“A scientific frontier, as defined in 1907 by the former viceroy, George Curzon, was “a Frontier which unites natural and strategical strength.”67 The period term “scientific” reflected a process of merging precise geographical information with military or political strategy, and revealed the development of geopolitics as an analytic frame derived from the premise that geography was a determining factor in the success or failure of states. Frontiers were “the razor’s edge” upon which the “life or death” of nations rested; their strategic aspects could shift alongside the geopolitical fluctuations of imperial politics.””
The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846–1962