It concluded that a massive military buildup was necessary to deal with the Soviet threat. According to the report, drafted by Paul Nitze and others: In the words of the Federalist (No. 28) "The means to be employed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief." The mischief may be

16530-489: The Ottoman Empire. Roosevelt in his popular newspaper column in the Kansas City Star that was nationally syndicated accused Wilson of crying "crocodile tears" over the Armenian genocide as he maintained that if he was still president the United States would have already ended the genocide. In response to such criticism, Wilson had asked Colonel House and the authors of "the Inquiry" such as Lippmann to come up with

16720-479: The Polish claim to Danzig, but Lloyd George was stoutly opposed as he argued that it would be unjust to force a city whose population was 90% German unwillingly into Poland. An impasse emerged at the Paris peace conference with Clemenceau and Wilson supporting the Polish claim to Danzig while Lloyd-George maintained that the city should remain within Germany. James Headlam-Morley of the British delegation came up with

16910-632: The Rhineland until 1935, through in fact the French occupation ended early in June 1930. One of the thorniest issues at the Paris peace conference was the status of Danzig (modern Gdańsk , Poland). Point 13 called for a reborn Polish state that would have "free and secure access to the sea". Danzig was a deep water port located where the Vistula river flows into the Baltic sea, making it the principal port where goods both came in and out of Poland. Roman Dmowski

17100-406: The Rhinelanders being placed unhappily under French rule. Wilson in particular was strongly for the Rhineland remaining part of Germany and he threatened several times to have the American delegation walk out of the peace conference if Clemenceau persisted with his plans for the Rhineland. Under strong Anglo-American pressure, the French were forced to accept that the Rhineland would remain part of

17290-573: The Rimland must be prevented. Spykman modified Mackinder's formula on the relationship between the Heartland and the Rimland (or the inner crescent), claiming that "Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia. Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world." This theory can be traced in the origins of containment , a U.S. policy on preventing the spread of Soviet influence after World War II (see also Truman Doctrine ). Another follower of Mackinder

17480-561: The Russian-owned Chinese Eastern Railroad. This won the new Bolshevik regime much prestige in China, to the discomfort of the other powers that held extraterritorial rights there. The publication of the secret treaties relating to Europe, Africa, China and the Near East caused the governments of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan much embarrassment at the time as the secret treaties made it appear that

17670-532: The Soviet Union in 1941 during World War II , the U.S. and the Soviet Union found themselves allied against Germany and used rollback to defeat the Axis powers : Germany, Italy, and Japan. Key State Department personnel grew increasingly frustrated with and suspicious of the Soviets as the war drew to a close. Averell Harriman , U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, once a "confirmed optimist" regarding U.S.–Soviet relations,

17860-483: The Soviets had successfully tested an atomic bomb, they had been known to possess nuclear weapons . The U.S. followed containment when it first entered the Korean War to defend South Korea from a communist invasion by North Korea . Initially, this directed the action of the U.S. to only push back North Korea across the 38th Parallel and restore South Korea's sovereignty, thereby allowing North Korea's survival as

18050-433: The Treaty of Versailles and renounced its claim upon Alsace-Lorraine. At the Paris peace conference in 1919, Clemenceau wanted to see the Rhineland severed from Germany. The Rhineland with its steep hills and the broad Rhine river formed a natural defensive barrier and Clemenceau insisted that France needed the Rhineland to have sécurité after the war. Ideally, Clemenceau wanted to see the Rhineland annexed to France, but

18240-608: The Treaty of Versailles was really the monstrous "unjust" peace treaty that Germans had claimed it to be. Under the terms of the armistice of 11 November 1918, the French occupied Alsace–Lorraine . The French wasted no time in promptly proclaiming the reunion of Alsace-Lorraine with France. Many of the Alsatians had been unhappy under German rule, and the French troops who marched into Alsace-Lorraine in November 1918 were greeted as liberators with large crowds coming out to cheer

18430-592: The Turkish paragraph had been written, the President thought it might be more specific and that Armenia, Mesopotamia and other parts be mentioned by name. I disagreed with this, believing that what was said was sufficient to indicate this, and it finally stood as framed". Though the genocidal policies of the Committee of Union and Progress regime were not referenced by name in the 14 Points, the emphasis on protecting

