Some Thoughts on the US Critical Facilities List

Naturally, as a Geographer the wikileaks release of facilities that the US believes critical to its security was interesting. Much like the chaps over at Floatingsheep some of us (Martin Austwick, James Cheshire, Peter Baudains, Alex Braithwaite) took it upon ourselves to map out the reported list. Martin came up with the following visualisation that I think is really rather nice.

Naturally, the same sort of caveats that floatingsheep note also applies here – most of these points are only accurate to the city level, such as for locating industries, or at the country-level such as for locating mines, or oil pipelines, where the features were not immediately apparent on maps. The uncertainty inherent means that the pattern of facilities is best understood from the global perspective, and it is from this vantage that I’ll attempt a brief analysis.

Firstly, the most interesting pattern I note is connected to the Spatial Division of Labour (aka new international division of labour) which is a concept extolled by globalisation theorists such as Doreen Massey, Paul Krugman etc. Essentially- look at how globalised a system of critical facilities the US identifies – the kind of bordered protectionism that we might have once expected from a hegemon is missing. Indeed, we could see this globally distributed network of critical sites as evidence of neo-imperialism and the reach of neo-liberalism, this is the corperate extension of the American empire, and in a sense, it maps the USs perceived vulnerabilities. It is the modern reproduction of the trade empires previously established by the European powers, and very much in this tradition it is the developing world countries, on the whole, that are responsible for raw materials production, and natural resources, and the developed ‘western’ world that is responsible for technology and medical products. The apparent primacy of the west is also demonstrated by the vastly larger numbers of critical sites that exist in the west, as opposed to the developing world.

Further to this, there is an interesting balance that is mediated by geopolitics and the nation state, on the one hand it is notable that the US privilleges ports as transport hubs (but, perhaps strangely, not railways or airports) demonstrating the global reach of trade and movement, but also heavily emphasises the importance of it’s physical land borders with Canada and Mexico, reiterating the perceived importance of the US as a nation state, a physical, defensible entity. In some sense this approach is reminiscent of Halford MacKinder’s ‘heartland’ hypothesis – the US, in this document is attempting to demonstrate, and encapsulate itself as a heartland state with a global reach and network of operations.

The importance of some resources is emphasised, and tends to relate to energy, such as the “Nadym Gas Pipeline Junction”, which is denoted “the most critical gas facility in the world”, likewise, Yemen’s “Bab al-Mendeb” Shipping lane is seen as “a critical supply chain node”. However, it is neither these remarks, nor the references to certain products being crucial to the Patriot missile production that really define the data here, rather it is the whole, which defines an incredibly diverse set of global interests for the US. The diversity of US interest in this map, both by type of critical facility identified and by where they occur reminds me of the chess-board analogy to geopolitics. I can’t remember who originally cited this analogy, or where I heard it, nonetheless it goes something like this: essentially a hegemonic entity, such as the US, is actually playing at geopolitics on a number of different chessboards. One chessboard relates to what the US do militarily, and certainly there are critical facilities on this list that best fit into this game, secondly there is a diplomatic chessboard, which relates to the persuasive power that the US has, how well it can negotiate and leverage its position as a functional hegemon. The military chessboard is perhaps best articulated by the positioning of military bases, and deployment of military personnel; the diplomatic chessboard is perhaps best understood in terms of the locations of embassies and diplomats. Additionally, with respect to the critical facilities, we might see a corperate chessboard, articulated through the interests of US companies and understood in terms of the locations of multi-nationals, and flows of currency from host countries back to the US. Finally, the US might also play chess on the basis of deterrence, this is the reasoning behind nuclear armaments etc. and to some extent the presence of a US list of facilities considered critical is curious evidence of what the US considers its reach and responsibilities, as well as what it has vested interest in maintaining oversight on. It might suggest that repercussions for challenging these listed site would be harsher that they might otherwise have been.