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Islam in the ‘World Island’:

A negation of the Heartland Theory

By:

Dr. Mohammed Khalid*

A mention to international regions is common in the everyday language of


politics and the notion of regional politics based upon relations distinctive to a
particular geographical region has long been a staple of international politics.1 A
reference to international region identifies geographic clusters of states, such as those
in "Western Europe", the "Middle East", or the "Southeast Asia". These terms normally
imply that the states in the group are in several respects interdependent mainly
because of their geographical proximity. The consciousness of area identity -based on
any common strand, cultural trait or religious commonality– can motivate some or all
those states to deal collectively with "outside" powers; and that policies toward any state
in the group should take account of the likely reactions of its neighbours. 2

A regional anlysis is based on the cluster of variables which form linked patterns
within each international region. The configuration of a region is built by mapping the
basic attributes of the states in a particular area and their major patterns of relations.3
Geographers recognize two forms of regions i.e. the single-feature region like an
agricultural region and the multi-feature region which they call the geographic region or
the compage.4 However, no region -including the single feature region- is finite. Regional
boundaries can scarcely lay claim to universal acceptance. As Hartshorne has said,
"Any regional division is not a true picture of reality, but it is an arbitrary device of the
student... depending on what elements appear to him as most significant."5 Using a vast
amount of empirical data and quantitative techniques, Bruce Russett devised a criteria
for the identification of regions that include cultural homogeneity, political attitudes on
external issues as manifestated in the voting of governments in the United Nations,
political independence as indicated by participation in intergovernmental networks,
economic interdependence as evidenced by intraregional trade in relation to national
income, and geographic proximity.6 The relative degree of balance and complementarity,
and the extent to which the states of a region are oriented toward integrative behaviour
constitute important features of a regional configurations.

*
Department of Evening Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. E-mail: mdkhalidchd@yahoo.com.
1
2
.

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Within a region there exist sub-regions. Of these some of the states act as the
core states while others exist and interact at the periphery of the region. Then there are
influences coming from states outside the region which are designated as part of the
intrusive system for example the intrusive role the United States plays in the Middle
East. In order to understand the politics of a regional system or sub-system four
"pattern" variables may be taken into account, viz., the level of cohesion -cultural,
political, ethnic, linguistic [or even religious]; the level of communications and
interchanges; the power of each state relative to others in the region; and the kind of
relations peaceful or conflictive that exist within the region. 7

Halford J. Mackinder (15 February 1861-6 March 1947), "One of the most
influential [geopolitical] thinkers of modern time", comprehending the contemporary
scenario regarded it imperative to view the world as a whole, a composite of regions
rather than an aggregate of states.8 He regarded Euro-Asia as a region which he termed
as Heartland, the pivotal area, which was most likely to be the world power. His theory
emphasized the possibility of a huge empire being brought into existence in the
Heartland. Dividing geography of the Earth into two sections –World Island consisting of
Eurasia and Africa and Periphery including Americas, the British Isles and Ocenia-
Mackinder gives World Island an overarching edge over the Periphery in world
dominance.9

In his famous Article, "The Geographical Pivot of History", Mackinder defines


Euro-Asia, the core of his Heartland, as a Region:

"The conception of Euro-Asia to which we thus attain is that of a


continuous land, ice-grit in the north, water-grit elsewhere, measuring
twenty-one million square miles, or more than three times the area of
North America, whose centre and north, measuring some nine million
square miles, or more than twice the area of Europe, have no available
water-ways to the oceans... The east, south, and west of this heart-land
are marginal regions, ranged in a vast crescent, accessible to shipmen...
[These regions] coincide with the spheres of the four great religions –
Buddhism, Brahminism, Mahometanism, and Christianity..." 10

Describing the interplay of various forces throughout the history of Heartland


Mackinder continues:

"... we have here had empires belonging essentially to the marginal


series, based on agricultural populations of the great oases of Babylonia
and Egypt, and in free water communication with the civilised worlds of

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Mediterranean and the Indies. But, as we should expect, these empires
have been subject to an unparalleled series of revolutions, some due to
Scythians, Turkish, and Mongol raids from Central Asia, other to the
effort of Mediteranean peoples to conquer the over-land ways from the
western to the eastern ocean... Whenever the Babylonian, the Syrian and
the Egyptian Oases were weekly held the steppe-peoples could treat the
open tablelands of Iran and Asia Minor as forward posts whence to strike
through the Punjab into India, through Syria into Egypt, and over the
broken bridge of the Bosphorous and Dardanells into Hungry."11

