laid the foundation for modern geopolitics. Carl Ritter, a contemporary of
Alexander von Humboldt, suggested that states experience a life cycle similar to
living organisms, an argument that was further developed by Freidrich Ratzel, a
scholar frequently labeled the “father of modern political geography.” Ratzel is
credited with first using the termlebensraum[“living room”] as applied to the
growth stage of a state. Essentially, he proposed that states naturally seek to
expand their geographic boundaries in competition with other states, resulting in
“stronger” states enlarging at the expense of weaker neighbors. Although Ratzel
sought to understand the dynamics of interstate relations, his theories provided
the basis for Germany’s pursuit of a colonial empire in the second half of the
19th century, as well as the aggressive policies of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.
His ideas had a profound influence on later geopolitical theorists.
Ratzel’s student, Rudolf Kjellen, is generally given credit for first using the
termgeopolitics. Kjellen was a Swedish scholar who carried the organic theory
of the state to an extreme in his bookThe State as an Organism. In this work
Kjellen identified five viscera of the state and held that the ideal condition for lon-
gevity was for the state to achieve “autarky,” or complete economic self-
sufficiency. States could typically achieve this condition only by acquiring re-
sources through the conquest and absorption of other, weaker states. Kjellen’s
book, originally published in Swedish but almost immediately translated into
German in 1917, had a profound impact on scholars in Germany.
Simultaneously with Ratzel and Kjellen, strategists outside of Germany were
also beginning to think in geopolitical terms. In the United States, the most influ-
ential of these was Alfred Thayer Mahan, a naval officer and educator who argued
persuasively that naval power was the key to world power, and that control of the
global shipping lanes would provide a crucial advantage in time of war. Mahan’s
numerous writings not only influenced American policy and the expansion of a
global naval presence, but he was widely translated and read in Germany and
Japan, both of which were engaged in building colonial empires by the beginning
of the 20th century. Although he never employed the term “geopolitics” in his
books, papers, or lectures, Mahan nevertheless was a pioneering theorist who
almost single-handedly initiated the study of global military strategy in the United
States. But the most influential thinker among the geopolitical scholars of the late
19th century was Halford J. MacKinder, a professor and member of the British
parliament. MacKinder appeared before the Royal Geographical Society in
1904, and in a famous lecture laid the foundation of theHeartland theory,a
concept that influenced British and American foreign policy throughout much of
the 20th century. MacKinder suggested that the key to global domination was con-
trolling the resources and territory of the heart of Eurasia, a region encompassing
Eastern Europe and the western reaches of Russia and Central Asia. Unlike148 Geopolitics