Introduction

Introduction The “Revenge of Geography” is written by Robert D Kaplan who is a free lance

Journalist and a correspondent of the Atlantic magazine. He is also author of many famous books such as Moonsoon on Indian ocean and its littoral states along with a number of research papers on current Geo-Political issues. This book is divided into three parts and fourteen chapters. Published in year 2012, it was in the list of Ten best books on the Amazon.

Author in this book has tried to create a crystal ball effect by discussing all the important geographical entities of the world.

For him geography is not a limiting factor rather it is vitally important as a “fosse regia” the demarcation ditch between the civilized and the un civilized world, therefore it is the template where history, warfare, strategy, culture and civilization itself play the roulette.

The book revenge of geography will now be reviewed chapter wise for the better assimilation of author’s contentions as it is thoroughly opiniated with every line being a conclusive argument.

Chapter -1 From Bosnia to Baghadad

• The author states that post cold war actually begins in 1980 with the revival of term central Europe or “Mitteleuropa”. It was more an idea than a fact of Geography.

• The yearning to save the Muslim of Bosnia and Kosovo cannot be divorced from the yearning for the restoration of central Europe.

• Fatal geographical flaws had created mere geographical expressions that lacked geopolitical substance, example Bosnia, and East Germany

• The Western political mantras at the end of twentieth Century have been integration, multiculturalism or the melting pot, former Yugoslavia has been the opposite

• Author opines that, Saddam murdered more people than Milosevic therefore deserved removal, realists and pragmatist were skeptical of any venture in Mesopotamia while neoconservatives became a mark of derision as now the geography is taking its revenge with dominos all along the middle east.

Chapter -1 From Bosnia to Baghadad

Chapter – 2 The Revenge of Geography

• Kaplan opines that legacies of Geography, history and culture really do set limits on what can be accomplished in a given place.

• Moregenthau argued that world is the result of forces inherent in human nature, Thucydides, centuries before defined these as fear, self interest and honour.

• Therefore on the relatively stable foundation of geography the pyramid of national power arises. Geography bridges the gap between arts and sciences, therefore it is the most fundamental factor in foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent factor.

• Author says that it is the geography that has helped sustain the American prosperity with access to two principle arteries, politics and commerce in world. Europe across Atlantic and East Asia across pacific.

Chapter – 2 The Revenge of Geography

Chapter – 3 Herodotus and his Successors

• Ibn Khaldun, the fourteenth century historian and geographer said that the luxurious or elaborate living style strengthens the state initially by furthering the legitimacy but in succeeding generations leads to decadence. Therefore principle of natural articulation sustains the nations.

• Cosmopolitanism is the essence of rootlessness, which is the essence of urbanization which results in the arrested civilization or the civilizational collapse. While defining means of mobility during modern wars author opines that horse nomadism of the Mongols and Turkic people was more crucial to history than the camel nomadism of the Arabs. So conquests and geographical revisions were the direct result of the use of certain animals tied to geography.

• Herodotus observed that “Custom is king of all”. As historian, he preserved the earliest history, myths, fables and geography as it is writhen by two things, the stroke of a pen and the scar of a sword. Human agency matters mainly in regards military and commercial dominance. It is also the crux of Herodotus histories and that of the successors after him.

Chapter – 3 Herodotus and his Successors

Chapter-4 The Eurasian Map• As per author the geography is the very basis of strategy and geo-

politics• Mackinder in 1890 wrote that “suppose I get a certain sample of

wheat from Lahore and that I do not know where Lahore is “. A tacit pointer towards geographical ataxia which no strategists can afford.

• Mackinder in 1904 wrote a article “the geographical pivot of history” which described the eurasian heart land in these words, “who rules eastern Europe commands the heart land, who rules the heartland commands the world island, who rules the world island commands the world”.

• He further said that “ Geography and the environment could be overcome. But only if we treat those subjects with the greatest knowledge and respect”.

Chapter-4 The Eurasian Map

Chapter-5 The Nazi Distortion

• Author defines the German Phenomenon historically changeable on the map lying between sea and north and Alps to the south, with the plains to the west and east open to invasion and expansion both, Germans have literally lived geography.

• Fiedrich Ratzel, who influenced Hitler was a German Geographer and ethnographer who coined the term living space, Ratzel himself a follower of Charles Darwin, developed an organic and some what the biological sense of geography basing upon expansion and creating space, which led to the Nazism

• Karl Hau Shofer the geoplolistician of Nazism perverted the ideas of Mackinder and gave a new acrobatics on the ideological trapeze under the title of a new German world order. It presupposes a greater east Asia under Japanese hegemony, a US dominated “Pan America” and a German Eurasia Heartland with a Mediterranean North African sub region under the shadow of Italy.

