Russia, 9 March 2025 – Today, we should start discussing a geopolitical problem which, in my opinion, is crucial for the building of a multipolar world. Those who understand geopolitics know that one of the main laws or concepts of geopolitics is the concept of Heartland. All the classical schools of geopolitics – including the models of Mackinder, Spykman, Haushofer, Brzezinski, etc. – recognise a profound dualism between the Heartland – the continent, the civilisation of the land – and the civilisation of the sea, which is embodied today by the Anglo-Saxon world, especially the US and its maritime policy.
A civilization of the sea or sea power attempts to encircle the Heartland – the continent, Eurasia – from the sea and control its coastal territories. Sea Power seeks to limit Heartland’s development, and thereby realize its dominance on a global scale. As Mackinder said, “Who controls Eastern Europe controls the Heartland, and who controls the Heartland controls the world.” This idea was later developed by Spykeman into the following:
“He who controls Rimland (the coastal zone from Europe to China and Southeast Asia) controls Heartland, and he who controls Heartland controls the world.”
The struggle for supremacy in the Heartland – whether through naval power from without or in the Heartland itself from within – is a fundamental pattern of geopolitical history, the very essence of geopolitics. Geopolitics is the struggle for the Heartland. All schools of geopolitics are based on and derived from this model.
In the bipolar world of the Cold War, the “Heartland” represented the Eastern camp, primarily the USSR, and the “Sea Power” represented the Western camp (Western Europe, countries loyal to the West in the Middle East, etc.). The Heartland lost this war in confrontation with the USSR in the early 1990s, marking the beginning of the unipolar moment. Heartland’s defeat in the Great War of the Continents marked the beginning of the unipolar moment, a unipolar architecture in which the civilization of the Seas and the Sea Powers achieved complete dominance. Fukuyama thus proclaimed the end of history.
Sea power ruled Heartland from the outside, for example through a fifth column headed by the Russian state, as it did in the 1990s. Heartland was blockaded. With Putin in power, Russia has once again embarked on the path of sovereignty, and NATO continues to blockade Russia. In the 1990s, the battle against Heartland was won by sea power and Heartland was “taken out of the system.” Thus began the unipolar moment: the global victory of Sea Power.
Today, we often talk about the multipolar world and how, despite terrible losses, Russia has preserved its identity, recovered, come back to itself, returned to history and at least somewhat emerged from the total domination of the fifth column in Russia itself. At the same time, the unipolar dominance of the naval power has been somewhat weakened because Russia has made some progress. Clearly, Fukuyama was premature in declaring the end of history and the global victory of liberalism. We were indeed close to it and we can say that we lived in a unipolar world, but this unipolar world could not become eternal, could not establish itself, and so it became only a moment, an episode.
Along with the emergence of a multipolar world, a contradiction arises. If we consider only one naval power and one Heartland, then when it comes to a multipolar world, Russia cannot be the only Heartland. Russia cannot build a multipolar world alone. Multipolarity presupposes at least four or five major poles of the world. Russia could be the centre of this multipolar world or just one of its poles. But Russia cannot be the only heartland.
In the course of many discussions, conferences, speeches, lectures and articles, I have come to the conclusion that the time has come to introduce the concept of a “Divided Heartland”. To this end, I consider it important to examine in detail the German geopolitics of the 1920s and 1930s, which declared Germany to be the Heartland of Europe. We are not so much interested in Germany itself, but in the very possibility of contemplating another Heartland. Of course, there is a Russian, Eurasian Heartland, but it cannot assert itself as a land power.
Then we need to take a closer look at the European Heartland, the European pole: for example, the Franco-German alliance or the Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis. Continental Europe can be seen as a unified Heartland, which can and should be friendly to the Russian Heartland, while being an independent phenomenon. The Chinese Heartland is a different matter altogether. China is, after all, a Rimland, a coastal zone. If we recognize that China has Heartland status, then we recognize it as an independent strategic space. If we qualify China as Heartland, we are emphasizing the conservative aspect of China – China as a land power. However, if China declares itself a Heartland vis-à-vis Russia, just as Hitler’s Germany declared itself the “Heart of Eurasia” vis-à-vis Soviet Russia, then conflict will immediately arise.
If Russia retains its status as an independent pole, this “divided Heartland” will take on a completely different meaning. Then such Heartlands can be considered as the Russian Heartland, as on all traditional geopolitical maps, the “geographical axis of history” and the European Heartland. We also come to consider the Chinese Heartland, which means that we see China as the traditional, conservative, independent and sovereign state that it is today – and will become even more so in the future. It is at least important to reconcile the Chinese Heartland with the Russian Heartland and partly also with the European Heartland. But even that is not enough to build a multipolar world.
We must inevitably consider the Islamic Heartland (encompassing the historical spaces of at least 3-4 empires stretching from Turkey to Pakistan). The concept of a distributed Heartland can be further extended to India and projected to Latin America and Africa. Therefore, there must be an American Heartland in a multipolar system.
We have become too used to thinking in terms of classical geopolitics that the United States and the Anglo-Saxon world can only be a maritime power. In a multipolar world, America will not be able to play that role; its global maritime reach will naturally diminish, changing the very nature of America. Therefore, an American Heartland must emerge, which in a multipolar system should not only be seen as opposed to other Heartlands. Voting for Trump embodied the contours of this American Heartland. If we begin to understand the Heartland as a divided type of culture linked to the reinforcement of a conservative identity, then the slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ is the thesis of the American Heartland. Stop being a sea power and you will be great again. As a sea power you will be unhappy, “sad,” but you will become great again when you become “America’s Heartland.” A distributed Heartland is the imperative of a new geopolitical model, a multipolar geopolitics.
I think this concept deserves very serious thought, consideration and description. Several conferences or even an entire volume should be devoted to this vital issue. The effectiveness of this distributed Heartland concept is, in my opinion, extremely important, because building a multipolar world now requires clearer and more precise plans. In my opinion, the idea of a distributed Heartland is the main, most crucial point in the development and materialization of the theory of a multipolar world.
