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Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Politics of Place)?
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Dobro pitanje, hvala. Uzeh knjižicu kojom sam bila oduševljena kao tinejdžerka, "Almodovarova teorema", od Antoni Kazas Rosa. Prevedena je samo na nekolicinu jezika, francuski, turski i srpski koliko znam, nešto tako. Na engleskom je nema.
Sećam se da sam u njoj saznala za Aphex Twin, i da mi je svaka rečenica bila toliko pitka i značajna da sam mislila bih je mogla istetovirati na sebe.
Fast forward, nisam mogla ni da je završim, mislim da sam je prerasla ili sam samo predugo u apatiji za svu tu romantiku. Ali preporučujem je možda za jedno čitanje.
Sad sam počela da čitam Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World, da razumem malo bolje svet. Spoiler: Kosovo je već u predgovoru.
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Taliban had mountains that they entrenched themselves in. See the book Prisoners of Geography Afghanistan is essentially a giant valley and so even the US marines aiding there were at a significant disadvantage, coupled with the corruption within the Afgani military as well as religious intimidation within their ranks by the Taliban.
Al shabaab doesn't appear to have a similar geopolitical advantage.
Buying a commodity is not anything remotely close to the same as controlling its production. It isn't about making sure his people are fed. It is about controlling the production because if he does then he has the world by the balls. If Putin has almost a quarter of the global corn trade and almost 30% of the world's wheat he can use that as a weapon whenever he chooses. But, like I said, it isn't just about resources.
And why is Ukraine so important from a land/geopolitical perspective? The Carpathian mountains on the western side of the country are much easier to defend than the plains of eastern Ukraine. If NATO is allowed into Ukraine NATO (aka the US) is within spitting distance of the majority of Russia's grain and oil production and all that is between NATO and Russia is an open plain that can easily be moved across. On the contrary, if Russia takes Ukraine then the only path into Russia from a NATO country is through a small, easily defendable border with Poland to Ukraine's northwest, through the buffer state of Belarus, or through Lithuania/Latvia/Estonia. Considering Russia's is Kaliningrad immediately south of those 3 states they are not a very strong threat since Russia could easily cut them off from the rest of Europe. There is an interesting book about this exact topic and offers great insight into the geopolitics that have shaped our world.
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-Politics/dp/1501121472
It sounds like this video is much based on Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography. If you are interested in these ideas of how geopolitically rich the US is compared to almost any other country (other than China and India) I would highly recommend checking out the book.
I'm not suggesting an Arab superstate. I just think they could have done a much better job of splitting the territory up. For example, how could anyone think that giving the Levant to the Hashemites (who aren't even from there) was a good idea? They lasted only a few years in Syria, and only a couple of decades in Iraq. All they have left now is Jordan, which is a country of only 10 million (mostly Palestinian refugees).
Of course nothing would have been perfect, but they could have a much better job than what they did. The creation of Israel had a very brief unifying effect on the Arab world, but that all went out the window after a couple of ass-whoopings by Israel.
I'd recommend that you check out the book Prisoners of Geography, which goes into much more detail about the errors of the Sykes-Picot agreement and how the region was divided up.
Hi! I'm fairly positive that this comment is going to get lost in the pits of 1 or 2 upvoted comments but I'd like to chime in and say that Trump's not actually wrong about this.
To preface, I actually really don't like Trump. I don't want to say I hate him but there are very few other living humans who I can say I feel such a constant distaste for. However, personal feelings aside, Trump's claim that Germany is tied to the whims of Russia is definitely not incorrect.
In his excellent book Prisoners of Geography, Tim Marshall outlines how Russia's natural gas and oil reserves in Siberia have allowed it to maintain a sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. Germany is reluctant to take action against or even officially reprimand Russia because an extremely high amount of their energy is supplied by the Russians and if relations were to ever deteriorate, Russia could theoretically turn off the power in almost the entire country. It would be an economic and logistical nightmare for Germany to try and switch to another provider of energy too. The cost of building pipelines, digging wells, etc. would be tremendous and any hasty action would bear the risk of provoking Russia.
Germany ultimately can't take any military or serious economic action against Russia because of their close energy ties. As long as Russia holds the ability to turn off the lights, Germany is completely at their mercy. Even when general relations between the EU and Russia were harmed, such as in the Crimea crisis a few years back, Germany has not ceased or even slowed down the building of new pipelines because they are completely dependent on the mother bear. Lessening their dependency on Russia is partly why Germany is trying to make the switch to renewables too.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-russia-gas-nord-stream-2-foreign-policy/amp/
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-About/dp/1501121472
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Politics of Place) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501121472/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_21SHRXQHJD15Z8ET3M1B
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767923057/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_BJZ6Q4A8VWVSAP6Z517S
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321013492/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_S92M8GD9ANHHY70X3W03
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives https://www.amazon.com/dp/046509435X/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_C77VX24KYSWJSQWPDJ2C
Politics of Paradigms, The: Thomas S. Kuhn, James B. Conant, and the Cold War “Struggle for Men’s Minds” (SUNY series in American Philosophy and Cultural Thought) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1438473664/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_CQCC9BXEHWRGFX4ZJRKF
Good stuff!
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall is a great read.
Geopolitical Futures a good website that has good analysis on present global situations/conflicts.
I don't know who the hell Jared Diamond is, but I get most of my information about this from Tim Marshall.
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-Politics/dp/1501121472
You're right in that Germany could potentially seek alternative supplies. They could get oil from the U.S. or the Arabic Peninsula. However, it would be rather rediculous to export oil in by ship when that would be exorbitantly expensive compared to the easy and cheap access to oil and natural gas they have right next store. Saying they should get their resources from another country is ultimately saying that Germany should seek a lesser alternative when it would be economically and logistically infeasible for it to do so. Once again, I cannot recommend enough Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall. I absolutely adored it and it was very informative about Russia's relationship with Europe.
https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-About/dp/1501121472
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