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

by Tim Marshall

The Ottoman Empire (1299–1922) was ruled from Istanbul. At its height, it stretched from the gates of Vienna, across Anatolia, and down through Arabia to the Indian Ocean. From west to east it took in what are now Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and parts of Iran.

R12308202228 Reading this book to Civ 6 music is such a great delight!

The term Sykes-Picot has become shorthand for the various decisions made in the first third of the twentieth century, which betrayed promises given to tribal leaders and which partially explains the unrest and extremism of today.

the split between Sunni and Shia Muslims dates back to 632 CE, when the prophet Muhammad died, leading to a dispute over his succession.

al-Sunna, or “people of tradition.”

divisions within the division.

R12308202235 Homage to "Incoherence of the Incoherence"?

The Islamists hark back to a golden age when Islam ruled an empire and was at the cutting edge of technology, art, medicine, and government. They have helped bring to the surface the ancient suspicions of “the other” throughout the Middle East.

By the time the Syrian civil war was in full flow the group had split from al-Qaeda and renamed itself. At first it was known by the outside world as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) but as the Arabic word for the Levant is al-Sham, gradually it became ISIS. In the summer of 2014 the group began calling itself the Islamic State, having proclaimed such an entity in large parts of Iraq and Syria.

the “go to” jihadist group, drawing thousands of foreign Muslims to the cause, partially due to its pious romanticism and partially for its brutality. Its main attraction, though, was its success in creating a caliphate; where al-Qaeda murdered people and captured headlines, the IS murdered people and captured territory.

DAESH. It is an acronym of sorts for the Arabic Dawlat al-Islamiya f’al-Iraq wa al-Shams, but the reason people came up with the name is because the Islamic State members hate the term. It sounds similar to the word daes—one who is underhanded and sows dissent. More important, it rhymes with negative words such as fahish—“sinner”—and best of all, for those who despise the organization’s particular brand of Islam, is that it rhymes with and sounds a bit like jahesh—“stupid ass.”

The result has seen Islamic State’s “caliphate” shrink in size, some of its leaders and many rank and file killed.

R12308211925 What is the current status ?

Drones are a clear modern example of technology overcoming some of the restrictions of geography but at the same time serving to underline geography’s importance. The United States houses its growing fleet of drones on at least ten bases around the world. This allows it to hit targets via a joystick operated by a person sitting in an air-conditioned office in Nevada, or transfer control to an operative near the target. But it also means the United States needs to keep good relations with whichever country it receives permission from to house the regional drone HQ. This is a reminder of the conceptual map of US power required to fully understand geopolitics today.

However, it is the very fanaticism of their beliefs and practices that explains why they cannot achieve their utopian fantasies. First, only some of the Sunni Iraqi tribes will support the jihadist aims, and even then only to achieve their own ends—which do not include a return to the sixth century. Once they get what they want, they will then turn on the jihadists, especially the foreign ones. Second, the jihadists have demonstrated that there is no mercy for anyone who opposes them and that being a non-Sunni is akin to a death sentence.

R12308211930 There is an interesting parallel here and in the rhetoric against what many call "postmodern Leftism". I will save the elaoration for the interpreration of minds familiar with this distinction. In other words, iykyk.

The jihadist fantasy is global domination by Salafi Islam. In their more lucid, yet still wild, moments, they plan, and fight, for a more limited aim—a caliphate throughout the Middle East.

the problems of the region do not come down to the existence of Israel.

R12308211939 I presume many promninent nonreligious thinkers such as Chomsky or Said would disagree. COMMENTARY 2312230045 Definitely a legion of others would disagree at this point.

rocket fire from its immediate neighbors,

R12308211954 Repelled successfully in a breathtaking display of technological superiority with the Israeli iron curtain.

in the medium term it

R12308211958 ?

“We do deserts, not mountains.”

The Israelis feel threatened by the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons. It is not just Iran’s potential to rival their own arsenal and wipe out Israel with just one bomb: if Iran were to get the bomb, then the Arab countries would probably panic and attempt to get their own as well.

although most of its landmass is part of the wider Middle East region, it tries to distance itself from the conflicts taking place there.

Atatürk—“Father of the Turks.” He died in 1938, but subsequent Turkish leaders continued working to bring Turkey into the West European fold, and those who didn’t found themselves on the wrong

In NATO terms, Turkey is a key country because it controls the entrance to and exit from the Black Sea through the narrow gap of the Bosporus Strait.

creeping Islamization of Turkey,

they were not ready to turn the Arab uprisings (the wave of protests that started in 2010) into a real Arab Spring. Instead, they soured into perpetual rioting and civil war.

R12308212032 I thik Heydarian makes a similar case in one of his first books.

The routine expression of hatred for others is so common in the Arab world

if they do withdraw, then China, and to a lesser extent India, may have to get involved in equal proportion to the loss of interest.

That scenario is on a global level and will be determined in the chancelleries of the capitals of the great powers. On the ground the game will be played with people’s imaginations, wants, hopes, and needs, and with their lives. Sykes-Picot is breaking; putting it back together, even in a different shape, will be a long and bloody affair.

in 1971, East Pakistan rebelled against the dominance of West Pakistan, India intervened and, after much bloodshed, East Pakistan seceded, becoming Bangladesh.