18620-585: The U.S. to take over the traditional British role in Greece. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson took the lead in Washington, warning congressional leaders in late February 1947 that if the United States did not take over from the British, the result most probably would be a "Soviet breakthrough" that "might open three continents to Soviet penetration." Truman was explicit about the challenge of communism taking control of Greece. He won wide support from both parties as well as experts in foreign policy inside and outside

18810-537: The US and China includes cybersecurity competition, policy regulations regarding technology standards and social media platforms, and traditional and non-traditional forms of espionage. One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition. The interest in oil and gas includes pipelines that transmit energy to China's east coast. Xiangming Chen believes that China's role

19000-653: The United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson . However, his main Allied colleagues ( Georges Clemenceau of France , David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom , and Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy ) were skeptical of the applicability of Wilsonian idealism . The United States had joined the Triple Entente in fighting the Central Powers on April 6, 1917. Its entry into

19190-402: The United States developed a free soil strategy of containment to stop the expansion of slavery until it later collapsed. Historian James Oakes explains the strategy: The Federal government would surround the south with free states, free territories, and free waters, building what they called a 'cordon of freedom' around slavery, hemming it in until the system's own internal weaknesses forced

19380-450: The United States in 1918, and that Nazi Germany would do the same. Weinberg noted that for German elites, not just Hitler, it was the alleged "stab-in-the-back" of 1918 that explained the German defeat, and it was taken for granted that the German military was invincible and could never be defeated provided the alleged "internal" enemies such as the Jews were dispatched first. Weinberg wrote

19570-539: The United States' objective was " to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world ." In several speeches earlier in the year, Wilson sketched out his vision of an end to the war that would bring a "just and secure peace," not merely "a new balance of power." Congress had declared war on Germany on 9 April 1917 and until the 14 Points, Wilson's statements about American war aims had been rather vague, mostly limited to statements about being for democracy and against aggression. When Pope Benedict XV in

19760-560: The United States. There was fear of a nuclear war until a deal was reached in which the Soviets would publicly remove their nuclear weapons, the United States would secretly remove its missiles from Turkey and to avoid invading Cuba. The policy of containing Cuba was put into effect by President John F. Kennedy and continued until 2015. Senator Barry Goldwater , the Republican candidate for president in 1964, challenged containment and asked, "Why not victory?" President Lyndon Johnson ,

19950-428: The assistance of Germany, manage […] Russia" all by itself. Thus Kissinger believed that no country's interests would ever be served if Germany and Russia were to ever form a partnership in which each country would consider itself the principal partner. They would raise fears of condominium. Without America, Britain and France cannot cope with Germany and Russia; and "without Europe, America could turn … into an island off

20140-548: The balance of power in Eurasia. Having converted from an ideologist into a geopolitician, Kissinger retrospectively interpreted the Cold War in geopolitical terms—an approach which was not characteristic of his works during the Cold War. Now, however, he focused on the beginning of the Cold War: "The objective of moral opposition to Communism had merged with the geopolitical task of containing Soviet expansion." Nixon, he added,

20330-612: The basis of the Fourteen Points. In Asia Minor, the 14 Points caused some confusion as the Muslim peoples living there defined themselves in terms of religion rather than language and ethnicity. Almost all of the Kurdish population of Anatolia at the time defined themselves as Muslims rather than as Kurds, and were loyal to the Sublime Porte under the grounds that Sultan-Caliph was the supreme leader of all Muslims worldwide. There

20520-509: The centenary of The Geographical Pivot of History, Historian Paul Kennedy wrote: "Right now with hundreds of thousands of US troops in the Eurasian rimlands and with administration constantly explaining why it has to stay the course, it looks as if Washington is taking seriously Mackinder's injunction to ensure control of the geographical pivot of history." Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), influenced by thinkers such as Darwin and zoologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel , contributed to 'Geopolitik' by

20710-407: The chief the Polish delegation, argued that allowing Danzig to remain with Germany would give the Reich economic control of Poland and that for Poland to be truly independent required that Danzig go to Poland. At the peace conference, Wilson explained that what he meant by Poland having "free and secure access to the sea" in point 13 was that Danzig should go to Poland. Clemenceau likewise supported

20900-413: The clerical-monarchist regime of President Patrice de MacMahon . It was hoped that by surrounding France with a number of liberal states, French Republicans could defeat MacMahon and his reactionary supporters. The modern concept of containment provides a useful model for understanding the dynamics of this policy. After the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, there were calls by Western leaders to isolate

