‘Revenge of Geography’: mesmerizing, instructive geopolitical opus

‘Revenge of Geography’: mesmerizing, instructive geopolitical opus  

By M.R. Josse

KATHMANDU: One positive outcome of the Covid-19 lockdown is that it provided me the windfall of unbounded time, a luxury I utilized reading Robert D. Kaplan’s monumental work, ‘The Revenge of Geography’ (Random House, New York, 2012).

I shall attempt here a review of that compelling and sprawling tapestry of a narrative that illuminates the oft-ignored or underplayed significance of geography and geopolitics, in explaining – in some cases, even predicting – the ebb and flow of history and inter-state relations.

However, before plunging in, I must admit that only a sliver of what the masterful tome is all about is proffered: only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

FRONTIERS

In the preface, Kaplan says, “Mountains are a conservative force, often protecting within their defiles indigenous cultures against the fierce modernizing ideologies that have often plagued the flatlands”, leaving one to wonder whether that dictum holds true for Nepal, too.

He avers: “Geography on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has different lessons to offer: for what the British were first to call the ‘North-West Frontier’ was historically no frontier at all” but instead “the heart” of an “Indo-Persian” and “Indo-Islamic” continuum, “the reason why Afghanistan and Pakistan form an organic whole, contributing to their geographical incoherence as separate states.”

He dismisses the man-made frontier such as the Korean DMZ, like the Berlin Wall, as an arbitrary border with no geographical logic; merely marking positions dividing an ethnic nation “at a spot where two opposing armies happened to come to rest.” He goes on to posit: “Just as Germany was reunited, we might expect, or at least plan for, a united Greater Korea.” Going further, the author predicts: “Again the forces of culture and geography are likely to prevail at some point. A man-made border that does not match a natural frontier is particularly vulnerable.”

More generally, Kaplan expounds, with palpable passion, on the imperative of geography against the broader canvas of history and international relations, thus: “You do not have to be a geographical determinist to realize that geography is vitally important. The more we remain pre-occupied with current events, the more that individuals and their choices matter, but the more we look over the span of the centuries, the more that geography plays a role.”

In this sweeping intellectual tour de force – where the writings of a plethora of philosophers, deep thinkers, strategists, geographers and geo-politicians across the centuries are invoked regularly – the author steps into realms not wholly confined to geography or geopolitics.

Thus, quoting Hans Morgenthau, noted American political scientist, Kaplan, reminds: “Simply because a nation is a democracy does not mean that its foreign policy will necessarily turn out to be more enlightened than that of a dictatorship…Democracy and morality are simply not synonymous.”

DETERMINANT

As Kaplan elaborates: “For, at root, realism is about the most blunt, uncomfortable, and deterministic of truths: those of geography. Geography is the backdrop of human history itself. In spite of cartographic distortions, it can be as revealing about a government’s long-range intentions as its secret councils…

“Geography is the very basis for strategy and geopolitics. Strategy as defined by Napoleon is the art of using time and using space in a military and diplomatic manner…Geopolitics is the influence of geography upon human divisions. As Napoleon said, to know a nation’s geography is to know its foreign policy.”

Germans, as per Kaplan, have literally lived geography, reminding us that it was they who developed and elaborated upon geopolitics, which is the concept of politically and militarily dominated space. Interestingly, he holds that the “United States was a great power less because of its ideals than because, with direct access to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, it was the most favored state from the point of view of location.”

As he tells it, as per Dutch immigrant scholar, Nicholas J. Spykman, because the American east coast with its estuaries and indentations provided innumerable favorable locations for harbors, “ultimately, in this view, geography was the early sustainer of American freedom.”

Where Europe is concerned, Kaplan recalls that the E.U.’s population is the third largest in the world after China and India and that its economy of $ 16 trillion is larger than that of the United States, before making the assertion: “To understand geopolitics in the 21^st century we must start with the twentieth and that means with Europe.”

Incidentally, he argues that “the fact that distances are short within Europe has been another unifying factor: from Lisbon to Warsaw, that is, from one end of Europe to another it is only 1,500 miles…Geography, in other words, has helped determine that there is the idea called Europe, the geographical expression of liberal humanism by way of post-World War II merging of sovereignty.

RUSSIA

Kaplan has unsurprisingly offered a bunch of incisive geopolitical insights into Russia, “the world’s pre-eminent land power extending 170 degrees of longitude, almost half around the globe.” He notes that “Russia’s principal outlet to the sea is to the north, but that is blocked by ice for many months of the year”- and points out that land powers are “perennially insecure” as American advocate of sea-power, Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, intimated. “Without seas to protect them, they are forever dissatisfied and have to keep expanding or be conquered in turn, themselves.”

In fact, “Insecurity is the quintessential Russian national emotion…Just as geography is not an explanation for everything, neither is it a solution. Geography is merely the unchanging backdrop against which the battle of ideas plays out. Even when geography is a unifier – as in the case of America, or Great Britain, or India or Israel – the ideals of democracy and liberty and Zionism (with its spiritual element) have, nevertheless, been basic to national unity.”

