International Relations Theory of War 51
According to the realistic view, conquest pays off.^78 According to this
plea, in addition to material power, meaning economic power and military
power combined, to rise to polar power status in the system, the state must
also have land power. In other words, it must control extensive territories
in regions of geostrategic importance for their time. This approach is sup-
ported in literature on the subject of international relations. Peter Liberman
states that in modern times, occupations have paid off for occupiers.^79 Hal-
ford Mackinder, one of the strongest supporters of land power, argues that
the concept of global issues based on sea power is wisdom belonging to the
past and that the balance has returned to land power. In a classic article dat-
ing from 1904, Mackinder stated that control of land, or land power, was of
great importance in the past and remains so to this day.^80 Mackinder stated:
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland.
Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island.
Who rules the World Island commands the World.^81German dominance in Europe in the Second World War led Nicholas
Spykman to rewrite Mackinder’s assumption as follows:
Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia;
Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.^82The United States’ attitude to the Eurasian Continent testifies to the impor-
tance of land power. The American realistic plea to join the war against
Nazi Germany was based on the view of Spykman that control of terri-
tory allowed for the full utilization of its material and human resources
besides national loyalty.^83 That plea was strengthened particularly after
the fall of France in the summer of 1940, which focused attention on the
geopolitical meaning of Nazi dominance of Europe.^84 After the war, Sta-
lin’s dominance raised in East and Central Europe the concern that he had
supplanted Hitler as a competitor over European hegemony.
The assumption that the Soviet Union could drive occupied industrial
economies to a war against the United States, which assumption was
supported by the advocates of containment, led the United States to the
conclusion that it must ensure that no single land power could control
Europe, become a land and sea power, and expand overseas through the
enormous resources of Eurasia in a manner that would be hostile to the
United States.^85 Containment, in the manner that the United States acted
in its involvement in the war against Hitler, was also driven by moral and
economic motives. However, even at the end of the Cold War, the ultimate
goal of containment, in the words of President George H. W. Bush, was
“to prevent any hostile power or group of powers from dominating the
Eurasian land mass.”^86