21090-486: The compromise of making Danzig into a Free City that would belong to neither Poland nor Germany. The Treaty of Versailles imposed the compromise solution of severing Danzig from Germany to become the Free City of Danzig , a city-state in which Poland had certain special rights. German public opinion did not accept the loss of Danzig along with the loss of the so-called Polish Corridor and Upper Silesia to Poland, and for

21280-516: The containment policy and noted several deficiencies in his X Article. He later said that by containment he meant not the containment of Soviet Power "by military means of a military threat, but the political containment of a political threat." Second, Kennan admitted a failure in the article to specify the geographical scope of "containment", and that containment was not something he believed the United States could necessarily achieve everywhere successfully. After Republicans gained control of Congress in

21470-547: The country from the First World War, allowing Germany to reallocate troops to face the Allied forces on the Western Front. Concurrently, President Wilson became increasingly aware of the human rights violations perpetuated by the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , and opposed the new regime's militant atheism and advocacy of a command economy . He also was concerned that Marxism–Leninism would spread to

21660-553: The creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund . He responded with a wide-ranging analysis of Russian policy now called the Long Telegram : Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is neither schematic nor adventuristic. It does not work with fixed plans. It does not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to the logic of reason, and it is highly sensitive to the logic of force. For this reason, it can easily withdraw—and usually does when strong resistance

21850-533: The decisive victory that Hindenburg and Ludendorff had expected. By the summer of 1918, the Allies were winning the war and on 28 September 1918 Ludendorff advised the Emperor Wilhelm II that the Reich was defeated and the best that the Germany can now hope to achieve would be an armistice that preserved Germany as a great power. Neither Hindenburg nor Ludendorff intended to take any responsibility for their failures as generals and rather cynically forced

22040-563: The diplomatic waste paper basket. Most of these fourteen points... would be interpreted... to mean anything or nothing." Senator William Borah after 1918 wished "this treacherous and treasonable scheme" of the League of Nations to be "buried in hell" and promised that if he had his way it would be " 20,000 leagues under the sea ". Wilson's speech regarding the Fourteen Points led to unintentional but important consequences in regards to countries which were under European colonial rule or under

22230-409: The end of secret diplomacy. Lenin repudiated the foreign policy of Imperial Russia, and published the secret treaties that the former regime had signed with the Allies under which the Allies had envisioned extensive territorial changes and divided much of the world up into spheres of influence. Lenin surrendered all Russian extraterritorial rights and concessions in China with the notable exception of

22420-535: The end of the Cold War, writing books on the subject in the 1990s— Diplomacy and The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives . The Anglo-American classical geopolitical theories were revived. Kissinger argued against the belief that with the dissolution of the USSR, hostile intentions had come to an end and traditional foreign policy considerations no longer applied. "They would argue … that Russia, regardless of who governs it, sits astride

22610-529: The entirety of the interwar period, it was common for Germans to speak of the "open wound in the East". The eastern borders the Treaty of Versailles imposed on Germany, especially the Polish Corridor, were universally viewed in Germany as "unjust" and a "national humiliation". The way that different peoples in Eastern Europe were mixed together in a patch-work of different pockets made it very difficult for

22800-466: The expansion on the biological conception of geography, without a static conception of borders. Positing that states are organic and growing, with borders representing only a temporary stop in their movement, he held that the expanse of a state's borders is a reflection of the health of the nation—meaning that static countries are in decline. Ratzel published several papers, among which was the essay "Lebensraum" (1901) concerning biogeography . Ratzel created

22990-623: The first time ever, a "non-Eurasian" power had emerged as a key arbiter of "Eurasian" power relations. The book states its purpose: "The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book." Although the power configuration underwent a revolutionary change, Brzezinski confirmed three years later, Eurasia was still a mega-continent. Like Spykman, Brzezinski acknowledges that: "Cumulatively, Eurasia's power vastly overshadows America's." In classical Spykman terms, Brzezinski formulated his geostrategic "chessboard" doctrine of Eurasia, which aims to prevent

