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Concepts · Meridian Research Team

Geopolitics and chokepoints

Land power, sea power and the narrow passages of world trade.

Animated diagram: concentric rings for heartland, rimland and outer seas, with a slowly rotating outer ringheartlandrimlandouter seas

Conceptual diagram, not data.

Classical geopolitics studies how geography (the distribution of land, sea and resources) shapes the power of states. Three writers remain the standard reference points.

Mahan and sea power. Alfred Thayer Mahan's The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890) argued that national greatness depended on command of the sea, which he saw as resting on a strong navy, merchant shipping, overseas bases and access to key sea lanes.

Mackinder and the heartland. Halford Mackinder's 'The Geographical Pivot of History' (The Geographical Journal, 1904) contended that the vast interior of Eurasia, which he called the pivot region, was largely inaccessible to sea power. In his view, railways could allow a land power there to command great resources, shifting the balance away from maritime states.

Spykman and the rimland. Nicholas Spykman, in America's Strategy in World Politics (1942) and the posthumous The Geography of the Peace (1944), placed the emphasis instead on the coastal belt surrounding the Eurasian interior. He argued that control of this rimland was the key to world power.

Animated diagram: dots flowing along shipping lanes that converge through a narrow chokepoint

Conceptual diagram, not data.

Chokepoints. A practical legacy of maritime geopolitics is attention to chokepoints: narrow straits and canals through which a large share of seaborne trade must pass. Disruption at a single passage can force long diversions, raise distances travelled and transmit shocks across the world economy.

Applying it today. Recent disruption to major canal and strait routes illustrates the point. MER/26/N01, Trade Under Strain discusses reduced transits and longer voyages using UNCTAD data.

References

  1. Mahan, A. T. (1890) The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Boston: Little, Brown. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13529
  2. Mackinder, H. J. (1904) "The Geographical Pivot of History", The Geographical Journal, 23(4), 421–437. https://doi.org/10.2307/1775498
  3. Spykman, N. J. (1942) America's Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power. New York: Harcourt, Brace. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL10547445W
  4. Spykman, N. J. (1944) The Geography of the Peace. New York: Harcourt, Brace. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1213638W

Explainers paraphrase the works cited. They do not quote them. Bibliographic details were checked against the linked catalogue or DOI records.