George McMillan, Copyright © January 20, 2024 / September 15, 2024
Introduction— Development Strategies versus Geopolitical Sabotage Strategies
The more one understands the overarching sea power versus sea power geopolitical theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and the sea power versus land power geopolitical theories of Halfred Mackinder the more one will realize that (1) the Anglosphere evolved into the Five Eyes alliance of English-speaking countries to subordinate the other colonial European sea powers, and (2) has been using the coordination of subordinate sea powers to continue Great Britain’s three-hundred-year-long “Great Game” of encircle the Russian “heartland” of Eurasia by controlling the coastal rimland countries in an attempt to landlock Russia (and the USSR) to prevent Russia from trading its immense resources with the coastal rimland industrial powers.
The objective of post-Mackinder Anglosphere sea power versus land power strategies is to prevent the global political center of gravity from shifting from London to Moscow. The idea is that if Moscow can build the overland railway, oil, and natural gas pipeline logistical infrastructure to trade its immense energy, agricultural, and mineral raw materials to the coastal rimland industrial powers, then the Russian heartland system of alliances, i.e. an Eurasian heartland alliance, could become more powerful than the Anglosphere sea power coastal industrial alliance system.
Following this logic, with the understanding that Bax Britannica has shifted to Pax Americana after World War Two, the Anglosphere sea power strategy is to prevent The Russian heartland from forming strong infrastructural, economic, diplomatic, and military (DIME) alliances with any of the coastal rimland industrial powers, and especially to prevent the Russian heartland from DIME integration with all of the coastal rimland industrial power centers.
From this position, one can understand why the Anglosphere sea power strategy rests on the continued subordination of all coastal rimland industrial powers in Eurasia as the means of coercing them from DIME integration with Russia.
The more one understands that the Anglosphere became the dominant sea power during the colonial era and used its dominance to subordinate other rimland coastal sea powers into a a sea power trading bloc then began the process of precluding a Russian/Soviet heartland trading bloc in the past, the more one will understand how and why (a) the Anglosphere continues to use the rimland coastal sea power strategy to encircle the Russian Heartland to control the World Island, (b) why the Anglosphere’s biggest fear since the 1960s has been the transfer of cheap Russian natural gas delivered by pipeline to integrate Russian with the rimland coastal industrial powers of the German-speaking world, India (via Charbahar Port), China, South Korea, and Japan, (c) why the Russo-Sino overland logistical supply routes of oil and natural gas via pipeline delivery of energy to the coastal rimland industrial power of China, combined with (d) China’s overland railroad network to bring in an immense amount of raw materials from Russia and Central Asia in exchange for Chinese finished products combine to become the landpower integration and break-out strategy that (e) bypasses the maritime chokepoints that the Anglosphere sea power strategy depends on.
This theory is explained in detail in the Amero-centric “five industrial power center strategy” versus the Russo-centric “six industrial power center strategy” (includes India as an Industrialized country) series of papers and slide sets in this series. The original goal of the Great Game was to prevent the global center of gravity from shifting from London and Paris to Berlin and Moscow. The current iteration of the Great Game is to prevent the global political center of gravity from shifting to Berlin and Moscow and Moscow and Beijing.
Geopolitical Sea Power versus Land Power Strategies and Quick Pattern Recognition
The more one understands the sea power versus land power geopolitical strategies the more one can immediately see how proxy wars are based on turning age-old ethnic, linguistic, and religious rivalries into the political and economic instabilities of color revolutions and conflict anywhere in Eurasia and almost immediately know (a) what local interest groups are involved and (b) what regional and major powers’ overt and covert entities are behind it, especially in the age where social media is used to rapidly inflame the passions of one-group to attack another.
With this background knowledge, the Western narrative to the general public that (1) the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution in Kyiv were organic, (2) that Putin invaded Ukraine for ‘no reason’ and needs a psychological examination furthered by Fiona Hill on the Lex Fridman Show, (3) and Putin wants to restore the Russian empire into the historical invasion routes of the Polish Plains North of the Carpathians and the Bessarabian Plains South of the Carpathians should be met with complete laughter.
These three prevailing neoconservative and neoliberal narratives only make sense to people who are (a) unfamiliar with the history of sea power encirclement versus land power integration and break-out strategies in general, and (b) completely unfamiliar with the role of energy and natural resources in economic development, (c) the role of infrastructure and trade in export-led economic growth and development strategies, and (d) the role of geopolitical strategies to either enhance ones economic development via trade, or thwart the economic development of a rival by thwarting their ability to trade.
Political and Economic development strategies are based on mutually beneficial positive-sum gain comparative advantage principles while geopolitical strategies are based on zero-sum extractive gains and negative-sum sabotage activities.
