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Geography and Foreign Policy, I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Nicholas J. Spykman
Nicholas J. Spykman
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

“La politique de toutes les puissances est dans leur géographie,” conceded the man whose famous retort, “Circonstances? Moi, je fais les circonstances,” indicates his contempt for any agency but the human will as the arbiter of human destiny. But since the Red Sea parted for Moses and the sun obligingly paused for Joshua, the human will has been unable to recapture the control over topography and climate exhibited by those forceful gentlemen, and it is probably safe to say that it was by Russian geography rather than by men that the diminutive Corsican was finally defeated. If he is still living, there is at Waterloo even today a loyal guide who asserts with unshakable conviction that neither genius nor skill but a swampy ditch gave that victory to Wellington.

Unfortunately for the political scientist with a fondness for simplification, but fortunately for the statesman striving to overcome the geographic handicaps of his country, neither does the entire foreign policy of a country lie in geography, nor does any part of that policy lie entirely in geography. The factors that condition the policy of states are many; they are permanent and temporary, obvious and hidden; they include, apart from the geographic factor, population density, the economic structure of the country, the ethnic composition of the people, the form of government, and the complexes and pet prejudices of foreign ministers; and it is their simultaneous action and interaction that create the complex phenomenon known as “foreign policy.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 1938 , pp. 28 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1938

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References

1 Napoleon I to the King of Prussia, November 10, 1804, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier (Paris, 1862), X, 60Google Scholar, No. 8170.

2 J. J. Rüdorffer (Kurt Riezler); cited in Topf, Erich, “England und Russland an den Türkischen Meerengen,” Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, 1928, II, 665Google Scholar.

3 The present German school of “Geopolitik” has abandoned to a certain degree the strict geographic determinism of Ratzel, but only to be tempted by a metaphysics which views geography as a last cause. As the word indicates, the adherents are not only engaged in a study of the geographic conditioning of political phenomena; they are also engaged in advocating policy, which is hardly a scientific endeavor. Probably the best statement of their position was given in 1928 by the four editors of the Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik: “Die Geopolitik ist die Lehre von der Erdgebundenheit der politischen Vorgänge. Sie fusst auf der breiten Grundlage der Geographie, insbesondere der Politischen Geographie als der Lehre von den politischen Raumorganismen und ihrer Struktur … Die Geopolitik will Rüstzeug zum politischen Handeln liefern und Wegweiser im politischen Leben sein. Damit wird sie zur Kunstlehre, die die praktische Politik bis zur hotwendigen Stelle des Absprungs vom festen Boden zu leiten fähig ist. Nur so wird dieser Sprung vom Wissen zum Können und nicht vom Nichtwissen aus erfolgen, woher er sicher weiter und gefährlicher ist. Die Geopolitik will und muss zum geographischen Gewissendes Staates werden.” [Cited in Hennig, Richard, Geopolitik (Leipzig, 1931), p. 9Google Scholar.]

To this determinism the French school, founded by Vidal de la Blache and continued by Brunhes and Vallaux and now by Febvre, opposes its “possibilism,” taking into account the possible modification of geography by men, and the many other factors which unite with the geographic in determining human destiny: “The true and only geographical problem is that of the utilization of possibilities.” [Lucien Febvre, A Geographical Introduction to History (New York, 1925), p. 349.Google Scholar] “… the most perfect morphological type involves no certain effects.” [Henri Berr, “Foreword” to Febvre, op. cit., p. xii.]

It is perhaps somewhere between this last statement and the determinism of Ratzel that we would chart our course. Geography does not determine, but it does condition; it not only offers possibilities for use, it demands that they be used; man's only freedom lies in his capacity to use well or ill or to modify for better or worse those possibilities.

4 Newbigin, Marion, The Mediterranean Lands (New York, 1924), p. 149Google Scholar.

5 Maull, Otto, Politische Geographie (Berlin, 1925), pp. 498–499Google Scholar.

6 Semple, E. C., American History and Its Geographic Conditions (New York 1903), p. 47Google Scholar.

7 Bienstock, Gregory, The Struggle for the Pacific (London, 1937), p. 93Google Scholar.

8 Ibid.

9 Kobayashi, T., La Société Japonaise (Paris, 1914), p. 84Google Scholar, note. In this connection the following table is interesting:

10 Vogel disputes the generally accepted conclusion that the decline of the Hanseatic cities was due to the discovery of America and of the sea route to India, and attributes it rather to the political disintegration of Germany and the inability of the German imperial power to protect Hanseatic political interests. [Vogel, W., Die Entstehung des modernen Weltstaalensystems (Berlin, 1929), pp. 62–63.Google Scholar]

11 The second and concluding instalment of this article will appear in the April issue of this Review. Man. Ed.

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