Good evening. It's such a pleasure to be

with you. I'm going to make an argument

today about how the world is organized

or at least how different types of

empires back in the day tried to

organize it. It turns out that

continental and maritime powers tried to

organize the world in very different

ways and that these have real uh

implications in our own day. Uh and I'm

going to be using terminology from

geopolitics and also grand strategy.

What is that? Geopolitics is the

influence of geography on politics and

grand strategy is grand in the number of

instruments of national power that it

integrates. And you're thinking, well,

what are they? And think about who sits

on a cabinet around a president who gets

convened. Those are the elements of

national power, right? So you've got the

state department, diplomacy, the

military, you've got finance,

agriculture, you got a whole long list

of people. and you want to integrate

these uh these things. But before I get

going, I'm going to give you a um a

sneak detour, a really whirlwind tour of

American history, which I'll get done

really fast along with a tour of some of

the great geopoliticians.

And uh before I will after that

appetizer, I will deliver the promised

main course. Okay, this is June 6th,

1944, D-Day, Normandy landings, where

sea power, maritime power meets land

power. It turns out maritime powers are

the exception and continental powers are

the rule. Why? Because maritime powers,

if need be, can defend themselves

primarily at sea with their navies.

Whereas a continental power simply

cannot, think Ukraine, a navy is not

going to save them from Russia. So uh

this is the first distinguishing

characteristic between a maritime and

continental power whether it is feasible

to defend yourself at sea or not. And

from this comes some implications that

if you sit in a continental world you

had better have a competent army and if

you're a maritime power to defend

yourself you better have a pretty good

navy. But these implications go beyond

the military to economics and politics

as well. And I'll go into these, but

this country began its life as a

continental power all about expanding to

guess what here, right? To the west

coast. And uh the United States tried

invading Canada a couple times. Not a

new idea. In 1775 and 1812, the British

won those things and we had to back off

on that idea. And then you get here,

President Monroe declaring the Monroe

Doctrine, which is a classic continental

spheres of influence, stay out of my

backyard moment. Uh, the only trick was

that the United States was so weak in

those days, telling the Europeans to

stay out of the Americas was just on the

wish list. It was impossible to deal

with. But if you look at the United

States, how it became the United States,

it's all about territorial expansion to

reach the West Coast. And unlike a

typical continental power which does

this with massed armies, the United

States preferred checkbook diplomacy. So

when Napoleon Bonapart was short of cash

in 1803, that's when the Louisiana

purchases made. And then when uh the

Russians were short of cash, a perennial

problem, that's when the United States

bought not only Alaska but the northern

part of the the West Coast. But when the

checks were not accepted, which is what

happened with Mexico, uh the United

States did the standard mass armies

approach in the Mexican-American War,

and that's how the United States gets uh

Texas. So that the next check offered

the Mexicans accept. And that's the

Gatston purchase, which gets the United

States, Tucson, Arizona, and other

places. The longest counterinsurgency in

this country's history was against the

native population that put up a really

bitter struggle. So the it's not the

longest counterinsurgency is not the

recent stuff in the Middle East. It's

about what we did to the native

population here that eventually had to

give up. And the Americans had a name

for their national expansion. It was

manifest destiny. the idea there was an

obvious uh fate of America or the United

States to uh control a good part of

North America and there were all about

territorial expansion and this painting

which hangs in the I think it's the

western staircase as you're getting into

the chamber of the house of

representatives it goes by the

politically correct title nowadays a

westward hoe well that's not the title

when it was painted it was westward the

course of empire takes its way Americans

were all about expansion and proud of

However, a different view starts

emerging in the late 19th century

propended by it was captain then later

Admiral Alfred the Mahan who is by far

the most famous professor ever

associated with the naval war college

where I spent 24 years of my career and

what he's looking at the more he goes

actually power in the position in the

world really isn't a function so much of

continental expansion and consolidation

but really it's about all the wealth you

can acrue from trade and he thought

there were certain prerequisites to um

follow a maritime security paradigm.

What are they? One, you need a moat. You

cannot be subject to uh invasion right

across your border or it's over.

Secondly, you need a dense internal

transportation grid in order to get the

goods out in peace time. You need

reliable egress by sea to get the navy

out in wartime. And you need a dense

coastal population. These are the people

going to be running all the commerce.

And uh you also need stable government

institutions that are going to be stable

in the sense that they're going to fund

a navy and that they're going to pass

laws that are going to u make commerce

happen. If you look at these

prerequisites and you look at China and

Russia today, neither one has the full

list. Far from it. Neither one has a

mode. Both of them have more neighbors

than any two other countries on the

planet. And many of those neighbors

don't like them at all for excellent

reasons. Russia has a lamentable

internal transportation grid whereas

China's has been improving. Neither one

has reliable egress by sea surrounded as

they are by narrow uh in the case of

China island clustered seas with a whole

and Russia as well loads of of

neighbors. These places tend to get

blockaded and closed down in wartime.

Russia has reliable egress up north.

Well, great. No one lives there. What do

you want to do? go pet a polar bear,

polar bear, it will not work out. In

addition, uh on dense coastal

population, yes, China has dense coastal

population, but again, it's onto a

narrow sea. Russia does not have a dense

coastal population up north. And uh

Russia's never had a commerce-driven

economy. China much more so under Dang

Xiaoping, but recently Xiinping has been

priv privileging the crony sector over

the private sector. And neither one has

stable government institutions. What's

the litmus test for that one? That would

be transparent regular elections and

dictatorship for life does not remotely

qualify. So, China and Russia certainly

have maritime ambitions. Uh but I'm not

clear they actually understand what goes

into uh an full maritime paradigm.

