52 International Relations Theory of War
That focus on the importance of the enormous territory of the Eurasian
continent, from Mackinder in the early 1920s to President George H. W.
Bush toward the end of that century, stems from the geopolitical assump-
tion that the more geopolitically important the territories that a state
holds, the more power it will achieve. However, great criticism was also
expressed against the argument that territorial occupation added power
to the occupiers. Certain researchers denied the assumption that gross
national product (GNP) could be transferred between capital cities like the
transfer of money between banks. Adam Smith states that the costs atten-
dant to seizure of colonies and protecting them from potential enemies
usually exceed the low revenues collected from them, whereas writers
of the 19th and 20th centuries argue that even cheap occupation without
resistance among modern countries is not worth it.^87
The current study presents a number of assumptions. Firstly, a power
of high but not absolute economic material power, which will also have
significant land power, will rise to polar power status in the system. For
example, I argue that the Soviet Union rose during the bipolar system
period of the 20th century in 1946–1991 to polar power status in the system
despite its material capabilities being only half those of the United States
for most of the period, because during that time it had high land power.
Throughout that period, it controlled very extensive areas in the heart of
the Eurasian continent, which were of very high geostrategic importance.
Secondly, a power, regardless of how great its material power is, if it has
low land power (i.e. a power lacking control of territories of geostrategic
importance for their time) will not be able to rise to the status of a polar
power in the system. For example, the rise of the United States to super-
power status in the bipolar system of 1945–1991 was made possible because
of the presence of hundreds of thousands of its soldiers in the Cold War
in bases in the heart of Europe. Thirdly, a polar power of high material,
military, and economic power combined, which is able to achieve signifi-
cant land power, will become a sole hyperpower in a unipolar world. For
example, had Germany succeeded in the two world wars to achieve sig-
nificant control of the heartland, it could have risen to hyperpower status
in a unipolar world. In the same manner, the departure of the Soviet Union
from extensive territories in the heartland and its withdrawal from former
communist countries from mid-1991 to its end during that year, alongside
the entry of the United States into territories at the edge of the country
after the first Gulf War (1991), the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (2001), and
the U.S. invasion of Iraq (2003), led to the system becoming a unipolar
one headed by the United States as a sole hyperpower. Fourthly, a sole
hyperpower in a unipolar world that loses its foothold in a heartland will
gradually lose its status and the system will become multipolar or bipolar
headed by more than one polar power. For example, if the United States
withdraws its forces from lands of contemporary geostrategic important