Part 7 of the Russian Natural Gas and Geopolitical Realignment Series
By George McMillan, owner of McMillan Geostrategic Consulting
Introduction— Development Strategies versus Geopolitical Sabotage Strategies
The more one understands the overarching sea power versus sea power geopolitical theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and the sea power versus land power geopolitical theories of Halford Mackinder the more one will realize that (1) the Anglosphere evolved into the Five Eyes alliance of English-speaking countries to subordinate the other colonial European sea powers, and (2) has been using the coordination of subordinate sea powers to continue Great Britain’s three-hundred-year-long “Great Game” of encircle the Russian “heartland” of Eurasia by controlling the coastal rimland countries in an attempt to landlock Russia (and the USSR) to prevent Russia from trading its immense resources with the coastal rimland industrial powers.
The objective of post-Mackinder Anglosphere sea power versus land power strategies is to prevent the global political center of gravity from shifting from London to Moscow. The idea is that if Moscow can build the overland railway, oil, and natural gas pipeline logistical infrastructure to trade its immense energy, agricultural, and raw mineral materials to the coastal rimland industrial powers, then the Russian heartland system of alliances, i.e. an Eurasian heartland alliance, could become more powerful than the Anglosphere sea power coastal industrial alliance system.
Following this logic, with the understanding that Pax Britannica has shifted to Pax Americana after World War Two, the Anglosphere sea power strategy is to prevent the Russian heartland from forming strong infrastructural, economic, diplomatic, and military (DIME) alliances with any of the coastal rimland industrial powers, and especially to prevent the Russian heartland from DIME integration with all of the coastal rimland industrial power centers.
From this position, one can understand why the Anglosphere sea power strategy rests on the continued subordination of all coastal rimland industrial powers in Eurasia as the means of coercing them from DIME integration with Russia.
The more one understands that the Anglosphere became the dominant sea power during the colonial era and used its dominance to subordinate other rimland coastal sea powers into a sea power trading bloc, then began the process of precluding a Russian/Soviet heartland trading bloc in the past, the more one will understand;
(a) how and why the Anglosphere continues to use the rimland coastal sea power strategy to encircle the Russian Heartland to control the World Island,
(b) why the Anglosphere’s biggest fear since the 1960s has been the transfer of cheap Russian natural gas delivered by pipeline to integrate Russian with the rimland coastal industrial powers of the German-speaking world, India (via Chabahar Port), China, South Korea, and Japan,
(c) why the Russo-Sino overland logistical supply routes of oil and natural gas via pipeline delivery of energy to the coastal rimland industrial power of China, combined with China’s overland railroad network to bring in an immense amount of raw materials from Russia and Central Asia in exchange for Chinese finished products combine to become the landpower integration and break-out strategy that bypasses the maritime chokepoints that the Anglosphere sea power strategy depends on.
This theory is explained in detail in the Amero-centric “five industrial power center strategy” versus the Russo-centric “six industrial power center strategy” (includes India as an Industrialized country) papers and slide sets in this series.
The original goal of the Great Game was to prevent the global center of gravity from shifting from London and Paris to Berlin and Moscow. The current iteration of the Great Game is to prevent the global political center of gravity from shifting to Berlin and Moscow and Moscow and Beijing.
Geopolitical Sea Power versus Land Power Strategies and Quick Pattern Recognition