Land versus Sea
Land versus Sea
The fundamental struggle in history that will shape our era
This article is about geopolitical theory but not only. It will be highly relevant to the incoming report “Blockading China”. See at the end of the chapter “why it matters”.
Two different types of civilizations
One analytical tool for geopolitical rivalry is analyzing the very nature of the great powers involved.
Over time, history reveals a pattern of unavoidable conflicts between 2 very different types of civilizations.
The first one derives its power from the land. This could be a large continental landmass, but not always. The key part is that its power is derived from the land itself: farming, natural resources, and natural defenses like mountains.
Such power is a land power or to use the greek root “Tellurocracy”.
By their very nature, the land powers tend to be more conservative, religious, and traditionalist. People do not move often from their land, nor does society evolve much. It will be highly motivated to defend its values, and often expansionist.
The alternative is the sea power. The power of that state is derived from its control of the sea. Its wealth comes from trade more than agriculture or natural resources.
Such power is a sea power or to use the greek root “Thallasocracy”.
Because trade is conducive to more mobility and idea exchanges, such a power tends to be highly flexible. Because it relies more on money than population or natural resources, it also tends to highly rely on technology and/or diplomacy and mercenaries for its defense.
Origin of the idea
As a small side note, the land versus sea idea is erroneously attributed to Dugin, a Eurasianist and Russian political influencer, linked to Putin. This somewhat irks me as an example of the ridiculous shallowness of Internet knowledge on serious topics.
It actually takes its root in British geopolitics theorists, looking to avoid the emergence of a dominant continental hegemon able to threaten British interests.
This was further elaborated and updated to the modern globalized era by 1904 Mackinder's idea of the “World Island”, which could rival the English (and today American/NATO) dominion over the seas. (Mackinder had a strangely similar profile to mine, a biologist turning to history and geopolitics, maybe no wonder I like his outlook)
North America, South America, Britain, Japan, Australia, and lesser islands, Mackinder wrote, are mere satellites of the World-Island. “There is one ocean,” he explained, “covering nine-twelfths of the globe; there is one continent — the World-Island — covering two-twelfths of the globe; and there are many smaller islands … which together cover the remaining one-twelfth.”
A duel played and re-played over history
The land vs sea narrative is perfectly illustrated by Sparta versus Athens. A militaristic, agriculture-focused society, Sparta, rivaling with a sea-bound, trade-oriented and heading a large diplomatic colation Athens.
The two kept fighting continuously in the 45-year long Peloponnese wars, until Sparta's power was finally destroyed.
Another famous historical example is Rome versus Carthage. The land-based Roman legions, fought against the fleet and mercenaries of the Tunisian trade center of the Mediterranean.
To illustrate how land-bound the Roman army was, let's look at how they finally managed to win a naval battle. They would ram their ship on the Carthagenese so both ships are stuck together, and then fight on the ship deck like in a land battle. Instead of innovating on shipbuilding, they would quite literally ram into making everything a land battle.
This narrative keeps playing again and again, especially in European history:
Sea trading Byzantium versus Islamic land raiders (Persians, Arabs, Tatars and Turks).
France versus England for almost a millennium: 100 hundred year war, 7 years war, Napoleonic wars, and SO MANY OTHERS.
Venice
England/USA versus Germany in WWI and WWII.
The USA versus the Soviet Union.
And more recently, NATO vs Russia.
I think sadly a new chapter might be added one day to history books, USA vs China.
Why does this keep happening?
Mostly because each of these powers has fundamentally different values. What one side cherishes as a key part of “civilization” is viewed as morally wrong by the other. This leaves little room for compromise.
Diametrically opposed world views
Let’s see each civilization's structures and values.
You will see, they cannot agree on anything:
If this looks like a general description of Russia for land power, and the USA for sea power, you got it.
I assume that most of my readers will either come from USA or UK or be of liberal/libertarian tendencies. So they will likely have a natural bias in favor of sea power civilizations.
What I would like to insist on is that none of the 2 is “evil” or “wrong”. We know from experience that both are viable templates to establish a brilliant civilization.
For example, Rome is still held by most people as the pinnacle of Ancient civilizations. The efficiency of its legions, its architectural marvels, laws, and institutions are legendary.
