Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (Politics of Place, #1)

by Tim Marshall

To this day Egypt, Syria, and Jordan are suspicious of Palestinian independence, and if Israel vanished and were replaced by Palestine, all three might make claims to parts of the territory. In this century, however, there is a fierce sense of nationhood among the Palestinians,

During the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israelis won control of all of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. In 2005, they left Gaza, but hundreds of thousands of settlers remain in the West Bank.

Militarily, the city is of only moderate strategic geographical importance—it has no real industry to speak of, no river, and no airport—but it is of overwhelming significance in cultural and religious terms: the ideological need for the place is of more importance than its location. Control of, and access to, Jerusalem is not an issue upon which a compromise solution can be easily achieved.

Until a peace deal is agreed upon, there is nowhere for the Gazans to go, and little for them to do inside the Strip.

This is one reason for the demand for “security” by the Israeli side and its insistence that, even if there is an independent Palestinian state, that state cannot have an army with heavy weapons on the ridge, and that Israel must also maintain control of the border with Jordan. Because Israel is so small it has no real “strategic depth,” nowhere to fall back to if its defenses are breached,

Iran is defended by this geography, with mountains on three sides, swampland and water on the fourth. The Mongols were the last force to make any progress through the territory, in 1219–21, and since then attackers have ground themselves into dust trying to make headway across the mountains.

Turkey is not often thought of as a sea power, but it borders three seas, and its control of these waters has always made it a force to be reckoned with; it is also a trade and transportation bridge linking Europe with the Middle East, the Caucasus, and on up to the central Asian countries, with which it shares history and, in some regions, ethnic ties. Turkey is determined to be at the crossroads of history even if the traffic can at times be hazardous.

The Arab world of 2011 enjoyed none of those things and faced in many different directions. There were, and are, the directions of democracy, liberal democracy (which differs from the former), nationalism, the cult of the strong leader, and the direction in which many people had been facing all along—Islam in its various guises, including Islamism.

The second phase of the Arab uprising is well into its stride. This is the complex internal struggle within societies where religious beliefs, social mores, tribal links, and guns are currently far more powerful forces than “Western” ideals of equality, freedom of expression, and universal suffrage.

This is not because the people of the region are radical; it is because if you are hungry and frightened, and you are offered either bread and security or the concept of democracy, the choice is not difficult. In impoverished societies with few accountable institutions, power rests with gangs disguised as “militia” and “political parties.”

The two are tied together within the geography of the Indian subcontinent, which creates a natural frame.

The area within our frame, despite being relatively flat, has always been too large and diverse to have strong central rule. Even the British colonial overlords, with their famed bureaucracy and connecting rail system, allowed regional autonomy and indeed used it to play local leaders off against one another. The linguistic and cultural diversity is partially due to the differences in climate—for example, the freezing north of the Himalayas in contrast to the jungles of the south—but it is also because of the subcontinent’s rivers and religions.

Different powers have invaded the subcontinent over the centuries, but none have ever truly conquered it. Even now, New Delhi does not truly control India and, as we shall see, to an even greater extent Islamabad does not control Pakistan. The Muslims had the greatest success in uniting the subcontinent under one leadership, but even Islam never overcame the linguistic, religious, and cultural differences.

On June 3, 1947, the announcement was made in the House of Commons: the British would withdraw—India was to be partitioned into the two independent dominions of India and Pakistan. Seventy-three days later, on August 15, they were all but gone.

“You may have the watches—but we have the time.” They would wait out the foreigners no matter what was thrown at them, and in this they would be helped by elements in Pakistan.

For thousands of years the regions of what are now modern-day China and India could ignore each other because of their terrain. Expansion into each other’s territory through the Himalayas was impossible and, besides, each had more than enough arable land.

By the beginning of the twentieth century Japan was an industrial power with the third-largest navy in the world, and in 1905 it defeated the Russians in a war fought on land and at sea. However, the very same island-nation geography that had allowed it to remain isolated was now giving it no choice but to engage with the world. The problem was that it chose to engage militarily.

