The Revenge of Geography Read Online Free Page A

sacrifice of the battlefield rather than the anonymous struggles of ordinary men and women … which he has in mind. 4
    Strausz-Hupé and Mackinder both believe in human agency, in the sanctity, as they say, of the individual, whereas the German
Geopolitikers
do not.
    Whereas in Mackinder’s hands the Heartland is an arresting way to explain geopolitics, in Haushofer’s hands it becomes both a crazed and dreamy ideology. Yet Strausz-Hupé takes it very seriously, and informs his fellow Americans to do likewise: “To the Nazis,” Strausz-Hupé writes, Haushofer “transmitted something that the vaporous cerebrations of Adolf Hitler had failed to provide—a coherent doctrine of empire.” While Mackinder saw the future in terms of a balance of power that would protect freedom, Haushofer was determined to overthrow the balance of power altogether: thus he perverted geopolitics. To wit, just as Haushofer distorted Mackinder, he also distorted Lord George Nathaniel Curzon. Curzon delivered a lecture in 1907 about “Frontiers.” Haushofer, inspired by Curzon, wrote a book entitled
Frontiers
, which was, in fact, about how to break them. According to Haushofer, only nations in decline seek stable borders, and only decadent ones seek to protect their borders with permanent fortifications: for frontiers are living organisms. Virile nations build roads instead. Frontiers were but temporary halts for master nations. To be sure, German
Geopolitik
is perpetual warfare for “space,” and thus akin to nihilism. Strausz-Hupé adds:
    It should not be assumed, however, that this perverted use, destructive to world peace as it is, necessarily invalidates all geopolitical theories; anthropology is no less a science for having served as a vehicle to racism. 5
    Haushofer, even within the confines of his own violent worldview, had few fixed principles. On Hitler’s fiftieth birthday, in 1939, he described the Führer as a “statesman” who combined in his person“Clausewitz’s blood and Ratzel’s space and soil.” 6 Haushofer greeted the Russo-German pact of 1939 with enthusiasm in an editorial, stressing Germany’s need to join its land power forces with those of Russia. Yet after Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, he wrote another editorial, celebrating the invasion as a way to capture the Heartland. Of course, nobody dared criticize Hitler’s decision. There is a strong case to be made that Haushofer’s specific links to Hitler were greatly exaggerated, even as Haushofer, nevertheless, came to represent a typical Nazi strategic view. 7 In any case, as the war turned badly, Haushofer fell out of favor with the Führer, and was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp in 1944. The same year, Haushofer’s son, Albrecht, also a geopolitician, was executed for his participation in the army plot against Hitler. This was after Haushofer and his family had been incarcerated. Then there was the fact that Haushofer’s wife was part Jewish: the couple was protected from Nazi race laws by Hess, who was imprisoned in Britain in 1941 after a solo flight there to negotiate a separate peace. The contradictions in Haushofer’s life must have become too much to bear, as he gradually became aware of the monumental carnage and destruction in a world war that he did his part to bring about. Haushofer’s life is a signal lesson in the dangers inherent for men of ideas who seek desperately to ingratiate themselves with those in power. Soon after Germany’s defeat and an Allied investigation of him for war crimes, both Haushofer and his wife committed suicide.
    Strausz-Hupé’s work is not merely designed to discredit Haushofer and rescue the reputation of Mackinder, but to implore Americans to take geopolitics seriously, because if they don’t, others of ill intent will, and in the process vanquish the United States. As he writes at the end of his book:
    The Nazi war machine is the
instrument
of conquest;
Geopolitik
is the
master