Making Sense of Power and Geography
States do not operate in a vacuum. Geography, resources, and military capabilities shape what they can do — regardless of ideology, intention, or moral positioning.
Physical realities shape state behaviour. Mountains block armies, rivers enable trade, straits control maritime traffic. Resource deposits, military bases, and transport routes constrain options more than rhetoric or intention. Understanding these constraints and actions reveals how states operate.
This newsletter attempts to map power at work: territorial disputes, resource competition, strategic choke points, military deployments. Working with incomplete information from varied sources, I aim to strip away obvious bias but cannot eliminate all blind spots. Each edition adds pieces to an incomplete map.
The framework prioritizes material factors over rhetoric. Each analysis represents how source material appears when filtered through this framework, not independent conclusions or definitive truth.
Why Subscribe?
If I do things right, this newsletter will lead to a more measured and nuanced understanding of international events, the conflicting interests of states, and what you can expect from a turbulent international environment.
Subscribing will at worst clarify just another perspective, but at best it may prove elucidating and help in explaining the highly-complex geopolitical environment which we all inhabit.
