
. . . which was decisive, not only for the Second World War but for the Cold War. For a dominant, totalitarian state in control of Mackinder’s Heartland and ranging to the Atlantic would have sobering global geostrategic consequences.
Summary of the thesis:
“Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;who rules the World-Island commands the world.”(Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 150)“The Geographical Pivot of History” was an article submitted by Halford John Mackinder in 1904 tothat advanced his “Heartland Theory”
Let us never forget the sacrifice that restored a bastion of freedom in Western Europe, which ultimately prevailed. END
PS: I would love to see a restored easy way to do embedded vids for UD.
PPS: Let me add a sketch of my geostrategic assessment c 2016, which is still essentially valid — and sobering:
PPPS: It looks like we must also ponder the seven mountains, commanding heights of a culture picture:
UD Newswatch: 74th anniversary of the June 6th, 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy
I don’t get the point of this. At the time of D-Day the Soviets were our allies.
I also think the maximum extent of Soviet influence line is a bit of an under-estimate.
It’s nice to know that UD is on the same side as Soros and Juncker and Satan.
BO’H:
Your thoughts are appreciated.
The line of maximum Soviet influence seems to be that of strong Soviet control or alliance in the Eurasian sphere but leaves out Cuba, Grenada, Jamaica, Central and South America, also Eastern and Southern Africa. (It is coming from an Indian perspective. S and E Africa border the Indian Ocean, though Israel would have been a check on Russian use of the Suez Canal, and Gibraltar and the Bosporus would have been under NATO control. The GIUK gap would have been heavily contested if full naval war broke out.)
The pattern of rimland wars as the USA emerged as successor to the UK is striking. And, the internal collapse of the USSR underscores that under the nuclear shadow, war has moved to a fourth generation, to use Lind’s terms. Of course, a much truncated Russia is coming back unto the geostrategic stage, and China (due to rising economic power) is also becoming far more active. Its moves of building artificial islands and setting up bases should be seen for what they are. And the PPS I just added shows the wider push into Africa.
Extending Mackinder and to a lesser extent Spykman, I suggest Spain’s global thrust pivoted on the continental base in Latin America and the rimland base of the Philippines. Britain’s global power came from maritime strategies but we should not underestimate the subcontinental base in India and what Australia and South Africa brought to the table. In our time, sub-saharan Africa is the resource rich, poorly governed, worse garrisoned continental base with poor internal communications and economies. It is no accident that there is a Chinese settlement there of a million chinese or that they are working to draw out resources, making a major effort on roads. At the same time, radical Islam has had an ambition to make Africa the first Islamic continent. The Caribbean is an extension of the african situation in the Americas.
In short, there is a new major focal region for geostrategic contest, but we should not underestimate the E Europe pivot area of the heartland and the rimlands, especially the Middle East, S Asia and the far east.
The current N Korea summit could have interesting consequences and I don’t doubt that Iran is paying very close attention, even as it tries to reconstitute the Persian Empire as vanguard of their version of the prophesied Mahdi’s invincible army. (Mahdi is the prophesied final Caliph of Islam, who is to conquer the ME, slaughter the Jews, defeat and convert Christians to Islam, and subjugate the wider world. There is a 100 year Muslim Brotherhood global subjugation project dating to the 1980’s.)
Back to the WW2 alliance of convenience.
Don’t forget, Churchill was a leader of the intervention by the Allies in the Russian Red vs White civil war, and on discussing alliance with Stalin’s Russia in Parliament made the remark that if Hitler invaded Hell, he would have to find something good to say about the devil. It is he who would coin the term, Iron Curtain.
Also, note that Russia had in effect been a silent partner with Hitler in the early phases, indeed that is what enabled Hitler to address East in 1939 (right after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) then West in 1940. Hitler had no viable means to knock Britain out by 1941, and had already been planning to renew the Eastern project in 1940.
Churchill pointed out that, in effect, if a totalitarian German State spanning the pivot area (and extending to the Atlantic) was unacceptable, so would be a Russian one.
So, the Western intervention of June 6, 1944 would have had immediate and longer term contexts. As did the use of nukes against Japan, in a context where Russia was then intervening in the war with Japan. This sent the message on just how transformationally powerful air power then missile power had become. Recall, too, Berlin was apparently the first intended target for nukes, and had Hitler’s programme succeeded London and New York would have been obvious targets.
WW2 was a nuke threshold war.
So, yes, there was an alliance, but even more than in WW1, it was not a natural one.
KF
Polistra,
Thanks for your thoughts, though I think some balancing remarks are due.
For one, the anti-“neocon [II]” narrative lacks historical depth and perspective; reflective of longstanding patterns of American isolationism. In fact, Mackinder spoke in 1904, with Russia primarily in mind but with Germany also of concern. A reasonable argument is that the history of C20 was dominated by two German grabs for European Hegemony and onward global power, followed by a Russian/Marxist push. The maritime powers [UK and/or US] prevailed, through a rimlands-maritime strategy. (The underlying thesis goes back to Mahan and beyond: the globe-spanning impact of sea power, which transformed the world in the era of discovery. Which was also connected to the scientific and industrial revolutions.)
Geostrategic issues don’t care about our perspectives and wishes. We may not be interested in global, international and strategic matters with heavy side helpings on economics, cultural, political and demographic concerns but sometimes those issues are interested in us.
And yes, such matters — for cause — do influence the focus of UD.
For, the cultural institution, science, is a major zone of global ideological domination by evolutionary materialistic ideologues and their fellow travellers, with implications for not only worldviews but cultural agendas.
Whether we look at the narrow but decisive issue of the design inference on tested sign or we pull back and look at its application to cosmology, origin of life, origin of major body plans and origin of mind, the counter we see pivots far more on institutional domination and ideological power games (including media and education manipulation) than a simple assessment of the raw merits of the inference. And we cannot but observe the deleterious influence of that same materialism on society at large, on public thought, on public morality, on political trends and much more.
Nor is that wider picture (and it looks like I will have to add the 7 mountains diagram after commenting!) a new issue. Here is Plato in The Laws, Bk X, commenting on the Athenian civilisational and geostrategic collapse, 2350+ years ago:
His parable of the ship of state in The Republic is even more stark.
So, while scientific concerns are central, we have to reckon with the civilisational and global strategic importance of science. Like it or not, geostrategic issues are inevitably tied to such matters.
As for Mr Soros, he is no friend to anyone, much less UD.
Juncker has to face concerns much as we do, and would naturally reflect the radically secularised, cultural marxism influenced views of the Euro zone elites. Again, no friend. Brexit, in any case, is doubtless more than enough for him to chew on.
Satan, likely — and on the usual sources, has played the geostrategic game at planetary and cosmological levels for many thousands of years, maybe far more. He is no friend to anyone — including those who work with or for him.
In any case, the main point of the OP was, let us remember the men who parachuted in, rode gliders, or waded ashore on that fateful day 74 years ago now.
They fought (and shockingly many died) for what we enjoy today: freedom.
Which is worth celebrating in its own right.
KF
PS: Plato’s Ship of State parable: