Prisoners Of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need To Know About Global Politics Quotes
"RUSSIA IS VAST. IT IS VASTEST. IMMENSE. IT IS SIX MILLION SQUARE miles vast, eleven time zones vast; it is the largest country in the world."
"It is no coincidence that the bear is the symbol of this immense size."
"When writers seek to get to the heart of the bear they often use Winston Churchill’s famous observation of Russia, made in 1939: ‘It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’."
"Russia, like all great powers, is thinking in terms of the next 100 years and understands that in that time anything could happen."
"Russia as a concept dates back to the ninth century and a loose federation of East Slavic tribes known as Kievan Rus’."
"In the eighteenth century, Russia – under Peter the Great, who founded the Russian Empire in 1721, and then Empress Catherine the Great – looked westward, expanding the Empire to become one of the great powers of Europe."
"Russia is the biggest country in the world, twice the size of the USA or China, five times the size of India, twenty-five times the size of the UK."
"Former US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was mocked when she was reported as saying, ‘You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska’."
"Two years on, in 1869, came the opening of the transcontinental railroad. Now you could cross the country in a week, whereas it had previously taken several hazardous months."
"Most presidents bore in mind George Washington’s advice in his farewell address in 1796 not to get involved in ‘inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others’, and to ‘steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world’."
"The Second World War changed everything. The USA was attacked by an increasingly militaristic Japan after Washington imposed economic sanctions on Tokyo which would have brought the country to its knees."
"They were the ‘last man standing’. The Europeans had exhausted themselves, and their economies, like their towns and cities, were in ruins."
"A century earlier, the British had learnt they needed forward bases and coaling stations from which to project and protect their naval power."
"In the autumn of 1940 the British had desperately needed more warships. The Americans had fifty spare and so, with what was called the ‘Destroyers for Bases Agreement’, the British swapped their ability to be a global power for help in remaining in the war."
"The USA is still in the opening phase of what in 2011 the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called ‘the pivot to China’."
"The Cuban Missile Crisis is generally considered an American victory; what is less publicised is that several months after Russia removed its missiles from Cuba, the United States removed its Jupiter missiles (which could reach Moscow) from Turkey."
"The USA was partially behind the change of government in Ukraine in 2014. It wanted to extend democracy in the world, and it wanted to pull Ukraine away from Russian influence and thus weaken President Putin."
"For example, Washington might be outraged at human rights abuses in Syria (a hostile state) and express its opinions loudly, but its outrage at abuses in Bahrain might be somewhat more difficult to hear, muffled as it has been by the engines of the US 5th Fleet which is based in Bahrain as the guest of the Bahraini government."
"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 explain the unrest and extremism of today."
"Prior to Sykes-Picot (in its wider sense), there was no state of Syria, no Lebanon, nor were there Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel or Palestine."
"The Sunni Muslims form the majority among Arabs, and indeed among the world’s Muslim population, comprising perhaps 85 per cent of the total."
"The word Shia derives from ‘Shiat Ali’, literally ‘the party of Ali’, and refers to the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad."
"The legacy of European colonialism left the Arabs grouped into nation states and ruled by leaders who tended to favour whichever branch of Islam (and tribe) they themselves came from."
"The Kurds were the first to leave. The smallest minorities in a dictatorship will sometimes pretend to believe the propaganda that their rights are protected because they lack the strength to do anything about the reality."
"The more serious potential threat comes from Lebanon’s bigger neighbour Syria."
"Islamic State grew out of the ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ franchise group in the late 2000s."
"The jihadist fantasy is global domination by Salafi Islam."
"The routine expression of hatred for others is so common in the Arab world that it barely draws comment other than from the region’s often Western-educated liberal minority who have limited access to the platform of mass media."
"The geography of the peninsula is fairly uncomplicated and a reminder of how artificial the division is between North and South."
"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."
"Imagine the effect of just one salvo of shells from 10,000 artillery weapons landing in urban and semi-urban areas, then multiply it dozens of times."
"The choice of the 38th parallel as the line of division was unfortunate in many ways."
"The defeat of Japan in 1945 left Korea divided along the 38th parallel."
"The North Korean leadership, and its Chinese backers, had correctly worked out that, in a strictly military sense, Korea was not vital to the USA."
"The USA would have to decide how far across the DMZ it would push and whether it should seek to secure all of North Korea’s sites containing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction material."
"The lack of decent modern roads is compounded by a similar deficiency of rail track. This is not a recipe for profitable trading or for unifying a large space politically."
"The Arctic states know that theirs is a tough neighbourhood, not so much because of warring factions but because of the challenges presented by its geography."
"The Arctic Council is composed of mature countries, most of them democratic to a greater or lesser degree."