A small announcement, I am sharing the articles that I think are long in two parts to increase the read rate of my articles. Because nobody wants to read a 2000 word article in one sitting -except me-. therefore, I will share the second half of this article at the same time tomorrow. If you are uncomfortable with this application, you can specify. So I'm trying to figure out if this is a good thing by trial and error. If you wish, let's go to the article..
At first glance, Putin seems crazy waging a war in the middle of Europe. Why would he invade a sovereign neighboring country? You might not care about the war in Ukraine, but the implications of this war are hitting everyone worldwide. Have you seen gas prices? Internet is filled with articles and videos explaining what's going on in this conflict but most of them aren't entirely accurate. They either promote their agenda or don't understand Russia and its history and how all of that is related.
Little disclaimer, I won't be able to cover everything in this short article but I will try my best to explain what exactly is happening? How is that impacting the world? The stock market? And most importantly how will that impact you! Here is another disclaimer, I am not trying to take sides here. War is bad and a tragedy no matter who is waging. Every nation has the right to determine its future. And conflicts should be resolved through dialogue and not rockets no matter the circumstances To understand why Russia has invaded Ukraine, you have to understand Russia.
Technology has made our lives much easier and it seems like technology can solve all problems, however, at least for now, that's not the case. Geography usually determines which countries are going to prosper and which ones wouldn’t. If you want to build a prosperous country, you need the 2 most important components - Trade and security. The more your country trades, the wealthier it gets, the less it trades the poorer it gets.
world trading routes by volume, seanews
80 percent of world trade is done through waters because it’s the most affordable option. That has always been the case throughout history and even today. With all the tech we have, ships are the most important method to trade, that's why access to the ocean is vital to the prosperity of any nation. However, trade alone is not enough, if you don’t have secured borders, your neighbor can simply invade you and force you to pay taxes. This might sound insane to some of you but that's how humanity has always been. Let's take a look at some examples.
One of the main reasons why the UK has always been a prosperous nation is because of these 2 reasons. The UK is an island, it can easily trade with the world without the fear of someone blocking its ships. Secondly, invading a well-defended island is nearly impossible.
Just a disclaimer, that doesn't mean the country would never go through financial crises and other problems, but that it has the foundation of growth. Let's take another example, France. It has access to the Mediterrane sea to trade with the rest of Europe and access to the Suez canal. On the other side, it has direct access to the north Atlantic ocean to trade with the US and the rest of the Americas.
In terms of security, it shares the Pyrenees mountains with Spain and the Alps with Italy, Switzerland, and part of Germany. However, with the rest of Germany and Belgium, it shares a flat border. That’s why during WW1 and WW2, Germany occupied France, that's another example of why having natural borders such as Mountains is important
Let's take a look at the US. On one side, it has access to the north Atlantic ocean to trade with Europe, on the other side it has access to the north pacific ocean to trade with China and Southeast Asia. With a population of 350 million people, it's enough to connect the country from the east coast to the west coast. On the north, it has a neighbor with a population that’s 10 times smaller which poses no threat to US and Mexico that's in constant chaos. And now let's take a look at Russia where you will start understanding why Russia is invading Ukraine.
kievan rus borders, wikipedia
Russia started here which was known back then as the Kievian Rus with no Natural Borders such as Mountains or Oceans. That's why Mongols easily invaded Russia for the next 300 years and forced it to pay taxes for 300 years. After 300 years of paying taxes to Mongols, Russia understood the importance of having natural borders so they expanded their empire to the Bering Sea and central Asia.
In the south they had mountainous borders, in the north, it's just so cold that no one would dare to invade from there. While Russia was huge, it had no access to the sea to trade with the world and it was not populated. Even today, Russia is the largest country in the world, but its population is not even half of the US, that’s why it was relatively poor. And the country was simply too big to build the infostructure to connect it.
russian empire at it's peak, reddit