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The Study of Rimland Theory

Nicholas John Spykman, Dutch-American journalist, sociologist, political scientist and
geopolitician, was chief among the diffusers of geopolitics from Europe to America..[1] His
attempt to link geopolitics on the one hand to liberal-idealistic values of individual freedom,
national independence, national liberation and anti-imperialism, and on the other hand to
political-realist assumptions of the permanence and inevitability of struggles for power, have
had a significant influence on the ideological bases of American foreign policy since 1941, of a
durability not widely recognized. Though he did some work of a “normal science” type and in
state-level geopolitics, he is best known, as a theoretical geopolitician, for his part in the
system-level grand-theoretical debate over Mackinder’s Heartland doctrine, to which he
counter-posed his own Rimland idea, which remains theoretically signifi-cant.

Spykman’s Rimland Theory-(Tanuj)

 In 1944, Spykman as the point of critic or antithetic to the Heartland

Theory presented his work titled “The Rimland Theory” in his book – “The
Geography of Peace”
 He gave a different interpretation of the relative importance of
Heartland (Land Power) vis-a-vis the surrounding Inner and Outer Crescent
 His theory has been based on the 2 basic postulates of Mackinder –
 Geographical Causation of History
 The conflict between Land Power and Sea power
 Spykman, based on the same premises, built a new geopolitical model where
the Sea Power was supreme and Land Power being inaccessible is inferior
 Sea Power has faster movement, greater accessibility while Land can be
inaccessible due to hills, rivers, deserts, etc
 Sea Powers have more than 2/3rd population of the world and thus full of
human & technological resources. Most of the population is located on Coastal
areas
 Spykman considered geographical features as important determinants in
foreign policy because of its emphasis on spatial variations
 In medieval human history and the pre-modern era, Naval Power had
supremacy over the Land power as they had Navigation Technology, Ships, etc.
e.g. British, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italy were all sea powers and
whole world became the colonial house of these countries
 Spykman gave emphasis on maritime mobility as the basis of a new type of
geopolitical structure
 According to Spykman, it is the sea power that governs the relationships
between Old and New Worlds
 To Spykman, the Heartland appeared “less important than the
Rimland” as Heartland could not support a large population due to extremes
of climate in Central Siberia
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 He was convinced that it is a combination of land and sea powers controlling the
Rimland that would in all probability control the “essential power relations of
the world”.

2 Tier System (Inner Core & Rimland)

He divided the world in 2 tier system –

A. Inner Core

 It is similar to the Heartland

 He said that Heartland is a region of Physiographic difficulties with barriers and extreme
climatic constraints such as Siberia
 The resources are dormant
 Human Population is absent
 It is neither a natural fortress nor the protected Land
 It is pilferated from many parts allowing access to others such as the central Asian
deserts, Steppes, Low mountains, River Valleys are several gateways
 Moreover, this region is inhabited by Tribals and has primitive civilization and by no
means it can affect the geopolitics of the world. It is a Land of Miseries with no
prosperity.

B. Rimland

 Similar to the Inner Crescent and has all the majestic sea powers, which scripted the
history of modern civilization
 All the area of Rimland is connected to water i.e. The seas or oceans e.g. China, India,
ASEAN Countries, Gulf Countries, etc
 To Spykman – “Heartland appeared less important than the Rimland” and his famous
dictum was
 “Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the
World”
 Writing at the time when the 2nd World War was still on, Spykman advocated that the
allied powers such as Britain, France, etc should base their future foreign policy on
preventing any consolidation of Rimland and the enemy
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Except Russia

East China
iran
Afghan Siberia

Asia
Arabia Minor
South east Asia Korea

Countries part of Rimland

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 Asia minor, Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, South East Asia, China, Korea and East
Siberia except Russia

Assumption – (Sumedh)
Maritime mobility was the basis of the new type of geopolitical structure. Spykeman emphasized
that “It is sea power which has made it possible to conceive of the Eurasian continent as a unit
and it is sea power which governs the relationship between the Old and the New Worlds”. To
him sea power appeared to be the key factor in global strategy.

Prediction -
As a proof of Spykman’s forecasting ability, one can quote the episodes reported by David
Wilkinson, one of the few scholars to have devoted attention to Spykman’s early works and
biography. In 1942, during some of the hardest times in WWII, he almost caused a scandal as he
publicly expressed his unconventional views about the desirable post-war American diplomacy.
He was convinced that, once Germany and Japan had been defeated, they should had both been
included into an anti-Soviet alliance, due to the fact that Moscow would be left in a too
favourable position in Eurasia. He thus anticipated the end of the Soviet-Western alliance and the
formation of a Western alliance against Moscow axed on the North-Atlantic. Such views were
expressed by Spykman when the anti-Japanese and anti-German propaganda was at its heights in
America and Washington was allied with the Soviets against the Tripartite Pact (Williamson
1985:83-86). Of course, not all of Spykman’s predictions turned out to be true. In 1942, he
incorrectly forecast that Britain would be a third force between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. after
WWII, and he thought that Germany would survive as a great power instead of France
(Williamson 1985:85). However, his track record remains impressive.

Territorial resource and geo-positional advantages

It is remarkable that Randall Collins, the American sociologist who built a brilliant geopolitical
theory in the late 1970s in order to predict the Cold War’s outcome, as well included territorial
size and resources and geographic location among his theoretical principles (Collins 1981, 1986).
While Collins never quoted Spykman’s 1938 article, he acknowledged the importance of
classical geopolitics as he introduced the bases of geopolitical method. For Collins, territorial
resource and geo-positional advantages were the two fundamental geopolitical advantages of
world power, and they worked cumulatively over time. In his early formulation of the theory (see
Collins 1981), the American sociologist devoted the introductory part to the examination of the
facts of extent, shape, topography, and location of the world heartlands, in a way that resembles
Spykman’s 1938 investigation.

