Strategic Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The missing words are East Europe.

The passage is Halford Mackinder's famous summary of his Heartland theory, from Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919): 'Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.' The Heartland was the vast interior of Eurasia, and East Europe was the gateway to it.

Western Russia is part of the Heartland itself, and Western and Central Europe lie outside the region Mackinder named as the key.

Answer: C

The region not part of the Midland Basin is the Western United States of America.

In his 1943 article 'The Round World and the Winning of the Peace' in Foreign Affairs, Mackinder added the idea of the Midland Ocean, the North Atlantic, with its basin: Western Europe and Britain on one side, and eastern North America, the eastern United States and Canada, on the other. Together these formed a power centre to balance the Heartland.

The North Atlantic, Western Europe and the eastern United States are all part of the Midland Basin. The western United States faces the Pacific and lies outside it.

Answer: D

The answer is All of the above.

In The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (1890), Alfred Thayer Mahan listed six principal conditions affecting a nation's sea power: (1) geographical position, (2) physical conformation (coastline, harbours, resources), (3) extent of territory, (4) number of population, (5) character of the people and (6) character of the government.

Physical configuration, geographical position and extent of territory are all on this list, so no single option is complete on its own and 'All of the above' is correct.

Answer: A

The book was written by Herman Kahn.

Herman Kahn, a RAND Corporation strategist, published On Thermonuclear War in 1960. It argued that nuclear war was possible to think about, plan for and survive, analysing deterrence, escalation and civil defence in cold detail. It was hugely controversial, and Kahn later developed his escalation ladder in On Escalation (1965).

Robert Kaplan is a journalist on geopolitics, Henry Kissinger wrote Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957), and Lawrence Freedman wrote The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, a history of the subject.

Answer: C

The air-warfare theorist is Billy Mitchell.

Brigadier General William 'Billy' Mitchell of the US Army Air Service was the leading American advocate of air power after the First World War. He argued that aircraft had made battleships vulnerable, demonstrated it by sinking the captured German battleship Ostfriesland in 1921 bombing trials, and campaigned for an independent air force, which led to his court-martial in 1925.

Liddell Hart (printed 'Liddle') wrote mainly on land strategy and the indirect approach, Mahan on sea power, and Clausewitz on war in general, long before aircraft existed.

Answer: A

The author is Andre Beaufre.

The French general Andre Beaufre defined strategy in An Introduction to Strategy (1963) as 'the art of the dialectic of force or, more precisely, the art of the dialectic of two opposing wills using force to resolve their dispute'. He saw strategy as a contest of wills, conducted at every level from nuclear deterrence to indirect action, not only on the battlefield.

Clausewitz defined strategy as the use of engagements for the object of the war, Liddell Hart as the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfil the ends of policy, and Robert Osgood is known for writing on limited war.

Answer: A

It was Jack Snyder.

In a 1977 RAND report, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Limited Nuclear Operations, Jack Snyder argued that Soviet nuclear thinking could not be understood through American game-theoretic models, because it was shaped by a distinct 'strategic culture', the beliefs, attitudes and habits of thought about strategy that Soviet leaders had absorbed from their history. He thereby introduced culture into modern security studies.

Thucydides and Machiavelli are classical writers long before nuclear doctrine, and Kenneth Waltz's neorealism deliberately left culture and domestic factors out of its explanation.

Answer: D

National character as an element of sea power was propounded by Alfred T. Mahan.

Among the six conditions of sea power in The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890), Mahan included the 'character of the people': a nation inclined to trade and commerce, ready to seek wealth by the sea, would produce seamen and shipping and so develop sea power, as Britain and the Netherlands had.

Clausewitz and Jomini wrote on land warfare, and W. (Billy) Mitchell on air power.

Answer: A

The journal was founded by Karl Haushofer.

The German general and geographer Karl Haushofer founded the Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik (printed 'Zeitschriff fur') in 1924 and edited it for two decades. Through it he spread German geopolitics, with ideas such as Lebensraum (living space) and pan-regions, which were later linked with Nazi expansionism.

Friedrich Ratzel was an earlier geographer who developed the organic theory of the state, Zbigniew Brzezinski a Cold War American strategist, and A. T. Mahan the American theorist of sea power.

Answer: A

The strait is the Gibraltar Strait.

The Strait of Gibraltar, about 14 km wide at its narrowest, separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa and connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints.

The Bering Strait separates Russia and Alaska, linking the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. The Bosphorus links the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and the Bab-el-Mandeb links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.