A Study Of The Relativity Between Spykman’s Rimland Theory And U.S.Containment Strategy

Recently,as Sino-US official relationship develops with fluctuation,academic studies of American geopolitics again returns back to the mainstream of Chinese political research.Inevitably,Nicholas J.Spykman,as a founder of American geopolitics,naturally acquired more attention.Spykman’s theoretical innovation revealed that the balance of power on Eurasia and the supremacy in two Americas are requisite preconditions to assure the national security of the United States.And his novel thought of encircling expansive Eurasian Heartland by taking advantage of rimland made him anointed as “the Godfather of Containment”.Even the Cold War and Containment Strategy was terminated with the disintegration of the Soviet Union many years ago,together with geopolitics,their gravity to U.S.foreign policy remains as prominent.Two important fields intersect when some scholars insisted that the brainchild of Spykman was the original blueprint of Containment Strategy in Cold War.However,current related researches neither provided a panoramic or systematic analysis of Spykman’s theory nor indicated in what specific aspects two strategies shared similarity.Therefore,this thesis prudently examines Spykman’s Rimland Theory and U.S.Containment Strategy,probing the relativity that probably exists between the two.Specifically,the relativity can be found in the aspect of similar domestic and international background,guiding values and overlapping strategic focuses.More importantly,this study tries to define the core interest of the United States,depict American way of conduct as a political entity and demonstrate consistent geopolitical concerns in American foreign policy making so that related countries can effectively countermeasure its Asian-Pacific Rebalancing Strategy and later similar but probably more aggressive geopolitical incursions.