American Strategic Deadlock in Eurasia?

The formation of an alliance in Eurasia (the Heartland) is a threat, described by the geographer Harold Mackinder as early as 1903, to the maritime power that was the British Empire. This continental mass has historically been the home of numerous and powerful civilizations. According to Mackinder, the emergence of a strong political, economic, and military entity could threaten the United Kingdom, a maritime power whose economy relies on the outlets provided by the Eurasian continent. Two countries hold a major place on this continent: Germany for its industrial, technological, and financial power, and Russia for its vastness and considerable reserves of raw materials and energy. Any rapprochement between these two states represents a significant threat to British maritime power.

When the United States of the Thirteen Colonies had finished establishing a vast territorial empire on the North American continent, from which they would draw resources to elevate their economy to the world’s top spot, they became a maritime power focused on the Eurasian market and the domination of the seas to secure their trade[1]. The newly created United States would then gradually supplant British naval power.

The American strategy of controlling the Rimland

They adhere, for their own sake, to Mackinder’s analysis reformulated by the American Nicholas Spykman and enriched with responses. Spykman highlights the role played by the maritime fringes of Eurasia (Rimland) in defending American global power against the Heartland, provided the United States can control them. From 1917 onwards, the creation and subsequent territorial expansion of the Soviet Union, along with its imperialistic political will through the creation of the Comintern and its indoctrination mission, exemplify this threat and make it a declared enemy of American democracy. The takeover of the Eastern European people’s democracies (1945), the Soviet nuclear bomb (1949), the creation of the Warsaw Pact, and China’s alignment with communism (1949) granted unparalleled power to the Heartland.

The United States then maneuvered to implement a strategy of control, even seizing these spaces. The strategy of containment (Truman Doctrine – March 12, 1947) was based on the idea that if the Eurasian countries and their vast potential for power were united under one political power, the “survival prospects of the United States as a free nation would become very limited.[2]”

In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski proposed a strategy to ensure the continued hegemony of the United States over the world[3]. The Soviet Union collapsed, and the United States became an uncontested superpower according to Hubert Védrine’s terms, but for Brzezinski, Russia remains the “black hole” that must be isolated by using Western Europe as the “bridgehead of democracy” and containing its alliance choices, prohibiting it from reaching the Rimland. He also emphasized that Ukraine is indispensable to Russia in order to remain an empire and thus must be torn from Russia’s grasp. However, for Russia, even weakened, its neutrality is non-negotiable.

Brzezinski clarifies: “Even though a solid strategic alliance between Russia and China or Iran is unlikely to materialize, America must avoid driving Moscow away from its best geopolitical choice.”[4]

The “best geopolitical choice” for him is a rapprochement between Russia and the West on the condition that Russia implements a democratization process for its institutions and liberalization of its economy. Once that happens, Russia would abandon its imperialist policy, and the danger of a large political entity reforming in the heart of Eurasia would be eliminated.

The USSR, then Russia, has consistently been the primary concern of the United States, as reflected in the recurrence and scope of citations in national defense strategies (National Defense Strategy) since 1977, regardless of the Soviet-Russian context. Starting with George H.W. Bush, there emerged a parallel desire to promote democracy and human rights, another way of labeling Russia as a threat to democracy and justifying support for opposition movements to the Heartland empire and countries on its maritime fringes. The era of “color revolutions,” NATO expansion projects to the east, and interventions worldwide under the banner of “the duty to intervene” began, with the United States often playing a backstage role.

The United States has therefore implemented Brzezinski’s strategy to contain Russia according to all the proposed action lines, even using force through Ukraine in order to see “Russia weakened to the point where it can no longer do the kind of things it did by invading Ukraine.” But with certainly a lack of caution and finesse in its implementation.

For of all the advice Brzezinski gave, the most important was “[…] America must avoid driving Moscow away from its best geopolitical choice.” And in fact, the American strategy has failed to orient Russia toward democracy and the market, and worse yet, it has pushed Russia closer to China.

The confrontation between Russia and the United States.