Anyway, um there was a counterargument

to man that comes a generation later by

a Britain, Sir Halford McKiner, who's

looking at the world and looking at

Britain's problems and he thinks that

actually Russia occupies the best uh

geopolitical location in the world, not

Great Britain because and this is a map

from his 1904 article and he defines as

the pivot area. Eurasia is the part of

the world he's focusing on and it's

where Russia is and he also calls it the

great heartland and he said look that

area the pivot area is the citadel of

land power on the great mainland of the

world it is the greatest natural

fortress on the world why because it's

insulated by mountains deserts uh frozen

seas and rivers that uh exit onto the

oceans and very inaccessible places

during wartime time and therefore it is

impervious to sea power that Britain

can't really get at at this area and he

said but if you occupy the heartland

this pivot area you have the possibility

for defense in depth strategic uh

retreat and selfsufficiency

so the heartland is not insulated by the

sea it's insulated from the sea and a

maritime power like Britain if it wants

to influence the heartland land. It's

got to do it on the periphery. In those

days, it would be through having

colonies in these very uh strategic

locations. In our own day, would be

having allies with bases in these

locations. Uh this man Nicholas Spikeman

was also very concerned about who

controls Eurasia. He felt that the

country that controls Eurasia could well

control the world. and he had much to

worry about when he completed his very

important work in 1943, the year he

dies. He's a naturalized American

citizen from the Netherlands, then under

Nazi occupation, and he felt that the

Nazis had come really close to

dominating Eurasia in 1941. And here's

what he said. Despite occupying the uh

the safest position of any nation in the

world, we Americans have been involved

in two devastating world wars in the

space of a quarter of a century. And in

the second one, i.e. the ongoing one, we

are at one point uh and in serious

danger of defeat. The expectations of US

statesmen regarding the outcome of their

actions were consistently wrong and

their thinking about national security

generally fail to provide successful

answers. sound familiar?

Uh in addition, he's looking at the

world and he said, "Look, the influence

of the United States can be brought to

bear in Europe and Far East only by

means of seaborn traffic and the power

of the states of Eurasia can reach us

effectively only by crossing the seas."

And this is true despite the development

of air power because big things go by

sea and they still do. Therefore, US

security was a function of sea power and

that sanctuary at home and by that I

mean in invulnerability to attack is a

function of a maritime shield. And

Spikeman is really concerned who control

controls the rimland of this great

heartland, friend or foe. And here's

why. The United States will have to

depend on her sea power communication

across the Atlantic and the Pacific to

give her access to the old world. And

the effect of this of this act access is

going to delimmit what sort of foreign

policy the United States can have. And

what the United States requires is a

continental ally who can provide a base

from which land power can be exercised.

What he's saying in World War II,

victoring that thing is going to depend

on alliances and allies. critical. All

right. So, that was the ordev. I've done

the whirlwind tour of American history.

Settled in a few minutes or less. You

should be happy about that one. And then

I've given you some of the most famous

geopoliticians there are, a synopsis of

what their ideas are. But here's my uh

this is the main course. First, I'm

going to talk about continental empires

because they come first in human

history. And then I'll turn to maritime

empires which come later. But then

there's the industrial revolution and

the postworld war II institutional

framework that opens the possibility of

a maritime global order. So that's my

game plan. Oh, I forgot one thing. Um I

don't know whether you all like animals

or not, but we at the Naval War College

love animals. And so we often refer to

continental powers as elephants and

maritime powers as whales. Bonus

terminology. All right, I'm going to

start out with China as not Russia,

which McKinder was preoccupied with, uh,

as the original land power. And here is

Sununza, uh, the preeminent theorist,

Chinese theorists on matters of

strategic in his art of war. And Sununza

is providing advice to kings on how to

stay on the throne, to conquer

neighbors, and do it uh, efficiently.

And in this world, you've got lots of

neighbors, any of which can in invade at

any time. Third party intervention is

the norm in this world. And if you think

about this book, it makes no references

to maritime warfare at all. And it makes

only tangential references to rivering

warfare. And you go, well, why is that?

Well, it's excellent reasons. He is

writing about the world of continental

empires in existence long before the

maritime things get going. And if you

think about the great uh civilizations

of Eurasia, often at their basis is

their great continental empires. And a

civilization answers the questions uh

how should I live and how should I

interact with others and is basically a

world order unto itself. And

civilizations have often fought with

each other to make their rules

universal. All right, a whirlwind tour

of China and what it looks like to be a

continental empire. So, here's a

precipitation map. Here's where it

doesn't rain very much. Here's

temperatures. That's where it's awfully

cold. Here's topography. That's where

it's flat. So, if you notice, you want

to grow things, you need it, where it's

warm enough, it rains enough, etc. And

here's a really good topographical map.

And it gives you an understanding of why

famine afflicted China for so many

centuries of its history and why it's

dependent on food imports today. It's

just too much of their real estate's

vertical to grow things on. And then

here's an ethnic map. You can see the

consolidated pink area. That's where the

Han, the preponderant ethnic group of

China live. And then they're surrounded

with all these heterogeneous areas

around them. You go, hm, I wonder what's

going on there. And then here is a

simplified ethnic map. It shows China

proper. And the curious might ask, how

did the Han wind up with all the prime

real estate? Because what's arable is

there. And the answer would be, well,

they laid waste to the competing Zongar

and Tibetan empires. I bet you've never

heard of the Zongars. They were wiped

out by theQing dynasty a long time ago.

And in the continental world, you're

faced with a binary choice or uh you

either become Han or they will kill you.

And so, you got to get out of dodge and

flee south or do something else. And uh

genocide is what happens to the losers

in continental warfare. And apparently

in our own day, the Weaguers are slated

for genocide.

All right, I'm going to give you a

whirlwind tour sanitized version of

Chinese history. The Hans start up north

in the Yellow River Valley. And they

spread and they spread and they do fun

stuff like they build walls and they

build more walls. Not a new idea. And

then they shrink back and oh that bad

bad time. But then they're back and then

oh I don't know what happened there but

anyway they're they're oh they

consolidated and then there's this thing

which looks like any other dynasty

except a little bigger. Uh not so the

Yan dynasty are Mongols. They're not

Han. This is an occupation dynasty and

that map's inaccurate because here's the

real story. The Mongols start out east

of Lake Bal and then they spread in

concentric rings more or less over the

Eurasian plane in another time of

climate change when their herds they

just had to move south or everyone's

going to freeze to death. The Chinese

act like it's like any other dynasty.

No, it's not. It's the Pax Mongolica.

