If it came to conflict, an enemy could block shipping here, cutting off incoming resources and outgoing exports.
(The Himalayas, while we’re there, are also one of the main reasons why China and India have historically had so little to do with each other – they make trade very difficult between the two.) Rising tensions in the South China Seas have similar roots, says Marshall. Liberating Tibet would mean ceding the high ground to the West and leaving it vulnerable. China occupies Tibet because it gives them control of all the territory up to the Himalayas. Where are the rivers and mountain ranges that suggest territorial limits? Where are the transport routes and sea lanes? What natural resources are we dealing with? What people groups have occupied this region? If an enemy were to invade, where would they attack? Out of these questions, Marshall then lays out the various international disputes in the area and why nations act the way they do.
Often that starts with a historical perspective, the story of how those nations came to be and why their borders lie where they are. Each chapter begins with a map of a region or key country, and then shows how the geography of that country explains its political preoccupations. But it does lay some very good foundations. That’s a bold claim, and of course the book doesn’t tell you everything you need to know to understand global politics. But here is journalist and author Tim Marshall to explain why it still matters, with Prisoners of Geography: Ten maps that will tell you everything you need to know about global politics. Perhaps it was more obvious in the past, and one might think that it is less important in an age of global connections, the internet and drone warfare. Geography has always shaped politics, determining where borders fall, where empires expand and where their ambitions stop.
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