Are We Prisoners of Geography?
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It isn't the Stratfor origin, or the blazenly pro-American optimism per se that concern me. It is that these analyses feel like oversimplifications, to not say dumbing-downs -- talks of geographic predestinations. And they are taking some center stages in lobby circles.
I fear that they [these types of analyses], however enticing and conforting to a Western ear they may be, might obfuscate realities. Them monopolizing the ears of politicians and business leaders alike can only bite us back.
Land and climate shape our access to food, shelter, clothing, and security. Food, shelter, clothing, security shape everything else.
Selling the old as new is a basic marketing ploy. And geopolitics isn't immune to this. Clausewitz talked about logistics and terrain, Sir Lawrence Freedman has too, W. Gardner did, Robert E. Pape too (in the optic of air power).
It was fine until Zeihan and co started getting the mic at institutions like the US military academies or some congress special interest groups. I'm unfavorable when popular [discipline] may swing around to influence what it was meant to cover.
Due to America's geographical impenetrability the threat of military encroachment or invasion is virtually zero.
As such it gets downplayed in political discourse to irrelevance. It's often almost impossible for Americans to see international politics through the prism of geographic threat because it has simply never affected them.
Meanwhile the entirety of the Russian psyche is centered around it (along with many others). The west routinely writes this off as "oh, just propaganda".
The lines of reasoning have been there forever but judging from the number of people who treat geography as a non entity when attempting to explain foreign behaviors, sentiments and attitudes it might as well be a fresh discovery.
Are you sure about that?
Because all you've written is that Zeihan, who focuses on practical and immediate concerns of demographics, energy and agricultural markets - is obfuscating realities and monopolizing ears.
Eh? As opposed to what or whom?
Here is a three minute snippet from one of his talks from five years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkuhWA9GdCo
What brilliant insights are being crowded out? What specifically is he wrong about?
Trying not to repeat myself, I will go with an example.
Intersperced with what looks like sound analysis, Zeihan often injects his own biases and hopes for a better, American, future. One telling example is his treatment of China -- about to collapse in a decade, and has been for the past seven years for Zeihan. I will wait. Same with some of his figures. He often repeats that Chinese demographic figures are overstated by a hundred millions (most likely girls), says him. It may not be a rabbit out of a hat, but it is unsourced or badly sourced or simply his opinion depending on the day. The excuse here is that the Chinese government is unreliable. Definitely. But it does not warrant such geopolical hand-slamming-the-table assertions. This is why, when it's being broadcast up to the highest echelons of the US government, I am not very happy with Zeihan and people who derive their geopolitical opinions mostly from him.
Is there something wrong with Stratfor’s analyses? Are there better intelligence outfits? I have long been disappointed at news organizations and their focus on advertisers over the needs of subscribers/readers. Are there useful paid intelligence services?
Personally, I liked the podcast of the Chair of War Studies at King's College: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/warstudies/war-studies-podcast (note: I've not listened to any potentially new episode for the past 2-3 years).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor#2011_hacking_incident
Posers.
Also not that what he says is even fundamentally wrong. He's a political commentator like any other, only his focus is global politics while the majority of political commentators work on national news. And his audience is mainly random Twitter accounts anyway.
There isn't an issue with people saying their opinion, that's called free speech. The problem is more that we live in an increasingly globalized world where nevertheless the average person has no idea about how socities outside of their bubble work. That isn't Zeihan's fault, if anything he helps getting people to think about these issues, however provocative or crude his takes may be. The issue lies with those people and groups that want to keep the populace dumb, that want them to look at the past instead of the present and future. Those who do not want you to travel and experience other cultures and political systems for yourself. Those who want the average person to regress to a state where they know nothing about what goes on in other parts of the world - all in their little bubble and isolated as commoners used to be. There are elites working towards this not just in authoritarian states but in democracies too.
Which is just an incredibly bad take. Yes, Harry is a magical character that can do whatever he wants but with a handful of exceptions, so can everyone else in the setting. Harry isn't the protagonist because he can do whatever he wants, he's the protagonist because doing the right thing is scary and he does it anyway. This isn't a take requiring a college level course, that theme is repeated over and over throughout the series, Zeihan's analysis of Harry Potter would only be convincing to someone with the most cursory familiarity with the work. And it's not the kind of bad take one arrives at by skimming the work and not thinking hard enough about it. The likeliest way I see someone coming up with that take is already holding an animosity towards millennials and then coming up with a smart-sounding justification for it.
And if that's Zeihan's understanding of Harry Potter, I can only assume his understanding of the CCP's thirty-year plan is comparable.
Harry literally has a scar marking him as the chosen one, abused by muggle caretakers and unjustly persecuted by his teachers only to triumph over unspeakable evil via hereditary magical powers..
> And if that's Zeihan's understanding of Harry Potter, I can only assume his understanding of the CCP's thirty-year plan is comparable.
