In its cynical view of human motives, geopolitics resembles Marxism, just with topography replacing class struggle as the engine of history. And when you do, the world reveals itself to be a zero-sum contest in which every neighbour is a potential rival, and success depends on controlling territory, as in the boardgame Risk. Ideas, laws and culture are interesting, geopoliticians argue, but to truly understand politics you must look hard at maps. Although the term is often used loosely to mean “international relations”, it refers more precisely to the view that geography – mountains, land bridges, water tables – governs world affairs.

There is a name for Marshall’s line of thinking: geopolitics. The map “imprisons” leaders, he had written, “giving them fewer choices and less room to manoeuvre than you might think”. “Putin has no choice”, Marshall concluded: “He must at least attempt to control the flatlands to the west.” When Putin did precisely that, invading a Ukraine he could no longer control by quieter means, Marshall greeted it with wearied understanding, deploring the war yet finding it unsurprising. Marshall noted how this gap in Russia’s natural fortifications has repeatedly exposed it to attacks.

On it, you can ride a bicycle from Paris to Moscow. To the north of those mountains, a flat corridor – the Great European Plain – connects Russia to its well-armed western neighbours via Ukraine and Poland. Between Russia and western Europe stand the Balkans, Carpathians and Alps, which form another wall. Its border with China is protected by mountain ranges, and it is separated from Iran and Turkey by the Caucusus. A ring of mountains and ice surrounds it. On the first page of his 2015 blockbuster book, Prisoners of Geography, Marshall invited readers to contemplate Russia’s topography. Would it really sever trade ties – and threaten nuclear war – just to expand its already vast territory? Despite the many warnings, including from Vladimir Putin himself, the invasion still came as a shock.īut it wasn’t a shock to the journalist Tim Marshall. Last year, Russia was at peace and enmeshed in a complex global economy. The largest, however, is that it happened at all.

R ussia’s war in Ukraine has involved many surprises.

Marshall geography book