Talk:The Geographical Pivot of History

Other languages
I ask myself, if I just discovered, that this article just appears in five languages. I ask myself, if it could be one of the more important ones and therefore if anyone wants to do anything about promoting new language editions. French, German, Spanish... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polemar (talk • contribs) 00:49, 16 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The article exists in some more languages (for instance in German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland-Theorie ) but they are linked to Heartland theory which redirects to this article. Leonry (talk) 13:08, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Paragraphs
The last 2 paras I'm referring to are:
 * 1) "Although the fascists took much of Ukraine in World War II, nonetheless they were defeated. ...."
 * 2) "The Soviet Union accomplished the domination of both Ukraine and Mitteleuropa. It was industrial, technically competent, and militarily able."

Both paras contain a confusing mix of points which seem to contradict the Heartland Theory directly (the failure of the Nazis and the Soviet Union to achive global dominance after conquering the Heartland) and points which appear to make it obsolescent (air power, the rise of Japan). These should be separated.

Para 1 does provides a partial explanation of why conquering the Heartland did not give the Nazis global dominance - "... the Soviets could actually move their factories out of the Heartland". It should also point out that "Mackinder believed that the introduction of the railroad (Philcha: or other fast, high-volume land transport) ... had removed the island's invulnerability to domination by a single power". The USSR's poor infrastructure in early WW2 did not fulfil Mackinder's precondition, and:
 * Made it impossible for the Nazis to pull off a quick decapitation (as they did with France). Quick decapitation was probably not a realistic objective anyway because the USSR government could relocate faster and further than its industry could. This meant a war of attrition was inevitable, and the USSR / Russia had far greater manpower.
 * Overstretched the invaders' supply lines, especially when General Winter joined the fray.

In para 2, "It (USSR) was industrial, technically competent, and militarily able" reflects the West's fears from the 1950s to mid-1970s. But the Afghan war showed weaknesses in the Soviet army's training, morale and equipment which were symptoms of economic and social decay - see The Collapse of the Soviet Military by W.E. Odom (Yale University Press). Earlier signs of Soviet weakness were the USSR's inability to feed itself, which became apparent in the 1960s, and the realisation in the very early 1960s that the missile gap was in the USA's favour both numerically and qualitatively (see for example We All Lost the Cold War by R.N. Lebow & J.G. Stein, Princeton Studies in International History and Politics - but it's a bad book in most other ways.) In short, the USSR lacked the economic capability to turn possession of the Heartland into global dominance.

The rise of Japan was geopolitically more relevant at the time of the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War - modern Japan lacks the military component of geopolitical influence. But Japan does highlight the economic weakness of the USSR (and Russian Empire).

I suggest restructuring paras 1 and 2 into 2 separate sections: Philcha 14:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Apparent failures of the Heartland theory" would discuss the failure of the Nazis and of the USSR to translate control of the Heartland into global dominance. I've already said why I think these examples do not refute the theory.
 * "Factors which may make the Heartland theory obsolete" would discuss the impact of advances in military technology including air power, missiles (including those launched from ships and subs), nuclear weapons and satellites. This issue is one for the real geo-strategic buffs - let's hear from you!

Much of the content of this article has little to do with the 1904 Geographical Pivot of History, but is about the Heartland theory which evolved from his initial hypothesis. It would make a lot of sense to reinstate the deleted article on the Heartland Theory and relocate there much of the material included in the present article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_(geopolitics) 00:04 1 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.137.72.43 (talk)


 * Fortunately, it is not Wikipedia's task to defend the Heartland theory – just to describe what it said, and the influence that it once had. Maproom (talk) 07:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Broken link
The External Link: The Geographical Pivot of History in The Geographical Journal, April 1904.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1775498.pdf

Is broken. - Dougher (talk) 01:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Greater China and regional influence reference
The Geography of Chinese Power; How Far Can Beijing Reach on Land and at Sea? by Robert D. Kaplan in May/June 2010 Foreign Affairs; 99.181.142.159 (talk) 09:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Pivot to Asia?
According to some reliable sources one of the Obama Administration's central foreign policy initiatives is "Pivot to Asia". Is the use of the word Pivot here a reference to Mackinder, or does the word have some other meaning in geopolitics? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 06:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It's just a word. bobrayner (talk) 10:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Historical tests
The whole section on Historical tests doesn't refer to a single source and seems composed almost fully of WP:OR and the general tone of the section seems to be strongly confirmation biased. Kravietz (talk) 19:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Influence on Nazi Germany
For the influence of MacKinder's Geographic Pivot theory on foreign policy of Nazi Germany (Lebensraum) see the wikipedia entry on Karl Haushofer, where MacKinder is mentioned seven times. I recall this info was once in the article and rather, strangely, has been removed. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard. Mballen (talk) 19:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on The Geographical Pivot of History. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20061207003618/http://www.odci.gov:80/csi/books/princeton/index.html to https://www.odci.gov/csi/books/princeton/index.html
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20090305174521/http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books%20-%201979%20and%20earlier/Democratic%20Ideals%20and%20Reality%20-%201942/DIR.pdf to http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books%20-%201979%20and%20earlier/Democratic%20Ideals%20and%20Reality%20-%201942/DIR.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:04, 29 February 2016 (UTC)