23180-611: The form of a hypothesized 'racial character,' to the factor of greatest significance in the constitution of human society. These differences led after 1933 to friction and ultimately to open denunciation of geopolitics by Nazi ideologues. Nevertheless, German Geopolitik was discredited by its (mis)use in Nazi expansionist policy of World War II and has never achieved standing comparable to the pre-war period. The resultant negative association, particularly in U.S. academic circles, between classical geopolitics and Nazi or imperialist ideology,

23370-547: The former president Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge for his unwillingness to ask Congress to declare war on the Ottoman Empire. In a foreshadowing of the "Germany First" strategy of World War Two, Wilson and other senior figures in his administration argued that the United States should commit its power to defeat the German Empire first and that any operations against the Sublime Porte would be

23560-462: The generalizations and broad abstractions employed by the German and Anglo-American traditions (and the new geographers ), this school does focus on spatial dimension of geopolitics affairs on different levels of analysis. This approach emphasizes the importance of multi-level (or multi-scales) analysis and maps at the opposite of critical geopolitics which avoid such tools. Lacoste proposed that every conflict (both local or global) can be considered from

23750-653: The government relied increasingly on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Established by the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA conducted espionage in foreign lands, some of it visible, more of it secret. Truman approved a classified statement of containment policy called NSC 20/4 in November 1948, the first comprehensive statement of security policy ever created by the United States. The Soviet Union's first nuclear test in 1949 prompted

23940-572: The government. It was strongly opposed by the left, notably by former Vice President Henry A. Wallace , who ran against Truman in the 1948 presidential campaign. Truman, under the guidance of Acheson, followed up his speech with a series of measures to contain Soviet influence in Europe, including the Marshall Plan , or European Recovery Program, and NATO , a 1949 military alliance between the U.S. and Western European nations. Because containment required detailed information about communist moves,

24130-520: The grain reserves of Ukraine, and many other natural resources. Mackinder's notion of geopolitics was summed up when he said: Who rules Central and Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World. Nicholas J. Spykman was both a follower and critic of geostrategists Alfred Mahan, and Halford Mackinder . His work

24320-459: The importance of social organization in the development of power. After World War I , the thoughts of Rudolf Kjellén and Ratzel were picked up and extended by a number of German authors such as Karl Haushofer (1869–1946), Erich Obst , Hermann Lautensach, and Otto Maull . In 1923, Karl Haushofer founded the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Journal for Geopolitics), which was later used in

24510-643: The industrial centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The World Island could send its navy to destroy each one of them in turn, and could locate its own industries in a region further inland than the Periphery (so they would have a longer struggle reaching them, and would face a well-stocked industrial bastion). Mackinder called this region the Heartland . It essentially comprised Central and Eastern Europe : Ukraine , Western Russia , and Mitteleuropa . The Heartland contained

24700-426: The influence of European countries. In many of the Fourteen Points, specifically points X, XI, XII and XIII, Wilson had focused on adjusting colonial disputes and the importance of allowing autonomous development and self-determination . This drew significant attention from anti-colonial nationalist leaders and movements, who saw Wilson's swift adoption of the term "self-determination" (although he did not actually use

24890-429: The interests of international political actors focused within an area, a space, or a geographical element, relations which create a geopolitical system. Critical geopolitics deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political or ideological functions for great powers . There are some works that discuss the geopolitics of renewable energy . According to Christopher Gogwilt and other researchers,

25080-443: The interests of the victorious Allies. In reality, Wilson's calls for greater autonomous development and sovereignty had been aimed solely at European countries under the rule of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. He did not explicitly outline this, although it is clear that his calls for greater sovereignty in these regions was in an effort to try and destabilise those enemies' empires. President Wilson's ambitions for

25270-633: The international arena. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd . The next day, Lenin issued the Decree On Peace which called for the immediate end to the war on the basis of a "just and democratic peace", which he defined as "a peace without annexations or indemnitees"; national self-determination in place of the traditional power politics; and

25460-403: The international order created by the Treaty of Versailles, and the question of the "injustice" of the Treaty of Versailles was irrelevant as a challenge would have been made even if the Treaty of Versailles had been more favorable to Germany. The Dolchstoßlegende claimed that Germany had decisively defeated the combined forces of France, the British empire and the United States in 1918 and it

25650-598: The interwar period, it was common in Germany to attack the Treaty of Versailles as illegitimate, with the argument being made that it was contrary to the 14 Points. Notably, Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles , which would become known as the War Guilt Clause, was seen by the Germans as assigning full responsibility for the war and its damages on Germany; however, the same clause was included in all peace treaties and historian Sally Marks has noted that only German diplomats saw it as assigning responsibility for

