Walton, C. Dale. Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century: Multipolarity and the Revolution in Strategic Perspective

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2008 by Stephen B. Smith

Walton, C. Dale. Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century: Multipolarity and the Revolution in Strategic Perspective. New York: Routledge, 2007. 160pp. $125

C. Dale Walton, PhD, is a lecturer at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom, specializing in strategic studies and foreign policy.

Over the past half-century the field of geopolitical studies has been void of scholarly works at the (Sir Halford) Mackinder and (Nicholas) Spykman level of inquiry. However, Walton's Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century is a work of such foresight and ambition that it just might stand in such company. Unlike most of his fellow classical realists, who tend to limit their prescriptive endeavors to sensible warnings--or at best general policy recommendations--Walton pushes the prescriptive and predictive potential of history to its limit (in some cases possibly over the limit) as he uses history to formulate specific strategic guidelines for the making of policy in the future. Walton effectively merges the lessons from the past with the post-Cold War political, demographic, technological, and cultural patterns to explain the most likely geopolitical context of the near future.

Walton's message is quite simple: although it is hard to predict the future, it is possible to locate some trends that will heavily shape the future environment of international politics and that, combined with what we know about the past, will present useful criteria on what we should expect to witness in the future. His warning is also clear that security communities that "understand, accept, and encourage" such changes will have an advantage over those that do not. His two main arguments are, first, that eastern Eurasia will replace Europe as the most geopolitically important area of the world, an arena in which strategic competition will take place in a multipolar environment created by the rise of minor powers and the decline of major ones (especially the United States); and second, that the rapid pace of technological advancements will likely produce another "revolution in military affairs" of such significance that its importance will be second only to the ability of security communities to undergo a "revolution in strategic perspective" (RSP) that allows them to adapt effectively to the changing security environment.

Because much of the book focuses on the future role of technology and its likely impact on warfare, at times it appears as though Walton has abandoned classical realism and become a technophiliac futurist. He warns that the American proclivity for allowing moral issues to blur strategic clarity could prevent it from embracing the RSP. This theme, while pervading, tends to get lost in the discussions about technology--one of the very few flaws in this work. Also, Walton tends to speculate in depth about the potential of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and computer science but pays little attention to the likelihood that the future will witness an increase in competition over the strategic exploitation of space. Nonetheless, he more than makes up for these slight flaws with his thought-provoking geopolitical analysis.

Walton argues that the "Columbian Epoch" actually ended in 1991, and not at the beginning of the twentieth century as Mackinder argued. Although he delivers a sharp critique of the great British geographer, Walton actually endorses Mackinder's reasoning, recognizing that Mackinder got much more right than he did wrong and that his Heartland Theory still serves as the most useful guide for geopolitical analysis.

Geopolitics and the Great Powers in the Twenty-first Century should be mandatory reading for all American students of geopolitics. One should expect that military schools and other institutions of higher learning in Asia will certainly embrace its message, particularly as it is given by a Westerner who attempts in a reasonable and persuasive manner to make the connection between Asia's rise and history's geopolitical patterns. Although many of Walton's predictions are speculative, he has surely succeeded in constructing a new framework for students of geopolitics. Few will argue with his choice of questions, but ideally his answers will spark a much-needed high-level debate about the future path of geopolitics and strategy. A work like this invites challenges, but the gauntlet that Walton has thrown down will provide no easy opportunities for dissent. I would suspect that like Mackinder, Walton will be one of a very small group of strategists who in their attempts to anticipate the patterns of future strategic history will be more right than wrong.

STEPHEN B. SMITH

University of Reading

United Kingdom