Its tendencies for genocide, the complete absence of women's rights, or religious persecution tends to be often forgotten.
Similarly, the US, and the British Empire before, might be described as a benevolent power. They rule mostly by the force of diplomacy, culture, and trade. They promote human rights and democracy. Their technological prowess is admirable.
They are also very money-driven, creating very unequal societies drifting toward oligarchies. Individuals might feel atomized and rootless. Religion is barely a part of life and in general social cohesion is much lower than in a tellurocratie.
What’s right?
At this point, I want to make it clear that I do not think either of the 2 models is perfect.
Maybe one day humankind will find a new way that manages to temper the worst aspects of both. Looking at the level of current political discourse, I will not hold my breath…
You might also notice that in modern political values, land powers are more to the “right” and sea powers to the “left”. So this might color your preconceptions as well.
In a nutshell:
Tellurocratic societies offer a lot of meaning, identity, and cohesion. They are also remarkably sturdy and excellent at monumental buildings and “civilizing” hard lands. But they tend to be less free, less flexible, and often less prosperous.
Thallasocratic societies are more meritocratic, prosperous, and innovative. They are also more divided and offer little meaning to life beyond the accumulation of money and social status.
A good tellurocracy offers stability and meaning to its citizens and will build a cultural legacy lasting millennia (Rome). A bad one is a 1984-like Orwellian nightmare (the Soviet Union or Maoist China).
A good thallasocracy is innovative, rich, and free. A bad one is an oligarchic nightmare straight out of Brave New World from Huxley.
Why does it matter?
If I am doing this rather intellectual side note, it is because it is highly relevant to our current days’ geopolitical and international investing situation.
On one side we have the USA/NATO/West+Japan:
capitalistic
sea trading nations
very low religiousity
individualistic
multiculturalist and minority rights maximalist
financialized service-focused economies
globalist alliance.
On the other the Eurasian Tripod Russia/Iran/China:
socialist or state capitalist
land bound
religious (Iran), ideologic (China) or both (Russia)
collectivist
ethnically and culturally homogenous (or with one ethnicity dominating the rest)
repressive of sexual minorities
agricultural or industrial economies
multipolar alliance
This is like the ultimate, world edition for the land vs sea conflict. Almost as if the Cold War was only a warmup.
And at this point, each side is painting the other as the warmongering, civilization-destroying devils.
How it unfolds
The first thing to assume is that both sides do what they usually do when confronting their opposite.
Land powers will:
Try to secure their borders and neighboring vassal states (Ukraine, Syria, Taiwan)
Close up to foreign influence and aim for self-sufficiency.
Militarize their society and double down on mobilizing along cultural, religious, and ethnic lines.
Sea powers will:
Form a dense network of allies.
Build a powerful narrative of good freedom-loving people versus evil enslaving conquerors.
Cut the opposite side from trade with ANYONE, not only the sea power alliance.
Cutting the Eurasian Tripod from trade
Cutting China out? Nonsense! Right?
Why I am so sure of incoming blockading actions? Because the initial steps before a full blockade, economic sanctions, are already in full swing.
Iran is under sanctions for almost a decade now. Russia has seen years if not decades worht of monetary reserves stolen frozen and got cut from trade with any countries in the sea power alliance (NATO/West+Japan+Taiwan).
The question lingers regarding China. Considering its integration into the world economy, cutting it off would be very painful, even more so than the self-inflicted energy crisis in the EU.
But this is what sea powers do!
Napoleonic France was cut from its colonies during the entirety of the war, and most likely lost when it failed to defeat the Royal Navy at Trafalgar.
Both the Kaiser’s and Hitler’s Germany could not win the war without energy, food, and metal supplies from the outside.
Imperial Japan cut from American oil (80% of its supply) lost before a shot was fired at Pearl Harbor.
Even the Soviet Union collapsed when forced to choose between keeping communist doctrine or losing grain imports.
Yet, it’s happening…
Now the last piece in the puzzle just arrived and it is the growing sanctioning of China.
Not anymore with the goal to change trade practices like under Trump. Or hurt specific companies like Huawei.
