Europe’s predominantly Christian culture did not prevent wars, but the continual struggles for power ultimately brought about a fundamental change with the Thirty Years’ War. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) created a Europe intent on avoiding internal conflicts driven by territorial constraints and the weakening of its heartlands, at a time when it had to confront Muslim expansion from the Balkans and organize its overseas territories. This planning gave rise among Europeans to the concept of, and demand for, strategic depth. The emerging population explosion also had to be accommodated. Other peoples of the world, made vulnerable and suppressed in their ideologies and even their own conceptual frameworks, became silent sufferers of European penetration, which, by reinterpreting slavery—an institution that had existed since antiquity—also raised the idea of a hierarchy of races.
By the 18th century, earlier power struggles had acquired a new dimension: the leading Western states confronted one another not over their immediate needs but over competing visions of global influence. Britain ultimately emerged victorious from the colonial wars, thereby encouraging European movements toward unity among the defeated powers. Spain and France, whose colonial power had been shaken, initially sought to homogenize the peoples and ethnic groups living within their borders. France then used its strength to seek European dominance through the concentration of power under Napoleon, raising the idea of continental European unity. (This was aimed primarily at excluding the British, whose strength rested on their colonies, and cutting them off from markets.)
By the mid-19th century, unification movements in territories that were politically fragmented but relatively homogeneous in culture, historical consciousness and language provided Europe with new internal ideological energy. German unification was achieved in 1871, as was Italian unification that same year. French, German and Italian powers emerged in the lands of the former Frankish Empire. Individually, they could not rival British power, supported by its navy and overseas possessions, but even the prospect of their cooperation was ominous for Britain.
This again highlighted the need for strategic depth in the development of European states—a depth Britain already possessed overseas in Canada, Australia, India and elsewhere. Other European nations had only a small share of this advantage, primarily France through colonies previously acquired and secured by treaty in Africa, Indochina and elsewhere. Dutch, German, Belgian and Danish overseas possessions, like those of Spain and Portugal, did not decisively affect the competition because sufficiently powerful navies could not guarantee their role as strategic hinterlands. With the reorganization of the New World, especially the emergence of the United States and the independence of South American colonies, the continental European powers—that is, those other than Britain—had effectively lost the possibility of developing overseas strategic depth by the First World War.
Continental Europe could seek strategic depth only in Central Europe, in territories slipping from the grasp of the expanding Russian Empire and the declining Ottoman Empire. Historically, Central Europe had two defining states: Poland and Hungary. Under continual Russian, Prussian and Swedish pressure, followed by the intervention of the Austrian-led monarchy, Poland virtually ceased to exist as an independent entity. Hungary, first under Ottoman occupation and then subordinated to the Austrian crown, could not obstruct the designs of the great powers.
The Russian Empire, with strategic depth reaching the Pacific Ocean and the memory of Europe’s Napoleonic experience, could hardly serve as a hinterland for European empires; it was more naturally their rival. Ottoman territorial losses raised hopes of expansion through the Balkans into former Ottoman lands, but European powers faced their own lack of integration and British and Russian claims to the region as a sphere of influence. Western Europe had initially planned jointly to push back Türkiye, but each power sought to exploit the strategic opportunities offered by independent Greece for itself. Türkiye, released from pressure, could therefore block German, French and Italian ambitions toward the Near and Middle East. With British assistance, Russia was also restrained. British activity made it possible to play the continental European powers against one another because they differed in their understanding of their roles and, above all, their requirements for strategic depth.
Strategic depth means a real or virtual hinterland or sphere of influence on which a power can rely as a fallback area, refuge or source of additional resources. Today, great powers call such territories their special spheres of influence and, although these areas do not formally belong to them, they do not tolerate intrusion by others. For the United States, these include the countries of the Americas; for Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the post-Soviet region. Many desirable spheres of influence are difficult to acquire, such as Taiwan for China or the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands for Argentina.
After the Second World War, the development of Western countries established a model that spread across the world. Following the postwar baby boom, from the 1970s almost every European country, as well as Japan, entered a phase of demographic decline. Since the end of the 20th century, advanced economies shaped by Westernization—including European countries, Russia, the United States, Australia and Japan—have faced population decline, aging and the resulting erosion of their societies. They are increasingly advanced and wealthy yet can sustain their economies only through surplus production and pressure to export. Most of the raw materials and energy they need lie outside their territories, where secure transport is becoming less certain. Maintaining their standard of living requires enormous quantities of energy and labour that are increasingly difficult to guarantee. Outsourcing production, sophisticated financial techniques, market organization, digitalization and incentives for immigration that are not free of political ulterior motives can conceal the unsustainability of the Western way of life for only years or decades.
Russia and the United States could theoretically satisfy Western needs with their natural resources, abundant energy and consumer markets, but these are not freely available spoils that can be obtained by market or military means. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West believed Russian natural resources might help correct the imbalances of decades of overconsumption, stabilize an increasingly unsustainable financial system and eliminate the unmanageable mountain of debt burdening the world.
