Democratic Statesmen Need to Re-Read 'Democratic Ideals and Reality'

In 1919, Britain’s Halford Mackinder wrote a geopolitical masterpiece titled Democratic Ideals and Reality. And while the details of that book written over a hundred years ago are dated, Mackinder’s insights into the enduring realities of international politics remain relevant. As the United States and its democratic allies deal with the twin crises of the Russia-Ukraine War and China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific, the leaders of the world’s democracies should re-read Mackinder’s classic.

Bismarck was no "democrat"; his ideals were peace and stability. As his successors in Germany did not, he understood that the rivalries in the Balkans were not worth the sacrifice of German blood and treasure. Bismarck's realpolitik, Mackinder explained, “live[d] in his mind upon a mental map.” Mackinder warned that the Hubris of democratic idealism  would fall to the Nemesis of the great “organizers.” While the “democrat is thinking of the rights of men,” he wrote, the “organizer is thinking how to use men.” And unless the democrat sacrifices or adjusts some of his ideals to the world’s realities, the organizer will win the global struggle.

Today, the United States and its democratic allies are faced with twin crises in Europe and Asia that, to some extent, were brought about because their statesmen promoted democratic ideals and ignored geopolitical realities. When the Cold War ended in the late 1980s-early 1990s, we were told that the march of democracy was limitless – we were witnessing the "end of history" where democracy triumphed over all competing philosophies of government. Economics, we were told, had replaced geopolitics as the principal mode of global competition, which would still be intense but peaceful. China, we were told, was moving in the direction of free markets, which would transform its political system. Russia, it was said, would join the family of democratic nations and become an integral part of democratic Europe.

So the democracies proceeded to expand the NATO alliance to embrace the new democracies of Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, and several Balkan countries, despite Russian protests. There was even serious talk of inviting Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance – further poking the Russian bear. Meanwhile, the democracies provided capital to a rising China, believing that China, too, was in the process of joining the family of nations, even as China methodically built up its military and naval power. While the democracies observed China's rise to become a peer competitor of the United States economically and geopolitically and continued to fuel that rise with infusions of capital, NATO continued its attempt to push democracy further towards the borders of Russia. And as the democracies expended blood and treasure in the seemingly endless Global War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia and China grew closer. The democracies were effectively undoing the diplomatic revolution produced by President Nixon’s dramatic “opening” to China and his brilliant “triangular diplomacy.”

Had the democratic statesmen of the 21^st century, like Bismarck, focused their minds on the global map instead of promoting democratic and “progressive” ideals, they would have noticed that the emerging Sino-Russian strategic alliance (with partners in Pakistan and Iran) was creating a hostile bloc on huge portions of the Eurasian landmass. Mackinder had warned as early as 1904--and he repeated the warning in Democratic Ideals and Reality--that effective political control of Eurasia could lead to a global imperium.

The principal message of Mackinder’s Democratic Ideals and Reality was that the security and political independence of the democracies is dependent on the geopolitical pluralism of Eurasia. That remains true today. Yet, the United States and its European allies ignored that geopolitical reality in a calamitous attempt to project democratic ideals to the border of Russia. And now, some in Europe and the United States--in the name of defending the "free world" – are calling for NATO to defend the independence of Ukraine in the current Russia-Ukraine war, which would increase the danger that this regional conflict – like the Balkan wars in the early 20^th century – could lead to a global conflagration. Bismarck and Mackinder would be appalled. 

Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21^stCentury, America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War, and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He has written lengthy introductions to two of Mahan’s books, and has written on historical and foreign policy topics for The Diplomat, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, the Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the Claremont Review of Books, American Diplomacy, the Washington Times, and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.