Source: Global Times    Published: 2022-03-23

As the world is hoping for a rapid end to the Russia-Ukraine hostilities and the restoration of peace in Europe, the events should also give the world pause to reflect on the conditions that led up to this military conflict.

Well before the Russians went into Ukraine, there was every reason to believe that the ever growing tensions between Russia and the West could soon call forth a military response from Russia. After all there were well over 100,000 Russian soldiers on the border of Ukraine as diplomacy bogged in stalemate. Russian demands for a neutral Ukraine were largely being ignored by NATO. In his turn President Volodymir Zelenskyy was demanding that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO, and NATO was in principle in agreement that this would happen at some point. At the same time, there was ongoing fighting in the east of Ukraine, where the Ukrainian Army was trying to take back two of the Russian-speaking Ukrainian provinces which had seceded, fearful that the Russian heritage in Ukraine would be eliminated by more right-wing elements now in positions of influence in Kiev. At a certain point, President Zelenskyy even discussed considering reviving Ukraine's nuclear arsenal, it had given up when declaring independence. All of this was a red flag to the Russian leadership, which then decided on military action.

As most observers can readily see the central problem which must be resolved if a permanent peace is to be had is changing the relationship between the U.S., Europe, and Russia. If Europe remains divided into two warring camps, and NATO continues its expansion, an even greater conflict threatens.

At the end of the 19th century, British strategist, Halford Mackinder, developed what he called "the Heartland Theory." As railroads were outpacing sea travel, the sea-based British Empire, "on which the Sun never set", was no longer in a position to secure its hegemony. Mackinder knew that control on the land, namely Eurasia, would be key to maintaining world hegemony. And control of Eurasia meant control of Eastern Europe. The main force opposing British control of "the Heartland" was Imperial Russia.  Mackinder was a practitioner as well as a theorist. During World War II he was the British High Commissioner in Southern Russia, i.e. Ukraine, as the Russian Empire was being dismantled. He was there trying to do his best to bring about an alliance between Poland and a new Ukrainian state as a further bastion against Russia's revival.

While Mackinder may be considered a relic of the old days of the "Colonel Blimp" British Empire, his views, coined as "geopolitics" have lived on. His works are a matter of intense study at war colleges throughout the Western world. In China, his works are also being studied by Chinese military planners, since they are aware of the role he is playing in the strategy of the United States and the NATO alliance. A Mackinder pupil in the United States, Nicholas Spykman, developed after World War II an expansion of Mackinder's thesis in his call for controlling the Pacific Rim as well, expressed today in the formation of the Quad.

In today's world (and probably in any world) the striving for world hegemony, where one country with its own culture, its own political system and its own set of norms, demands adherence by all nations, can only lead to conflict, or, as another Mackinder follower, Samuel Huntington, called it, a "clash of civilizations." Many people consider this view "realism", whereas those who work for a "dialogue of cultures" or a "community of shared interest" are labeled "idealists", detached from the harsh reality.

But as the developments in Ukraine have shown us, such "realism" as expressed by the Mackinder view, has only one end, death and destruction. Were it not better in this day of nuclear weapons to seek another path and bring the world together around its common interests? To do this, we must also seek a new security architecture, beyond alliances and "small groups", an architecture which takes into consideration the security needs of all nations, big and small. If this were to occur, then the awful destruction wrought in Ukraine will have been of some value for the future of humanity.

The author was the White House correspondent for Executive Intelligence Review and a Non-resident Fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.