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. Marshall is not very good at writing about history and it is painful to trudge through those middle sections. He clearly attempts to be "impartial" but because he gives attention to certain areas and skips over others, he falls on his arse. The book opens with a chapter on Australia. As an Australian I found it quite interesting reading a perspective on my country and people... “Now Australia looks around at its neighbourhood and wonders what role it should play, and whom it should play it with”... “Australia’s size and location are both it’s strength and its weakness...” 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."

Timothy John Marshall is a British journalist, author, and broadcaster, specialising in foreign affairs and international diplomacy. Marshall is a guest commentator on world events for the BBC, Sky News and a guest presenter on LBC, and was formerly the diplomatic and foreign affairs editor for Sky News.When discussing how he manages to keep his book engaging and accessible for a wide audience, Marshall described how he realised that “almost everything is interesting”. He said it only really becomes hard “when I don’t understand something”. This created problems when writing his new book because “I don’t understand science, and there’s some science in this book and I had to go over and over it until I thought I understood it, and then write it […] in a way that I thought I might understand”. The cynic in me wants to say that Marshall wanted to cash in on the success of his first outing. He had some leftover chapters that didn't make the cut because the content wasn't enough. So he padded it out with a lot of history to bash out another book.

In the first book, "Prisoners of Geography", Tim Marshall delivered what he promised. It focused on the physical geography of regions or nations and connected it to that nation's political and military strategies. I enjoyed reading it, and learned a fair bit about geopolitics. non-fiction book by Tim Marshall The Power of Geography: Ten Maps that Reveal the Future of Our WorldThe history of the world is the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." - Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Prime Minister

Also, too many instances of pro-British whitewashing of history. The colonial French were vile bastards. But Britain was just a little bit naughty and all is forgiven because we abolished slavery first. Any non-Western atrocities are given plenty of attention, however.I can see myself when I’m nine or ten year’s old happily sitting down for several hours on a rainy afternoon and just pouring through this and using it as jumping off point for a million other things. Tim Marshall ist anerkannter Experte für Außenpolitik und arbeitete als Politik-Redakteur für die BBC und Sky News. In seinen Büchern erörtert er die großen internationalen Konflikte unserer Zeit auf geopolitischer Ebene. Sein neuestes, von Lutz-W. Wolff übersetztes Buch "Die Macht der Geographie im 21. Jahrhundert" wurde mir vor allem zum Verständnis des Kriegs in der Ukraine und den damit verbundenen Hintergründen und Zusammenhängen empfohlen. These tensions arise not just from geopolitics, but also from a parallel commercial imperative: "There's money to be made in space, and people are out to get it." So if you're not worried about the prospect of a Star Wars future, you'll need to get used to the idea of advertising being beamed across the firmament.

Where Prisoners was almost solely the influence of physical geography, The Power of Geography is almost exclusively human geography (see also: history) and I am personally more of a fan of the former. He spent much of the 1999 Kosovo crisis in Belgrade, where he was one of the few western journalists that stayed on to report from one of the main targets of NATO bombing raids. He was also in Kosovo to greet the NATO troops the day that they advanced into Pristina. 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. And it was sort of, I mean, it is obvious. But many things are not always apparent, if you see what I mean. It is obvious that there is a geographical underpinning to many events, but it was just the starkness of that moment. It never left me. And so pretty much every international story I ever covered subsequent to that was through the prism of explaining what is going on there. It’s geography in its widest sense. I just found it helped me so much to understand the dynamics of pretty much any given situation.United Kingdom: The nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom, an island country in Western Europe who used its naval power to build the world's biggest empire which collapsed after World War 2. About half the size of France, its main European concern was to keep a balance of power and avoid one European country from becoming too powerful and threatening its empire. A country caught between being close to USA based on language and history and Europe based on proximity. Facing a growing independence movement from Scotland following Brexit which could impact its military and naval bases. And we need to understand it fast if we're to avoid history repeating itself, because "each time humanity has ventured into a new domain it has brought war with it". Marshall reminds us how shipbuilding and aerospace gave us warships and fighter jets. For him, the mushrooming space technology sector is unlikely to follow a different trajectory. The "battlefield" as he calls it, is beginning to take shape: "tensions are already surfacing surrounding hotspots" such as Moon bases. Tim’s a reported Leeds United supporter, and a Leeds United logo was visible at his home, on a Politics Live that aired February 22, 2022. Space - the Artemis Accords (not signed by China and Russia). Control of Earth space where satellites live/work/spy on other countries and debris of decades is even more of a threat. Discussing agreements regarding settlements on the moon and who gets mining rights and how far would boundaries be.