Quo Vadis MAGA?

Which way are you going, MAGA? 

Trump is the most confusing president in my lifetime (just see my last post, and compare it to several of my earlier posts).  Some people see him playing 4-D chess or call it his negotiation strategy, others just see it for chaos.  He regularly says things the opposite of each other and regularly does things at least seemingly the opposite of each other or opposite of something he just said three minutes before.  I won’t rehash these here, I think the evidence is clear enough.

I have been thinking through how I might best understand what is going on.  At times like this, I think it is best to go back to some fundamentals; call these the lenses through which I see the political world.

There are two fundamental lenses through which I see the geopolitical landscape.  Now, I often forget these, and when this happens, I find myself swaying because of allowing myself to be unrooted.  Having said this, I am not completely married to these two lenses – these may not play at all.  However, until I see actions clearly in contradiction to the lenses…well, the lenses stand for me.

So, what are these lenses?

The Geographical Pivot of History

Also known as the Heartland Theory.  Halford Mackinder gave a talk in 1904 to the Royal Geographic Society in London.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s start with a picture.

 

 

To summarize his thesis: whoever controls the Pivot Area controls the world.  Britain at that time, and the United States certainly since World War Two, have controlled the seas – the Lands of the Outer Crescent.  But this will be irrelevant to whoever brings under control and tames the Pivot Area.

I ask you, therefore, for a moment to look upon Europe and European history as subordinate to Asia and Asiatic history, for European civilization is, in a very real sense, the outcome of the secular struggle against Asiatic invasion.

For a thousand years, Europe dealt with hoards coming from Central Asia – the Pivot Area, or Heartland. 

To the east, south, and west of this heart-land are marginal regions, ranged in a vast crescent, accessible to shipmen. 

The margins, or Inner Crescent, are key.  A buffer for the Pivot Area and a source of chaos for the Outer Crescent to use against the Pivot Area.  And, guess what?

 

 

Mackinder identifies the key players of his time.  Little has changed:

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.

I would only comment that western China is certainly in the Pivot Area, making China a key Pivot Area player.  Otherwise, take a look at the list: the Outer Area was at the time all allies of Britain (with South Africa more recently becoming iffy).  Those in the Great Inner Crescent are seen as where the game is to be played.

For those in the Pivot Area, bring those in the Inner Crescent onto your side, providing a buffer along with technologies and other advantages.  For those in the Outer Crescent, create chaos in the Inner Crescent – and, while you’re at it, do what you can to create chaos in the Pivot Area.  In other words, at all costs, don’t let the Pivot Area develop by sidetracking the Pivot Area with internal and regional chaos.

Germany is one of the keys in all of this:

The oversetting of the balance of power in favour of the pivot state, resulting in its expansion over the marginal lands of Euro- Asia, would permit of the use of vast continental resources for fleet-building, and the empire of the world would then be in sight. This might happen if Germany were to ally herself with Russia.

German technology to Russia (and now China); Russian energy and resources to Germany.  It would be a very powerful combination against Anglo-Saxon hegemony.  Hence, Nord Stream go boom.

As the first General Secretary of NATO, Hastings Ismay, would say: the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."  Very consistent with this Heartland Theory...and with Western actions certainly from the Great War until today.

As for Russia:

The Russian railways have a clear run of 6000 miles from Wirballen in the west to Vladivostok in the east. The Russian army in Manchuria is as significant evidence of mobile land-power as the British army in South Africa was of sea-power. True, that the Trans-Siberian railway is still a single and precarious line of communication, but the century will not be old before all Asia is covered with railways. 

Every word of it true, except that last part of it didn’t happen in the twentieth century.  Good thing a convenient little Russian Revolution got in the way of this development for almost 100 years (including the years under communism and the subsequent decade or two to dig themselves out of the hole).

The spaces within the Russian Empire and Mongolia are so vast, and their potentialities in population, wheat, cotton, fuel, and metals so incalculably great, that it is inevitable that a vast economic world, more or less apart, will there develop inaccessible to oceanic commerce.

Inaccessible to oceanic commerce, therefore also at reduced risk from those who control the seas.  One sees everything about the New Silk Roads, China’s Belt and Road initiative, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, etc., in this paragraph by Mackinder. 

Through this lens, Israel can be seen as the tool through which chaos is brought to the boards of the Pivot Area – think of Syria, Iraq, and Iran, for example.

If the Pivot Area was to be tamed and developed, the resources available to those who controlled it would overwhelm any capabilities of those in the Outer Crescent.  Sure, some of those in the Outer Crescent would do just fine as a regional player (e.g., the United States with two big oceans for protection), but that’s all that would remain possible for them: a regional player.

So, this is the first lens through which I see geopolitical events. 

November 22, 1963

I don’t have to say nearly as much here.  Let’s just say that every President since then has got the message: play ball or you’re out.

So, Quo Vadis MAGA?

There has been quite a bit of debate about just what is meant by MAGA.  Here again, it is tough to determine given Trump’s varied and often contradictory statements.  I know what most people who read this blog think the term means, but that doesn’t mean Trump’s words cannot suggest other meanings.

Here is the trouble with “Make America Great Again.”  It is a slogan that can be filled with a wide variety of contents, and Trump himself has filled this slogan with a wide variety of contents.  Again, I am not going to list all of this various and varied and contradictory statements on this.

However, I will examine each word and offer my thoughts as to how these might be understood – consistent with things Trump has said.

Make: when someone as powerful as the United States President uses this word “make,” it tells me one thing: he will do everything in his power to bring the full power of the state to bear on the problems he wants to solve.  Not so great if you think government is the problem, and not the solution.

America: what is meant by “America”?  Is it the geographic boundaries of the United States, or is it the American Empire?  I find no clarity or consistency in Trump’s actions or words here. 

Great: what is meant by “Great”?  The biggest military and its $1 trillion budget?  A big beautiful bill, greater than any before it?  Industrial might?  Personal liberty?  Really, “great” can mean anything.

Again: well, “again” suggests that America was great at one time.  So, what time is Trump considering?  As best as I can tell, it is more FDR and Lincoln than it is Thomas Jefferson. 

Conclusion

None right now.  Other than to say: if Trump wants to expand American Empire and/or maintain American hegemony (continuing down the path of the Heartland Theory) at the expense of those who live in the United States, he will be supported in doing so by almost all of the deep state.  But if this is not Trump’s primary focus, well…the weight of this desire by the deep state for empire is, of course, overwhelming.

If his primary focus is for the benefit of those who live in the United States, he has to find a way to do so without becoming JFK’d – and for very similar reasons that took JFK down over 60 years ago.  This will take serious 4-D chess, and even then…I’m not so sure.

One can see in his recent decision to bomb Iran the possibility of either path: Trump is exercising empire control over the Inner Crescent in order to ensure the Pivot Area does not develop (and to save Israel from a devastation that would have had Israel unleash nukes).  Or, Trump put a slap-down on Israel and the neocons by cutting short their wet dream – and this would explain why he is insistent that Iran’s nuclear program has been destroyed…or…he no longer cares about it (take your pick).

But, which way are you going MAGA?  I don’t have any idea.

Epilogue

A lot of recent dialogue on who controls whom in the relationship between the United States and Israel.  On the one hand, this is not very important as for those who are playing along with Mackinder’s theory, it is a mutually beneficial relationship.

But if I had to bet (and based on the lens of Mackinder), Israel is used as the means for the ends of empire as opposed to the empire being used as the means for the ends of Israel.