Marshall also looks at Greece and how they became seafarers forced by their immovable terrain. Marshal then looks at Turkey and her position as the controller of eastern, western, northern and southern trade. In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry: Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain and Space. Find out why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth’s atmosphere is set to become the world’s next battleground. The Power of Geography" by Tim Marshall is an insightful and engaging look at the role of geography in shaping the world's political and economic landscape. Marshall, a former diplomatic editor and foreign correspondent, uses his wealth of knowledge and experience to weave together a compelling narrative that draws connections between geography and various historical and contemporary events.

The sequel “The Power of Geography” explores ten countries that are set to shape the coming decades of the 21 st century – a new age of great power rivalry. Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, Ethiopia and Spain are the countries which get attention in the book. These nations are already directly and indirectly involved in great power rivalry of the century. Starting with Australia, the book defines Australia’s vastness but it also tells the reader that this vastness still doesn’t give Australia full advantages against the geopolitical threats it faces. Geography is not necessarily fate, but it is more important, insists Marshall, than individual politicians. Consider Australia, he writes in the first chapter: It sits 5,000 miles from Africa, more than 7,000 miles from South America, and more than 2,500 miles from its supposed neighbor, New Zealand. The isolation of the island continent once allowed it to maintain a small White settler population and conduct genocidal wars on Indigenes largely unseen. Today, connected by air and sea routes and communication lines, it is “a territorially huge, Western-oriented, advanced democracy” that sits next door to China, “the world’s most economically and militarily powerful dictatorship.” This makes Australia a bulwark. What of Iran? Will it ever become a world power, as it was in the days of Darius and Xerxes? Hemmed in by mountains, “Iran’s main centers of population are widely dispersed and, until recently, poorly connected. Even now, only half of the country’s roads are paved.” This dispersal favors ethnic and cultural diversity, and Iran’s overwhelmingly young population is beginning to resist a fundamentalist ideology “more in tune with the sixteenth century than the twenty-first.” Regional rival Saudi Arabia contains vast resources of oil, a commodity that is increasingly less important than before, so much so that much of the vast sandy peninsula remains unexplored. The U.K. is another region that, Marshall projects, will become less important in world affairs as the U.S. looks to the Pacific rather than Europe. The author also considers the secondary effects of the movement for Scottish independence and, of course, China, with designs everywhere around the world, especially in a developing Sahel—and, significantly, in space, where it is vying with Russia to be the first to build lunar bases.Originally from Leeds, Tim arrived at broadcasting from the road less traveled. Not a media studies or journalism graduate, in fact not a graduate at all, after a wholly unsuccessful career as a painter and decorator he worked his way through newsroom nightshifts, and unpaid stints as a researcher and runner before eventually securing himself a foothold on the first rung of the broadcasting career ladder.

p. 185 - "By 2020 Turkey had fallan out with Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE Kuwait, Israel Iran, Amenia, Greece Cyprus, and France and had irritated all of its NATO allies by buying the S-400 missile defence system from NATO's great rival Russia. The Americans were so angry about what they regarded as a breach of trust that in December 2020 they imposed sanctions on the Turkish defence industry and pointed out that the S-400 had been designed to shoot down the US F-35 stealth fighter." non-fiction book by Tim Marshall The Power of Geography: Ten Maps that Reveal the Future of Our World That may sound obvious, perhaps trite, but a government or a leader forgets it at their peril. They must understand exactly where they are and how much fuel they have in the tank – Napoleon was not the first or last to forget that lesson and he was taught a harsh one in the Russian winter of 1812. An example in the book is Saudi Arabia. The tribal character of the country was forged in the heat of its deserts, and its place in the world is founded on its key resource underneath the sand. But when the oil was found the population was about 2 million. Now it is 34 million. If the world weans itself off oil, what sustains 34 million people in a country with limited agricultural land? The decisions the House of Saud is now making to diversify its economy are based on geography. Since the end of the Second World War, putting geography front and centre in international relations has been regarded with suspicion due to its alleged ‘determinism’, and has been eclipsed by hard economics and technology. The high priests of foreign policy, more in academia than in government, came to see it as poor thinking akin to fatalism. That, however, is in itself poor thinking and flies in the face of common sense. Russia’s President Putin did not take a keen interest in the 2020 election in Belarus due to its potential consumer market for Russian goods or as an emerging high-tech nation. Prisoners Of Geography was a deserved smash, a clever angle to use geography to actually tell historical stories about current affairs, why the world is the way it is partially due to the way countries grew from their physical limitations. And so there is no shame in a sequel, and it is partially the fault of doing such a good job the first time around that what is left does feel like the off-cuts and crumbs from that book. The focus has shifted slightly, to look to the future. and how geography might affect future conflicts. But considering the land masses looked at in Prisoners were so massive, there is a little bit of going over the same ground. Delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity’s past, present - and future.The history of the world is the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." - Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Prime Minister Saudi Arabia: The kingdom of the house of Saud rules this oil rich nation that has been allied with the western powers and spread Wahhabism around the Muslim world. As oil is replaced with renewables it will be less important for the West to protect the kingdom. Saudi Arabia seeks to diversify its oil dominant economy. Saudi Arabia's main rival for regional influence in Middle East is Iran. p. 133 - "This is partially drive by the English language, which is spoken as a first tongue by upwards of 500 million people and by 1 billion people as a second. It remains the main language of commerce and international legal contracts. the UK's higher education system continues to attract some of the brightest and best (and richest) students." The noted conservative economist delivers arguments both fiscal and political against social justice initiatives such as welfare and a federal minimum wage.

Now, in this revelatory new book, Marshall takes us into ten regions that are set to shape global politics and power. Find out why the Earth’s atmosphere is the world’s next battleground; why the fight for the Pacific is just beginning; and why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than we think.p. 176 - "In the 1990s Turkey had re-established itself as a major trade route after building gas and oil pipes running from Iraq and the Caspian Sea through Anatolia to supply Europe. It had also put together one of the largest and most efficient militaries in NATO, giving it confidence as it assessed the new world around it."

Saudi Arabia - religion vs. economics vs. a large extended royal family who is trying to replace oil with technology even as it's also watching extremist organizations. Readers familiar with Marshall’s first book, Prisoners of Geography,will not be surprised with the format of each of the ten chapters. Each chapter focuses on a country and starts by describing the key geographical characteristics and then a brief history before explaining how its current territory affects its geopolitics. The books simple format is easy to follow but could be accused of repetition, especially when referring to what keeps Generals awake at nightappears constantly.

Even topography, geographers note, isn’t as immutable as geopoliticians suppose. Zeihan, a vice-president at Stratfor for 12 years (“You can only speak at Langley so many times”, he sighs in a recent book), has long insisted that the outsize power of the US can be attributed to its “ perfect Geography of Success”. Settlers arrived in New England, encountered substandard agricultural conditions where “wheat was a hard no”, and were fortunately spurred on to claim better lands to the west. With those abundant farmlands came “the real deal”: an extensive river system allowing internal trade at a “laughably low” cost. These features, Zeihan writes, have made the US “the most powerful country in history” and will keep it so for generations. “Americans. Cannot. Mess. This. Up.” Turkey - tension with Greece about the 'Blue Wave' territory as well as preferring non-interference while working at rebuilding it's destiny as a global power. "Democracy" (power/control) for the Islamist authorities while removal/elimination of dissents.