Hell heath no fury like a fandom scorned.
The “chosen one” trope is different. You can argue that Harry-Potter-raised people think of themselves as chosen, but it’s an old trope. You can as well say that all christian world is raised on it :)
He made an off hand simile about your favorite childhood book you don't find accurate and therefore he is Voldemort incarnate and literally wrong about everything. You're really only proving his point.
That doesnt make me a triggered little maths fan boy, it makes you an idiot.
> That doesnt make me a triggered little maths fan boy, it makes you an idiot.
Toucheous Grassous!
which mostly acts as a target cross
> abused by muggle caretakers
many children have grown and are growing up in less than ideal condition
> unjustly persecuted by his teachers
very little so, actually. Most of the penalties were well-earned.
> hereditary magical powers
which he shares with most people in the setting.
I wrote a longer review of the book here in the unlikely event that anyone gives a shit: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4994497141?book_show_a...
It is very good at confirming pretty much anything but is awful at predicting future events. Pseudo-scientific tosh akin to Freud.
Russia did try the same thing, that's why they managed to reach the Pacific pretty early on, comparatively speaking, i.e. in the late 1600s - early 1700s. It was on the Western side and partially on the Southern side where that wasn't achievable.
Late in her life Catherine II (or people close to her, anyway) did dream about having 6 Russian capitals scattered around the Euroasian continent, including in Berlin and Vienna, but that was not achievable (and still isn't, I'd say). Stalin immediately post-WW2 came pretty close to it, though. On the Southern side there were the issues with the Caucasus, Iran/Persia and present-day Afghanistan, which had conflicting results and outcomes for Russia/USSR.
Its later stability is a testament to just how geographically secure its borders are.
If, in an alternate timeline, America was a weakened ex super power and Canada joined the Warsaw Pact I imagine it would take all of 5 minutes for the tanks to roll into Vancouver.
As I said, Russia has been on the same quest of finding insurmountable natural borders that would have defined for it for good, but geography doesn’t help it. And during that quest it also tries to re-define itself in order to reach its final form, so to speak, again, much as red US had done.
I thought this video explained exceptionally well. Also includes analysis of oil-and-gas as a contributing factor.
I posted it a few weeks ago. It was published before the start of the war.
1. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/301... the interview starts at about 13:30.
What really gets me are some of the things that have not changed. Resources make nations weak. Interconnection with other nations in trade, research, and development makes nations strong. Now more than ever Russia has the potential to leverage its lack of resources and connections with European and Asian countries to become the kind of major global power that it wants to be. But the only way to do that is to give up on old ideas about geography, power, and wealth.
Only see this on the guardian and only on mobile
Er, no? This article too chooses to turn a blind eye to Russia occupying Crimea and supporting the separatists in Donbass well before last year, just because the West failed to react appropriately at that time. Which of course emboldened Putin to go all in and try to occupy all of Ukraine.
As someone born in Crimea I always failed to understand why it’s the West’s business.
I think everyone is very confused with what “fascist” means. Some say not having a gender-neural bathroom is “fascist”. But anyway, it seems you’re very set on not liking someone, so it’s better to leave you alone.
This is truly tragic, I feel for civilians. As an EU resident, I want the EU to take actionable steps and achieve peace. Alas, I don’t see it happening. Everything that’s been done only led to escalation.
P.S. destroying civilian power infrastructure was one of the first things US-led coalition did in the Gulf War. Yes, it’s horrible for civilians, but you can’t ignore the fact it has a military purpose. Disrupting the energy balancing will have direct consequences for Ukrainian armed forces as they use rail for shipping ammo, weapons and personnel.
Most countries are made in a way to not allow parts of their territory to secede, even if they "want to do it". Just look what happens in Spain with Catalonia, what would probably happen in Scotland, Texas or California. This is not fascist.
But, you are ignoring the fact that Crimea did not decide to secede but that Russian soldiers (without insignia) became little green men, they forced Ukrainian army to surrender their weapons and leave Crimea. After that Russia organized "a referendum" where Crimea voted to join.
How well these referendums work we can see in Kherson.
If Scotland votes to leave the UK it will. The UK isn’t like Spain. It doesn’t believe in itself. The US looks like it does so it would likely be willing to wage a war of occupation. The US is far more nationalist than the UK.
Even the Scottish and Catalonian referenda were different: The Scottish referendum happened with the toleration of the central government, whereas the Catalonian referendum was ruled unlawful and widely boycotted. This was precisely because the UK believed in itself. Spain had a different understanding of itself - equally strong - and didn't want to go to the polls for it.
It absolutely did. The 90% vote matched our subsequent polling taken a year later - almost exactly and the western pollsters certainly didn't use little green men.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-a...
Much like in Kosovo the presence of the superpower's troops simply allowed the vote to happen.