Russia Does Not Want ‘More’ Territory—they Need Waterway, Railway and Highway Access
The reality of moving the EU and NATO Eastward during the late 1990s and 2000s to block all Russian sea ports, river routes, highways, and railways along with the oil and natural gas pipeline transit routes is to strangle Russia’s trade so they cannot use an export-led growth strategy to facilitate an economic growth and development strategy.
Thus the Anglosphere moved the EU and NATO Eastward to the Belarus and Russian borders where they could assess the most control over increasing transit fees to make it less price competitive in Europe as possible. Hence, the EU and NATO moved into the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia to surround the Baltic ports of Saint Petersburgh, and Kaliningrad, as well as the Black Sea ports of Sevastopol, Novorosysk, and Rostov-on-Don to impede Russian economic growth and therefore military expenditures.
Putin did not attack Ukraine because Russia wanted “more” territory, Putin invaded Eastern Ukraine because Russia needed that territory in particular.
There is no other country on the planet that has so much oil, natural gas, and agricultural and mineral products exported in such a confined location as the Rostov-on-Don Azov Sea area.
Catherine the Great recaptured Rostov-on-Don and Crimea in 1783 because the Don River is Russia’s only southward-flowing river that empties into the Azov and the Black Seas.
To the North of Rostov is the North Caucus pipelines that flow through Ukraine and to the South is Novorosysk where the oil and natural gas pipelines terminate for export into oil tankers and LNG ships. It would be comparable to the port of New Orleans where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Hence, the necessity of the neoconservatives and neoliberals in the West to overcome the Russian Orthodox autonomous regions in the Donbas of Ukraine and the motive behind backing the Stepan Bandera followers in the Euromaidan Revolution in 2014, then arming the Bandaristas to attack the Russian Orthodox autonomous regions in South Eastern Ukraine. The Anglosphere wanted to place rockets, artillery, tanks, and armored vehicles in Mariupol roughly 100 miles from Rostov, and have armed patrol boats inside the Azov Sea.
Furthermore, the point of putting a NATO standards rider in the EU association agreement in 2014 was to place a NATO-supported Ukrainian Army, Marine, and naval forces in Crimea where the Russian Black Sea Fleet was stationed since 1783.
When Professor John Mearsheimer says that NATO forces in Ukraine is an existential threat to the Russian economy, but never defines, this is what he meant. The arming of the Ukrainian Bandera military units in the Donbas, urged by Senator Lindsay Graham is a declaration of War that was never explained to the American public echoing the sentiments of General Wesley Clark’s campaign speeches in 2007.
It is this area that is so vital to Russia’s economy and explains why the Russian Special Military Operation is focused on pushing back the NATO-supported Ukrainian army in the Luhansk and Donbas oblasts. The American public may not be familiar with how vital this region is for the Russian economy, but the Naval War College and the Yale Grand Strategy professors who teach in Newport did understand the gravity of placing NATO-supported military units in the region and insisted on it—without telling the American public the significance of the act.
[The End]
It is clear that the US moved the EU with NATO military standards clauses in the EU association agreements as the means of steadily moving NATO Eastward to put offensive tanks, missiles and jet aircraft to take over this essential chokepoint area of the Russian Federation to create the conditions under which they could strangle the Russian economy instantly.
Putin’s, and the Russian nationalists that support him in power, warned not to move the EU with NATO military standard clauses in the association agreements any farther Eastward in the Berlin 2007 NATO security summit and again in 2008 in Bucharest.
The more Putin warned against NATO moving Eastward the more he was ignored and the Euromaidan Revolution led by Ambassadors Geofrey Pyat and Victoria Nulan.
Furthermore, the Euromaidan Revolution occurred with the vast assistance of Silicon Valley Big Tech firms operating in Kyiv since circa 2005, used their immense control over the social media email and messaging link analysis software to rally the Ukrainian nationalists to overthrow the Yanukovych government with two years left on his presidential term.
Yanukovych was objecting to for objecting to: the EU association agreement that demanded all trade within the EU and no trade with Russia in combination with the NATO military standards clause.
Instead of the EU revising the agreement Ambassadors Pyat and Nulan but led to a coup instead where Yanukovych’s objections were not told to either the Ukrainian public or the Western public through the traditional media.
Part 6: Political and Economic Development Strategies versus Geopolitical Sabotage Strategies
Part 4: The US Cut-off their European Allies from Affordable Energy—Now What?
Part 3: The Geopolitical Problem of the US—a German-Russo-Japanese Connection
Part 2: Pipelines and Global Political Center of Gravity Alternatives: A PMESII DIME Analysis
Part 1: Part 1:Russian Natural Gas and Geopolitical Realignment—a reverse domino theory
George McMillan Articles and Interviews: https://energynewsbeat.co/george-mcmillian/