It's the Mongol world order when the Han

were subjugated people. But they come

back with the Ming dynasty. But then the

Ming succumb to the second largest

empire in Chinese history, another

conquest dynasty. These folks aren't

Han, they're Manchu. And what's

fascinating is today when China claims

whatever its historic lands are, they

either choose the Mongol Yan dynasty or

the Manchu Ching dynasty when the Han

were subjugated people. So try to unc uh

untangle that logic. I'm not going to go

there. Um but the point was not to make

that snide remark, although I did make

that snide remark. uh but rather to show

you that there's been lots and lots of

expansion, lots and lots of shrinkage

and lots and lots of bloodshed while

this is taking place. China has been

raising armies denominated in hundreds

of thousands of people for thousands of

years. The west does not do this at

least not on a regular basis until the

Napoleonic Wars. Uh it's a brutal world.

Now, Mckender didn't much care about

China one way or the other because in

his lifetime, uh, China was a country in

freef fall. So, he's focusing on Russia,

the Continental Empire. Mckendra is

really concerned about Russia also

because it's building railways that are

going to give it all these internal

lines of communication. And Mckinder

think that's going to work really well

for them in wartime, whereas Britain is

stuck with exterior lines of

communication. Exterior because you're

going by sea in the uh on the periphery

of things. So if you look at the

Russians, they're like Mongols in

reverse. They start in Moscow and then

Moscow lays weight to the other city

princely city states and after that

they're after furs making money that

way. And the Russians keep going until

they run into countries that fight back.

So to show you how this works, this is

the Russian Empire at its height in

1914. So you can see Moscow at the

historic capital and you can look at the

colors there and see ooh the

administrative units are fairly small

around Moscow and they get really big as

you go out into Siberia and these are

civil administrative units and here's a

clearer map except it's not really clear

the the bigger these units they're

provinces they're called gubeni in

Russian or governorates but anyway these

provinces

uh are are standard administrative units

but for the recent ly ingested and yet

to be digested. They're putting into

different units called obelist obelisty

and you can't see them on map. They're

on gray print. So this shows you more or

less where they're located. Outlined in

red is where these places are. These are

the places in process of being digested.

So these are civil borders. These are

the military borders that are

superimposed over this. But only on the

conquered areas do you have governor

general ships. The general should give

you a hint of what's really going on.

And who's conquered? Finland, Poland,

Ukraine, caucuses, all the conates of

Turkystan, Siberia, and China has also

done this of having provincial

boundaries that come and go and move

around and also superimposing military

regions that also move around. Whereas,

if you look at like the United States

boundaries of states, they really

haven't changed. Just you got one set of

states and then that's that. But the

what's going on here is these boundaries

are a mechanism of ingesting, digesting,

and if you can't fully digest and turn

everybody into a regular province, at

least you can neutralize these ethnic

groups. All right, so Mckinder is all

about the advantages of internal lines

of communication. Well, it comes with a

corresponding disadvantage, which is

multiple neighbors. And these are

Russia's, no kidding, security threats,

circa 1900. and from west to east there

Britain, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the

Ottoman Empire, China and Japan. This

security world is really different from

Britain's 360 degree. You can't get me

moat. Lots of people have come to get

Russians over the years. And Russians

have fought constantly with Germans, the

Austrahungarian Empire, the Ottoman

Empire. They've uh suffered catastrophic

defeats to the Mongols, the Swedes,

initially the Napoleon, the Germans in

World War I and uh in the Cold War, but

each time the central position allowed

them to rise again. In this world, power

is a function of land. Neighbors are

dangerous. Even the itty bitty ones, if

they're unstable, that instability can

ooze over the border. Worse yet, if

they're um strong, stable neighbors and

they have an idea that you're going to

become a menu item for them, that's even

worse. So, in a maritime power, the army

is for expeditionary warfare. What's the

expedition? You cross the ocean and go

somewhere else. That's the expedition.

Uh-uh. In this world, purpose number one

of an army in this world is you protect

the ruling regime. So if you think about

the people's liberation army, it's uh

goal number one or mission number one is

to keep the communist party in power.

That's not what the armies are in the

maritime world. It's also secondarily is

garrison the empire, prevent defections.

And then thirdly, it's for border

defense. And as you're fighting at the

border, whatever you win, you keep,

right? As you're expanding outwards, you

hope. In this world, away games are a

rare event. Most of the fighting is

occurring right on the border. So these

are statistics about deaths, not just

casualties, wounded people. This is dead

people. Uh these are the sunk costs or

no one's breathing life into these

people are sunk casualties. So if you're

looking at uh axis military deaths, you

got 3.2 million dead German soldiers,

one and a half million uh Japanese,

330,000 Italians. Now let's look at the

Allied land powers. 8 and a half million

dead Russian soldiers, nearly a million

dead Poles, 1.3 million dead Chinese,

and 340,000 dead Frenchmen. Okay, look

at the maritime powers. By some

statistics, Britain and the United

States, Britain with 326,000 deaths,

United States 295,000. By some

statistics, they suffered fewer deaths

in the than Italy or France. And France

wasn't in the war that long. And then

when you add in all the civilian deaths,

the numbers for the continental powers

go catastrophic whereas they hardly

budge for the maritime powers. So you've

got uh over 7 million dead Germans, over

25 and a half dead Russians, almost 7

million dead Poles, 11 million dead

Chinese, nearly a million dead

Frenchmen. So the deaths for the the

land powers are measured in uh millions.

Whereas the maritime powers, it's

hundreds of thousands. Still not a great

number. And what's going on here? It's

because you're not insulated by the

oceans. So the fighting tends to be on

home territory. If that's the case,

you're ruining CI civilians at a really

rapid clip. And no country in its right

mind wants to fight on the main front if

there are alternatives. But this is the

continental powers unavoidable agony

that when the neighbor invades,

you got a choice on that day. either

you're going to capitulate or you're

going to fight and you're doing on the

neighbors timing. That's Ukraine's

problem. Whereas, if you're a maritime

power observing someone else being

invaded, because in theory, it's pretty

tough to invade you by sea, it's a major

point of strategy as to whether you're

going to intervene at all, and if you

are, what is the timing? What

instruments of national power are you

going to use? And these are things that

the United States needs to think about

very carefully before it intervenes all

over the place and overextends. But

there are advantages if you win uh this

uh kind of warfare. If you think about

Russians uh enormous sacrifices, I've

just listed that for Stalin. It means he

dominates uh Eastern Europe or Russia

does for the duration of the Cold War.