25840-513: The journal Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym "X." Biographer Douglas Brinkley has dubbed Forrestal "godfather of containment" on account of his work in distributing Kennan's writing. The use of the word "containment" originates from this so-called "X Article": "In these circumstances, it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies." Kennan later turned against

26030-563: The late 1940s. After 1954, Burnham and like-minded strategists became editors and regular contributors to William F. Buckley Jr. 's National Review magazine. Truman himself adopted a rollback strategy in the Korean War after the success of the Inchon landings in September 1950, only to reverse himself after the Chinese counterattack two months later and revert to containment. General Douglas MacArthur called on Congress to continue

26220-415: The main American war aim as "the disestablishment of a Prussian Middle Europe" and to find a way to prevent Germany from being "the master of the continent" after the war. The Armenian genocide that began in April 1915 attracted much media attention in the Allied nations at the time, and throughout the summer and fall of 1917 Wilson had been the subject of fierce criticism by Republican politicians such as

26410-559: The moment if he was going to avoid being eclipsed by Lenin's competing program for the postwar world". On 5 January 1918, the British prime minister David Lloyd George gave a speech in London stating that the British war aims were "self-determination" for the subject peoples of the Austrian and Ottoman empires. The speech, known as the Fourteen Points, was developed from a set of diplomatic points by Wilson and territorial points drafted by

26600-463: The nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development . XI. Romania , Serbia , and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of

26790-401: The peace and associating themselves for its maintenance. IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims , based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of

26980-626: The planet – the Royal Geographic Society in London" Haushofer adopted both Mackinder's Heartland thesis and his view of the Russian-German alliance – powers that Mackinder saw as the major contenders for control of Eurasia in the twentieth century. Following Mackinder he suggested an alliance with the Soviet Union and, advancing a step beyond Mackinder, added Japan to his design of the Eurasian Bloc. In 2004, at

27170-404: The political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into. XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Ottoman rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development , and

27360-470: The populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable government whose title is to be determined. VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of

27550-457: The possibility of Communist revolutions inspired by the Russian example breaking out elsewhere, and offered his set of idealistic war aims to challenge Lenin's claims to the moral high ground. When drafting the 14 Points alongside his close adviser and friend, Colonel House, Wilson mostly spoke about Russia. The American historian N. M. Phelps wrote that in January 1918 Wilson "...needed to seize

27740-467: The principle of spaces polymorphic faces depending from many factors among them mankind, culture, and ideas) as opposed to determinism. Due to the influence of German Geopolitik on French geopolitics, the latter were for a long time banished from academic works. In the mid-1970s, Yves Lacoste —a French geographer who was directly inspired by Ancel, Braudel and Vidal de la Blache—wrote La géographie, ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre (Geography first use

27930-490: The proposed Anglo-American-French alliance null and void. Clemenceau and the other French leaders always felt that France had been "cheated" as the French made major concessions to the Anglo-American viewpoint in return for alliances that proved to be an illusion. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland remained part of Germany, but was made into a permanent demilitarized zone and the French were allowed to occupy

28120-410: The public view. II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to

28310-628: The purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. Wilson at first considered abandoning his speech after Lloyd George delivered a speech outlining British war aims, many of which were similar to Wilson's aspirations, at Caxton Hall on January 5, 1918. Lloyd George stated that he had consulted leaders of "the Great Dominions overseas" before making his speech, so it would appear that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Newfoundland were in broad agreement. Wilson

28500-623: The remainder of the Western world, and intended his landmark Fourteen Points partially to provide liberal democracy as an alternative worldwide ideology to Communism. Despite reservations, the United States, as a result of the fear of Japanese expansion into Russian-held territory and their support for the Allied-aligned Czech Legion , sent a small number of troops to Northern Russia and Siberia . The United States also provided indirect aid such as food and supplies to

28690-475: The rights of minorities under the Sublime Porte together with what was described with some understatement as the "undoubted security of life" was an implicit response to such policies. The studies culminated in a speech by Wilson to Congress on January 8, 1918, wherein he articulated America's long-term war objectives. The speech was the clearest expression of intention made by any of the belligerent nations, and it projected Wilson's progressive domestic policies into

