Imran Malik<\/p>\n
Halford Mackinder divided the world into three distinct regions. He described Afro-Eurasia as the World Island, comprising the interlinked continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia. Further, he described its Heartland (also known as the Pivot) as the region stretching from east of the Volga, south of the Arctic, west of the Yang\u00adtze, and north of the Himalayas. The British Isles, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, the Malay Archipelago, Hain\u00adan, Taiwan, and the Japanese Archipel\u00adago were termed the Offshore Islands. The conjoined continents of North and South America, as well as Oceania, were named the Outlying Islands. Mackinder summarized his theory: \u201cHe who rules East Europe commands the Heartland. He who rules the Heartland commands the World Island, and he who rules the World Island commands the world\u201d
\nAlthough it is generally felt that Mack\u00adinder\u2019s theory has not stood the test of time, the current upheaval in the world order suggests otherwise. The US\u2019 pre-eminence as the world\u2019s sole geopoliti\u00adcal, economic, and military power is now under serious threat. Its hour of unipo\u00adlar supremacy is long over. Multipolari\u00adty is rapidly becoming the new normal. A meteorically rising China and a re\u00adsurgent, defiant Russia are combining to challenge the geopolitical status quo. New centers of power like BRICS and SCO have now emerged on the global scene and portend a severe two-pronged challenge to the US and its unchecked hegemony of the world.
\nThe ever-expanding BRICS is a broad-based organization that challenges US dominance as the pre-eminent econom\u00adic power of the world. It has started a move of \u201cde-dollarization,\u201d encouraging member states and others to start con\u00adducting international trade, especial\u00adly oil, in currencies other than the USD, directly threatening its unique status as the globe\u2019s preferred reserve currency.
\nThe SCO, on the other hand, compris\u00ades ten states at the moment: Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajiki\u00adstan, Uzbekistan, China, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Thus, it forms a single contig\u00aduous bloc in Eurasia, covering the bulk of Mackinder\u2019s Heartland and much more. Currently, its western extreme is defined by Belarus and Russia border\u00ading NATO\u2019s East European frontier of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Po\u00adland, and Ukraine. It touches the Arctic in the north, while its western boundar\u00adies hug the Pacific Ocean. Its southern borders lie in the Indian Ocean-Arabi\u00adan Sea-Persian Gulf region. By virtue of its extremely strategic location, this bloc enjoys tremendous geopolitical, geo\u00adstrategic, and geoeconomic advantag\u00ades. It has enormous resources in man\u00adpower, economics, fossil fuels, minerals, technology, science, agriculture, indus\u00adtry, military-industrial, military-nucle\u00adar-missile, water, and other sectors. It has the potential to emerge as the alter\u00adnate pole to the US-led West.
\nThe BRI is creating a vast regional-global network of infrastructure that is now weaving its way through Mackind\u00ader\u2019s Heartland, his World Island, and beyond. It is creating a grid of region\u00adal interconnectivity, economic interde\u00adpendence, and mutual support. Could this evolving, harmonious environ\u00adment and emerging common interests lead to other more dynamic, collective objectives for the SCO later on? Is the SCO intrinsically designed to dominate the Heartland, and is the BRI the vehi\u00adcle on which this will be achieved? Will the BRI similarly help dominate the World Island too?
\nMackinder\u2019s theory appears increas\u00adingly relevant now. Under the 1994 Bu\u00addapest Memorandum, the US, UK, and Russia pledged to protect Ukraine from all external aggression if it were to give up the nuclear warheads it had inherited from the erstwhile USSR. Ukraine naive\u00adly agreed. Furthermore, Russia was as\u00adsured by the US and UK that NATO would not expand eastwards\u2014not even by one inch! However, the US and UK reneged on their word. NATO moved eastwards ag\u00adgressively, enlisted the traditionally neu\u00adtral states of Sweden and Finland, and made a move to enroll Ukraine too. That would have culminated in NATO unilat\u00aderally absorbing East Europe, the center of gravity of Mackinder\u2019s Heartland, into its fold. Portentously, that would have brought NATO, in all its imperial power, might, and glory, onto Russia\u2019s borders. This would have seriously violated Rus\u00adsia\u2019s unimpeachable security threshold. The Ukraine war was Russia\u2019s response to this audacious, strategic maneuver by the US-led West and NATO. Ominously, Ukraine\u2019s immediate accession to NATO would have allowed it to invoke Article 5 (collective defense) of the NATO Charter, sucked NATO into a war with Russia, and potentially precipitated a World War!
\nCritically, the US-led West now wants NATO to have global ambitions and set its sights on the Indo-Pacific too. Ger\u00admany, France, Italy, even India, are al\u00adready taking part in military exercises in the Indo-Pacific, and some even plan to station forces there. With the US in full support, even the Europeans (and India) are acquiring a strategic reach that goes beyond their rather limited geopolitical spheres of influence and ac\u00adtual military muscle, capability, and ca\u00adpacity to project power. It appears that after Europe (Ukraine) and the Middle East (Gaza), NATO, along with QUAD, AUKUS, regional coalitions, etc., are be\u00ading mustered to the Indo-Pacific to po\u00adtentially tackle the Taiwan issue. As per known US strategies (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, and even Ukraine), it might prefer to forge and mobilize an alliance and\/or a coalition yet again to confront one isolated state only!
\nRegardless, the SCO must now acquire a more dynamic purpose than hitherto. That purpose must be directly relevant to the evolving, critical geopolitical sce\u00adnario, especially in the Indo-Pacific. It is time for it to expand exponentially and transform itself into a potent, formal al\u00adliance with undisguised geopolitical, economic, and defense\/security param\u00adeters. To that end, it will need to expand its sphere of influence and acquire glob\u00adal strategic reach. The SCO can thus help crystallize multipolarity, restore bal\u00adance in the horribly skewed geopolitical and geostrategic environments, and po\u00adtentially preempt war.<\/p>\n
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army. He can be reached at im.k846@gmail.com and tweets @K846Im.
\nCourtesy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imran Malik Halford Mackinder divided the world into three distinct regions. He described Afro-Eurasia as the World Island, comprising the interlinked continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia. Further, he described its Heartland (also known as the Pivot) as the region stretching from east of the Volga, south of the Arctic, west of the Yang\u00adtze, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13166],"class_list":{"0":"post-418322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-imran-malik"},"yoast_head":"\n