But understand that that kind of

territorial domination comes at a huge

price. The value of the object had

better be worth it before you try it.

In this world, there are certain rules

for playing this game. Rule number one,

no two front wars. I've shown you all

the neighbors. If they gang up on you,

it will be game over in a very bad way

for you. Secondly, no great power

neighbors. Why? Because today's friend

can be tomorrow's foe. And that spells

trouble. So, what do you do? You take on

your neighbors sequentially, right? One

at a time. You set them up to fail. You

destabilize the rising. You ingest the

failing. And you set up buffer zones in

between. and you await the opportune

moment to pounce and absorb. This is

Vladimir Putin's game. Uh better yet,

you get the neighbors to do the work for

you. How? You sew their mutual

resentments. You get them to fight each

other. You deluge them with fake news so

that Russia can play the role of the

jackal state, which is once the

neighbors have sufficiently weakened

themselves and weaken each other, that

Russia can move on in and steal a kill

made by others. This theory of security

has certain problems. One, you're

surrounding yourself by failing states.

You can look at Russia and China and

they're surrounded by some of the most

dysfunctional places on the planet and

you can go, gee whiz, are they unlucky

or are they complicit? And moreover,

there are no enduring alliances in this

world because the neighbors figure it

out. The hegemonic power is just a

long-term problem. And there's also no

counsel on when to quit. like how much

territory do you take before you choke

on it? And it turns out that there's

been a tendency over the course of

China's and Russia's long histories to

overextend. And this helps account for

the implosions of various empires and

dynasties. Now, before you dismiss this

security paradigm, understand it was

very effective. Uh certainly prior to

the industrial revolution, no one cared

in this in this world about collateral

damage or killing a bunch of innocent

people. This paradigm is all about

killing people, breaking things to take

territory. And you've seen it operating

in real time in your own lives in Syria,

Ukraine, and other places. Um, this is

why those ancient ruins, the ones that

still remain are ruinous are ruins

because this sort of warfare is ruinous.

All right. Here is u one of the

preeeminent historians of the late

Tsarist period, Vasilei Kuchescu, who's

describing his country. He said the

history of Russia is a history of a

country in process of colonizing itself.

Her area in of colonization grows in

tandem with her national territory at

times shrinking at times expanding age

all movement. Therefore the periods in

our history are the stages which our

people have gone through in the

occupation and development of the land

acquired by them. There is absolutely no

mention of the people who actually live

on this land. It's like irrelevant uh

from his point of view. But uh this is

the way Russians have long looked at

things that if you have small neighbors

uh someone big may take them over and if

um the even worse of the strong the weak

become strong on their own right it's

dangerous so you want to keep moving

outwards and uh expanding and here a

generation earlier you have dsttovski

uh the novelist the author of crime and

pun punishment and other light reads

here he is confiding in his diary in

Europe we are hangers on and slaves

slaves whereas we shall go to Asia's

masters in Europe we are Asiatics where

in Asia we too are Europeans our

civilizing mission in Asia will bribe

our spirit and drive us further so this

idea of empire is very deeply rooted in

Russian thinking and here is couns

period he was a finance minister and

he's looking at the world in 1903 and go

look the problem for Russia is to obtain

as large a share as possible of the

outlived oriental states. And he's

thinking of the Ottoman Empire, but

particularly of China. And he goes,

look, Russia historically,

geographically, has the undisputed right

to the lion's share of the expected

prey. And this elemental movement of

Russia began a long time ago with Ivan

the Terrible, aptly named. And the

absorption by Russia of a considerable

portion of the Chinese empire is only a

question of time unless the Chinese get

their act together. So here you have a

statesman at the highest levels of the

Russian government who is looking at

Russian national security. It's all

about territorial expansion. Well, Putin

also looks at the world this way.

Apparently

the problem for the likes of Putin is if

a continental uh power botches strategy,

its known world can vanish forever. And

this is what happened to Imperial China,

Imperial Russia, and many venerable

civilizations. I love this photograph of

a aristocrats whimsical palace that's

long gone as a result of one of the most

horrific genocides of the 20th century

when the communists made good their

promise to get rid of entire social

classes and I mean get rid of like gone

forever and with the bolevik revolution

the ensuing Russian civil war followed

by collectivization and then the great

purges that finished the job. This is

the continental world. It is a world

without insurance policies.

Okay. Now for the maritime world, it is

a different event. I love this picture.

I have no idea how accurate it is, but I

think it illustrates the point. So,

Sikman is talking about all of these

different rimlands and things. And you

you look at the Atlantic Ocean, it's the

center of the world economy in the 19th

century, and it's all about the rimlands

producing all of this wealth. And then

you put it on ships and you send it back

and forth so that the seas are a commons

that you want to share. The whole point

is you want to get goods going from port

to port. And in our own highlyworked

age, think about it, the seas of the

original network that potentially

connected everyone to everything. All

right. The genesis of this maritime

world I uh maybe it goes back further,

but as far back as I go, is the Athenian

Empire that is hugging the shores of the

Aian Ionian seas. And it's all about the

trade that's acrewing there that's

paying for their empire. The Romans

likewise a ve another remland empire

very different from the consolidated

empires like Russia and China and think

about the terminology Mediterranean meta

middleterranean land so it's the sea in

the middle of the lands whereas the

terminology for China junga jung's uh

central gua kingdom so it's the kingdom

among the kingdoms one term emphasizes

the centrality of the sea the other the

centrality of the land different way of

looking at things and here's the

Byzantine Empire another Rimland Empire

and Then for a while, no one encro

controls the rimlands anymore. And in

part, what's going on is there's always

been a lot of money to be made on East

West trade. It used to go by camels

among other things on the Silk Road. But

whoever controlled the Westworth toll

booth on that thing made loads of money

because that's where it splits, right?

