In 1904, British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder presented the study The Geographical Pivot of History, which has had a major impact on geopolitical analysis and thinking to this day.
Mackinder suggested that the supremacy of the British Empire was in jeopardy from states with the real ability to control a continent. He was referring to the United States and the Russian Empire.
With regard to the first, both powers achieved a balance by ceding to the US the hegemony of what they considered their vital space – the American continent – within the framework of the Monroe Doctrine.
The British Empire thus relegates this space to focus on the South African conflict but, above all, on the European continent, seen by Mackinder as central to global power. The “Island of the World”, as the geographer called it, was considered a central pivot, the heartland that stretched from Siberia to present-day Ukraine.
Britain had been combining control of the seas with being the first industrial power to impose its hegemony over the global system without being a continental power. Mackinder’s view was that this was possible if no alternative power emerged that could control the “(continental) island of the world.”
Mackinder’s theses were not new, but they placed a rational and geopolitical framework (although he did not use that word) on what was already a modus operandi of the British Empire. A continental challenge to the British Empire came from Napoleonic France and its attempt to create a “continental system”, trying to include Russia by force.
The Franco-Russian confrontation was a great British achievement, whose support for Russia prevented the emergence of a potent Eurasian rival. A little over a century later, the continental threat returned in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.
This could have been a serious continental threat to the British-American thalassocratic alliance. But neither geopolitics nor the lessons of the past prevailed in Germany. Once again the continental front was broken and it was Russia (now the Soviet Union) that once again saved the Catalan powers.
In the confrontation of the Cold War, the USSR resumed the objective of building a Eurasian platform through which it could achieve global projection.
He had control of the heartland, but this was not enough, so he sought an alliance with the new communist state that was constituted from 1949 onwards, the People’s Republic of China. However, this alliance did not achieve decisive strength, as China was enormously weakened by decades of war and territorial loss.
Although the Soviet Union had a power of global reach, it did not reach a leading position in economic and technological terms vis-a-vis the US and its allies.
In other words, there was a weakened continental front. Thus, despite the fatal defeat in the Vietnam War, the US achieved a strategic goal in terms of global geopolitics: the dissolution of the Sino-Soviet alliance in 1972.
Once again, the thalassocratic power was able to breathe thanks to the weakening of the Eurasian alternative, which faded even further with the collapse of the USSR.
But the Eurasian dream was revived by the new Russian state, which, under the leadership of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, institutionalized it in the creation of the Eurasian Union, a customs union between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Of course, the name doesn’t match the content. Although Russia remains a military power, it is a far cry from the former political, economic and even territorial strength of the USSR.
It is here that, as we enter the 21st century, we are faced with the resurgence of another Eurasian power, the People’s Republic of China, already disconnected from the alliance with the US and with a geopolitical agenda of its own.
It has elements that were never achieved by Russia (not even in its Soviet era) or by any other continental Eurasian power. On the one hand, having an economy of global reach with the potential to be the world’s leading economy.
China’s presence in Latin America is a good example of this, challenging the US and Western commercial space like no one before. The other element is being at the forefront of technology, as it is with the new 5G standard in telecommunications.
This renewed China-Russia alliance is undoubtedly a Mackinderian nightmare for the current thalassocratic power and its allies. The Russian challenge to the Western European security order that we now see in the Ukraine conflict would be impossible without this Eurasian alliance.
Bilateral trade between China and Russia doubled between 2013 and 2021, which for Russia means an increase in China’s share of its foreign trade from 10 to 20 percent.
But the ambition is much greater, a deep regional integration strategy has already been announced towards what they call the “Great Eurasian Association”.
This means an intertwining of the Russian-led Eurasian Union with the “Belt and Road Initiative” promoted by China.
Add to this the connections that, at the same time as the Ukraine crisis, are being established between the Sino-Russian space with Iran and India, which will play a fundamental role in the composition of the Eurasian and global geopolitical board.
If this continental space continues to consolidate, it would not only mean the alternative of an unprecedented continental power in the Eurasian space.
It would also be the first time that a power of this type would have a true global weight, both military and (here’s the novelty) economic. Russia determines a decisive weight in the first, China in the second.
Undoubtedly, the conflict in Ukraine antagonizes Russia with Western Europe and the US, but from the global chessboard the Eurasian union is gaining traction. The effect is already visible, and it will be even more so in Latin America, which will play a more important role for its natural resources, for the consumption power of its population and for being part of the US heartland.
Ukraine’s fate is a warning to fragile countries walking alone in the world. Russia does not hesitate to intervene and, apart from a lot of rhetoric, there are no Western troops assisting the Ukrainians. Confronting the great powers together should be a security imperative for Latin American countries.