Mackinder's theory suggests that there was a pivotal area in the closed
Heartland of Euro-Asia which was most likely to be the world power. His model was
more or less based on world history and geographical facts. He defined ‘World Island'
that consisted of two continents Eurasia and Africa. And, after the First World War he
suggested that struggle for the command of the Heartland would most likely be between
Germany and Russia. He summarized his findings in 1919 that: who rules East Europe
Commands the Heart-land; who rules the Heartland commands the World Island' Who
rules the World Island commands the World.12

In the heart of the Eurasian-African World Island lies the Middle East which has
been the cradle of civilization and birth place of all Semitic religions -Judaism,
Christianity and Islam. Geographical factor in Middle Eastern History has great
significance. This region is geographically located in the middle of three continents and
connects and separates three oceans. After the expedition of Nepoleon in 1798 and
temporary French occupation of Egypt, the Middle East entered into international
politics and rivalries. It became a bone of contention between the European powers like
the French, the British, Russians and the Germans. They competed for its domination
and control untill Britain became the lord paramount of this region.13 The discovery of
oil in early 20th century gave the region a new importance. It became heartland of
energy supply, increasingly vital for industrial nations and their dependence on fossil
fuels continued to expand.

After World War I and especially World War II, the United States gradually and
finally replaced Great Britain as dominant power in the Middle East. The policy of Great
Britain was and later of the United States is that no other external power, and no
regional power, should dominate and disturb the balance of power in the Middle East
especially the Persian Gulf.

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Rise of Islam in the 'World Island'

Emergence of Islam stress the role of the Prophet Mohammed (570-632) who
lived in Mecca and the Medina at the beginning of the 7th century A.D. After an initial
period in which he was rejected in his home town of Mecca, Mohammed was able to
found a community and a state with himself as its head in the town of Medina. By the
time of his death in 632, several of the Arab tribes and a number of towns, including
Mecca, had submitted to Mohammed and embraced Islam.

Following his death the caliphate was established to provide for succession to
Mohammad in his role as head of the Islamic community. The Islamic state expanded
very rapidly after the death of Mohammed both at converting unbelievers to Islam and
by military conquests. Abu Bakr,14 the first Caliph continued the effort to incorporate
Arabia into a region controlled by political power of Medina. The merchant elite of
Arabia consolidated their power throughout the Arabian Peninsula and began to launch
some exploratory offensives north towards Syria. During the reigns of first four caliphs
from 632 to 661 AD, Islam spread rapidly. In 636 Arab armies conquered Syria. The
Muslims then won Iraq from the Persians and by 642 subdued Persia itself. The greater
part of Egypt fell with little resistance in 640 and rest shortly afterwards. By 661 Islam
had vastly increased its territory in the near East and Africa. 15

Historically, the notable Muslim dynasties in the 'World Island' include the
Umayyad caliphate from 661 untill 750 A.D. with its capital at Damascus (Syria). 16
During this period the Umayyad caliphate spread to Cyprus, Rhodes and a number of
Aegean islands. Westward, across the north Africa, the Berbers occupying lands
between Mediterranean and the Sahara converted to Islam. Across the Strait of
Gibraltar, the kingdom of Visigoths in Spain was overpowered by 718. The military
campaigns further reached upto southwest France across the Pyrenees. Eastward, into
Central Asia, and by the eighth century they reached as far as Turkestan and Indus
Velley.17 By 733 AD, an ordered Islamic state stretched from India in the east to Spain
in the west. During this time Islam underwent a number of important developments.
The two main sects of Islam –Sunni and Shiism- began to form during this period. The
ideological conflict between these two forms has weakened successive Islamic rules
throughout history.18

Another important Islamic dynasty was the Abbasids who ruled the caliphate of
Islam from 750 untill 1258. Islam had become a very powerful force by the 10th century.
The peak of this caliphate was probably achieved in the region of Haroon al-Rashid
(786-809).19 Thereafter the civil war between his two sons -al-Amin and al-Mamun-

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weakned the caliphate. Their religious authority was gradually taken over by the
scholars of Sunni Islam. The followers of Shiism had rejected the Abbasids completely.
Politically they were reduced to be puppets in the hands of their Turkish soldiers. A
parallel political authority titled Amir al-umra (Commander of Commender) was
created, which usurped the real political power in the hands of the Turkish soldiers.
During this period, the Shiite Islam achieved its definitive form with the appearance of
Shiite law and distinctive collections of hadiths. Though the Abbasids period is regarded
by many as the golden Age of Islamic civilisation, it was a turbulent period replete with
internal dissensions rather than any thought of building a World empire.