And it's going to go on the southern or

northern shores of the Mediterranean. A

lot of fighting over that piece of

territory. for a while the Muslim

conquest settled it. they controlled it

and then uh while that's uh those things

are going on or some there is

continental consolidation going on in

Europe and both modern Germany and

modern France trace their origins to the

empire created by Charlemagne at the

turn of the 8th to 9th centuries and

then if you go to the end of the first

millennium you look at Europe no one

controls the rimlands but you got these

large states that things have coalesed

into and then the crusades in part are a

fight uh of these larger powers in

Europe to try to come back and get that

toll booth back again, which they fail.

Instead, the Ottomans have it for a long

time. And this is when the Europeans

have to get clever because they want to

trade with Asia. So, they we're going to

go by ship and we'll go the long way

around. And it's the Spanish and the

Portuguese that try this except they

bump into the new world. New to them,

not so much to other people. And they

also go, "Oo, lot of gold and silver

here." And so they forget about the

spices, silk, and the high-end dinner

wear and they're going to do heavy metal

instead. However, it's the Dutch who are

the real followers or of maritime empire

uh which is very much defined by their

trading bases. Their problem is their

location in Europe is vulnerable. And

it's not surprising that it is a member

of the Dutch Republic, Hugo Grodius,

who's the founding father of

international law. Why? Because maritime

empires want to be able to use the seas

as commons, don't want people pirating

their trade, and would like everyone to

have rules so that everybody can trade

in safety. So here's Hugo Grodius in his

Mara Liberum, freedom of the seas, uh,

writing that every nation is free to

travel to every other nation and trade

with it. And then in his law of war and

peace, he cites a Roman jurist. So this

is going way back. To all men belong the

use of the sea. And then he quotes a

Byzantine compilation of Roman law i.e.

going way back in western thinking by

natural law the following are common to

everyone the air flowing water the sea

and in consequence the seashore. Well

this is very much a product of western

civilization but not necessarily shared

by others. For instance,

in 1996, China signed the UN ratified

the UN convention of the law of the

seas. UNLOS and uh except China says

that freedom of navigation does not

extend within 200 nautical miles of

their coastline. Except under UNL, the

number is 12 nautical miles. And in the

East and South China Seas, these numbers

make a difference. All right. The

British are the real uh pioneers of

maritime empire because they don't

suffer the Dutch problem that Napoleon

eventually takes care of the Dutch and

integrates them into the French Empire.

But the Brit the Britain have this 360

degree moat. They're the only uh power

in Europe that doesn't need to maintain

a large standing army. Because if

Britain could maintain a competent navy,

no army's going to reach British shores

because they're going to be drowned at

sea. so that Britain could take a

weakness, its dependence on trade and

turn into a strength. So the tra the

trade is going to finance the navy. It's

going to protect both uh British

homeland and some of the trade. And then

Britain is going to be compounding

wealth while its neighbors are busy a

they neighbors have to fund large armies

that um uh can be economy killing and

also can be coup generating that are

going to be constantly fighting with

each other and destroying wealth in the

process. So while a navy could provide

Britain with a prevent defeat strategy

i.e. no one's going to get to Britain

but it couldn't a navy's insufficient

for a deliver victory strategy. It's not

going to eliminate these continental

problems. But if Britain can keep

compounding wealth over time and then

its neighbors are busy busy destroying

wealth at a rapid clip, then the

difference in wealth is going to get

larger and in that sense things will get

better for Britain. And the Britain's uh

after much trial and error came up with

a way of integrating multiple

instruments of national power to deal

with this gentleman on the horse. Oh, by

the way, if you want to see the horse's

skeleton, you can go to the British Army

Museum in in uh London, but that's

another story. Anyway, gross story. But

anyhow, uh here's a good old Napoleon.

And the Britain try different things uh

and eventually figured out. The problem

is that navies are rarely decisive in

wartime. You've got to have other

instruments to integrate. Armies

sometimes can be, but and so this is

where the Britain come up with grand

strategy. They coined the term because

they need to to do it. And here's their

problem. On the eve of the Napoleonic

Wars, says Europe has a bunch of

consolidated states, east and west, and

then there's this big tidbit zone in the

middle. It's called the Holy Roman

Empire, but it's really a tidbit zone.

And Napoleon eats up the tidbits. And

then you get to 1812, and this is the

maximum extent of the French Empire. And

this is when the guru of western warfare

Carl Fonclausitz is coming up with his

ideas about ground warfare. It's a

really bad year for everybody. Uh not

for Napoleon but everybody else. And uh

this is when the Britons are thinking

about how are you going to use maritime

power to deal with this? And here's what

they come up with their strategy for

elephant hunting. How do you deal with a

continental power that's trying to upend

the trading system on which you're

making money? So rule number one is you

keep the home economy growing. That is

number one because that's going to

produce the money that's going to fund

your military, fund your allies, allow

you to do everything. Secondly, don't

let the elephant forage. You want to

close down enemy trade through blockade

uh commerce rating. So you're going to

throw it back on its own dwindling

resources and its increasingly

embittered allies. Rule number three,

you want to rent an elephant. You want

to find the continental power that is

most directly threatened by your

continental problem and you want to arm,

fund, do whatever you can to keep them

in the fight because that's the main

front of whatever this war is. Rule

number four, Britain needs to find a

theater that is peripheral to that main

theater where access by sea is much more

efficient than access by land and wants

to and you want to fight there. Why?

because it's going to do several things

for you. The attrition between the

peripheral theater and the main theater

is going to add up. That's good. You're

going to force the enemy to fight with

divided attention. And ideally, if it if

it's a a a really good theater, you're

going to relieve uh some of the pressure

on the main front as your enemy's going

to have to divert resources. Rule number

five, a rule the Britain's broke at

great cost in World War I. Do not take

on the enemy main force directly. You

certainly do not do that as an opening

move. Think about it. A continental

power's major strength is its army. That

is not Britain's great strength.