The name Pakistan gives us clues about these divisions; pak means “pure” and stan means “land” in Urdu, so it is the land of the pure, but it is also an acronym. P is for Punjab, A is for Afghania (the Pashtun area by the Afghan border), K for Kashmir, S for Sindh, and T stands for “tan,” as in Baluchistan.

In 2001 the Pakistani-created Taliban had been hosting the foreign fighters of al-Qaeda for several years. Then, on 9/11, al-Qaeda struck the United States on its home soil in an operation put together in Afghanistan.

The Pakistan military and the ISI had to turn on the very Taliban leaders they had trained and formed friendships with in the 1990s.

“hammer and anvil” strategy. They would hammer the Afghan Taliban against the anvil of the Pakistani operation on the other side of the border. The “anvil” in the tribal areas turned out instead to be a sponge that soaked up whatever was thrown at it, including any Afghan Taliban retreating from the American hammer.

None of this would have been necessary if the Afghan Taliban, in part created by the Pakistani ISI, had not been stupid enough to host the Arabs of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and then after 9/11 had not fallen back upon the Pashtun culture of honoring guests, thus refusing to give them up when the Americans came calling.

R12308221243 Big claim here by Marshall, bordering counterfactual. But the build-up is formidable.

Its relationship with China would dominate its foreign policy but for one thing—the Himalayas.

India’s response to the Chinese annexation of Tibet was to give a home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan independence movement in Dharamsala in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

As China’s confidence grows, so does the amount of territory there it says is Chinese. Until recently, China claimed only the Tawang area in the extreme west of the state.

Despite these and other groups seeking independence, with a Sikh population of 21 million people and a Muslim minority of 150 million, India retains a strong sense of itself and unity within diversity. This will help as it emerges further onto the world stage.

geography has not bequeathed them such riches, and so both countries have been forced to expand their horizons and venture out into the oceans,

Twenty-five years ago, India embarked on a “look east” policy, partially as a block to what it could see would be the imminent rise of China. It has “taken care of business” by dramatically increasing trade with China (mostly imports) while simultaneously forging strategic relationships in what China regards as its own backyard. India has strengthened its ties with Burma, the Philippines, and Thailand, but more important, it is working with Vietnam and Japan to check China’s increasing domination of the South China Sea.

the Americans were the new British, but with a different accent and more money.

Juche, which blends fierce nationalism with Communism and national self-reliance. In reality, it is the least democratic state in the world: it is not run for the people and it is not a republic.

The founding story of Korea is that it was created in 2333 BCE by heavenly design. The Lord of Heaven sent his son Hwanung down to earth, where he descended to the Paektu Mountain and married a woman who used to be a bear, and their son, Dangun, went on to engage in an early example of nation building. The earliest recorded version of this creation legend dates from the thirteenth century. It may in some ways explain why a Communist state has a leadership that is passed down through one family and given divine status. For example, Kim Jong-il was described by the Pyongyang propaganda machine as “Dear Leader, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have,” “Guiding Sun Ray,” “Shining Star of Paektu Mountain,” “World Leader of the twenty-first century,” and “Great Man who descended from heaven,” as well as “Eternal Bosom of Hot Love.” His father had very similar titles, as does his son, Kim Jong-Un.

38th parallel. North of it was a Communist regime overseen first by the Soviets and later by Communist China, south of the line was a pro-American dictatorship called the Republic of Korea (ROK).

The two Koreas are still technically at war, and given the hair-trigger tensions between them, a major conflict is never more than a few artillery rounds away.

It is not in anyone’s interest for there to be another major war in Korea,

there are mixed feelings about risking the prosperity of one of the world’s most advanced nations in the meantime.

R12308230637 I did not know this.

there is a famous letter sent from what we know as Japan to the Emperor of China in 617 CE in which a Japanese leading nobleman writes: “Here I the emperor of the country where the sun rises send a letter to the emperor of the country where the sun sets.

Immigration is another possible solution, but Japan remains a relatively insular society and immigration is not favored by the population.

R12308230656 I understand this slightly more clearly now… When I think about immigration and aging in Japan, Korea, and China, I think about the prospect of incentivising Filipinos to migrate to these countries by diplomatic means. I failed to see that in so doing, Japan and Korea open their gates to Chinese immigration, not dissimilar to what we have observed in the Philippines in the latter part of the last decade.

Latin America, particularly its south, is proof that you can bring the Old World’s knowledge and technology to the new, but if geography is against you, then you will have limited success, especially if you get the politics wrong.

Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494, one of the early examples of European colonialists drawing lines on maps of faraway places about which they knew little—or, in this case, nothing.

Bolivar in particular is etched in the collective consciousness of South America: Bolivia is named in his honor, and the left-leaning countries of the continent are loosely tied in a “Bolivarian” ideology against the United States. This is a fluctuating set of anticolonialist/pro-socialist ideas that often stray into nationalism as and when it suits the politicians who espouse them.