• The Author opines that the history of our times appears to reflect, with malignant fatality, the trend towards empires and super states as predicted by Ratzel and Mackinder.

Chapter-5 The Nazi Distortion

Chapter-6 The Rim land Thesis• Nicholas J. Spykman wrote a book “America’s Strategy in world Politics: the

US and Balance of Power” in 1940. This has changed the thought process of American decision making elites towards geography as a tool of geo-politics and geo-strategy.

• Spykman said that history is made in the temperate latitude of Northern Hemisphere, rather it is made between twenty and sixty degrees north latitude. The area is north America, Europe, Greater Middle East, North Africa, Most of Russia and bulk of India.

• USA before this was a regional hegemon, then it realized that it has power to spare for activities outside the new world.

• The Marginal areas of Eurasia, specially their littorals was what spykman called the rim land and therefore as per Kaplan the defence of Western Europe, Israel, moderate Arab states, Iran and wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam all carried the notion of preventing a communist empire from extending control from heartland to Rim land.

Chapter-6 The Rim land Thesis

Chapter-7 The Allure of Sea Power• Mahan an American Navy Captain thought that instead of the heartland of Eurasia

being the geographical pivot of empires, it was conversely the Indian and pacific oceans that constituted the hinges of geopolitical destiny, As the oceans would allow for a maritime nation to project power around the Eurasian Rim land.

• In 1900 Mahan predicted the importance of China, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey as coming times. He was the first person who used the term Middle East and said that area between Arabia and India will be important for naval strategy.

• Mahan held that a nation must expand or decline for it was impossible for a nation to hold its own, while standing still.

• Magnum opus “The influence of Sea Power upon History” also predicted the necessity of panama canal. Sir Norman Angell in his book “The great Illusion 1909” condemns Mahan’s Writing as very mischievous moonshine. He said that Mahan has replaced the human agency with geography that too ocean based.

• Chinese as per the author are taking Mahan very seriously they are building fleets and scholars after scholars now quote Mahan in their mundane discussions.

Chapter-7 The Allure of Sea Power

Chapter-8 The Crisis of Room• Paul bracken ,a visiting professor at US naval Academy on the basis of on going collapse of

time and distance gave the concept of “crisis of room.”The compression, the finite size of earth. He opines that while the Americans and Europeans focus on globalization the appeal of nationalism and military power is growing in Eurasia.

• An unbroken belt of countries from Israel to North Korea, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Chinese has assembled either a nuclear or chemical arsenals. Their ballistic missiles are reaching an arc of 6000 miles. So the world is getting more claustrophobic because of two things, expansion of populations and increasing missile ranges. Accumulation of weaponry without commit ant alliance structures is chaotic.

• For decades USA and USSR used nuclear weapons for, political maneuvers, implicit, threats, deterrence, signaling, drawing lines in the sand and other forms of psychological advantage, but the poor man’s nukes is changing the global balance of power as disruptive technology.

• The map is shrinking, author quotes Ibn Khaldun as he writes in “Muqaddimah” that when the desert nomads aspire for physical comfort of sedentary life, urbanization takes place. But decay actually sets in after a generation or so, solidarity erodes and individualism and loneliness set in. This is happening now at global scale, vast cities, megacities, metropolis are far less governable. The crowd phenomena is at play in the name of civil rights based upon “Always yell with crowd that’s what I say, it is the only way to be safe.”

Chapter-8 The Crisis of Room

Chapter-9 geography of European Divisions

• Europe’s coastline is 23000 miles. Europe has higher ratio of coastline land mass than any other continent. The very elaborate interface between land and water and the fact that Europe is protected from and yet accessible to a vast ocean has led to the maritime dynamism and mobility.

• Geography has therefore helped determine that there is an idea called Europe.

• Civilizations took root in warm and protected river valleys such as Nile, Tigris and Indus etc then it migrates into relatively mild climate of the Levant, North Africa, Greek and Italian Peninsulas where living was hospitable with rudimentary technology.

Chapter-9 geography of European Divisions

Chapter – 10 Russia and the Independent Heart Land

• Russia is the world’s permanent Land power. Land Powers are perennially insecure and so does the Russia. Russians need a out let to warm water is not a mere theory it s a geographical fact.

