Revolution: 20th century phenomenon; #11 (Reel 1)
- Transcript
Some of you will recall I'm sure that former Secretary of Defense McNamara made a speech in Montreal a little over two years ago. In which he talked to this point among other things and he came up with a total during the period from 1959 to nineteen sixty six to nine hundred fifty eight to nine hundred sixty six and eight year period. He came up with a total of what he called one hundred and sixty four. Occasions of violence in the world that had international implications. In other words he didn't include those that didn't have any international consequences but he came up with a total of some one hundred sixty four. Occurrences of violence in the world. And we did have these international implications. That was Colonel Donald Bussey senior specialist in national defense at the Library of Congress speaking at the twenty sixth annual Institute on world affairs conducted as a special feature of the instructional program at San Diego State College the institute is dedicated to the use of the free academic forum for the presentation and discussion of current and
continuing issues of international significance. The main theme of this year's Institute is expressed in one word revolution and how to introduce our speaker at the session. Here is Professor meet us generalise director of the Institute on world affairs. The discussion will center on the subject of. Geopolitics revisited. I'm sure that all of you know what your politics is if not the term is almost self-explanatory. It has strong strategic implications. And it was devised as a method of interpretating. The power potential in a sense of countries. On the basis. Of geography. As well as politics. Although it is a specialized area it is nevertheless an area of broad connotation.
And a serious import for a country's security. And we're fortunate to have an expert in that area and Colonel Don Busey. Who is. An old hand at the subject matter plus an old hand at the institute we have been privileged to enjoy his excellent presentations here for. A number of years. Presently he holds a position of senior specialists in national defense in the latest legislative reference service of the Library of Congress. He was schooled in a number of institutions. And your colleges the University of Chicago. Infantry School the Commanding General Staff College Strategic continued intelligence school. Georgetown University I'm a rock college and surfer. His career is accordingly. Centered on the area of.
The room of the army. And security system of the United States. Between 1959 and 1967 he was in the faculty of the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. He has served also as a staff member of the Draper Committee in Washington. He's been involved in policy planning and all types of activities related to. We're fortunate in having you with us. We also recognize him amongst other things as a fellow of this institute. And in exceedingly happy to be able to present him to you today to discuss this topic geopolitics of the revisit. With him. Thank you very much Professor generalities as always it's a great pleasure to come to San Diego and I must say this is one of the nicest days I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying here.
Some years ago as I recall it was in the late 20s or early 30s. There appeared in The New Yorker magazine a map which was called. The New Yorker's map of the United States. Now as you might guess. This map was distorted. The state of New York and of all the city of New York. Was the central focus of the map. I had assumed a rather substantial portion of the entire surface area of the page upon which it was printed. Florida. Was. Also rather large on this map. There was a very short distance and very small state in between New York City and the state of Florida. And again as you might expect the city of Miami was rather an
outsize Also California. Occupied a good half of the western portion of this map which was intended to portray the United States and the states in between were very slowly. Presented as slivers of one shape or another. And on the portion devoted to California. Again as you might expect Hollywood. Was about half of the state of California. Now I say this. New Yorkers map of the United States. To suggest that the world in which we live. Is very much. Influenced by our particular perspectives. The image we have of the world is heavily influenced by a wide range of. Factors not the least of which is where we happen to be located and how that world
presents itself to us in that particular perspective. I think all of us for example really tend to think of a world as being flat even though we know that it's round because we've been brought up by. Typically Mercator projections of the world. And a Mercator projection clearly is an attempt to portray on a flat surface terrible. SURFACE. Many times in the Mercator projections that we deal with the Western Hemisphere is on the western portion of the page and the Eastern hemisphere or the whole world is on the eastern side of the page. Sometimes in order to avoid this distortion. You may have the Western Hemisphere in the center and then a portion of Eurasia to your left. If you look at the map and of course Europe to your right. If you look at the map and I rather suspect that most of us when we think of the
world in which we live. Have that image of a Mercator projection of the United States substantially in the center. And looking out to the right to Europe and to the left to Asia. My point basically is that I think we think about the world as it has been portrayed to us by cartographers. We would be well advised I might say that when we think about the world or wish to study the relevance of location and space to international affairs we would be well advised to use a globe rather than a Mercator projection. Some years ago I used to enjoy the experience of carrying in my pocket. One of these inflatable Globes that some of you may have seen whenever I wish to discuss a strategic question I wouldn't do it with a flat map on a wall I'd always take my inflatable globe out of the pocket and blow it up and then we could discuss a little bit more intelligently what the problem is that we that
