Posted on 08/02/2022 4:26:19 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Americans need to "put maps and encyclopedias back on their tables" to understand the "central geographic reality" of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The 19th-century German geographer Friedrich Ratzel once wrote that "great statesmen have never lacked a feeling for geography." "When one speaks of a healthy political instinct," Ratzel continued, "one usually means a correct evaluation of the geographic bases of political power." Europeans and Asians have always had a better grasp of the importance of geography than Americans because unlike Americans, their potential adversaries and opponents were usually located close by, not an ocean away.
Laszlo Bernat Veszpremy is a Hungarian historian and the editor of a science journal called Corvinak. Writing in The American Conservative, Veszpremy has provided a geography lesson for Americans in an effort to help them understand the Russian-Ukraine war. The article is titled "The Inexorable Crowbar of Geography," and in it Veszpremy urges Americans to "put maps and encyclopedias back on their tables" so they can understand the "central geographic reality" of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
That geographic reality is the "East European Plain," which extends over two million square miles. It is the largest lowland in the world. The great British geographer Sir Halford Mackinder sketched what he called the "Great Lowland" in his geopolitical masterpiece Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919). Mackinder described this plain as a "gateway" into Europe from Asia, and into Asia from Europe. He characterized this lowland as "the strategical fact of decisive meaning" for Eurasian geopolitics. Mackinder described the raids of hordes from Asia — Tatars, Huns, Avars, Magyars, Mongols — that helped shape modern Europe. Centuries later, European empires — Napoleonic France, Wilhelmine Germany, and Nazi Germany — traversed the great lowland and struck into the heart of European Russia.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“We have giant problem with Mexico”
Well gee in that case lets pretend we are Putin and invade!
The argument for geographically vulnerability ignores history. . There are 2 divergent sets of reasons are first the practical
1: a need to increase its population with 44 million Ukrainians.
2: A warm water port
3: Ukrianian oil, industry and agriculture
secondly, the psychological
2d set:
1: Russian self deception - Ukraine is Russian
2: Russian version of imperial manifest destiny
3: Russia’s traditional paranoia about the west
Germany adamantly opposed their accession to NATO. It was never going to happen. Putin is too aware to believe otherwise.
By all means, let’s give Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California back to Mexico.
Peter Zeihan stated (5 years ago) that this war would have to happen in the “next 5 years”. Geography and demography dictate it.
Imo, it turned hot only after Biden’s handlers engineered our international humiliation in Afghanistan. I would not be surprised if the destruction of Ukraine and Taiwan were known and deliberate steps in their “reset”.
Looking at it through the Russian perspective; European and American leftism is going to collapse (The KGB designed it to), they need to be able to defend against whatever rises in its place. They also know the Russian ethnicity has dropped below the point of no return, and they are facing demographics collapse. China is worse off. They are fighting the laws of nature for a hope.
Then look at the US demographics pre covid; US and Mexico were going to dominate the next century. Except when you consider the side effects of the clot shot....
We need to realize WW3 started Nov 3, 2016.
Just type his name in the search and you will come up with hours of lectures on the current world situation with economics, demographics, military and how geography plays into all of that.
I don't agree with him 100% on everything he predicts but he knows his stuff and he presents the material in a very entertaining way. Nothing dry and boring about Peter Zeihan.
“Most of the Ukraine was part of Russia when.Russia annexed Crimea in 1783 after an earlier war with Turkey... from 1783 until 1991 for a total of 208 years”
And before that Russian intrusion MOST of Ukraine was not under the control of Moscow for nearly 700 years. And both during imperial Russia’s annexation of Ukraine, and after the 1917 “revolution” Ukraine independence movements fought the Czar and later the Soviets. Meaning, that even after annexation by the Czar, the spirit of an independent Ukraine remained, and still remains strong in the people of Ukraine.
My point is is that it is a Slavic civil war that we have no national interest that compels us getting in the middle of.
Most of the Americas were Spanish from 1492 to 1820. Things change. It’s not Spanish any more.
Ukraine is no longer Russian and will never submit to Russian domination.
I think that you are a leftist Williams.
Well then you’re going to be very sad to hear that the Ukraine is losing badly.
I’m willing to trade Finland for Ukraine in NATO, the end result is almost identical and not at all what Putin wanted.
No it is not a “slavic civil war” A civil war is within one country, not between two countries.
I agree. Where are your maps of the area in your post?
Like I give a flying turd what you think, and you only demonstrate how ignorant you are.
“it is a Slavic civil war”
Civil wars don’t involve one country’s army crossing the border to invade another.
Not exactly. The Ukranians are holding their own. They are not winning, per se, but they are making the Russians pay for the most resent gains in the Donbass. The are also keeping the Russians out of Karkov. It also appears they are launching a limited counter offensive towards Kherson, which, if successful, protects Odessa.
It’s not a full Russian retreat, but it’s not nothing either.
“No it is not a “slavic civil war” A civil war is within one country, not between two countries.”
Oh, like when Kiev sent street militia formations to attack eastern Ukraine for opting out of the coup? They went after them for 8 years with artillery. They were massing for a full attack into the Donbass this spring, and we refused some very reasonable security assurances.
Those two areas of Donbass finally declared independence and asked for help form their neighbor. All very legal under UN rules.
And now the Donbass and gone, and Crimea is really really gone.
“Oh, like when Kiev sent street militia formations to attack eastern Ukraine for opting out of the coup”
We are talking about Russians invading Ukraine. That is not a civil war.
“Those two areas of Donbass finally declared independence and asked for help form their neighbor.”
First of all, BS. What happened in eastern Ukraine was casued by an Russian agent provacatuer named Girken.]
Secondly, once Russia invaded it is no longer a civil war.
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