Britain's great strength is its navy,

its ability to generate wealth, and

therefore its ability to survive

protracted war. Don't play the

continental game. It won't be good for

you. And rule number six, if you're

going to fight on the main front, only

do it after you have really bled that

elephant. So that has been gravely

weakened and you only do it with lots of

friends. Gang up on them. As much as a

continental power would might want to

play this game, it cannot. Why? One is

insufficient maritime access. When Mahan

talked about egress uh to the sea,

basically they're living they're on

these narrow seas that are blockaded

which means you cannot get your surface

fleet out reliably in wartime. Seconds

your merchant marine is going nowhere

and in addition these continental

problems often have a surfet of

neighbors and some of which might invade

it. So it can't play this game. But if

Britain did and kept at it, it could set

itself and its enemies on opposing trend

lines. So that the war is going to

increasingly encroach on enemy territory

with the main theater and the more

peripheral theaters which is going to

undermine the enemy of economy,

productive capacity, morale, and

together this is going to uh undermine

the ability for your enemy to continue

fighting. In effect, it's a strategy of

protracted war, but Britain's going to

win by exhausting the other guy first.

And if you look, think about it, the

focus isn't primarily on the military

instrument, national power. It's

actually much more about economics,

coalitions, institutions, but they're

prerequisites for it. You can't play it

if you do not have sanctuary at home.

Sorry about the double negative, but the

point is if people are going to invade

over your borders or level your

industrial base, you have a hard time

trying to do this. Moreover, it requires

access access to peripheral theaters,

access to your uh alliance partners,

access to overseas markets, and it also

requires institutional civil in order to

follow a str consistent strategy over a

long period of time. These are some of

the characteristics that man would later

emphasize. All right. After the

Napoleonic wars,

uh there followed a century of

unprecedented prosperity in Europe where

there was no uh continentwide war.

Again, during this period, there were

some smaller wars and it meant that

people were just making a lot of money

playing the maritime game, which is just

trade according to the rules. Compound

wealth, don't level each other's

buildings, you'll make money. But World

War I came, never mind. All right. Now

I'm into the second distinguishing

characteristic between maritime and

continental powers. The first one was

the ability or inability to defend at

sea. Here's the second one. Continental

powers face contiguous threats. So they

have to focus on national security and

often they want to insulate themselves

from neighbors and they want exclusive

zones to do this and they often want

those exclusive zones to extend out into

their the seas around them.

uh maritime powers think this is crazy

land because they've got the relative

security of the moat. No one's going to

invade them. So, they're going to focus

on national prosperity and trade is the

the path to prosperity and to security

because you this is the money that's

going to pay for everything. So, they

want maritime access to markets. So,

they want to operate with the oceans

being commons and they want it to go all

the way up from port to port because you

can't trade unless you go port to port.

So from these distinguishing

characteristics, you get two mutually

exclusive world orders out of this. One

of them is we're going to divide the

world up into very large spheres of

influence, each a world unto itself. And

the other one's no no. We're going to

operate under universal rules. Uh and

the seas are going to be open to

everyone. Okay. The industrial

revolution upends empires of both types.

And it's going to usher in uh a maritime

rules-based global order. And it's a

gamecher because it introduces

compounded economic growth which is

indeed revolutionary. And it arises over

a combination not just of technological

changes but also institutional changes.

What are institutions? It's how we

organize each other, right? we join into

some large institution and then it's has

some purpose and organizing people to do

things more efficiently. So in the early

phases it's starting with steam power

iron industry textiles insurance and

banking you can't do the trade without

insurance and banking for your loans and

things institutions and it's later

phases it's about railways telegraphs

steam trips mass markets trade uh

general staff's armaments and what's

going on is the currency of power has

changed power is a function of land back

in the day why because land is where you

get the commodities that you can sell

And also uh this is where you're going

to in rural areas is where you're going

to get your peasant conscripts to to

field your mass armies. Well, once

wealth is a function of of commerce,

industry, and trade, it isn't land

anymore. And this upends the world. If

you think about the world today, who's

rich, who's poor, who's uh powerful,

who's not, it's often the degree to

which the country is industrialized. And

it the industrial revolution opens up

the beginnings of a global trading order

where you're trying to um uh through

trade negotiations to minimize

transaction cost so everybody can make a

lot of money and this is a process that

is still ongoing in our own day. trade

negotiations continue eternally but it

upends the traditional balance of power

that traditional societies are suddenly

uh their paradigm security paradigms no

longer work and uh China back in the

19th century was uh just opposed

uh this incoming maritime order in our

own day ISIS or whatever is left of it

uh absolutely reviles the liberal

economies and societies that are

favoring this sort of uh trading border.

If you look at uh the big yellow area

that uh McKinder cared about with

railways because that railways are a

product of the industrial revolution. He

was thinking all in terms of an

integrated transportation grid there.

Another way of looking at this map is um

the Roman, British and Mongol empires

all share a piece of real estate. It

would be the western terminus of the

Silk Road. So in the continental world

that silk road is a really big deal and

that is prime real estate. However,

another piece of the industrial

revolution is the Suez Canal, which is

going to wreck the camel trade on the

going on the Silk Road because once the

canal is built, even with steamships,

but the the canal even more so, it is so

much cheaper to send things by ship than

to try to walk it over Eurasia with

draft animals. and it just upends the

economics of the continental world

versus the maritime world. And uh let's

fast forward a 100 years to the 1967

uh war where you've got Israel fighting

uh Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. And as part

of Egypt's strategy doesn't want Israel

using the Suez Canal. So they sink a

bunch of block ships here. So that's the

operational effect. Israel is not going

to be using Suez Canal. But here is the

strategic effect the ones that actually

count in this life. If you look at

before the war, um most what is it

almost 90% of ships were 50,000 dead

weight tons uh or less. And this is

numbers of ships, right? And so they

could all make it through the Suez

Canal, which could take ships up to that

size. But then the Suez Canal is is

closed down from 1967 to 19 uh 72ish.

