“ Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:
   Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:
   Who rules the World-Island commands the World
                                Halford Mackinder
                                Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919)”

Sometimes I feel a very strong need to step back from my depressing immersion in the terrible conflicts of the day — Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Gaza — in order to understand the greater global context in which these wars are taking place. The following discussion (in the video below) between journalist Rhania Khalek and historian Vijay Prashad does a good job of explaining what you might call a “Glossary of the Multipolar World,” the world in which we are now living.

As you will probably realize if you watch this interview, many of today’s U.S. leaders — especially Joe Biden and his fellow neocons — are clinging foolishly to the old world dominated by U.S. unipolar hegemony (economist Radhika Desai challenges the idea that the U.S. was ever really the world’s sole hegemon, but rather … behaves as if it is).

In addition to the basic glossary, there is at least one concept, or “big idea,” that is especially helpful in understanding today’s world. That is the idea of the “World-Island” (Eurasia) as central to world power. When Halford Mackinder wrote about the World-Island over a century ago, he referred to it as “The Geographical Pivot of History.”

Mackinder’s idea continues to influence political thinking today. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the year before he died in 2017, warned that “the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China and Russia…united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.”

Internatonal Relations scholar John Mearsheimer recently gave a fascinating short talk in which he asserted that the U.S, should be pursuing good relations with Russia, as our ally in our struggle with China (Mearsheimer names the U.S. and China as two of the three world superpowers (multipolarity), with Russia as the third and lesser superpower). Mearsheimer says that the U.S. preoccupation with both Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Gaza has caused us to give less attention to our more critical struggle with China.

Notice how the recent amity between Russia and China (spanning the “World-Island”) seems to fulfill precisely that “most dangerous scenario” about which Brzezinski warned us. [Don]

RELATED:

Series: “The Eurasian Century, Part I: What Mackinder Knew“

Article: The Pivot of History

Book: The Grand Chessboard (Zbigniew Brzezinski)

Video: “The ‘globalization’ myth, US hegemony … with Radhika Desai“

Video: “Multipolarity: China, Russia, Israel, India … ” (transcript here)

Book: “Heartland: Three Essays on Geopolitics” (Halford Mackinder)

Video: “Israel-Hamas, Ukraine-Russia and China: John Mearsheimer on why the US is in serious trouble!“

Codepink Website: “China Is Not Our Enemy”