Wherever Islam expanded, there also traveled the Arabic language and culture.
The only acceptable version of the Quran is Arabic and prayers are performed solely in
the classical Arabic. Thus the language traveled with the religion and in order to fully
assimilate into the life of Islam, the new areas coming under Islam adopted, to a greater
or lesser extent, many of the vestiges of Arabic culture.

The only formidable Muslim empire encompassing the 'World Island' can be
regarded as the Ottoman Empire which endured from about 1300 to 1922. It spanned
three continents covering the area from Hungary in the North to Aden in the South and
from Algeria in the west to the Iranian frontiers in the east. The main business of the
Ottoman state was war as it expanded the empire through conquests. Army was its
most important institution. The administration was shaped by the needs of the armed
forces and provincial administration was essentially a system of military districts ruled
by officials whose primary duty was to organize military campaigns. Roads and bridges
were constructed mainly to facilitate the movement of troops. 20

As Europe witnessed its Renaissance which began in Italy in the 14th century
and spread to the rest of the Europe by the 16 th and 17th centuries, the decline of
Ottoman Empire began which finally collapsed with the abolition of this dynasty on
November 1, 1922.21 The western powers European powers and Russia who gained
strength from 17th century onwards, however, were neither the powers of Eastern
Europe, nor the Heartland and nor of the World Island.

The Islamic heartland strattled the three continents of Asia, Africa (especially its
northern half) and Europe. The area comprised of the 'World Island' that Mackinder
described as springboard to the rise of powerful empires or kingdoms. The area
occupied by Islam was central to all trade routes. Trade from southern Africa and
Europe passed through African-Islamic lands, from China and Southeast Asia to
Europe passed through key Islamic territory as did similar routes leading to India.

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Islam reached central Asia and south Caucasus in the eighth century bringing
the whole of Central Asia (except northern part of Kazakhstan) and Caucasus gradualy
under the Muslim Rule. In the course of time most of the; population of these areas
converted to Islam. It further spread to the Tatars, Volga-Ural in the middle-ages. The
nomads of North Kazakhstan and Kirghiz accepted Islam between 16 th and 19th century.
Its propagation and expansion continued upto the beginning of 20th century. Different
tribes of Volga like Mari, Mordvinian, Udmut and Chuvas accepted Islam during this
time.23 Yet, the Muslim countries occupying these lands never arose to create a power
that could unify and consolidate the Muslim world, let alone aspire for world
domination.

At the turn of the 20th century, many parts of Eastern Europe like North
Caucasus, Idel-Ural, Ukraine, Crimea were occupied by the Muslims. Chechnya,
Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Ingushetia, Tatarstan, Bashkinia
are Muslim majority areas of Russia and part of Mackinder's Heartland. Alongwith
them, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are Muslim
countries of Central Asia. Its extended Chinese parts of Xinjiang (also called Sinkiang),
Ningxia, and Qinghai have sizeable Muslim populations. In the 'World Island' of
Mackinder almost entire space is occupied by the Muslim countries. On the African
continent, Tunisia, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Senegal, The Gambia, Mali,
Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Niger, Algeria, Libya, Chad, Egypt, Sudan, Eriteria,
Djibauti and Somalia, are Muslim nations. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Yemen,
Oman, United Arab Emirats, Qatar, Bahrain, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, turkey and
Iran comprising the Middle-East are Muslim countries. In contiguous areas of South
Asia, Pakistan and Bangladesh are Muslim countries while India has the second largest
Muslim population in the world.24

The leading analysts of political geography have endlessly debated if the land
power is more important than the sea power and what specific region of Eurasia is vital
to gain control over the entire continent. In his effort to explain land power setting,
Mackinder, through his theories spelt out a prescription in order to avoid the British
imperial decline. He bound Britain and the Dominions in a League of Democracies with
one fleet and one foreign policy and encourage economic growth within the empire by a
system of tariffs that promoted imperial trade. He said, "The actual balance of political
power at any given time is .... the product, on the one hand, of geographical conditions,
both economic and strategic, and on the other hand, of the relative number, virility,
equipment and organisation of the competing people."25

