Geographical Pivot of History 



333 



half-civilized population in the world. 

 With a decreasing French population 

 and a British not increasing as fast as it 

 was, and the native-born population of 

 the United States and Australia com- 

 ing nearly to a standstill, you have to 

 face the fact that in a hundred years 

 40,000,000 people have occupied but a 

 mere corner of the steppe. I think you 

 are on the way to a population which 

 will be numbered by the hundred mil- 

 lion. "... 



" The steppe lands are the heart of 

 Euro-Asia; that continuous land, ice- 

 girt in the north, water-girt elsewhere, 

 measuring 21 million square miles, or 

 more than three times the area of North 

 America, whose center and north, meas- 

 uring some 9 million square miles, or 

 more than twice the area of Europe, 

 have no available waterways to the 

 ocean, but, on the other hand, except 

 in the subarctic forest, are very gen- 

 erally favorable to the mobility of horse- 

 men and camelmen. 



"To east, south, and west of this 

 heart land are marginal regions, ranged 

 in a vast cresent, accessible toshipmen. 

 According to physical conformation, 

 these regions are four in number, and 

 it is not a little remarkable that in a 

 general way they respectively coincide 

 with the spheres of the four great re- 

 ligions — Buddhism, Brahminism, Ma- 

 hometanism, and Christianity. The 

 first two are the monsoon lands, turned 

 the one toward the Pacific, and the 

 other toward the Indian Ocean. The 

 fourth is Europe, watered by the At- 

 lantic rains from the west. These three 

 together measuring less than 7 million 

 square miles have more than 1000 mil- 

 lion people, or two-thirds of the world 

 population. The third, coinciding with 

 the land of the Five Seas, or, as it is 

 more often described, the Nearer East, 

 is in large measure deprived of moist- 

 ure by the proximity of Africa, and, 

 except in the oases, is therefore thinly 

 peopled. In some degree it partakes of 



the characteristics both of the marginal 

 belt and of the central area of Enro- 

 Asia. 



' ' Is not the pivot region of the world' s 

 politics that vast area of Euro-Asia 

 which is inaccessible to ships, but in 

 antiquity lay open to the horse-riding 

 nomad, and is today about to be cov- 

 ered with a network of railways? 



" Russia replaces the Mongol Empire. 

 Her pressure on Finland, on Scandi- 

 navia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Persia, 

 on India, and on China, replaces the 

 centrifugal raids of the steppemen. In 

 the world at large she occupies the cen- 

 tral strategical position held by Germany 

 in Europe. She can strike on all sides 

 and be struck from all sides, save the 

 north. The full development of her 

 modern railway mobility is merely a 

 matter of time. Nor is it likely that any 

 possible social revolution will alter her 

 essential relations to the great geograph- 

 ical limits of her existence. Wisely rec- 

 ognizing the fundamental limits of her 

 power, her rulers have parted with 

 Alaska ; for it is as much a law of 

 policy for Russia to own nothing over 

 seas as for Britain to be supreme on the 

 ocean. 



" Outside the pivot area, in a great 

 inner crescent, are Germany, Austria, 

 Turkey, India, and China, and in an 

 outer crescent Britain, South Africa, 

 Australia, the United States, Canada, 

 and Japan. Britain, Canada, the United 

 States, South Africa, Australia, and 

 Japan are now a ring of outer and insular 

 bases for sea-power and commerce, in- 

 accessible to the land-power of Euro- 

 Asia. In the present condition of the 

 balance of power, the pivot state, Rus- 

 sia, is not equivalent to the peripheral 

 states, and there is room for an equipoise 

 in France. The United States has re- 

 cently become an eastern power, affect- 

 ing the European balance not directly, 

 but through Russia, and she will con- 

 struct the Panama canal to make her 

 Mississippi and Atlantic resources avail- 



