In the section Ideas that shaped the world<\/em> you can find a two-part mini-doc called The blueprint for world domination that spooked America<\/em>.\n This is an exposition of the Heartland theory, first put forward by \ngeographer Halford Mackinder in 1904, which argued that since land \ntransport had been revolutionised through railway networks, classical \nsea power (in particular British sea power) was no longer the key to \nworld domination. Instead, access to land-based resources and minerals \nlocated in Eastern Europe and Russia \u2013 the Heartland \u2013 would in future \ndictate politics across the Eurasian continent or \u2018world-island\u2019, and \nultimately across the entire world. As Mackinder memorably put it, \u2018Who \nrules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland \ncommands the World Island. Who rules the World Island commands the \nWorld.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mackinder is credited as one of the founders of the \u2018science\u2019 of \ngeopolitics, and although he wasn\u2019t really saying anything that would \nhave been a revelation to the likes of Caesar or Genghis Khan, his \ncold-blooded big-picture approach allegedly had a profound effect on \nthose convening at the 1919 Versailles peace treaty, who were otherwise \nbeing bombarded with idealistic, one-new-world rhetoric from the likes \nof the US president Woodrow Wilson. At all events, the conference \nattempted to drive a wedge between Germany and Russia by creating \nintervening buffer states in order to divide power in Eastern Europe \nalong the lines of the Heartland theory. Of course it didn\u2019t work, and \nbesides, Mackinder\u2019s theory was arguably soon rendered obsolete by its \nown reasoning \u2013 if sea power was superseded by land-based transport, \nthis itself was also superseded by air power and then by nuclear \nballistic missile power. Though America became paranoid about all things\n Soviet, control of Ukrainian grain and Siberian forestry supplies no \nlonger had much to do with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, however, the Heartland hypothesis has been revived in a new form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Huawei kidding?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s been a lot of hype lately about 5G or fifth-generation \ninternet technology, and bold claims have ranged from it being \u2018orders \nof magnitude faster than 4G\u2019 to being the next industrial revolution. \nDonald Trump, pretending far-sightedness beyond the capability of mere \nmortals, has even been talking about 6G, which has left industry \ninsiders scratching their heads in bafflement as there is no such thing \nas 6G and probably never will be (this was Trump\u2019s fatuous equivalent of\n the Buzz Lightyear catch-phrase \u2018To infinity and beyond!\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are good reasons to think that much of the hype around 5G is \ncomplete nonsense, and that in many cases its massive increase in \nbandwidth won\u2019t deliver any significant speed improvements. But it\u2019s not\n really about speed, it\u2019s about capacity, and the coming \u2018internet of \nthings\u2019 is going to need a lot of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means every house, domestic appliance, autonomous vehicle, \ntraffic light, industrial component, digital watch, phone, banking \nsystem and national power grid, all combined in an interactive network \ncommunicating at near light-speed, in the background, for our human \nconvenience, but also fostering our total human dependence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not hard to reapply the Heartland theory to the new territory of\n 5G cyberspace. Who controls the internet of things controls the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine if any or all of this is hacked. It\u2019s not just a matter of \nturning the lights and data off. A hostile hack could theoretically \nweaponise your house against you, cause traffic pile-ups, drive planes \ninto stadiums, melt down nuclear power stations, you name it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also not hard to see, from this, why the US is so paranoid about\n the shadowy Chinese telecom giant Huawei (pron. Who are we), which is \nbuilding 5G core tech for much of the world\u2019s emerging 5G networks, and \nwhich for all anyone knows is building \u2018backdoors\u2019 into its software for\n future exploitation by the Chinese military. Huawei is keenly playing \nthe innocent and blaming the West for its \u2018pride and prejudice\u2019 (ie \nracism), while protesting that they would never give such access to the \nChinese government. Founder (and Communist Party member) Ren Zhengfei \ninsists that any such skulduggery would be bad for the firm\u2019s overseas \nbusiness. But who is he kidding? Chinese companies are legally obliged \nto cooperate with state security services, and Huawei like all Chinese \ncompanies has a Communist Party committee, whose leader is a senior \nmember of the Huawei board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is probably a hint of venerable \u2018Yellow Peril\u2019 racism here, in \ntruth. All capitalist states connive in mutual surveillance and dirty \ntricks to give themselves a military and market edge. If the US bought \nall its 5G tech from Japan, Sweden or Britain, there is no reason to \nsuppose firms in those countries couldn\u2019t be induced to do the same \nthing Huawei is being accused of. Indeed, something like this may well \nhave happened back in 2016. When the FBI asked Apple to create an iPhone\n backdoor so they could hack the phones of terrorists, Apple refused to \ncreate the software, and the federal government issued a writ. Apple was\n lauded for defending customer confidentiality, but was probably \nbricking it behind the scenes, being caught between a rock and a hard \nplace. Very conveniently however, just a day before the case went to \ncourt, the FBI announced that it had found a mysterious third party \nwhich could hack the phone, and promptly called off the lawsuit, thus \nsaving Apple\u2019s bacon. What seems more likely in reality is that a deal \nwas struck privately whereby Apple gave the FBI what it asked for, on \ncondition the FBI didn\u2019t reveal the surrender in public, thereby leaving\n Apple\u2019s reputation intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So is Huawei being scapegoated for what all capitalist companies \nwould do anyway? Probably. But western-style countries have good reason \nto fear Chinese power, because it is not subject to periodic government \nchange, does not tolerate effective unions or political dissent, and is \nthus able to pursue single-minded market policies more efficiently and \nover longer terms than any liberal democracy can match. And socialists \nought to worry too. If Chinese totalitarianism can be shored up by \nhi-tech surveillance and control of 5G, other countries might get the \nidea that democracy is no longer necessary for running capitalism. If \nthat happens, workers could face increasing attacks on basic democratic \nrights including perhaps even the right to vote. Just one more reason \nwhy we need to work for that revolution for common ownership now, before\n it slips too far out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PJS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What connects next-generation 5G technology with a geographer\u2019s theory of world conquest from 1904? If you enjoy intellectual breakfast snacks delivered in 5-10 minute videos from the BBC, and you can stomach the usual assumptions of the institutional elite, you could do worse than munch through bbc.com\/ideas\/playlists, which offers everything from a history of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/spgb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Halford_Mackinder_1-210x300.jpg\")
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