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Mackinder successively revised his concept of the Eurasian 'pivot area' (which
included Siberia and much of central Asia) and later, of the Central-East-European
Heartland (lying at the centre of the World Island, stretching from Volga to Yangtze and
from the Himalayas to the Arctic) as the vital springboard for the attainment of
continental domination. This concept was invoked by German political geographers to
justify their country's 'Drang nach Osten' (Drive to the East) and more pertinently by
Karl Haushofer who adopted the concept to the Germany's strategic needs for
Lebensraum ("living space").26

The concept of Heartland also recalled the 18th century strategist’s notion of the
"key position" on the battle field,27 the recognition of which was crucial to victory.
Mackinder thought that the Heartland was impenetrable to foreign invasion; changing
technologies offered increased mobility which favoured land powers; its central position
provided interior lines of transportation and communication; it was loaded with natural
resources; and the Eurasian World Island, being the home to the majority of the world's
land, people and resources, was the springboard for global hegemony.28

Mackinder considered Middle East as the heart of Eurasian – African World


island, but there is no evidence that he anticipated how oil would make some Middle
Eastern States geographically so important that his 'peripheral island groups' –
Americas, Australia, Japan and British Isles- would desperately attempt to colonise,
control or influence the entire region. It was also beyond his imagination that this
region would become centre of international terrorism. And that, the radical Islamist
groups will unleash a new type of symmetrical warfare against the West and the United
States. Terrorism, that has changed the contextual frame work of strategic conflict is
not a conventional, structured military conflict rather a warfare initiated from within
the civil society and confront economically, technologically and militarily superior
adversaries. Mackinder could not anticipate the rise of a radical Islam from within the
World Island which has the potential to disturb the international order and threaten the
Western dominated civilizational structure. Moreover, the Muslim nations of Central
Asia, Middle East and Africa have a common religion providing only a semblance of
Unity. Within Islam there are divisions (Shia and Sunni) and sub-divisions resulting
from adherence to different interpretations of Islam. In the past as well as present the
world of Islam has not shown itself as a single, cohesive, coherent, comprehensive and
monolithic entity.29 Neither there is possibility in near future that the Muslim countries
will constitute a single entity.30

7
Mackinder, as a geographer and proponent of World Island could not have
ignored the glaring strands of conflict among Muslim countries. Almost all of them have
unsettled border problems with each other that has caused military conflicts and civil
unrests in them.31 The ethnic conflicts between the Arabs and non-Arabs, Kurdish
problem in Iraq, Iran and Turkey and such conflicts in Central Asia are visible. The
multifaceted conflicts within the World Island, dominated by Islam, has no potential to
be a springboard for creating a continental power, let alone a world dominating one.

Middle East has increasingly become the nexus of international lines of


communications. Four important strategic and commercial passages of the world for
commerce and especially oil, viz, the Strait of Harmuz, Bab al-Mandeb, Suez Canal, and
Turkish Straits, are located in the Middle East. The growth of oil and gas reserves in
Africa, the Middle East and more recently in Central Asian Republics are vital to the
economies of United States, Europe, Japan, India and China. There is strong possibility
that future rivalries may emanate between United States and the People's Republic of
China for energy security. Indian concerns for its energy security are no less and its
interests in Middle East oil are equally vital.

The area will dominate and remain relevant to the geopolitical analysis of
Mackinder's theories, but remain dependent to the geopolitical designes of the
developed industrial powers of the Periphery. His key geographical position -the Eastern
Hemisphere– also does not enjoy any strategic advantage and the heterogeneity in the
World Island, pre-destined to infighting will continue to put it to disadvantage when
compared to the unity of purpose of the Peripheral Islands. After the Second World War,
the US foreign policy of Soviet containment were based on the Heartland concept. The
United States and its allies took the full advantage of heterogenity in the Heartland and
'World Island' and played one nation there against the other throughout the Cold War. 32

Mackinder has received a fresh look by some scholars in the 1990s in the United
States and abroad especially in Heartland itself.33 It is argued that he has placed key
geographical position in the wrong part of the world and that Heartland was never
capable of bestowing any extraordinary advantage upon its inhabitants. The theory is
an example of inappropriate applied analogy. He took Britain's traditional fear of the
dominance of the resources of continental Europe by one power and extended to
encompass the entire world. The Eternal geopolitical realities and national interests are
mirages. The idea that a Heartland power has any advantages due to its position on the
map cannot be historically and theoretically justified.

