Geopolitical Maps: A Sketch History of a Neglected Trend in Cartography

Eurasian Geopolitics as explained in the Heartland model has been reincarnated as Energy Geopolitics. Germany and India are the two strategic economies of the Inner Crescent of Mackinder's ‘Heartland’ Model and are largely similar in geopolitical focus to the rest of Eurasia. The article argues that in the coming decades at least, Russia will play an important role in these countries' energy vision. A similar unique convergence of goals regarding energy technology requirements will also be seen in the coming decades. India cannot abandon the developmental needs of its one billion plus people to the energy monopolies. Neither does Germany as a significant global economy wish to hang its globalisation efforts on similar energy uncertainties. Both countries therefore seek to spread their energy security through technology-centred geopolitical pluralism. Central Asian energy resources thus seem to be a geopolitical temptation that both nations find hard to ignore. Geopolitical contingencies, it is argued, might bring them together to explore a mixed set of options under some kaleidoscopic combination of an altogether new energy vision.