In his speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, Vladimir Putin outlined his analysis of international security issues, the goals he pursues, and the means he would use to achieve them if diplomacy failed. He directly accused the United States: ” […] certain norms and, in fact, almost the entire system of the law of a single state, primarily, of course, the United States, has overflowed its national borders into all areas: in the economy, politics, and in the humanitarian sphere, and is imposed on other states. Who could benefit from this?”

The political objective and corresponding strategy are contained in this sentence: to challenge American global hegemony and, for this purpose, to rally around him all those to whom the “situation does not suit.”

Thus, Russia abandons its attempts at rapprochement with the West to create a network of alliances with countries that are openly or secretly hostile to American supremacy. It establishes the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in 2001. It creates the BRICS with three other major countries (the first summit of heads of state in 2009 was in Ekaterinburg), which now has nine members, with many more knocking at the door. It deepens cooperation with China, initiated by the 2001 friendship treaty and sealed by the proclamation of “limitless friendship” on February 4, 2022, just before Russia launched its troops into Ukraine. Over the course of this war, Russia strengthens its alliances with North Korea and Iran, who supply it with arms and ammunition, as does China. Additionally, China serves as a relay country, towards the West and the world, for Russian exports that are under embargo by the West.

A quick glance at a map shows the extent of this space of connivance within the Heartland, much larger and more powerful than the German-Russian Eurasia feared by Harold Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman. It is composed of three nuclear powers, plus one in the making; it has vast natural and energy resources; a massive population; and technological and industrial capabilities. Certainly, within this bloc, Moscow might be dominated by China, as many analysts point out or rather hope. But Vladimir Putin has knowingly made his choice. Before being swallowed by China, if that happens, he wants to overturn the rules established by the United States, and he has managed to rally an increasing number of countries to whom “this situation does not suit.”

The burden of the war in Ukraine

The United States have found themselves in a deadlock by following Brzezinski’s recommendation, which saw Ukraine as the instrument of Russia’s power, and thus the center of gravity to weaken. While Russia methodically built other pivots in Asia and around the world before launching its assault, the United States focused on weakening Russia and made Ukraine the pivot of their containment strategy.

A pivot they are struggling to defend today, which, even more gravely, contributes to setting in motion the dynamics of an extremely threatening and consolidating Eurasian Heartland since the war in Ukraine. The question that must be troubling the United States as the tragedy unfolds is: How can they get out of this Ukrainian deadlock? And, more urgently, how can they break the construction of the Heartland?

The two strategic priorities, vital in the long run, are to disrupt the Sino-Russian chemistry and regain control of a world organizing itself in opposition, as shown by the dynamics of the BRICS.

In this context, support for Ukraine is both a necessity to demonstrate the United States’ reliability in “defending allied democracies” and a burden that weighs heavier as it tightens the alliances at the heart of the Heartland, with Ukrainian combat capabilities continuously eroding.

The current administration can only continue its path, especially with only two months of power left[5].

The next administration, with a president who is pragmatic but claims to want to defend U.S. interests and avoid wars, seems more inclined to focus on the two previously mentioned strategic priorities and distance itself from the policy of weakening Russia through Ukraine. It will be up to Europe to support Ukraine, with American weapons, since the European defense industry is insufficient. The United States will need to rebuild ties with a disintegrating world to regain its place.

_______________

[1] Serge Ricard, Theodore Roosevelt et l’Amérique impériale (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2016)

[2] « Between the United States and the USSR there are in Europe and Asia areas of great potential power which if added to the existing strength of the Soviet world would enable the latter to become so superior in manpower, resources and territory that the prospect for the survival of the United States as a free nation would be slight. »   Department of State of Washington, Foreign Relations of the United States – 1948 General ; The United Nations, « Report by the National Security Council on the Position of the United States with Respect to Soviet-Directed World Communism » (Washington : United States Government Printing Office, 1976), Volume I, Partie 2.

[3] Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le grand échiquier (Pluriel, Éditions Bayard, 1997)

[4] Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le grand échiquier (Pluriel, Éditions Bayard, 1997)

[5] The decision taken on 17 November 2024 to authorise strikes in the Russian depths, which will have little operational impact, is above all an attempt to destabilise Russian power.