Nicholas John Spykman (pronounced "Speak-man", 13 October 1893 – 26 June 1943) was an American political scientist who was Professor of International Relations at Yale University from 1928 until his death in 1943. He was one of the founders of the classical realist school in American foreign policy, transmitting Eastern European political thought to the United States.
His work on geopolitics and geostrategy led him to be to known as the "godfather of containment." A Sterling Professor of International Relations, teaching as part of the Institute for International Studies at Yale University, one of his prime concerns was making his students geographically literate, as geopolitics was impossible without geographic understanding.
Early life
Spykman was born on 13 October 1893 in Amsterdam. He attended Delft University and the University of Cairo.
Career
He worked as a journalist in various parts of the world during much of the 1910s and also served as a diplomatic assistant for the Netherlands in Egypt and the Dutch East Indies.
He then came to the United States around 1920 to enter a doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1921, a master's degree in 1922, and a Ph.D. in 1923. The subject of his dissertation, which he subsequently revised for publication, was Georg Simmel. He then was an instructor in political science and sociology there from 1923 to 1925. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1928.
Professor
In 1925, he came to Yale University, where he was an assistant professor of international relations. He became a full professor in 1928 and the chair of the university's department of international relations in 1935. Also in 1935, he was a co-founder of the Yale Institute of International Studies and was its first director. He held that position until 1940, when he became ill and relinquished it.
Author
Spykman published two books on foreign policy.
America's Strategy in World Politics was published in 1942, soon after the entry of the United States into World War II. Concerned with the balance of power, he argued that isolationism, which relied on the oceans to protect the United States ("hemispheric" or "quarter defense"), was bound to fail. His object was to prevent another US retreat, as what occurred after World War I. The book was praised as an important contribution. The book got a laudatory front-page review in the New York Times Book Review. Isaiah Bowman commented in 1942, "On grounds of merit and public value America’s Strategy in World Politics should be read in not less than a million American homes. Every government official responsible for policy should read it once a year for the next twenty years—even if he may not agree with some of the remedies proposed."
The Geography of the Peace was published the year after Spykman's death. He explained his geostrategy and argued that the balance of power in Eurasia directly affected US security. In his writings on geography and foreign policy, Spykman was somewhat of a geographical determinist. Since geography was "the most fundamentally conditioning factor because of its relative permanence," it is of primary relevance in analyzing a state's potential foreign policy. However, Spykman rejected that geography had a "deterministic, causal role in foreign policy, arguing, neither does the entire foreign policy of a country lie in geography, nor does any part of that policy lie entirely in geography. The factors that condition the policy of states are many; they are permanent and temporary, obvious and hidden; they include, apart from the geographic factor, population density, the economic structure of the country, the ethnic composition of the people, the form of government, and the complexes and pet prejudices of foreign ministers; and it is their simultaneous action and interaction that create the complex phenomenon known as "foreign policy."According to Spykman, topography affected the unity and internal coherence of states, and climate affected the economic structure of the state. Spykman argued that the "comparative size of states" was a rough indication of the comparative strength of states (provided that there was political and economic integration of the state). He also argued that "Size is of primary importance as an element of defense, particularly if the vital centers of a country are far removed from the border."
He wrote that all states tend towards expansion, "Other things being equal, all states have a tendency to expand." Even small states seek to expand, but are limited in doing so by various barriers.