Now, the goal is clearly to keep China from ever reaching technological parity with the West:
“Biden Is Now All-In on Taking Out China. Whatever the Consequences“
More “preventive sanctions” which will not trigger any reaction for sure: the U.S. considers China sanctions to deter Taiwan action; Taiwan presses the EU
The Chinese position in response was: “China's pace of expanding opening-up will not be disturbed by noise”
This noise and fallacy is not only ideological bias, but also geopolitical scheming. At the same time, it is also full of confusion and self-contradictions: They criticize China for "closing the door," but on the other hand they say that China is engaged in "global expansion"; they claim that China is "taking advantage of the world," but they also smear China's self-reliance as "decoupling" from the world.
In today's world, there are indeed some people in the US and the West who want to reverse the course of history, going against the trend of economic globalization. But such words and deeds will not be accepted in Chinese society, and are not welcomed in the international community.
And then the sheer stupidity / arrogance / hubris of populist US politicians giving plenty of fuel to the “enemy” propaganda:
What is interesting is that I doubt China wants to self-isolate. If anything, it needs trade even more than the USA.
But it also knows it might not have a choice.
Hence the Road is part of the Belt and Road Initiative. If the sea lanes are closed, it will still have those highways and railroads to weather the storm.
Do blockades work?
Thallasocracies control the flux of goods and naval chokepoints. They cannot match the tellurocracies in terms of manpower or raw determination. But they can starve the enemy population and its war machine.
It can be highly effective.
I would however like to point out this is not a silver bullet.
Carthage failed to maintain its blockade, was internally disunited, and was utterly destroyed as a result. Athens almost suffered the same fate. Constantinople is now Istanbul.
The determining factors are:
Can the blockade be effective or could it be broken?
Are some critical resources going to miss after the blockade?
Will the blockade strengthen or weaken the diplomacy of the sea alliance?
The next stage nowadays is when Russia still manages to sell plenty of oil and gas and grain to India, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Africa, etc… Not all of it, but enough to stay afloat.
As these countries will not stop buying, the only solution will be to block the ships from leaving Russian shores.
The road from sanctions to blockades to war
From a sea power perspective, blockades are a “cost-efficient” method to avoid a war. It uses ships you already own and the trading system you control but with no active combat. Not surprising it is attractive for a culture obsessed with capital, trade, and profitability.
From a land power perspective, this is an aggressive and dishonorable method. By cutting trade and hoping to create an economic collapse or dismember the state, the adversaries reveal their unrelenting hostility and wickedness. It is seen as proof that a war to stay free from imperialist foreign powers is unavoidable.
I remember 12 months ago when I heard of “preventive sanctions” to prevent an attack on Ukraine, I could not believe how dumb such a statement was, coming from top diplomats and politicians. This was most likely one of the major triggers of the war! “If they are going to try to strangle us anyway, we have nothing to lose”.
Read any recent speech of Putin and you will hear exactly that. “We did not have a choice, we attacked before they did”. This is not the paranoia of a single man, but the result of a deep difference in views about history, philosophy, and society.
Now we are doing it with China, a much bigger fish. I am sure they will react by humbly apologizing and admitting they were wrong to want to advance technologically...
For that matter, most of the population in Eurasia (all land powers) agree that “it is NATO's fault”. Even Western-friendly India thinks that way:
Russia doesn’t want any War, neither with Ukraine nor with the WEST.
Russia clearly quoted, “We don’t want to divide Ukraine, we just want a constitutional guarantee of Neutral status of Ukraine”
If you think this is just Russian propaganda, you need to read more, out of the Western media bubble. This is more of a land-based civilization type of opinion.
As most of the world's cultures are coming from land-based civilizations, the Russian/Chinese/Iranian arguments have more sway internationally than you might think. For that matter, this is why Putin’s arguments used to have quite a strong echo with German elites, beyond self-interest or corruption.
It is not an accident that the BRICS organization is now adding Argentina and Iran, and soon probably Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Really, the new nickname of the extended BRICS could be “Tellurocracy Inc”. Same for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
The sea-based powers simply cannot let that happen.
So they will have to go for the incoming blockade on China, not long after the one on Russia.
And it will be the most important event of this century.
Stay tuned to see how it might play out.