In 1942, Schmitt published the most important work, Land and Sea. Together with the later text Planetary Tension between the East and the West and the Confrontation of the Land and the Sea, this constitutes the most important document of geopolitical science.
Destruction of Leviathan by Gustave Doré, 1865.
» World history is a history of the battle of sea powers against land powers
and of land powers against sea powers. «
Carl Schmitt, 1942.
and of land powers against sea powers. «
Carl Schmitt, 1942.
The meaning of opposing land and sea in Schmitt comes down to the fact that we are talking about two completely different, irreducible and hostile civilizations, and not about variants of a single civilization complex. This division almost exactly coincides with the picture drawn by Mackinder, but Schmitt gives its main elements of thalassocracy (sea forces) and tellurocracy (land forces) an in-depth philosophical interpretation related to basic legal and ethical systems. It is curious that Schmitt uses the name Behemoth for land forces, and Leviathan for forces of the sea, as a reminder of two Old Testament monsters, one of which embodies all land creatures, and the other all creatures of water, the sea.
» The holy king of Gods and men I call, celestial law (Nomos) the righteous seal of all. «
Orphic Hymns to Nomos 63 (2nd or 3rd century AD).
The Nomos of the Earth exists without alternative for most of human history. All varieties of this Nomos are characterized by the presence of a strict and stable legalizing (and ethical) form, which reflects the immobility and fixity of the land, the Earth. This connection with the Earth, the space which is easily amenable to structuralization (fixed borders, constancy of communication paths, invariable geographical and relief features), gives rise to essential conservatism in the social, cultural and technical spheres. The totality of the Earth’s Nomos constitutes what is commonly called the history of the traditional society.
In such a situation, the water and the sea are only peripheral civilizational phenomena, without intruding on the ethical sphere (or intruding sporadically). Only with the discovery of the World Ocean at the end of the 16th century does the situation change radically. Mankind (and first of all, the island of England) begins to get used to the marine existence, begins to realize itself as an Island in the middle of the waters, a Ship. But the water area is very different from the land. It is impermanent, hostile, alienated, subject to constant change. The paths are not fixed in it, the differences in orientations are not obvious. The Nomos of the Sea entails a global transformation of consciousness. Social, legal, and ethical standards are becoming fluid. A new civilization is born. Schmitt believes that the New Time and the technical breakthrough that opened the era of industrialization owe their existence to the geopolitical phenomenon of the transition of mankind to the Nomos of the Sea. Thus, the geopolitical confrontation of the Anglo-Saxon world of the external crescent acquires a sociopolitical definition from Schmitt:
» The Nomos of the Sea is a reality hostile to traditional society. «
The geopolitical confrontation between land and sea powers acquires the most important historical, ideological and philosophical meaning.