Major Geopolitical Schools: Part Two

Vidal de la Blanche's Concept of "Post-Sovietism"
The founder of the French geopolitical school, Vidal de la Blanche (1845-1918), was a professional geographer. At one time, he was fascinated by the political geography of F. Ratzel and based on it created his own geopolitical concept, in which he deeply criticized many key provisions of German geopoliticians.
The author of the Rimland concept is Nicholas Spikeman
Nicholas Spikeman (1893-1943) was an American scholar, professor of international relations, director of the Institute of International Relations at Yale University, and a continuer of Admiral T. Meehan's theory. N. Spikeman saw geopolitics not as a science that studies the influence of soil on the life of a state, and the influence of terrain on national character, but as an analytical method that allows to develop an effective international policy. All the research of this scientist is purely pragmatic. Spikeman's main thesis can be summarized as the fact that Mackinder overestimated the geopolitical significance of the Heartland.
Karl Haushofer - author of the "continental bloc" theory
The great German geopolitical scientist Karl Haushofer (1869-1946) was a military man, diplomat, and in 1911 he took up science and received a doctorate from the University of Munich. From 1924 onwards, he published a reputable geopolitical journal, where his main works were published. He deeply studied the ideas of his predecessors and well mastered the provisions of the law of planetary dualism: "sea power" versus "land power"; sea power versus land power. the scientist created his own doctrine, the essence of which boils down to the need to create a continental bloc, or the Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo axis. In essence, he developed the ideas of the "Iron Chancellor" - the unifier of all German states, Otto von Bismarck, who fought for the Russian-German alliance and warned the West about the danger of any actions (including military ones) against Russia. Haushofer, following Bismarck, saw an alliance with Russia and Japan as a worthy response to the strategy of the maritime powers.