GEOPOLITICS

the analysis of geographic influences on power relationships in international politics. Geopolitical theorists have sought to demonstrate the importance in the determination of national policy of such considerations as the acquisition of natural boundaries, access to important sea routes, and the control of strategically important land areas. The term geopolitics was coined by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjelln in his Staten som Lifsform (1916; The State as an Organism). The term spread throughout central Europe between World Wars I and II and came into worldwide use during the latter. Between the wars, geopolitical arguments came to be employed in special pleading to promote the interests of particular nations or ideologies. Thus, for example, Karl Haushofer sought in his monthly journal of geopolitics, Zeitschrift fr Geopolitik, to give a geopolitical rationale to the international claims of Germany; later, the Nazis adopted his theories for their own purposes. A warning was sounded by Sir Halford Mackinder (The Geographical Pivot of History, 1904, and Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919) when he advanced a theory of a heartland in world politics. This heartland covered Euro-Asia, and, according to Mackinder, it was vital that the democratic nations control that area. In the past, a nation's sphere of influence has been determined primarily by geopolitical factors. Such factors have, however, become relatively less significant in the foreign policies of states because of the improvements in communications and transportation that have enabled states to overcome the limitations imposed on them by geographic location or barriers.