• Historically clustered in the forest with their enemies lurking on the steppe, the Russians took refuge in both animism and religion. While other empires rise, expand, and collapse and never heard again, the Russian empire has expanded, collapsed and revived several times. Geography and history demonstrate that we can never discount Russia.

• Author opines that when ideology fails, geography and geopolitics work. Geography is not an explanation for everything, neither it is a solution it is merely the unchanging backdrop against which battle of idea play out and Russia is damn conscious of this.

• Russia occupies eleven time zones and because of no clear cut topographical borders, Russians appear to accept the deep seated militarization of their society and endless search for security.

• Sovietism defines Kazakhstan as the new heartland and the ultimate registry of Russian fortune.

Chapter – 10 Russia and the Independent Heart Land

Chapter – 11 The Geography of Chinese Power

“Along USA and UK China would eventually guide the world by building for a quarter of humanity a new civilization neither quite eastern nor quite western”

(Makinder)• Confucian doctrine is adamant about civilian control over military affairs and the

government by virtue.• Territorially there are two Chinas, one in north which always remained under stress from

steppe nomads of central Asia and other in the south which influence the south east Asia and the South China Sea

• Kaplan says that empires are often sought consciously rather as states became stronger, they develop needs and counter intuitively a whole new set of insecurities that lead them to expand in organic fashion.

• China is not a status quo power it is an evolving one as the 21st century China is dangerously incomplete. The present alliance of sort between China and Russia is tactical only.

• J. Mearsheimer in his book the tragedy of great powers politics, says that “the most dangerous states in the international system are continental powers with large armies”. That is why a new strategic great wall is being emplaced in the south China sea through first and second island chains.

Chapter – 11 The Geography of Chinese Power

Chapter-12 India’s Geographical Dilemma

• There is a highly unstable geopolitics in the region, especially as it concerns Pakistan, Afghanistan and China Vis-à-vis India.

• India is possessed by geographical logic as derived by Arthashastra, the book of State, your neighbor is your enemy (Pakistan) and your neighbor’s neighbor is friend (Afghanistan)

• Kaplan points intellectual aspersion upon ISI as the destabalizer in the region and gave diabolic assertion of Indus as the border between India and Pakistan. He talks of greater Indian as per new economic reach but shivers with the concept of greater Pakistan.

Chapter-12 India’s Geographical Dilemma

Chapter – 13 The Iranian Pivot

• Greater middle east is an expression from nile-to-oxus-to-Indus. A geographical equation of common drivers.

• A fruit and vegetable vendor immolates himself and Arab world burns. All the greater middle East’s oil and natural gas lies either in Persian gulf or the Caspian sea region upon which Iran is perched.

• Idea of Iran is the cultural and linguistic superiority, a soft power of sorts since centuries, the land of poets and roses.

• Geography dictates that Iran will be pivotal to the trend lines in the greater middle east and Eurasia through local fifth column shite populations.

• The Cultural continuum from Turkey to India is real power of Iran.

Chapter – 13 The Iranian Pivot

Chapter-14 The Former Ottoman Empire

“From Europe, Asia minor and more could be conquered from Asia, no portion of Europe could be conquered”

• Turkish demography has accentuated the Turkish geography. Kemalism guided Turkey’s culture and its foreign policy.

• In Turkey Islam is reviving, from 20,000 mosques in 1945 now there are more than 80,000. Being at the equidistant between Europe, Russia and Middle East, the new Trend of Islamic revival after Kemalism is taken very seriously in the west.

• As land bridge it connects the east to the west. Being a water power and an emerging economic one a neo ottomanism is developing. Now a G-20 country it is more than a mare land bridge. It is influencing the regional countries like Syria, Jordan and Iraq etc.

Chapter-14 The Former Ottoman Empire

Analysis• Geopolitics, Geo Strategy, real Politic are all the terms of strategy which

are played on the template of geography. The author despite giving an in-depth account did not define the terms.

• The book is highly opiniated and is a very well versed account of geopolitics from the oblique angle of geography. The terms mentioned in the account was understood but the concept woven therein were sometimes beyond comprehension.

• Rober D. Kaplan’s early book the Moonsoon is probably the main influence upon the chapter on India. It is quite confusing to describe India as Geographically logical and Pakistan illogical on the same grounds and factors.

• Author has extensively used the ideas of mackinder and Mahan to support his argument. He tried to prove that revenge of geography ensue’s when the nations tends to disrespect it or ignores it.