And so that's a long time in world

trade. Well, look at the adjustments

that take place all of by the time you

get uh later you get by 72 you got

almost 30% of the number of ships not

the capacity are these huge ships that

never had existed before they're not

going to make it through the Suez Canal

and Suez Canal has since been widened

but still the biggest ships can't make

it through and so then if you look at

the cost of sending oil from the Persian

Gulf to Rotterdam and the Netherlands if

you're going to send it in an itty bitty

ship through the canal, it might be a

little over $13 per ton to send it.

Whereas, if you're sending in a big ship

the long way around Africa, I believe

it's a third that price. So, um,

strategic effect of things unexpected.

That overhead cost in shipping is is uh

the size of ship gets over a lot of it.

It's not about distance. And here's the

other guy who really re revolutionized

maritime trade, Malcolm Mlan, who I bet

you've never heard of, but now I'm going

to fix that. He ran a um trucking

company and he decided to put the

chassis his trucks minus the chassis on

ships, what we call containers, uh above

decks, below decks. And when he did

this, he reduced the cost, loading costs

from nearly $6 a ton from to less than

20 cents. And then port time is again

much reduced. So ships are out about

making money. And then for those of you

who are skeptical about international

organizations, here's one you've never

heard of. The International Organization

for Standardization then standardized

these container sizes to fit one if by

truck, two if by railway cars and

thousands if by sea. And this just

plummets transport cost. But so before

you dismiss international organizations,

understand here's a little one you've

never heard of that has made massive

changes in your lives. Okay? And it

leads to plummeting transport costs for

the duration of the 20th century. And

our latest uh dictator for life,

Xiinping, he's got this belt road thing

that he thinks is going to be a good

idea. Uh good luck with that one. And

here are the statistics that back me up.

Until 1960,

the average tanker size was 20,000 dead

weight tons. And if you look at our own

day, the smallest ultra-large uh crude

uh tankers are a quarter of a million

dead weight tons. I believe the longest

train can take maybe 600 containers uh

on a good day. Uh whereas the largest

container ships can take over 21,000 car

with cargos valued over $1 billion. So

it is so much cheaper to send things by

sea and oh on the belt road thing it

would be nice if the whole thing were

continuous. It's not. It would also be

nice if we're all the same gauge. It's

not. So you're loading unloading.

Loading unloading. What a mess. Also,

not only is it far cheaper to send

things by sea, it is far more secure. If

you're going to run the belt road thing,

uh or it's it's the belt part of it, the

land part. Um you've got to control the

whole thing end to end. You're going

through some of the most unstable places

there are. Good luck with that one.

Whereas in the maritime world, if it is

uh unstable or they do block ships and

close down the Suez Canal, well, forget

it. Just go the long way around. It'll

be fine. And also for China with its

geographical setup as it is, uh the seas

are going to be open to it only in peace

time. In wartime, this has nothing to do

with anyone doing anything to them. It's

just facts. It is surrounded by loads of

neighbors, shallow seas, lots of islands

that are completely blocked. They're

blocked in uh from the the high seas and

for very predictable points. In wartime,

those places become kill zones. merchant

traffic cannot make it through those

places unless you're friendly with

everybody which China currently is and

maybe it'll change. Um and uh even your

surface ships won't make it out. So a

peace is definitely the better thing. Uh

if you look at the end of the last cold

war to sadly we're into the second one

but look at how world trade just takes

off. It was the miracle of your

lifetimes. It lifted hundreds of

millions of people out of poverty. Uh

the problem for the likes of Putin is

that this wealth uh producing trade was

not uh happening at his house but the

houses of those vested in the trading

order not in extortion. But with the

second cold war we're into more

inefficient things again. All right.

This brings me to the third

distinguishing characteristics of

continental and maritime powers. It has

to do with the transportation

revolution. So continental powers

historically have leveraged interior

lines of communication that allowed them

to garrison their empire, deploy their

armies against neighbors, and then to

form a contiguous alliance system. And

that worked well when uh power was a

function of land. Well, that's not true

anymore. The maritime powers uh are

using these exterior lines of

communications, the ones by sea, to give

them access not just to the people right

next to them, but to the entire globe,

which opens the possibility for them to

form a global alliance system. And from

this reliance on interior versus uh

exterior lines of communication, it

gives you the possibility of what sort

of alliance systems that you can have.

All right. The industrial revolution put

continental empires on notice. Not

simply because land transport is so much

uh more expensive than sea transport,

but but because it opened the

possibility of a positive sum world

order. The land empire MO of beating up

all your neighbors, well, it's negative

sum. What do I mean by that? Is you're

fighting over territory. You're damaging

the goods while you're fighting. So

whatever someone lost in pristine

territory now looks like this and uh

it's negative sum. You're destroying

wealth at a very rapid clip. Whereas the

maritime world is no boys don't do it

that way. You want to have trading

partners. You want to have it win-win so

everybody makes money so we have

compounded growth. Uh and this maritime

uh order is focusing on freedom of

navigation, free trade, international

laws and institutions that facilitate

trade in order to minimize transaction

costs so we can maximize the money. And

the insurance system for all of this is

alliance system. So most countries

aren't maritime by geography, but if

they all gang up together and they

coordinate diverse instruments of

national power, when they're dealing

with these rogue continental states that

want to upend the trading system, they

can turn out in force to protect the

rules that protect them all. And here's

the ultimate insurance policy that was

created by the greatest generation,

which were the conscripts of World War

I, the people who were told to go up and

over trenches and to see how that would

go. And the ones who survived came back

and tried to raise their families during

the Great Depression. And then by the

time they were of the age to be

strategic leaders, um they're off

sending their own kids to fight World

War II. And they concluded and this is

uh this generation is in Europe and the

United States both. They concluded that

the solution to great depressions and

world wars was institution building on a

global scale. And they built

institutions that have lasted to the

present and held the peace until in the

industrialized world until Vladimir

Putin decided to word kismagic. But they

create the UN, the IMF, NATO, the

predecessor institutions of the World

Trade Organization and also of the uh

the European Union. And their idea is we

must hash out our diff differences with

diplomats and lawyers because when you

send the soldiers in, it is uh whatever

gains you think you're going to get are

going to be inferior to what you would

have done with the diplomats. It's it's

two ruinous fighting each other. All

right. So if you look at where the

fighting that did go on in the cold war

cuz it was cold in the industrialized

world but it was really hot elsewhere. A

lot of it's on this Mckinder's

intermarginal crescent which is where

the maritime and continental worlds hit.