A permanent sense of crisis and continuous crisis management mean that, while constantly responding to emergencies, we fail to notice when a crisis becomes truly destructive. Armed conflicts are increasing in number and intensity, and their economic and interstate consequences are evident. Even the world’s most powerful countries are no longer capable of eliminating all the sources of trouble and flashpoints, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. The Ukrainian–Russo confrontation can be regarded as an attempt by the world’s major coercive systems—perhaps their last—to fill the widening gaps in the global economy by gaining control of, or weakening, Russia’s sphere of influence and perhaps its entire potential. Meanwhile, the world’s strategic centre of gravity is shifting, so Europe’s position is deteriorating rapidly even without anyone taking action. Mackinder’s World-Island theory still has explanatory force, but the centre of the global economy is increasingly moving toward the Pacific region, west of an imaginary line drawn from the Aleutian Islands to New Zealand.
‘The world’s strategic centre of gravity is shifting’
Globalization takes shape through the free movement of people, goods, services and information. Fossil fuels still account for the greater part of the world’s energy mix: oil approximately 30 per cent, natural gas 23 per cent and coal 26 per cent. The security of the world today depends on their transportation. An unexpected interruption triggers immediate reactions, while the closure of so-called transport ‘chokepoints’ may lead directly to violence. The need for strategic depth among countries involved in energy flows, both sellers and buyers, has therefore changed: rather than spheres of influence and secure hinterlands, it increasingly means reliable access to the energy, raw materials, food and water on which life depends. Transport imperatives, the search for hinterlands, the sidelining of competitors, economic and financial burdens and manipulation by interest groups create sources of tension that, through electronic communications, immediately affect all participants in a system of mutual dependencies. Historical, geopolitical, economic and political analysis can help determine where such effects may provoke violence and potentially spread crises.
The sources of conflict in today’s world vary, but globally, they can essentially be reduced to a few areas.
- The growing parity between the potential of the United States and China. Both powers are working to avoid the Thucydides Trap, but the outcome remains uncertain.
- Climate change is increasing the strategic value of the Arctic. China, which has no territorial access to it, demands a place there. Russian territories are the obvious possibility, since the West is unwilling to concede territory. The war in Ukraine is pushing Russia closer to China against its own long-term vital interests, while the West finds itself in conflict with both, also contrary to its interests. As a shipping route, the Arctic could diminish the importance of the Suez Canal and alter the structure of global power.
- Europe is being marginalized because its energy and raw-material supplies depend on external sources that have become uncertain or expensive, or that Europe has abandoned for political reasons. The availability and price of energy make American–European conflict virtually inevitable, potentially manifested in declining EU competitiveness, tariffs, military pressure and exclusion from markets—unless problems in the Pacific region bring about a complete and favourable change in EU–US relations.
- Moving transport routes from sea to land—for example, through China’s New Silk Road project—undermines the controlling role of traditional maritime powers but creates new dangers in the continental interiors through which these routes pass. Conflicts there have considerably greater potential for escalation than competition over maritime chokepoints.
- Faced with these problems, states seek allies, resources and secure markets. New blocs may therefore emerge among regions with similar interests and/or cultures, lending support to the arguments made by Samuel P Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
We may add that in the near future, the world’s conflicts are most likely to take violent and disruptive forms where economic problems overlap with the meeting of different cultures. (In the Middle East, for example, Shia and Sunni Muslim communities, various Christian denominations, Orthodox Christians and Judaism coexist and overlap. Israel’s history shows the difficulties encountered by a distinct, separate entity in such an area.)
The search for spheres of influence and strategic depth that has shaped European politics now appears in a new form. Within the EU, the integrated part of the continent is becoming increasingly unified according to an imperial conception, and by 2014 its GDP had reached that of the United States. A resurgent Russia, rapidly developing China and the EU are all located in Eurasia, and the three powers are directly adjacent. The unipolar world order led by the United States after the Soviet collapse has been shaken, confronting American policymakers with a new dilemma.
The world power that Mackinder foresaw through European–Russian cooperation could emerge in the 21st century if EU technology were combined with Russia’s raw-material base and strategic depth. According to this interpretation, the Anglo-Saxon world fought two world wars to prevent such an outcome, turning Russia and Europe’s strongest state, Germany, along with its allies, against one another and ultimately breaking their strength. Today the situation is different. Russia’s resource base remains a prize, but rising China could replace Germany’s former role, producing a vast integrated Asian region that bypasses Europe, is free of the deficits accumulated in the Western world, is virtually invulnerable militarily, and can project its will through technology, resources and influence with little opportunity for other powers to intervene. The United States faces a strategic choice. China’s development and defence capabilities make armed confrontation an unacceptable risk. If the EU buys inexpensive Russian energy and raw materials overland and through pipelines, it gains a competitive advantage. Because it spends relatively little on defence and has no global policing obligations, its peaceful development and increasingly close cooperation with China would present an unacceptable challenge to the United States.
‘The unipolar world order led by the United States after the Soviet collapse has been shaken, confronting American policymakers with a new dilemma’
The following thought experiment is unproven but grounded in geopolitical reasoning.
