The Geopolitics of US Empire

Greetings to all! This blog post is an excerpt from my Substack, which focuses on history and geopolitics, though usually a solid mixture of both. Today's little excerpt is from my three part series on American grand strategy, and specifically about a theory that shapes the machinations of the ever so beloved US empire to this day. Currently my series on the Rimland has concluded with three installments. If any of this what you read here interests you, I would both kindly encourage and be grateful to you if could go read the full articles on my Substack linked below. If not, then simply enjoy this little teaser!

Links to the every part below: 

https://thegeopoliticsobserver.substack.com/p/americas-geopolitics-part-1-america 

https://thegeopoliticsobserver.substack.com/p/the-rimland-and-geopolitics-part 

https://thegeopoliticsobserver.substack.com/p/the-rimland-and-geopolitics-part-3 

What is the Rimland?

Spykman is less quoted and read outside the confines of scholarship for the most part. Mackinder was a UK insider and MP in Parliament; Spykman was merely a professor in Yale, albeit with important friends. The Yale Ιnstitute for International studies was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, after all. Still, position is superior to patronage. There is also the matter of writing quality. Mackinder, though matter of fact, wrote in excellent prose that stays in the mind; Spykman, being a Sea-German(Dutch), possesses the matter-of- factness of the Teutons, but lacks the lyrical quality of Mackinder’s prose.

Regardless, one cannot fully understand Anglo-Saxon geopolitical and strategic thinking, never mind that of our beloved US empire, without an appraisal of Spykman. In terms of how he divides the world, Spykman has a schema that is based on Mackinder, unavoidable since the geography of the world is a constant most of the time. Assuming the reader is already familiar with the conception of the Heartland, we see that the Rimland is roughly where Mackinder formerly placed the Inner Crescent. Here it is best to use two maps to illustrate the idea, one by Mackinder and one by Spykman:

By Halford J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History”, Geographical Journal 23, no. 4 (April 1904): 435. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1626595

The Rimland as the front line of Eurasia vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Nicholas J. Spykman, “America’s Strategy in World Politics”, 1942, pg. 180

Above we see that both conceptions roughly correspond to the same geographic areas, those being the coastlines of Eurasia and parts of Southeast Asia and North Africa. Spykman calls the second map the encirclement of the Old World as in the relevant chapter he speculates as to what would happen if the power of the Old or the New World could be organized into a single political unit. The clear implication being the creation of a global hegemonic force.

 Historically, the Rimland is more or less the locations where both World Wars, excluding the Colonial battles of World War One and the Australian front in World War Two, and the majority of Cold War actions between America and the Communist bloc took place.

Once we account for this reality, one can see that the nations and peoples of the Rimland are caught between the jaws of two Leviathans, both from the New World and from the Heartland. Spykman’s map being called the encirclement of the Old World is very fitting in that regard. It is also why the center of gravity shifts, for Spykman, to the Rimland. If that could be sufficiently controlled, then the security of the New World from the Old would be guaranteed. Hence why, for the USA, policy ought to focus on the entire circumference around the Heartland for maximum security.

Speaking of the new world, Spykman considers its position upon the map of the globe with much care, giving an excellent description of its geography. Perhaps the most important aspect of his description is the separation of the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and parts of the Southern USA and dubs the area they cover “The American Mediterranean”. This categorization is geopolitical rather than geographic, permitting the conceptualization of the area around the Panama canal as a distinct zone for strategic planning. Beyond such concerns, Spykman himself dubs this area America’s back yard and believes its raw materials could supplement the imports from the rest of the world.

As he concludes his geographic description, he explains that the US will remain the hegemonic force in the New World for the foreseeable future, thanks in large part to favorable geographic conditions and a lack of true challengers in the New World. He also outlines that it is in the inherent interest of the larger Latin American nations to attempt to balance against “The Colossus of the North”, a fact which is more relevant in the world of Cold War and of today rather than the one in which it was written. Nonetheless, the dominance of the US remains, for all intents and purposes unchallenged in the Western hemisphere, as events in 2026 have confirmed.

But such a state of affairs did not arise in an historical vacuum. Here Spykman points to two key factors that conditioned the evolution of the USA into the regional hegemon of the Americas in the 19th century. Beyond the collapse of the Spanish colonial empire, the two main factors that enabled this ascendance was the inability for Europe to coalesce as a single power to potentially challenge the US dominance of the Americas due to continental politics, and the existence of the Royal Navy which greatly hindered the ability of other the other European states to individually attempt any projects of expansion into the New World. Both of these variables helped secure the New World, and allowed the power of the US to expand mostly uninhibited and unthreatened from the outside.

Both of these factors are solid explanations. And yet, Spykman goes on to outline several periods when US dominance over the New World was (allegedly) challenged, to use that last word rather charitably. For example, to him the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine was a reaction to French intimations of the restoration of Spanish rule in the colonies. In his own words:

"In 1822 the Congress of Verona authorized France to intervene in Spain and destroy the existing Spanish regime which had arisen as the result of a republican revolution. France declared war on the Spanish Cortes, restored the monarchy, and began to toy with the idea of collective European action to repress the revolutions in America and restore the valuable possessions to the crown of Spain. The powers were invited to a meeting in Paris to discuss this program. If the Concert had approved the proposal and agreed on common action, the political alignment in the world would have been similar to that which would result from an Axis victory over Russia and China in the present world war."

This particular episode Spykman relates is rather obscure, but some plans along these lines did exist during 1822-23. The characterization, on the other hand, is utterly fanciful. Especially when the Monroe Doctrine was apparently proclaimed in response to Russian and British inquiries about spheres of interest in the Western hemisphere, at least according to what the actual US proclamation says on this matter.