8
Lord Curzon said in 1898, "I confess that countries are pieces on a chessboard,
upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world". 34 In the
contemporary chess game the US thinks that the only way it can be safe is if the
continental powers do not unite against her. The contemporary US involvement in the
Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia substantiate this argument. To ensure the
continued dominance over the huge oil and gas wealth the grand imperative of imperial
geostrategy is "to keep the barbarians from coming together."35 Mackinder's
formulations, it seems, were based on the situations of early twentieth century and his
interpretations of history mainly of the 19th century. Several developments since 1945,
including the Cold War and the post Cold War suggest that Mackinder is entirely
irrelevant if not totally obsolete in the present context. The world hardly resembles the
one that Mackinder examined in 1904 and thereafter. Today almost a century after the
Heartland theory was propounded, the world has shown a renewed interest in the
World Island and the region will continue to have a considerable influence on the
character of the international system in the 21st century. But it can not become a
springboard to establish a world dominating power, as Sir Halford J . Mackinder had
thought about it.

References

1. McLellan, Davids : Theory and Practice of International Relations New Delhi,


Prentice Hall of India, 1977, p. 445.

2. "The Comparative Study of International Regions", in Feld, Werner J and Bayd,


Govin: Comparative Regional Systems, New York, Pergaman Press, 1980, p. 3.

3. Ibid.,

4. Cohen, Saul B: Geography and Politics in a World Divided, New York, OUP,
1975, p.63.

5. Hartsharne, Richard: The Nature of Geography, Lancaster Pa, Association of


American Geographers, 1939, p. 285.

6. Oran R. Young, "Professor Russet: Industrious Tailor to a Naked Emperor",


World Politics 21, No.3, April 1969, pp. 486-511.

7. McLellan, op.cit., p. 446.

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8. "Man in society forms local communities and the natural environment may be
marked off into natural regions: natural regions influence the development of
the communities inhabiting them; communities modify the regions they inhabit;
the regions, so modified, influence the communities differently than before; and
so the interaction continues." Parker, W.H: Mackinder, geography as an aid to
Statecraft Oxford Clarendon Press, 1982, p. 147.

9. Mackinder, Sir Halford J; The Geographical Pivot Of History", The Geographical


Journal, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, 1904.

10. Ibid.,

11. Ibid.,

12. See, Spykman, Nicholas, “heartland and Rimland,” in Kasperson, Roger E &
Minghi, Julian V. The Structure of Political Geography, University of London
Press, 1970, pp. 170-77.

13. See, Gelvin, James L: The Modern Middle East, New York, OUP, 2005, pp. 88-
99.

14. “The Emergence of Abu Bakr”, in Shaban, M.A: Islamic History, A New
Interpretation, London, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971, pp. 16-27.

15. For the history of Islam from 600 to 750 AD, see Ibid.,

16. Ibid.,: For the Spread of Islam under Umayyads See, The Encyclopaedia of Islam,
Vol. IV, London, Luzac & Co., 1934, pp. 998-1011.

17. See, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 22, 1989, pp. 115-129.

18. For a thorough account of the Shiism, its origin and development, see, The
Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. IV, op.cit, pp. 350-358; Hughes, Thomas Patrick:
Dictionary of Islam, New Delhi, Cosmo Pub., 1977, pp. 572-79.

19. See, Ibid., pp. 271-72; Palmir, E.H: Haroun Al-Raschid: Caliph of Baghdad,
1976.

20. For culture, daily life, festivals, food and sociability as well as various other
aspects of Ottoman life, see, Faroqhi, Suriya; Subjects of Sultan: Culture and
Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire, New York, I.B. Tauris Co., 2005; Gresh, Alain
and Dominique Vidal: The New A-Z of the Middle East, New York, I.B. Touris Co,
2004, 230-31.

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21. See, Cook, M.A: the History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, Cambridge
University Press, 1976; Kinross, Lord: The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall
of the Turkish Empire, Harper Perennial, 1979.

