Zones of the International Frontier

T HE earth is split into two worlds by the zones of the international frontier. It is this frontier that is now determining the policies and future of America. It has been a shifting frontier, with a history going back to the sixteenth century. But with the division of the earth into two power blocs the international frontier has suddenly become more sharply defined and more menacing. The international frontier consists of the major areas in which the interests, activities, and forces of the Great Powers-and in varying degree of the smaller powers-meet, overlap, and conflict. In such areas no single Great Power is dominant militarily or politically. The ideological, political, and economic struggles of the Great Powers extend, of course, far beyond such geographical frontier zones and are in a sense diffused over the world. But the full exercise of their military power is confined within narrower areas by geographical, technical, and political factors. The chief zones of the international frontier emerge plainly enough from a close examination of the map of the world over the past century or more. Figure I gives a rough pictorial impression of what is in fact a long, complicated history. The central aim of American diplomacy since the Revolution has been to prevent any part of the two Americas from becoming an area of Great Power competition. Thus in the present century no part of the Western Hemisphere-unless it is the Polar Regions-can be said to fall within any of the zones of the international frontier

Archaeology · Economic geography · Frontier · Geography · Regional science · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Polar Research and Ecology

• Orientation bibliographique sur la théorie des frontières interétatiques

  Henri Dorion•Cahiers de géographie du Québec•1974

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• The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries

  Ladis K D Kristof•Annals of the Association of…•1959

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