Ukraine makes no secret of the fact that it doesn't want a free and fair vote to be run (it's "unconstitutional" to have a vote, they argue North Korearly) and neither do we.
That, along with the public bitchslap Elon Musk got for suggesting a vote, highlights the dim view the west takes on allowing democracy in the south and east of Ukraine.
I’m not so desperate to pick a side here. It’s absolutely right that Crimean secession wouldn’t be possible without Russian military intervention. And yes, it’s illegal from Ukraine’s point of view. At the same time, it’s legal from Russian point of view. Who’s in the right?
Now, NATO member states have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to explain why it’s all right for Kosovo or Taiwan, but not for Crimea. You have to agree that Taiwanese de-facto independence wouldn’t be possible without the US involvement.
So my point is, there has to be consistency.
Note that "react appropriately" doesn't necessarily mean "military support", just things like sanctions and reducing energetic dependence on Russia would have already signaled that more incursions wouldn't be well received.
Also, there's the part about military occupations being considered generally bad. We might want to care about that.
It was considered a triumph in Kosovo.
Nobody was bothered about NATO troops using military force to make a secessionist referendum happen. Because we did it.
Nobody was bothered that the Serbian constitution prohibited an independence vote. Because we held the vote.
Nobody questioned the result - also 90% - same as Crimea. Because we wanted that vote.
Kosovo's notional independence was as sparsely recognized as Crimea's for decades, even among supposed allies. We didn't play that up as an indication of our friendlessness though - because we did it.
The most substantial difference - that Kosovo ended up a puppet state (Pristina being bisected by "Bill Clinton boulevard" ought to be a clue as to by whom) while Crimea was incorporated directly.
Realistically the conflicts mirror each other much more closely than most people believe. That includes the reason why the west and Russia care deeply about both conflicts and both referenda while neither gives a shit about, say, the Tigray war - because THESE two conflicts dictate Russian and American spheres of influence.
And its world’s business if some country unilaterally declares other’s country part as theirs.
Although I think the world reacted appropriately. Non-trivial sanctions were imposed, almost no other country recognised the change.
Of course, Crimea issue is just another example of conflict of “territorial integrity“ vs “right to self determination” principles. World needs more formal rules.
(В любом случае, как мне кажется, справедливый референдум включал бы вариант «независимая Крымская Автономная Республика».)
This is the key point that most people overlook. There’s a lack of consistency on every side of the argument. Like, I absolutely despise Russians who say that say “Crimea is Russia, but Kosovo is Serbia”.
The Russia military was "occupying Crimea" back when there were British redcoats occupying New York City. The Russian military has been there since that time. The only new development has been the US, UK, with some continental support, demanding the Russians leave in recent times and pouring financial and military supplies into the Ukraine to accomplish this.
Also if we want to go back to the 1700s, then Russia should hand Crimea over to Turkey, not the Ukraine, because Ottoman Turkey is who occupied Crimea before Russia.
After the Orange Revolution Ukraine started moving towards the West, approached European Union (lots of Ukrainians work in Poland and rest of EU) and started to fight with corruption.
This 'westernization' process started to slowly make Ukraine richer.
A rich Ukraine is an end of Putin's rule, because average Russians would realize that Russia could be a normal country too and they could be rich too, instead of living without toilets and being robbed by oligarchs. But in order to do that they would have to get rid of Putin and his clique.
So Putin tried to conquer Ukraine and when this failed, plan B is to ruin its economy.
This way Ukraine is as poor or poorer than Russia. This way Putin can secure his power.
I don’t think Ukraine reached even the pre-2014 prosperity levels by February 2022. You need to separate wishful thinking and hard data.
Might be Putin's megalomania, need for approval rating back home, maybe the oil prices rose and they took the opportunity, maybe to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU/NATO.
Could be a thousand and one differing things, or all of them at once.
What is correct? No one but Putin (and maybe not even him) knows.
'Westernization' of Ukraine is a problem for Putin, since Russians could realize that Russia can have a much better government that would make life of normal people better (now hundreds of them die in Ukraine every day, while oligarchs rob the nation).
Putin got into power since 'westernization' of Russia failed (also helped that KGB blew up some apartments). Different thing is that this 'westernization' was poorly done if not sabotaged from the start. Also the clique that rules Russia (including Boris Yeltzin) was never interested in 'westernizing" Russia. They just wanted to be rich and powerful. Gorbachev was the one that tried to move the country forward, one thing is if the country was even ready for that, other thing is that in many ways he failed.
Also Ukraine is not Russia. Ukrainians are the ones who can decide what will their country do - and they decided to move closer to the West.
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headline...
"No, the aliens have not enslaved the Earth"
"No, the atmosphere is not on fire from nuclear testing"
"No, 2 + 2 is still not 5"
I ask you what is two plus two, and you tell me "it's not 15"?
I have more in common with the punks in Poland than with the conservatives that vote with me here in my city.