Influence of Rimland theory(Vishal)

Writing at a time when the Second World War was still on, Spykeman advocated that the allied
powers should base their future policy on preventing any consolidation of Rimland and the
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enemy. With the defeat of Germany in the Second World War and the emerge of the USSR as
the sole master of the Heratland, Spykeman’s prescription became the basis of the American
“policy of containment” of the spread of communism in the coastal states of Asia.

Looking at the geo-political and geo-strategic importance of the Rimland, the United States had
consistently tried to build a tier of defence against the Soviet Union. The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), Baghbad Pact subsequently known as the Central Territorial Organization
(CENTO) and the SouthEast Asian Territorial Organization were made by USA to keep an eye
on the defense of the Rimland and to prevent the Soviet influence in the warm waters of the
Rimland. The containment of communism, in the opinion of Domino, was necessary because the
fall of any single country in the Rimland to the Soviets would have inevitably led to defeat of
American interests in the other adjacent countries.

Rediscovered geography
Spykman also anticipated most of the themes of the so-called “offensive realism”, a branch of
neo-realism in IR theory that emphasises the great powers’ lust for territorial expansion and
power maximisation as a means to security maximisation (see Mearsheimer 2001). Spykman’s
focus on geography as the most conditioning factor of world politics decisively separates his
work from the body of IR theory. However, in the last decade, IR theory, and particularly
offensive realism and neo-classical realism, seems to have rediscovered geography
(Mearsheimer 2001; Mouritzen and Wivel 2005). The implications of the geographical and
ecological settings for human aggressiveness and expansionism have been also analysed by
Bradley Thayer in his groundbreaking work on evolutionism and international relations (Thayer
2004). As a result, Spykman’s works, and especially America’s Strategy and World Power may
be seen as a precursor of today’s new theoretical evolutions of realism.

Amendment to Heartland Theory

Spykeman concluded that Mackinder’s reasoning suffered from several weaknesses as he over-
emphasized the potentialities of the Heartland. Spykeman opined, the actual facts of Russian
economy and geography offer no basis for the assumption that the Heartland is or will be in the
very near future a world centre of communication, mobility and power potential. In his opinion,
there were many reasons to support such view.

I. In the first place, the distribution of world climate made it certain that unless revolutionary
changes in agricultural technology took place, the centre of agrarian productivity shall continue
to be located in Western Russia rather than in Central Siberia.

II. In this region the actual extent of arable land was only a very small part of the total area.

III. The essential bases for industrialization, at that time, also were mostly found to the west of
Ural mountain.
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IV. Consequently, the heartland is not capable of supporting a large population from the produce
of the land.

V. He pointed out that much of the area of the Soviet Union, lying to the west of the Yenisei
river and forming the heartland, was all wasteland.

He, therefore, asserted that the power potential of Eurasia lay not in the heartland but actually in
the belt of states encircling the heartland on its west, south and east. This area Spykeman named
as the ‘Rimland’ which coincided approximately with Mackinder’s ‘inner or marginal crescent’
(Fig.). The American scholar considered the heartland less important than the Rimland, which
contained most of world’s population and resources.

Application – (TejasMK2)

 In the era of Colonization, Sea Power like the British, French, Portugal, Spain
captured/demonstrated their superiority. The Naval power was significant
 Formation of the Indian Ocean Rim (including Australia & NZ) is an effort to
consolidate the rimland through Regional Groupings such as BISMTEC, IOR-
ARC, etc
 Other groups like ASEAN have a focus on similar objectives
 Geopolitics of the Indian Ocean & all the world superpowers have entered the
Indian Ocean – this also signifies the importance of Rimland e.g. Raisina
Dialogue, Pivot to Asia policy of USA
 K.M. Pannicker had remarked in the 1970s –
 “Who controls the Rimland has India at its mercy”
 USA intervention in West Asia & Gulf Countries
 During the cold war period – Eastern Europe was the zone of contention between
the superpowers –
 Cuban Missile Crisis
 National Missile Defense Strategy of USA
 After 1950, all major wars were fought in Rimland –
 North-South Korea
 Sino India
 Arab Israel War
 Indo Pak war
 Gulf crisis
 Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq war
 With the defeat of Germany in the 2nd World War and the emergence of the
USSR as the sole master of Heartland, Spykman’s prescription became the basis
of American policies of Containment of Communism
 NATO, Baghdad Pact & subsequently, CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) &
SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) were made by the USA to keep an
eye on the defense of Rimland mainly European and Asian Countries, and to
prevent the Soviet influence in warm waters of Rimland.
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Criticism
 Criticized on the ground of Advancement of war technology and Nuclear
deterrence
 Spykman underestimated the role of the world community & UNO in promoting
world peace
 World today is a global village and international law doesn’t permit territorial
expansion i.e. Ratzel’s Lebensraum was no longer applicable which considered
State as a living organism and motivated Hitler for a Greater German Reich
 It is the time of Economic imperialism and not that of Political colonization e.g.
Flooding of Indian Markets by Chinese Goods.

Why Rimland is important than Heartland

 Rimland has more importance over Heartland because of the following reasons
 At least 40% of the world resources are in the Rimland area such as Oil,
Continental Shelf resources, etc
 Rimland countries have huge population e.g. India, China, etc
 Rimland countries are undergoing war against terror, the war
against weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)
 Rimland consists mostly of developing Nations such as India,
CLMV countries, Indonesia, etc.

Links –

https://lotusarise.com/heartland-and-rimland-theory-upsc/#spykmans-rimland-theory