we were considering. Now that's point number one point number two is that. In addition to the world being a product of our own perspectives our own images our own environment. The world also changes with technology. I'm sure that some of you have seen in in recent weeks an advertisement that has appeared rather widely in the newspapers and also in the periodicals and advertisement for Trans World Airlines as it happens. And. It shows the Atlantic Ocean. And it calls it the Atlantic river. It shows Europe. Nestled just off the eastern coast of the United States. And in a very real sense this is now the truth the Atlantic Ocean isn't really an ocean anymore. It is a river. There is no difficulty at all as many of you I'm sure are aware. When. Taking off in the morning from
I don't weild in New York and finding yourself in London or Paris for dinner. Even more confusing when you come the other way because you may find yourself with two dinners on that occasion. It is in fact an. Literally a river distances is virtually meaningless from a strategic point of view. But when we have the means for rapid transport such as the jet age has brought us. I have often thought that like the New Yorker's map of America it would be very interesting if some cartographer some day would come up with the jet age map of the world. Again he would inescapably take a certain perspective to begin with. He presumably would have the United States in the in the center of such a map and he would try to portray what the real distances are in terms of time and in terms of effort. To move to Japan let us say or to Europe or to South America or or Southeast Asia or
where had to go. I think you might find that in that sort of situation depending upon how you spelled out the scenario that the United States rather than being ten thousand miles from Saigon let's say is really just offshore. In terms of strategic distance. We can move material we can move people in copious quantities and in great numbers from this country to any place in the world. Particularly if it is a if maritime transport can be employed where large heavy volumes are concerned where people are concerned of course with the jet aircraft. We can move large numbers in in a great a great hurry with great speed. I might say at this time that the the real problem in transport in the modern world. Is not the problem of getting from here to there. It's the problem of getting around there once you get there. All you
are familiar with the experience of taking two hours to get to the Los Angeles airport and getting on a jet aircraft and finding your you're at your destination 25 minutes. And then spending two more hours getting from the airport to your hotel in town. There's a fancy word for this in the transportation economy economics it's called and losses. Well. The end losses are very severe. And from a strategic point of view there is no gainsaying the fact that. It's very easy to go from here let's say to Europe. But it may be very difficult and very tedious and very slow to move around in Europe. Once you arrive. Now against these. Basic introductory comments I want to try to do about four things in these remarks this morning. First I want to talk a little bit about conflict in the 20th century. The theme of your. Institute this year is you know is revolution in the 20th century. And as our German has indicated we're going to be talking a little this morning about some of the international.
Aspects of the revolution. I want to talk first then a little bit about conflict in this century and revolution is a part of the conflict spectrum. Second I'd like to talk a little bit more in a little bit more detail about geography. And geopolitics. And I'd like to talk a little bit about the policy implications of all this for the United States. And then as time permits some closing remarks. But the present and future seem to hold. Now first with respect to the conflict in the 20th century. How one defines conflict is pretty much an arbitrary matter. There have been studies for example one one analyst took the New York Times. And studied the New York Times very carefully for the period from one thousand forty six to nine thousand
fifty nine which is that some 13 year period. And just based upon stories in The New York Times reporting international events he came up with a total of some twelve hundred what he called internal wars of one kind or another as if he defined a rather large number. Another analyst using a somewhat different definition no different criteria for. Our conflict. Has indicated a total of some 200 something over two hundred fifty conflicts since the end of World War 2 in 1946 during the 1966 I was in a 20 year period something over two hundred and fifty conflicts as he defined them. A somewhat lesser number obviously the the other analyst I referred to basing his. Analysis on the New York Times had a much broader definition of conflict and therefore
he came up with a much larger number. Now there are two studies of conflict that I think are. Of particular interest to us. Some of you will recall I'm sure that former Secretary of Defense McNamara made a speech in Montreal a little over two years ago. In which he talked to this point among other things and he came up with a total during the period from 1959 to nine hundred sixty six thousand nine hundred fifty eight to nine hundred sixty six and eight year period. He came up with a total of what he called one hundred and sixty four. Occasions of violence in the world that had international implications. In other words he didn't include those that didn't have any international consequences but he came up with a total of some one hundred sixty four. Occurrences of violence in the world. And which did have these international implications. As I recall he indicated some 82 different governments were involved in this total of one
hundred sixty four acts of violence. Involved that is either directly or indirectly. Fifteen of these were military conflicts. So you can see a very large proportion of them were were not overtly military conflicts they were other kinds of conflicts in the world stage. Now all of these 164 obviously a very large proportion were what we would roughly call internal war or domestic war or internal acts of violence or one kind of one kind or another. But Mr. McNamara did not include these of course unless they did have in one way or another international implications. Now that was an eight year period. Now the most recent study in some ways I think probably the most useful study of this is one that just came out last week actually it was written by a man. Named David Wood. For the Institute for Strategic Studies which is located in London.
