More History…and More Geography: Why the Cold War Doesn’t Make Sense

So, the last post explored the possible effects of geography on the conflicts in the Balkans.  While the Balkan conflicts are incredibly complex, they have typically been either small-scale or a smaller part of a larger conflict, so I can at least make some sense out of them.  Sure, it seems kind of odd that a group of ethnically diverse nations would put aside their differences and join forces to break free from the mighty Ottoman Empire…only to start fighting each other within 5 years.  But again…it makes geographical sense given the historical and natural characteristics of the region.  However, the Cold War is much harder to explain from a geopolitical standpoint.

The US and USSR, unlike the Balkans, are not teeter-tottering between major powers; they are the major powers.  It is not a very difficult endeavor to explain the causes of the Cold War from a political, social, or economic perspective; however, the war doesn’t, on the surface, seem to make sense geographically.  The United States and the Soviet Union were located on entirely different continents and divided by the largest ocean on the planet.  Unlike the Balkans, the US and USSR were not located in juxtaposing regions.  The conflict took place primarily in Europe, but that would seem one-sided geographically, since the USSR is much closer to Europe and thus it would seem easier for them to project influence over the area.  The main problem with the war geographically, though, is that the war was not inherently a conflict of geography.  While past wars often revolved around territorial claims of expanding states, the Cold War revolved around political, economic, and social claims on a territory, rather than solely the natural resources or position of that area.

But the Cold War doesn’t make sense at first because it can’t be compared.  It is not the same as other wars.  The Cold War, geopolitically, is the first hyper-modern war.  It is a war where intellectual and economic claim are more important than the size of your territory and the natural resources your territory possesses.  Rather, the social resources you can get from your allies are more important than the natural resources you have.  The distance between the United States and the Soviet Union would have rendered the Cold War pointless and near impossible before, but technology has made the geographical distance obsolete.  The war is not…natural.  Geography is no longer solely about natural resources.  The nations of the world have made geography about who is where as much as it is about what is where.

History and Geography

The 1990s dilemma in Bosnia is the latest in a long line of conflicts in the Balkans.  This region has become notorious for its instability and constantly changing political map.  Even in the days of the Roman Empire, the Balkans served as a crossroads between Catholic and Orthodox parts of the Empire.  It was the middle ground between Christians and Muslims in the Crusades.  Then we all know how World War I went down.  Even in the Cold War, the Iron Curtain split straight through the Balkan Peninsula.  That brings us up to the conflicts of recent decades.  It’s too easy, though, just to say that the Balkans are a point of conflict just because they are the Balkans, and that’s because while there is definitely a trend of conflict in the region, there is not a consistent cause for these conflicts.  It’s not enough to say that there’s a bunch of conflicting ethnic groups, since the events of the area have revolved around everything from ethnicity to religion to politics over hundreds of years.  So it is intriguing to explore the possible reason for all of these inherently different types of conflicts happening in the same place.

I think a major contributing factor to the constant conflicts in the Balkans is the geography of the peninsula.  If you’re going to divide the world up into pieces, the Balkans don’t really fit into the puzzle any way you slice it.  You want to divide Western and Eastern Europe?  Sure, England and France are in the West while Russia and Ukraine are in the East, but the Balkans don’t obviously fit into either category.  They’re also wedged between Europe and Asia, and wedged between the Mediterranean and Black Sea.  Another major geographical characteristic of the region is a lack of natural resources; the area is mountainous and lacks a lot of good farmland.  This could be the reason that the Balkan nations have found themselves surrounded by big power blocks.  The Greeks and Macedonians expanded south through the seas rather than north through the mountains.  The Romans expanded east rather than north in the same manner.  Then you have the Christian Europeans whose land path to Jerusalem is impeded by the Balkans.  So there are a number of geographical characteristics that might explain why so many major powers seem to form around the Balkans rather than in the Balkans.  And when you have lots of major powers forming around one area…there you go.