With the European powers preoccupied with war in Europe, Japan went on to invade northern Indochina. Eventually the Americans, who by then were supplying most of Japan’s oil needs, gave them an ultimatum—withdrawal or an oil embargo. The Japanese responded with the attack on Pearl Harbor and then swept on across Southeast Asia, taking Burma, Singapore, and the Philippines, among other territory.

in Latin America the Old World culture of powerful landowners and serfs was imposed, which led to inequality.

Even after independence the predominantly European coastal elites failed to invest in the interior, and what population centers there are inland remain poorly connected with one another.

One of the few things the countries have in common is language based on Latin. Spanish is the language of almost all of them, but in Brazil it is Portuguese, and in French Guiana—French. But this linguistic connection disguises the differences in a continent that has five different climatological regions.

it is less at a crossroads than at the bottom of the world; there’s a lot going on all over this vast space, but the problem is much of it is going on a long way from anywhere other than itself. That may be considered a Northern Hemispheric view, but it is also a view of where the major economic, military, and diplomatic powers are situated.

South America is in effect a demographically hollow continent and its coastline is often referred to as the “populated rim.” This is less true of Central America and especially Mexico, where the populations are more equally distributed; but Mexico in particular has difficult terrain, which limits its ambitions and foreign policies.

The Mexican government struggles to control even its own territory—it will not be in a position to take on any more in the foreseeable future. Mexico is destined to live in the United States’s shadow and as such will always play the subservient role in bilateral relations. It lacks a navy capable of securing the Gulf of Mexico or pushing out into the Atlantic, and so relies on the US navy to ensure the sea-lanes remain open and safe.

Throughout history, successive governments in Mexico City have never had a firm grip on the country. Now its opponents, the drug cartels, have paramilitary wings which are as well armed as the forces of the state, often better paid, more motivated, and in several regions are regarded as a source of employment

Mexico is now in the grip of what is almost a civil war. The cartels try to control territory through intimidation; the government tries to pretend it is in charge of the rule of law; and hundreds of civilians, caught in the middle, are being killed.

In 1513, the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa had to sail across the Atlantic, land in what is now Panama, then trek through jungles and over mountains before seeing another vast ocean—the Pacific. The advantages of linking them were obvious, but it was another 401 years before technology caught up with geography. In 1914, the newly built, fifty-mile-long, American-controlled Panama Canal opened, thus saving ships an eight-thousand-mile journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean

The Latin American countries do not have a natural affinity with the United States. Relations are dominated by America’s starting position, laid out in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823

However, with or without Chinese trade, the countries of Latin America are inescapably locked into a geographical region—which means that the United States will always be a major player.

Therefore Brazil lacks the volume of trade it would like and, equally important, most of its goods are moved along its inadequate roads rather than by river, thus increasing costs. On the plus side, Brazil is working on its transport infrastructure, and the newly discovered offshore gas reserves will help pay for

Around 25 percent of Brazilians are thought to live in the infamous favela slums. When one in four of a state’s population is in abject poverty it is difficult for that state to become rich. This does not mean Brazil is not a rising power, just that its rise will be limited.

A hundred years ago it was among the ten richest countries in the world—ahead of France and Italy. But a failure to diversify, a stratified and unfair society, a poor education system, a succession of coups d’état, and the wildly differing economic policies in the democratic period of the last thirty years has seen a sharp decline in Argentina’s status.

The word arctic comes from the Greek arktikos, which means “near the bear,” and is a reference to the Ursa Major constellation, whose last two stars point toward the North Star.

The effects of the melting ice won’t just be felt in the Arctic: countries as far away as the Maldives, Bangladesh, and the Netherlands are at risk of increased flooding as the ice melts and sea levels rise. These ramifications are why the Arctic is a global, not just a regional, issue.