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To begin with the beginning, geopolitics, as explained on Wikipedia is a theory within the International Relations and describes the relation between politics and territory and comprises the art and practice of analyzing, proscribing, forecasting and using political power over a given territory.” Sounds nice, but what are the applications?

Let’s start with understanding the importance of human geography in the formation of real life history. This little sphere of mud we fancy calling Planet Earth is inhabited by almost 7 billion little ants now - us, humans. These tiny creatures live all around the globe - though not in an equal distribution - but wherever they live, they obsessionally keep thinking about how to dominate the whole sphere. Geopolitics is a useful method to understand the challange in front of any wannabe Caesars and Napoleons.

Let’s see our first picture now:



This is the population density of our real world, with areas coloured purple being the places with the most tiny ants around. Looking at the map, an extraterrestrial would not hesitate to point out that the most important areas of the Earth’s surface are in what we call South East Asia. However, he (she/it) might be surprised to hear that the most important decisons about all those tiny ants are not made in Delhi or Beijing, but in a white mansion in 1600 Pennyslvania Avenue, Powertown - on a moderately populated, biggish island on the other side of the ball of mud. Of course, our extraterrestrial visitor would not be informed about a few facts. That white mansion happens to be the home of the leader of the world’s most powerful country. It is the grey men in the grey Treasury Building there who still run the world’s biggest economy. Just round the corner is the Federal Reserve, running the world’s reserve currency. On the far side of the fast-flowing Potomac sprawls the Pentagon, still the world’s biggest office building: its 25,000 denizens run a defence budget as big as the rest of the world’s added together.

Power is not determined by the size of population governed. The hunders of millions of Chinese peasants have less to do with decisions about their own fate than the passangers of a few choppers flying over the Potomac. How can we map the distribution of power, influence and wealth then? We could try to figure out macroeconomic data, military spending, education and health care standards, but there is a simple and practical way to get a quick image of those tiny ant’s activity levels:



This map shows the Earth By Night. Now we have a general idea about where those little beings can afford lighting the sky above them - and that pretty much reflects their consumption levels (and thus supply) of one of the most important stuff down there - energy. We now understand how the West or the Atlantic Civilisation can have such an unparallled power projection ability.

Thinkers, scholars and experts of that weird feature - power - have constructed various theories during the centuries describing the importance of human geography in history. Sir Halford Mackinder came up with his Heartland Theory, dividing the map to a ‘Pivot Area’ (the control over which would be the key to global dominance) and two ‘Crescents’ or peripheries, consisting of the areas expanding from Europe (a tiny peninsula on the end of the huge Eurasian island) to South East Asia, as well as an outer periphery surrounding that all from Alaska to … well, Alaska again.



Samuel P. Huntington, a contemporary scholar of geopolitics came up with the concept of the Clash of Civilizations, and had drawn another map. While Mackinder’s maps shows where the strategically important territories are, Huntington’s model depicts the formal or informal alliances, cooperations, civilizational-cultural groupings struggling for the control over them. In other words the first map shows us the potential Conflict Zone while the second the Power Spots. What is common in both concepts, that they put the virtual center in the middle of the ‘World Island’ - the megacontinent Eurasia.



But we are still dealing with the real world, how does that all relate to our virtual game universe? Well, the answer is the difference itself. In our game, ‘population’ has a mucm more important role. While a few tanks or Rompers can put out the damage of a few hundred (or even thousand) other players, power is practically based on the number of players in various virtual countries. And the distribution of population happens to be pretty different from what we have seen in the real world. Compare the next map with the first one.



As you can see, the most important difference is that the focus of power is shifted from North America and Western Europe to Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Our virtual New World has a virtual human geographical centre (Power Spot) slightly to the East from where it is in real life - and a Conflict Zone to the North West. China and India are not superdense, yet underdeveloped spots, but together with what Mackinder described as the ‘Outer Crescent’ a relative periphery around the hotspot our virtual history is being written. The eUnited States itself is not a superpower - though undoubtedly one of the dozen or so major powers. (note that because of differences in the size of regions differences in actual population numbers are even bigger)

Now let’s take a look at how this world population is organized into alliances:



As we can see, our (New) World’s major rift can be drawn somewhere from the Baltic Sea to the Aegean. With the majority of players battling each other in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, our geopolitical Core, or Heartland is located there. All around there are inner and outer peripheries - but still peripheries. Contries, alliances, armies all marching to those battles in the Core.

Nice, indeed, but again, what are the practical and immediate applications? There might be none. However, taking some time for seeing things from a broader point of view, bending above maps and trying to understand relations might be pretty useful at times.

The New World Economist is in the comfortable position of having stayed out of the tensions between factions of the United States military - and given that we play a war game set in a persistent virtual universe, that practically means the whole virtual society. I would certainly not like to make sides in those debates, I suggest we (you) put them aside - or even better, behind yourselves.

What I’m asking you is simple: forget about who the authors are, look at it as a concept coming out of a clear blue sky, put all past grievances and differences behind, and read this plan as a concept of reorganizing our backyard - in a geopolitical sense. Do not argue against the people behind, do not make assumptions on their intentions, just take the idea as it is: a plan to improve the power of the eUnited States. Regardless of the upheaval about the publication of the plan, having an unbiased, public debate of it, establishing a balanced view based on a fair consideration of all the options, potential benefits, obstacles and feasibility - would only contribute to a more open-minded, more thoughtful, more united virtual society in our virtual eUnited States.