Spykman’s book remains relevant today because he envisioned China as the dominant power in the Far East, and placed India (assuming it gained its independence from Britain) as a potential rival of China in a region he called the “Asiatic rimland.” He foresaw that the “growth of nationalism” would cause “tensions” in the region between China and India, while Russia, which occupied Mackinder’s “Heartland,” would be a “continental balance to the Chinese position.” He then urged the United States and other Western powers to “establish island bases” offshore of the Far Eastern littoral. The combination of continental distractions (India and Russia) and Western island outposts, he wrote, “will probably be sufficient to counterbalance any future attempt of China to dominate the Far East completely.”
Fifteen years ago I wanted to avoid war with China by pushing their attention inland where powers like Russia and India can absorb their power, rather than just preparing to defeat China in a war:
While all this looks good for building an alliance to fight and defeat China, this is not playing the Great Game. This is making the best of a worst case scenario--war with China. Sure, if we must fight I'd rather win, but just going to war is going to cost us in lives and money.
One can say that we hope that by becoming strong enough we deter the Chinese but this is still only second best. A deterred China will always be on the verge of attacking, just waiting for the moment when we cannot stop them for one reason or another and so cannot deter them for even a short window of opportunity.
No, defeating China makes the best of the worst case and deterring China makes the best of the second worst case. We need to shovel the Snow back north. We need to play the Great Game in Asia to achieve our best case--a China pointed away from the south--Taiwan and the United States and our other allies--and pointed toward the north and the interior of Asia.
The advice was good in 1944, in 2005, and today.
And yeah, despite the Democratic Russia hysteria and despite Russia's odd form of appeasing China, it would be good to strip Russia from China's side.