So if there are civil wars going in

there uh the one side of the cold war

wants to put it finger on the scale and

the other one wants to put its finger on

the scale and there we go. And that is

all wealth destroying. It helps explain

why growth rates and things weren't as

uh or globally had problems because

you're destroying wealth. All right. The

maritime world is invisible. And this

took me 15 years teaching teaching at

the war college to notice the obvious.

Sometimes the obvious come becomes

obvious by stating it. And let's see if

it works for you. The continental world

is visible because it's about positive

objectives. It's all about making things

happen. So you want to take territory.

You can see it. Either you did or you

didn't. But the maritime world is about

negative objectives. It's preventing

things from bad things from happening.

And um you can never prove that you

prevented anything. Maybe no one was

trying anything to begin with. And uh

it's invisible, right? The thing you

prevented never happened. Surprise,

surprise. You can't see it. But in the

continental world, it's all about

positive operational objectives. You're

destroying neighbors to take their

territory. But at the strategic level,

you are destroying wealth at a massive

clip. That is a problem. Whereas the

maritime world, it's invisible of all

the bad things that you're preventing.

Anyone messing with the international

trading order, which you're making your

money from in part, a lot of domestic

activity as well. Um, and navies, their

missions more often than not are also

about negative objectives. Not all of

them. What are they? Uh, and think about

naval missions. Most of them happen in

peace time. Yeah, wartimes happens too,

but for navies, it's mostly in peace

time. And what are they up to? Uh,

mission number one is prevent the

destruction of the global trading

system. That would be important. Uh, uh,

your prosperity is hinges on that one.

Uh, the second really important mission

is prevent limits on freedom of

navigation because if you cannot get

goods to port to port, it's pretty

useless. And thirdly, it is to uh deter

uh expansion into taking over big

countries taking over little countries.

Think about it. The bedrock principle of

international law is sovereignty. If

we're all going to be invading each

other, what international law is there?

And the antidotes to rogue behavior

uh in this maritime world are alliances,

diplomacy, sanctions, embargos,

containment, numerous instruments of

national power, and navies are about

deterrence, blockade, and commerce

rating. What you're doing is you're

preventing the continental problem, the

elephant from foraging. You're just

saying you're getting a timeout from the

glo the rules-based order because you

can't behave yourself. And you can go,

well, the continental problem's still

there. Well, what's interesting, so you

all know about compounded growth. It's

powerful, right? Over generations. Well,

people don't think about this back to

negative objectives. Sanctions are like

economic chemotherapy. What you're doing

is presenting pre preventing one or two

percent growth per animal even with

leaky sanctions, right? Well, and you

go, "So what?" Well, oh no. So very what

is uh the difference over several

generations is the difference between

North and South Korea. I get it. North

Korea is still there, but they got the

much smaller piggy bank than they would

have otherwise. And yeah, you're not

getting rid of the problem, but if the

rogue state has nuclear weapons and you

go, "Oh gee, we want to get rid of it."

Really? You want to have a nuclear war

to get rid of North Korea? Isn't it?

This world is not about the operational

win of totally eliminating a problem.

It's rather it's containing it at

acceptable cost. So the North Koreans

want to live miserable lives at home.

Have fun with it. Go live miserable

lives at home. And uh it's being

contained at acceptable cost. That's

what's going on. Okay. The optimist at

the end of the cold war thought surely

everyone wants to join the maritime

party. Not so. The Continental Maritime

difference of opinion continues. And I

guess you like the slide here of Mr. Fit

and Misfit, Vladimir Putin and uh Kim

Jong-un. They want to upend this

maritime order. They want to hollow out

international institutions, upend

international law, kill off our alliance

system so we can return the world into

waring spheres of influence and that we

can live the sort of squaled lives their

citizens have to live. Okay. To

summarize,

uh there are very different geopolitics

associated with continental and maritime

powers. And these discriminating factors

are the inability or ability to defend

primarily at sea, a focus on insulation

from versus access to the world and a

reliance on interior versus exterior

lines of communication. And these

accidents of geography have predisposed

different preferences. one, a

continental power typically looks at

territory as something you might want to

take. Whereas a maritime powers, no, no,

no, that's a market. I want to make

money there. And uh who wants to own

their domestic problems? And then there

are uh the continental power wanting to

be self-sufficient. Whereas the maritime

say, hey, I'm going to trade for that.

Uh I want access to markets. They're

going to make a lot more money this way.

and the continental desire for exclusive

zones whereas the maritime saying no we

want commons we want to share the seas

space cyber uh and the air that this is

the way to do stuff and then many people

notice that most countries except for a

few islands uh they aren't strictly

maritime or or if they're completely

landlocked I mean most countries are not

strictly maritime or continental by

geography but there's a correlary

alliances can bestow a collective

maritime position and power package to

those countries that join in gets large

enough that even though they they

themselves are not maritime alone but

together they can be and this choice

about which way to go is very

financially consequential in our own day

uh because typically continentalists

tend to be dictators not always but they

typically and they're all about uh

hemorrhaging ash to dominate their own

citizens and their neighbors. Whereas

the maritime powers go, that's nuts. Why

would you ever do that? And they they're

keeping the growth compounding. And if

you think about China, it has benefited

more than any other country from

rejoining the family of nations and this

maritime world under Deng Xiaoping. But

this car the legacy of history and the b

the burden of history uh these

continentalist outlooks like I we need

to take Taiwan really um uh weigh

heavily and uh the choice is

consequential and there is only one

win-win solution. It's however flawed

this international order is, it's a work

in progress. And uh it the only win-win

solution is to deploy the diplomats and

lawyers to hash out these things in

international forums because if we're

all going to send uh soldiers, we're

going to get a third world war with

nuclear followon effects and uh we'll

see whether humanity makes it. If uh

this is it's tremendously consequential,

particularly at this juncture in

history. Anyway, thank you for your

attention and uh I appreciate you all

coming.