28880-556: The role of geopolitics in the Nazi Third Reich suggest a fundamental significance on the part of the geo-politicians in the ideological orientation of the Nazi state. Bassin (1987) reveals that these popular views are in important ways misleading and incorrect. Despite the numerous similarities and affinities between the two doctrines, geopolitics was always held suspect by the National Socialist ideologists. This

29070-435: The rollback policy, but Truman fired him for insubordination . Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower , a rollback strategy was considered against communism in Eastern Europe from 1953 to 1956. Eisenhower agreed to a propaganda campaign to roll back the influence of communism psychologically, but he refused to intervene in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution , mainly for fear that it would cause World War III . Since late 1949, when

29260-436: The seas . Wilson also made proposals that would ensure world peace in the future. For example, he proposed the removal of economic barriers between nations, the promise of self-determination for national minorities, and a world organization that would guarantee the "political independence and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike" – a League of Nations . Though Wilson's idealism pervaded

29450-436: The shores of Eurasia." Nicholas J. Spykman 's vision of Eurasia was strongly confirmed: "Geopolitically, America is an island off the shores of the large landmass of Eurasia, whose resources and population far exceed those of the United States. The domination by a single power of either of Eurasia's two principal spheres—Europe and Asia—remains a good definition of strategic danger for America. Cold War or no Cold War. For such

29640-456: The slave states one by one to abandon slavery. Between 1873 and 1877, Germany repeatedly intervened in the internal affairs of France's neighbors. In Belgium, Spain, and Italy, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck exerted strong and sustained political pressure to support the election or appointment of liberal, anticlerical governments. That was part of an integrated strategy to promote republicanism in France by strategically and ideologically isolating

29830-446: The strategic management of geopolitical interests…. But in the meantime it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America… For America the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained." The Austro-Hungarian historian Emil Reich (1854–1910)

30020-684: The term "geopolitics" and its practical application stemming from its association with World War II and pre-World War II German scholars and students of geopolitics are largely specific to the field of academic geography, and especially sub-disciplines of human geography such as political geography. However, this negative association is not as strong in disciplines such as history or political science, which make use of geopolitical concepts. Classical geopolitics forms an important element of analysis for military history as well as for sub-disciplines of political science such as international relations and security studies . This difference in disciplinary perspectives

30210-429: The term in the speech itself) as an opportunity to gain independence from colonial rule or expel foreign influence. Consequently, Wilson gained support from anti-colonial nationalist leaders in Europe's colonies and countries under European influence around the globe who were hopeful that Wilson would assist them in their goals. Around the world, Wilson was occasionally elevated to a quasi-religious figure; as someone who

30400-449: The term is currently being used to describe a broad spectrum of concepts, in a general sense used as "a synonym for international political relations", but more specifically "to imply the global structure of such relations"; this usage builds on an "early-twentieth-century term for a pseudoscience of political geography " and other pseudoscientific theories of historical and geographic determinism . Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914)

30590-517: The territorial losses being far greater than those imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Weinberg also noted that the Allied leaders at the Paris peace conference of 1919 imposed the Minorities treaty on Poland, intended to protect the rights of Poland's Volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minority whereas, in 1945, all of the Germans living in the lands assigned to Poland were forcibly expelled from their homes forever, leading him to ask rhetorically if

30780-429: The territory which Halford Mackinder called the geopolitical heartland, and it is the heir to one of the most potent imperial traditions." Therefore, the United States must "maintain the global balance of power vis-à-vis the country with a long history of expansionism." After Russia, the second geopolitical threat which remained was Germany and, as Mackinder had feared ninety years ago, its partnership with Russia. During

30970-417: The third world were rather to attempt to influence its development in order to transform it from 'backward' to 'sophisticated', the aim being to incorporate it into the commercial world, so that the U.S. could further benefit from trade with the global south. Furthermore, Wilson did not believe the third world was ready for self governance, asserting that a period of trusteeship and tutelage from colonial powers

31160-413: The topics likely to arise in the anticipated peace conference . The immediate cause of the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917 was the German announcement of renewed unrestricted submarine warfare and the subsequent sinking of ships with Americans on board. But President Wilson's war aims went beyond the defense of maritime interests. In his War Message to Congress, Wilson declared that