Here's a little pamphlet is called conflict in the 20th century. He comes up with a total. Of one hundred twenty eight wars. Or. Occasions of conflict during the period from the Spanish-American War 1898 down to the present with the Nigerian war as you know now in progress one hundred twenty eight such wars. Now you analyze these very carefully it comes up with rather interesting statistical correlations and so forth for our purposes I'd simply point out a couple of features of this analysis. For one thing if your take is your center point in that band of time from the Spanish-American war down to the present. If you take your center point roughly nine hundred thirty nine just prior to World War Two you find that in the what is it some 40 year period. Forty one year period.
Prior to 39. There were 44. Out of this one hundred twenty eight wars sense thirty nine down to the present. Roughly what thirty years twenty nine years. There are have been 84. Now. This comparison can't be taken too literally because there may be some reporting problems with respect to wars or conflicts that might have occurred in the earlier period. We may now be including as conflicts acts of violence which in the previous historical period would not have been so classified. So there are problems and destroyed and be taken too literally. But I think the more interesting thing about this analysis is that out of the 44 conflicts in the period from the Spanish-American war down to 1939 some twenty four of us more than half. Or approximately half were what you would call international wars that is wars involving the armed forces of one state against the armed forces of another
state whereas the other half. Were what might be called internal wars or domestic wars or civil wars roughly a 50/50 breakup as between these two broad categories of conflict. In the period since 1939 however down today these 84 conflicts that he has listed about three fourths of these were what would be called internal wars and not international law and which armed forces of two sides were opposing each other on the field of battle so to speak. This is a very significant change obviously in the character of conflict in this century. Now this study by. David Wood is this finding is not a new finding this is then indicated in other analyses as well. But I think it is of interest and is of significance to get a feel for the changing character of conflict
in the world. I suppose you could generalize it this way that prior to 939 most wars were international. There was a lower incidence of such wars and also when you did have internal wars domestic wars guerrilla wars call them what you will. Internal riots civil disturbances and so forth. They did not tend to have the profound international implications that they have in the. Contemporary world in the more recent period from thirty nine down to the present. These wars in greater and increasing numbers have tended to be internal or domestic wars. There have been more of them and they have had much more profound international implications. Let me turn to the second topic I want to talk about and that is. The broad field of geopolitics and the relevance of geopolitics to this whole question of international conflict. Now obviously this is a big subject and I can do no more than just get a
very few high spots. I suppose the name most closely associated with with the idea of geopolitics is that of Salford Mackinder the very famous British geographer near 1984 he wrote a book it was called the geographic pivot of history in that. Actually in 94 it was not a book it was an article but later in 1900 wrote a book on the same subject. Called democratic ideals and political reality in which he developed more fully his ideas on the effect of geography on the political affairs of states. And we we can develop in these few minutes the evolution of Halfords thinking on this subject but. We can sum it up I think in these in this way. In his 1900 book which I would remind you was written at the time of the first treaty in fact
in many ways this book of his was a treatise to serve as a warning. To the peacemakers adverse side to take into account certain geographic facts in Europe in writing the peace following World War 1. And you'll recall I'm sure many of you that he came up in that book with a very famous jingle which went substantially as follows that He who rules East Europe. Controls the heart line and he who controls the heartland controls the world aisle. And he who rules the world Island controls the world. This jingle had a profound influence on a whole generation of students and scholars. But insert Helford mind the principal. Idea he was trying to get across was the essential ality of not permitting a situation to develop in the future in which Russia.