In these circumstances, an action plan consistent with Anglo-Saxon traditions took shape. Weakening the EU economically and politically became a key issue for the United States, with Britain assigned a major role. Building on the territorial and psychological momentum gained during the Soviet collapse, efforts were made to detach Ukraine—the most valuable of the former Soviet territories—from Russia’s sphere of influence. At the same time, the weakening of the EU’s Atlantic flank began. The referendum on Scottish independence served as a warning to Britain that its interests could be protected against centrifugal forces only through common Anglo-Saxon cooperation. Internal tensions in Ukraine in 2015 appeared to promise easy territorial and political gains for every major NATO member except Turkey. Preparations for Brexit accelerated at that time because the long-term objective was not to strengthen Europe so that it could acquire the strategic depth offered by Ukraine. Britain left the EU but remained one of Ukraine’s principal supporters. Ukraine became the main arena for British cooperation with the EU, to such an extent that Prime Minister Boris Johnson personally visited Ukraine to derail the Istanbul agreement reached between Ukrainians and Russians. London left what it saw as the sinking EU ship and moved closer to the United States while seeking to preserve its Ukrainian positions. From an American perspective, the interpretation is different: Britain had been removed from the EU, leaving the Union weaker militarily and strategically. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 thus confronted an EU without Britain and dependent on the United States for military security. The initial operations soon convinced the belligerents and their supporters that a rapid conclusion to the war would require disproportionate force and would have an uncertain outcome. The resulting war of attrition is practically destroying Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure and drastically reducing its population. American attempts to resolve the world’s principal flashpoints quickly became increasingly costly without achieving the expected results, as illustrated by the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the consequences of the destruction in Gaza and intervention in Iran. The United States managed to distance itself from the Ukrainian situation, passing both the prestige and costs of supporting Ukraine to the EU and Britain. This dealt a potentially fatal blow to the EU as an emerging empire. With Britain separated from it, Canada—linked to Britain through the monarch as head of state—could hardly serve as strategic depth for the EU. The United States intensified pressure on the EU by staking a claim to Greenland, which belongs to Denmark. Moreover, new American tariff policies caused substantial losses to the EU economy while the burden of supplying arms to Ukraine fell on Europeans. (Unprepared for this, the EU purchases American weapons with its own money and transfers them to Ukraine, thereby supporting the American economy through arms purchases.) At this point the analyst can only whistle in admiration at the astonishing multifunctional master plan allegedly devised and implemented by American political and strategic planners: it pushed the rival EU’s economy at least 10 per cent below the US economy relative to the situation in 2014, obstructed its economic relations with Russia and its access to raw materials, and drove it into American arms through energy dependence, forcing it to purchase more expensive American LNG instead of the pipeline-delivered Russian gas that had previously supported its competitiveness. It is conceivable that the migration wave toward the EU beginning in 2015, and the way it was managed, also served to weaken the Union, with the involvement—or still unexplained cooperation—of its political leadership. The destabilization of Germany’s domestic energy supply through the closure of nuclear power plants also comes to mind, but a responsible analyst should go no further. (American inspiration behind all these developments cannot be proved, although considering the possibility may lead to further conclusions.)
The measures that shook the EU can be documented and examined, and the indications point in one direction: American policy weakened its principal rival, the EU—which is effectively and partly militarily subordinate to it—and is now turning toward Russia, weakened yet unexpectedly united and resilient. Separating Russia from China is another unavoidable task for the United States. Breaking up the China–Russia economic bloc and weakening the EU could secure American leadership for decades, allowing it to contain China and prevent Chinese access to the Arctic Ocean. A significant part of Ukraine will come under Russian authority, and the decision will be made without the EU. Further weakening of the EU could come through a subtle reorganization of its Central European members under the Three Seas Initiative or similar arrangements.
Until now the EU has watched events with incomprehension, but some developments suggest that this still wealthy, powerful and influential conglomerate is taking up the challenge. Citing the Russian threat, it is strengthening defence capabilities, expanding arms production and introducing military conscription wherever possible. In response to tensions, the European Commission is taking centralizing measures and seeking to bind member states together through joint borrowing. The demand for strategic depth also persists: through legal manoeuvring, the EU concluded the EU–Mercosur agreement, thereby potentially gaining something of a hinterland in South America. The EU stood with surprising unity behind Denmark to prevent American annexation of Greenland, an effort that ultimately succeeded, although Denmark conceded to every American demand except surrendering sovereignty. The situation might even lead Britain to seek EU membership again, though the EU of today would be more inclined to prevent this.
Viewed from the United States, the world’s situation is not nearly so desperate, even if slightly higher fuel prices cause political turbulence. America’s demonstration of force in Iran shook global confidence in the United States, yet the condition of the world economy suggests that its central policy in the future will be to strengthen its domestic structures. This can be achieved only by drawing the world’s wealth toward America, voluntarily or by force. The only currently conceivable counterweight to the emerging American-led world system is Chinese–Russian cooperation, which could offer an alternative in alliance with the Global South. If we believe in Russia’s long-term vital interests and their eventual triumph, we may expect a complete transformation of Central Europe and the isolation of China. If Russia’s longstanding Eurasian geopolitical outlook prevails, cooperation with China will deepen, and a new Cold War may begin. Whatever happens, substantial regional consequences must also be expected.
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