ABSTRACT
In a world of international anarchy,foreign policy must aim above all at the improvement or at least the preservation of the relative powerpositionofthestate.Powerisinthelastinstancetheabilityto wage successful war,and in geography lie the clues to the problems of military and political strategy.The territory of a state is the base from which it operates in time of war and the strategic position which it occupies during the temporary armistice called peace.Geography is the most fundamental factor in the foreign policy of states because it is the most permanent.Ministers come and ministers go, even dictators die,but mountain ranges stand unperturbed.George Washington,defending thirteen states with a ragged army,has been succeeded by Franklin D.Roosevelt with the resources of a continent at his command,but the Atlantic continues to separate Europe from the United States and the ports of the St.Lawrence Riverare still blocked by winter ice.Alexander I,Czaro fall the Russias,bequeathed to Joseph Stalin,simple member of the Communist party, not only his power but his endless struggle for access to thesea,and Maginot and Clemenceau have inherited from Caesar and Louis XIV anxiety over the open German frontier.