And Russian power was combined with the power of Germany under the hegemony of a single state because in his view this would represent control of the heartland. And that any single power controlling that entire area. Would inescapably ultimately to control the entire Eurasian land mass along with Africa which he described as the world Island. And once this kind of domination of the world island had been secured. It would only be a matter of time. Until such a power could control the world. This was or how for its basic idea in 1919 and it grew out of his essential analysis from going out of 1004 article and on the geographic pivot of history now through the years he has particular definition of this heartland change. In 1999 he had in mind very clearly for the peacemakers that. The essential body of creating what came to be known as the court on sanitaire between Russia
in the east and Germany in the West. With a band of neutral states in between Poland Czechoslovakia Hungary and so forth the idea of a of a barrier. Of a zone between the potentially great power of Russia and they just demonstrated great power of Germany in World War One that it was essential not to permit these two little power centers to combine. So as to threaten the peace of the world. And so he conceived of the idea of this band of neutral states and of course the peace makers a verse I did in fact establish such a cordon sanitaire. In later years he offered further amended his essential ideas. He never departed from the basic framework 1043 for example in an earlier article in Foreign Affairs. He he talked also in addition to the hard line he talked about what he called the Atlantic the middle of the ocean
in the middle of the ocean really was the Atlantic Ocean because he had he was witnessing U.S. and world war to the great combined power of the United States and Great Britain specifically in Europe. Tied by maritime transport across the middle of the ocean. And he visualized this as a new great center of power and that this middle of the ocean or we would call up today I suppose the Atlantic community that this Great Midland ocean area with all the power that it could generate could serve as a balance to the heartland power. So as I say he modified his view. But the essential idea was always the same. And that was that Eurasia must never come under the domination of any single state. Now why did Sir Howard believe that the heartland was the key and the heartland corresponds very roughly to the Soviet Union and to the states of Eastern Europe. If you add western Germany to that you literally have. The heartland as as Mackinder feared it might evolve
and might develop. This is why we all instinctively recognise that Germany is the key to this whole picture. The reasons are hard for to. Visualize this kind of a power relationship in the world was because. In one thousand four he was heavily influenced partly as a result of the Boer War experience but also he was heavily influenced by the they're real and they do the developing network of ground transportation of land transportation which he visualized for the future of Eurasia. He expected that there would be a network of massive rail communications all the way across racial. Some 180 degrees of the earth's surface from east to west. Now actually sir Halfords projection of this did not come to pass as you know the East Siberian the Trans-Siberian Railway as we know it. Was double tracked only much later in history and even a dial on a double track
basis. It is a very meager and a very fragile land line of communication. There are lots of evidences of this one of the most dramatic I think is the fact that the Russian that historic Russia and of course in contemporary times the Soviet Union has always had to maintain separate army separate military forces in the Far East from those which were in European Russia. The armies in the Maritime Provinces of the Far East were always considered separate because the Russians historically and the Soviets could not anticipate being able to reinforce the east with forces from the West or vice versa. They were not in other words mutually supporting. Because of these very meager land lines of communication. So therefore this basic premise underlying story Helford concept of the of the heartland of the world Island did not in fact come to pass. And by 1943 he had recognised this and therefore reoriented the concept. But
it's the essential core remain. Nonetheless there. And that was that Eurasia must not come under the head Germany of a single power. Now there were those who challenged as to how often weekenders concept. Probably the most notable was that. Of Nicholas speak the great geographer do you a politician on the faculty of Yale University. We can't deal extensively with what. Mr. what Professor speakin had to say about the mic and the concept but essentially what he had in mind was does he recognise that McAndrews theory fell on this business of land transport. He pointed out that it was simply not in the cards that there would be this kind of massive land communication across Eurasia and that rather than the heartland represented the key to domination of Eurasia it was the rim lands as he called it of Eurasia that ultimately represented.
Their seat of real power. These Rimland were mutually reinforcing with copious maritime transport. All you have to do is conjure up in your mind the kind of political map of the world which you saw. In the before World War 2 and you'll recall that the British Empire was always colored red on those maps. England then the British Empire and the the whole sweep of that British Empire. Represented control over a very large proportion. Of the rim lands of Eurasia particularly in South Asia and East Asia.
- Episode Number
- #11 (Reel 1)
- Contributing Organization
- University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/500-x34mr285
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- Description
- Description
- No description available
- Date
- 1969-03-20
- Topics
- Social Issues
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:29:48
- Credits
-
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
University of Maryland
Identifier: 69-13-11 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:32
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Revolution: 20th century phenomenon; #11 (Reel 1),” 1969-03-20, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 9, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-x34mr285.
- MLA: “Revolution: 20th century phenomenon; #11 (Reel 1).” 1969-03-20. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 9, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-x34mr285>.
- APA: Revolution: 20th century phenomenon; #11 (Reel 1). Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-x34mr285