The world is rapidly changing before our very eyes. The old global order is disappearing, but what the new one will look like remains uncertain. As Antonio Gramsci famously observed, “In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
Still, there are indications that the emerging world order might be one divided into spheres of influence. In such a world, the great powers each enjoy dominance in their regions, but don’t interfere in those of other powers. One can find allusions to this approach in U.S. President Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy, published last month, which proclaims the importance of U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere while showing considerably less interest in countries and issues further afield. The U.S. military’s recent seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Trump’s persistent interest in acquiring Greenland fit this model clearly.
The theoretician associated with this approach was the German political thinker Carl Schmitt, who formulated the concept of the grossraum—or “greater space,”—in 1939. At the time, of course, Nazi Germany’s power was increasing, and territorial expansion had already begun with the Anschluss of Austria. Schmitt, himself a Nazi whose work provided ideological justifications for the policies of the Third Reich, called for the establishment of an international system based on geographically defined areas, each of which should have a core empire whose power would radiate into the surrounding area. Other powers would not be allowed to intervene outside their own regions. As Cambridge historian Brendan Simms explained, Schmitt considered this a basis for international stability.