Judging by the response to my past piece, it seems the idea of supranational governance, an elite ruling class and grand chessboard strategy is weird and ‘conspiratorial’ sounding to a lot of people. I suppose this is understandable when people spend 12 years of their lives in an education system designed to acclimate them to a life of unquestioning obsequience, but kind of sad when it means the ruling class can conduct its affairs in full gaze and anyone who dares to notice is dismissed as a crackpot conspiracy theorist.
“In our dream we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science. We are not to raise up among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.”
- Rev. Frederick T. Gates, Business Advisor to John D. Rockefeller Sr., 1913
So anyway, let’s move on. Let’s forget about the Bilderbergers and the Trilateral Commission and billionaires dancing naked in the woods in front of a 40ft stone owl. What happens at Bohemian Grove stays at Bohemian Grove. Let’s forget about Jekyll Island and the Georgia Guidestones. Let’s not talk about Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table group, or try to draw any connections to the distant past, or ask awkward questions like, I don’t now, who funded Hitler’s war efforts, or how did Mao Tse Tung come to be the one time editor of America’s oldest college newspaper, the Yale Daily News.
Let’s even, for the sake of it, assume that 9-11 happened because of Angry Muslims armed with box cutters and had nothing to do with a declining power wanting to reassert its influence in the wake of the Cold War.
Let’s not go down any rabbit holes or try to refute official any narratives, no matter how obviously flawed.
Let’s instead talk about something universal and unassailable. Let’s talk about geography, and how it sets the context for civilisation and great power conflict. Let’s talk maps.
Here I’m more or less going to copy and paste the whole Wikipedia entry for Halford MacKinder’s seminal treatise ‘The Geopolitical Pivot of History’ – because it is a succinct summary of an essential work and I don’t see the point of trying to summarise it myself.
The World-Island and the Heartland
According to Mackinder, the Earth's land surface was divisible into:
The World-Island, comprising the interlinked continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa (Afro-Eurasia). This was the largest, most populous, and richest of all possible land combinations.
The offshore islands, including the British Isles and the islands of Japan.
The outlying islands, including the continents of North America, South America, and Oceania.
The Heartland lay at the centre of the world island, stretching from the Volga to the Yangtze and from the Himalayas to the Arctic. Mackinder's Heartland was the area then ruled by the Russian Empire and after that by the Soviet Union, minus the Kamchatka Peninsula region, which is located in the easternmost part of Russia, near the Aleutian Islands and Kurile islands.
Later, in 1919, Mackinder summarised his theory thus:
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. 150Any power which controlled the World-Island would control well over 50% of the world's resources. The Heartland's size and central position made it the key to controlling the World-Island.
The vital question was how to secure control for the Heartland. This question may seem pointless, since in 1904 the Russian Empire had ruled most of the area from the Volga to Eastern Siberia for centuries. But throughout the nineteenth century:
The West European powers had combined, usually successfully, in the Great Game to prevent Russian expansion.
The Russian Empire was huge but socially, politically and technologically backward – i.e. inferior in "virility, equipment and organization".
Mackinder held that effective political domination of the Heartland by a single power had been unattainable in the past because:
The Heartland was protected from sea power by ice to the north and mountains and deserts to the south.
Previous land invasions from east to west and vice versa were unsuccessful because lack of efficient transportation made it impossible to assure a continual stream of men and supplies.
He outlined the following ways in which the Heartland might become a springboard for global domination in the twentieth century (Sempa, 2000):
Successful invasion of Russia by a Western European nation (most probably Germany). Mackinder believed that the introduction of the railroad had removed the Heartland's invulnerability to land invasion. As Eurasia began to be covered by an extensive network of railroads, there was an excellent chance that a powerful continental nation could extend its political control over the Eastern European gateway to the Eurasian landmass. In Mackinder's words, "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland."
A Russo-German alliance. Before 1917 both countries were ruled by autocrats (the Tsar and the Kaiser), and both could have been attracted to an alliance against the democratic powers of Western Europe (the US was isolationist regarding European affairs, until it became a participant of World War I in 1917). Germany would have contributed to such an alliance its formidable army and its large and growing sea power.
Conquest of Russia by a Sino-Japanese empire (see below).
The combined empires' large East Asian coastline would also provide the potential for it to become a major sea power. Mackinder's "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland…" does not cover this scenario, probably because the previous two scenarios were seen as the major risks of the nineteenth century and the early 1900s.
One of Mackinder's personal objectives was to warn Britain that its traditional reliance on sea power would become a weakness as improved land transport opened up the Heartland for invasion and/or industrialisation (Sempa, 2000).
A more modern development to which the heartland theory can still be attributed to exist is through Russia's oil pipelines scandals. Heartland theory implies that the world island is full of resources to be exploited. "Any initiative by the United States to open the market access in Central Asia implies that this state is targeted for the exploration of multinational energy companies. The efforts of domination for the exploration of natural resources are also apparent in the case of Russia. Study found that Russia wants to have pipelines be transported through its territory. However the Russian energy companies are working on behalf of market interests, they often constrain the behaviour of the state"
And there you have it. Do you see it yet? Do you understand why, even in 2022, after two world wars which killed 40 million and 85 million respectively, the entire Western world still wants Germany to build a huge army, march through Poland, and fight the Russians?
Now can we please go back to the beginning, and talk about grand chessboard strategy, and how it accurately describes the game of empire that has been playing out for most of the last 400 years?
Remember the old patriotic song of the British Navy
When Britain fi-i-irst, at heaven's command,
Aro-o-o-ose from out the a-a-a-zure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the a-azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian a-a-angels sang this strain:
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
The nations, no-o-o-o-ot so blest as thee,
Must i-i-i-i-in their turn, to ty-y--yrants fall,
Must in their turn, to ty-y-rants fall,
While thou shalt flourish, shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and e-e-e-e-nvy of them all.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.
For centuries goods and commodities were moved around by ships. This was due to the fact that a sailing ship could travel faster than a caravan. Control of shipping lanes and ports thus meant control of global trade, which is essentially how the British Empire came to control approximately one third of the earth’s landmass.
Even today the Anglo-American ‘Atlantic bloc’ as it likes to be called, thinks it can dominate the world through sea power, but in an era of high speed rail and gas pipelines, they are fighting for a lost cause. It’s bad enough that the war planners seem to have their heads buried in the 20th century, but when seen through this lens it becomes apparent that they are still trying to fight a 19th century war.
I could fill in the details, and explain how Nazi war criminals became high ranking commanders in the NATO alliance, or talk about the role of the EU and institutions like the Council of Europe, and how Europe is the real pivot area between the East and West. I could talk about why the West wasted 20 years in Afghanistan and what the current war in Ukraine is all about. But really, Mackinder’s thesis is as relevant today as it was in 1904.
Mackinder was a fool, of course. At least he was foolish to assume that a bloated, arrogant Sea Power ever stood a chance, even against a ‘technologically backward’ Russia, much less against two fully industrialised heavyweights (Russia+China) sharing the same continent. The West may have the greatest army on earth, it may control financial markets and dominate the energy sector (for now) - but when it comes to power projection, it is geography which has the final word.
I don't think you're the least bit conspiratorial. I say ignore the people who said that about the last post. Great article. Love the way you connected things to history. Funny how so many people try to ignore that and just eat up whatever propaganda the mainstream media is spewing.
Very interesting! ...and plausible ...and an angle that I have not heard before. It will be even more interesting if it is true that the European globalists have not considered all this (i.e. have they, or have they not, managed to form a workable alliance with Putin & Xi to advance the NWO?)