31350-426: The two monsters – Britain and Russia – it was the latter that Mahan considered more threatening to the fate of Central Asia . Mahan was impressed by Russia's transcontinental size and strategically favorable position for southward expansion. Therefore, he found it necessary for the Anglo-Saxon "sea power" to resist Russia. Homer Lea , in The Day of the Saxon (1912), asserted that the entire Anglo-Saxon race faced

31540-427: The unification of this mega-continent. "Europe and Asia are politically and economically powerful…. It follows that… American foreign policy must…employ its influence in Eurasia in a manner that creates a stable continental equilibrium, with the United States as the political arbiter.… Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geo- strategy –

31730-437: The view that man and societies are influenced by climate. He believed that hotter climates create hot-tempered people and colder climates aloof people, whereas the mild climate of France is ideal for political systems. Considered one of the founders of French geopolitics, Élisée Reclus , is the author of a book considered a reference in modern geography (Nouvelle Géographie universelle). Alike Ratzel, he considers geography through

31920-472: The war had in part been due to Germany's resumption of submarine warfare against merchant ships trading with France and Britain and also the interception of the Zimmermann Telegram . However, Wilson wanted to avoid the United States' involvement in the long-standing European tensions between the great powers ; if America was going to fight, he wanted to try to separate that participation in the war from nationalistic disputes or ambitions. The need for moral aims

32110-428: The war. The Allies would initially assess 269 billion marks in reparations . In 1921, this figure was established at 192 billion marks. However, only a fraction of the total had to be paid. The figure was designed to look imposing and show the public that Germany was being punished, but it also recognized what Germany could not realistically pay. Germany's ability and willingness to pay that sum continues to be

32300-446: The whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored , without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law

32490-452: The working classes of France, Britain and Russia. In 1917, the party split over the issue of the war, with the anti-war faction forming the Independent Social Democratic Party . By then, the Majority Social Democrats were also becoming increasingly disenchanted, as discussions about the war often centered on annexations, making it apparent that the allegedly defensive war was in fact a war of conquest. The Majority Social Democrats voted with

32680-409: Was Karl Haushofer who called Mackinder's Geographical Pivot of History a "genius' scientific tractate." He commented on it: "Never have I seen anything greater than those few pages of geopolitical masterwork." Mackinder located his Pivot, in the words of Haushofer, on "one of the first solid, geopolitically and geographically irreproachable maps, presented to one of the earliest scientific forums of

32870-422: Was a continuation of the détente policies that aimed at friendly relationships with the Soviet Union, especially trade. Roosevelt had been the champion of détente, but he was dead, and most of his inner circle had left the government by 1946. The chief proponent of détente was Henry Wallace, a former vice president and the Secretary of Commerce under Truman. Wallace's position was supported by far-left elements of

33060-441: Was a frequent commentator on world naval strategic and diplomatic affairs. Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea—and particularly with its commercial use in peace and its control in war. Mahan's theoretical framework came from Antoine-Henri Jomini , and emphasized that strategic locations (such as choke points , canals, and coaling stations), as well as quantifiable levels of fighting power in

33250-422: Was a geopolitical rather than an ideological cold warrior. Three years after Kissinger's Diplomacy , Zbigniew Brzezinski followed suit, launching The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives and, after three more years, The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe, and Russia. The Grand Chessboard described the American triumph in the Cold War in terms of control over Eurasia: for

33440-428: Was a return to isolationism , minimizing American involvement with the rest of the world, a policy that was supported by conservative Republicans, especially from the Midwest , including former President Herbert Hoover and Senator Robert A. Taft . However, many other Republicans, led by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg , said that policy had helped cause World War II and so was too dangerous to revive. The second policy

33630-444: Was also adopted in the field of geopolitical thought where it now plays a role. The geopolitical stance adopted by Russia has traditionally been informed by a Eurasian perspective, and Russia's location provides a degree of continuity between the Tsarist and Soviet geostrategic stance and the position of Russia in the international order. In the 1990s, a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences of

33820-436: Was an agent of salvation and a bringer of peace and justice. During this 'Wilsonian moment', there was considerable optimism among anti-colonial nationalist leaders and movements that Wilson and the Fourteen Points were going to be an influential force that would re-shape the long established relationships between the West and the rest of the world. Many of them believed that the United States, given its history (particularly

34010-479: Was based on assumptions similar to Mackinder's, including the unity of world politics and the world sea. He extends this to include the unity of the air. Spykman adopts Mackinder's divisions of the world, renaming some: Under Spykman's theory, a Rimland separates the Heartland from ports that are usable throughout the year (that is, not frozen up during winter). Spykman suggested this required that attempts by Heartland nations (particularly Russia ) to conquer ports in

34200-494: Was confusion on the part of both the Allies and the Kurds themselves if the Kurds were one of the "non-Turkish" groups promised autonomy in the Ottoman Empire by the 14 points. Theodore Roosevelt , in a January 1919 article titled, "The League of Nations", published in Metropolitan Magazine , warned: "If the League of Nations is built on a document as high-sounding and as meaningless as the speech in which Mr. Wilson laid down his fourteen points, it will simply add one more scrap to

34390-400: Was disillusioned by what he saw as the Soviet betrayal of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising as well as by violations of the February 1945 Yalta Agreement concerning Poland . Harriman would later have a significant influence in forming Truman's views on the Soviet Union. In February 1946, the U.S. State Department asked George F. Kennan , then at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, why the Russians opposed

34580-414: Was inspired by the French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache (who in turn was influenced by German thought, particularly that of Friedrich Ratzel whom he had met in Germany). Braudel's method was to analyse the interdependence between individuals and their environment. Vidalian geopolitics is based on varied forms of cartography and on possibilism (founded on a societal approach of geography—i.e. on

34770-420: Was later used in a Foreign Affairs article. In a broader context, the term is employed to denote a strategy designed to limit or hinder an opponent's capacity for international power projection . China used this term to characterize the United States' efforts to impede its global ascent . Both Americans and Europeans were aware with significant historical antecedents. In the 1850s, anti-slavery forces in

34960-534: Was made more important when, after the fall of the Russian government , the Bolsheviks disclosed secret treaties made between the Allies. Wilson's speech also responded to Vladimir Lenin's Decree on Peace of November 1917, immediately after the October Revolution in 1917. The speech made by Wilson took many domestic progressive ideas and translated them into foreign policy ( free trade , open agreements , democracy and self-determination ). Three days earlier United Kingdom Prime Minister Lloyd George had made

35150-411: Was only at the moment of victory that Germany had been "stabbed-in-the-back" by the November revolution . Weinberg noted that pervasiveness of the Dolchstoßlegende was such that it explained the flippant way that Hitler declared war on the United States in 1941 with the full support of the Wehrmacht elite because it was genuinely believed by all of the German elites that Imperial Germany had crushed

35340-413: Was persuaded by his adviser House to go ahead, and Wilson's speech overshadowed Lloyd George's and is better remembered by posterity. The speech was made without prior coordination or consultation with Wilson's counterparts in Europe. Clemenceau , upon hearing of the Fourteen Points, was said to have sarcastically proclaimed, "The good Lord had only ten !" ( Le bon Dieu n'en avait que dix ! ). As

35530-447: Was required to manage such a transition. Wilson viewed this approach as essential to the 'proper development' of colonised countries, reflecting his views about the inferiority of the non-European races. Moreover, Wilson was not by character or background an anti-colonialist or campaigner for rights and freedoms for all people, instead he was also very much a racist, a fundamental believer in white supremacy . For example, he had supported

35720-431: Was the November Revolution of 1918. Weinberg wrote that there was nothing the Allies could have done to reconcile those Germans who believed in the Dolchstoßlegende that Germany had actually won the war in 1918 with the reality of their defeat. Weinberg wrote that given the way that the majority of Germans believed in the Dolchstoßlegende that it was inevitable that Germany would have made some sort of challenge to

35910-499: Was understandable, for the underlying philosophical orientation of geopolitics did not comply with that of National Socialism. Geopolitics shared Ratzel's scientific materialism and geographic determinism, and held that human society was determined by external influences—in the face of which qualities held innately by individuals or groups were of reduced or no significance. National Socialism rejected in principle both materialism and determinism and also elevated innate human qualities, in

36100-405: Was willing to accept having the Rhineland became a French puppet state under a permanent French military occupation. Marshal Ferdinand Foch , France's most respected and honored general, argued that the French needed control of the Rhineland in order to stand a chance of victory in another war with Germany, which Foch believed to be inevitable as the Allies had defeated, but not destroyed Germany as

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