22. For the spread of Islam in Central Asia during the 8th Century. See,
Sankrityayana Rahul: History of Central Asia, Calcutta, New Age, pp. 130-166;
“Early history of Spread of Islam in Soviet Union, http://www.witness-
pioneer.org/vil/books/SH-CA/chapter_1.htm. Bukharaev, Ravil: Islam in
Russia: The Four Seasons, London, Macmillan, 2000; Hunter, Shireen, “Islam in
Russia”, at http://www. Qantara de/webcom/show_article php_c476/i.html.

23. Yunosova, Aislu: “Islam Between the Volga River and The Ural Mountains”,
www.ca-c.org/dataeng/07. Yunosova.shtml; khakimov, Rafael, “Euro Islam in
Volga Region”, http://www.kazanfed.ru/en/authors/khakimov/publ1/

24. The countries with Muslim majority occupy about 21% of the land area in the
world. With 1.8 billion, the Muslims constitute 29% of the world population. See,
“Majority Muslim Countries”, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ majority_muslim_ countries.

25. Cited in, Sempa, Francis P, “Mackinder’s World”, American Diplomacy, Vol. V,
No.1, winter 2000.

26. Drang nach osten (Drive to the East) was German policy to calonize the Slavic
lands east of Germany. The term originally referred to the eastward movement of
german settlers in the 12th and 13th centuries but was resusrrected by Adolf
Hitler in the Second World War to describe his plans for acquiring Lebensraum
(living space) for Germans. See, Encyclopaedia britannica online,
with://www.Britannica.com/ eB/article-9031147/ Drang nach-osten.

27. See, Alferd Vagts, “Geography in War and Geopolitics”, Military Affairs, No. 7,
Summer 1943, pp. 85-86.

28. For details see, Fettweis, Christopher J, “Eurasia, the “World Island”:
Geopolitics, and policy making in the 21st century”, Parameters, Summer 2000,
pp. 58-71.

29. Mazori, Shireen M, “Dialogue within the Islamic World: Asia, Africa, the Muslim
Diaspora,” paper presented in the Conference on Territoriality and Extra-
Territoriality: Instruments for changing attitudes, held at Four seasons Hotel,
Amman, 6-7th March 2004; Nasr, Vali: The Shia Revival: How conflict within
Islam will shape the future, New York, W.W. Norton, 2006.

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30. Sullivan, Antony, “A sense of Seige: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West”, Arab
Studies Quarterly, Summer, 1996, pp. 1-2.

31. The major land disputes inflicting the Muslim countries include, Libyan claim of
19,400 Sq.Km. in north Niger and parts of south-eastern Algeria and its
maritime dispute with Tunisia; boundary dispute, between Sudan and Egypt,
between Ethiopia and Somalia over Ogaden, between Ethiopia and Eritrea over
the ownership of the triangle of Badme; dispute over Hawar islands and
maritime boundry between Bahrain and Qatar; dispute between Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia, over Qaruh and Umm al Maradim islands; between Iran and UAE
over the islands Abu Musa, the Lesser Tunb and the Greater Tunb; between Iran
and Iraq over unsettled borders and claims on Shatt al Arab waterways; between
Iraq and Kuwait over territory and island of Bubiyan; Baundry dispute between
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on Isfara velley area. These disputes have the
potential to threaten the world peace and continuous dissensions between the
Muslim countries. For the list of the disputes, see, Calvert, Peter: Border and
Territorial Disputes of the World, London, John Haper, 2004; also see
http:///www. didyouknow cd/story/disputes. Htm.

32. Thompson, Scott, “Brzezinski testifies against himself”, Executive Intelligence


Review, vol. 26, No. 15, April 9, 1999.

33. For current literature in this regard see, Collins Gray, “Geography and Grand
Strategy”, Comparative Strategy, No. 10 (October-December, 1991), p.p. 311-29;
David Hansen, “The Immutable Importance of Geography”, Parameters, No. 27,
Spring 1997, pp. 55-64; Gerald Robbins, “The Post Soviet Heartland:
Reconsidering Mackinder”, Global Affairs, No. 8, Fall 1993, pp. 95-108.

34. Cited in, Bandimutt, Prakar: “India and Geopolitics–Part-I” Strategic Security,
14.9.2006.

35. Brzezinski: The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives, New York, Basic Books, 1997.

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