The Heartland Theory was first proposed by Halford Mackinder. According to Mackinder’s theory any government that was able to control central Eurasia would eventually amass enough power to dominate the world. It has been widely criticized due to a rather overwhelming lack of historical evidence, yet it remains somewhat influential in the field of political geography.

The policy of “lebensraum” is most closely associated with territorial expansion. It was the policy of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. It involved the expansion of German territory into the sovereign territory of other nations so that the German people would have more room in which to settle so as to ensure the continued growth of the German nation. Although it is quite closely associated with eugenics, and a little less so with cultural homogenization, it is directly associated with territorial expansion. “Lebensraum” is a German word that means living space.

Nicholas Spykman developed the Rimland Theory in response to Halford Mackinder’s Heartland Theory. According to the Heartland Theory, whoever controlled Central Eurasia would eventually come to control the whole of the world. Spykman, like most geographers, disagreed with this hypothesis and argued that the “Rimland” area, the coastal regions of Eurasia, was the logical base for world conquest because it allowed access to the seas.

A buffer state is a state that lies between two much larger and more powerful states. It is so named because it serves the function of preventing conflict between the two larger states by minimizing territorial squabbles. Uruguay’s status as a buffer state between the dominant South American powers of Brazil and Argentina is just one such historical example. Another prominent one is Hungary, which once acted as a buffer state between Austria and the Ottoman Empire.

In an “anarchic state,” there is no government, no laws, no enforcement of laws, and no political life whatsoever. “Anarchy” is the absence of government, the absence of rules and control. In terms of the modern world, the closest state to an “anarchy” is probably a country like Somalia where there is no centralized government and where the “rule of law” has little significant impact.

In a “police state,” the government has absolute control over every aspect of the lives of its citizens. The goal of a police state is to regulate every aspect of an individual's life so as to prevent sedition and insurrection. It is very common for an autocratic government to go hand-in-hand with a “police state,” but it is not confined to autocracy.

“Subsequent boundaries” are political barriers established after an area has already been settled. The same is true of “superimposed boundaries”; however, they differ from one another in one crucial way: “subsequent boundaries” take into the account the cultural, ethnic, or religious differences of people living in a region, whereas “superimposed boundaries” are created without any consideration given to cultural divisions in the population.

“Lebensraum” is the name of Hitler’s expansionist policies in the years leading up to, and including the beginning of, the Second World War. Hitler believed that the German people needed more room to settle to ensure the continued growth of the German nation. To that end, he was willing to invade surrounding countries and massacre or forcibly remove the population.

The Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan following the failed invasion of the Soviet Union during the 1980s. During the war the United States provided weapons and supplies to the Afghan resistance fighters known as the “Mujahideen.” These weapons have been used against the American army in recent American occupations of Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has had far reaching consequences including contributing to the breakup of Soviet Union, the rise of the Taliban, and the continued destabilization of the region.

All of these countries have either hostile relations currently or they have had hostile relations recently. Relations between North and South Korea, however, are particularly extreme. Despite having not been at war since the 1950s the countries are still technically in an “armistice” which loosely means temporary peace. The Demilitarized Zone is a sort of unnatural buffer zone forced into existence to try and prevent the outbreak of further hostilities. It lies between the territory of North and South Korea.