CHINA

Holding that the interior of Eurasia forms the “fulcrum of world power”, Kaplan turns to China, also a continent-size power like Russia, and makes a number of acute observations. Among them: that China’s reach not only extends to the strategic Central Asian core of the former Soviet Union, with all its mineral and hydro-carbon wealth, but also to the main shipping lanes of the Pacific thousands of miles away where China enjoys a nine-thousand mile coastline with many good harbors, most of which are ice-free.

The author maintains that the fact that China is blessed by geography is often ignored. China, he opines, is “a demographic behemoth with the world’s most energetic economy for the past three decades” and is, “unlike Russia, extending its territorial influence much more through commerce than coercion.”

In other words, “China is a rising continental power, and as Napoleon famously said, the policies of such states are inherent in their geography.” While disclosing that the restive Uihgurs number eight million they comprise less than one percent of China’s population, mostly in Xinjiang which is China’s largest province – “twice the size of Texas.”

Kaplan informs that, “Tibet, with the headwaters of the Yellow, Yangzi, Mekong, Salween, Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej rivers, may constitute the world’s most enormous storehouse of fresh water even as China, by 2030, is expected to fall short of water demands by 25 percent.”

Turning to another aspect the Chinese situation, one is informed that, “As the United States moves to defeat al Qaeda and irreconcilable elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is China’s geopolitical position that will be enhanced. Military deployments are ephemeral: roads, rail links, and pipelines can be virtually forever…Without Tibet, there is a much reduced China and a virtually expanded Indian subcontinent: this explains the pace of Chinese road and rail project across the Tibetan massif.”

INDIA

With respect to India, too, ‘The Revenge of Geography’ has heaps of thoughtful insights and theories to offer. Many of them are contained in the following passage, beginning with the assertion that its geopolitics is “highly unstable”.

“India is both a subcontinent and a vital extremity of the Greater Middle East…So the key to understanding India is the realization that while a subcontinent India makes eminent sense, its national boundaries are, nevertheless, quite weak in places…The present Indian state still does not conform to the borders of the subcontinent, and that is the heart of the dilemma: for Pakistan, Bangladesh and, to a lesser extent, Nepal also lie within the subcontinent and pose a security threat to India, robbing India of vital political energy that it would otherwise harness for power projects throughout much of Eurasia.

“The west-to-east flow of rivers in the subcontinent, oriented from north to south has…made it difficult for the north to govern the south, until relatively late in history. Put simply: there are relatively few geographical connecting links between northern and southern India.”

Leaving aside, for space considerations, two equally absorbing chapters on ‘The Iranian Pivot’ and ‘The Former Ottoman Empire’ respectively, let us come now to the final chapter, entitled ‘America’s Destiny’.

AMERICA

This is a fascinating read if rather esoteric for most non-Americans. Kaplan tackles, among other issues, the question of how America can best prepare itself for “a prolonged and graceful exit from history as a dominant power” But before doing so, the author enumerates the “three primary geopolitical dilemmas” for America: to wit, a chaotic Eurasian heartland in the Middle East, a rising and assertive Chinese Superpower, and a state of deep trouble in Mexico” – before concluding that the “challenges America faces with China and Mexico are most efficiently dealt with by wariness of further military involvement in the Middle East.”

Going back to how best American can prepare to gracefully exit from history as a dominant power, Kaplan suggests that, “like Byzantium, it can avoid costly interventions, use diplomacy to sabotage enemies, employ intelligence assets to strategic use, and so on.” It must be cognizant, though, he is convinced, that “nothing will affect its society more than a dramatic movement of Latin history northwards.”

By that he refers, among other geopolitical realities, to “Northern Mexico’s on-going undeclared, substantially unreported and undeniable unification with the Southwestern United States, and consequent separation from the rest of Mexico.”

He then refers to the projection that “by 2050, one-third of the population of the United States could be Spanish speaking” as also to the historical fact that “Mexico is the only country the United States has invaded, occupied its capital, and annexed a good deal of its territory.”

Reminding that “America is no longer an island, protected by the Atlantic and Pacific,” he believes that “it is bought closer to the rest of the world not only by technology but by the pressures of Mexico and Central American demography.”

In his considered view, therefore, he recommends: “We must be a balancing power in Eurasia and a unifying power in North America – doing both will be easier than doing only one.” Kaplan suggests that in America’s long-term national interests, it must ensure that “one power is the Eastern Hemisphere does not become unduly dominant, so as to threaten the United States in the Western Hemisphere.” That, he holds, “will be a much easier task if we advance unity in the Western Hemisphere, in the first place” – referring to the demographic and geopolitical future challenges to America from the South, if unheeded in time.

In conclusion, ‘The Revenge of Geography’ is a mind-expanding and thought-provoking read – dense with gems of historical wisdom, projected in vivid colours on a panoramic screen. It is highly recommended for those who have the patience and interest in exploring it to the very end.

Though there is little, if anything of great substance, on Nepal, I hope to read it several times in the future in order to obtain the fullest intellectual sustenance from what is an undoubtedly finely crafted and superbly researched work.

I must admit to no small gratification that I should have savored it so soon after publishing my book, ‘Nepal‘s Quest for Survival’, which is rooted on Nepal uncomfortable, landlocked location sandwiched between China and India: another manifestation of ‘the revenge of geography’.