{"id":34791,"date":"2012-12-27T15:37:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T20:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/forex-news\/?p=34791"},"modified":"2012-12-30T23:01:23","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T04:01:23","slug":"review-the-revenge-of-geography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex-news\/2012\/12\/27\/review-the-revenge-of-geography\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Revenge of Geography"},"content":{"rendered":"

By The Sizemore Letter<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"
\n\u201cThe present, as permanent and overwhelming as it can seem, is fleeting,\u201d writes Robert Kaplan in the introduction to The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate<\/a>. <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe only thing enduring is a people\u2019s position on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a country built with a spirit of self-reliance and an ideology of free will, Kaplan\u2019s idea of \u201cthe map as a country\u2019s destiny\u201d might seem a little offensive to American readers.\u00a0 But the United States is itself a case in point.\u00a0 It is the United States\u2019 isolation, bordered by two oceans, that allowed it to develop virtually unmolested for the first two centuries of its independence.<\/p>\n

And as disappointing as it might be to American patriots who remember the Cold War, Kaplan\u2019s colleagues at Stratfor<\/em> has always maintained that the Soviet Union\u2019s eventual defeat was inevitable.<\/p>\n

Even if Ronald Reagan had never become president and escalated the arms build-up that led to the Soviets throwing in the towel, geography had already sealed their fate, at least according to Stratfor\u2019s<\/em> analysis.\u00a0 Due to Russia\u2019s lack of seaports\u2014and the ease with which enemies could block access to the few that Russia has\u2014it was always going to be easier for the United States or Britain to contain Russia than vice versa.\u00a0 In an age of nuclear missiles and air power, geography may matter less than it once did.\u00a0 But the world is still far from flat, and geography still very much matters.<\/p>\n

Students of history no doubt remember that it was the Russian winter and bleak landscape that defeated Napoleon Bonaparte\u2019s invasion, not the Russian army.\u00a0 As continental land powers, both Russia and Germany have an appreciation for geography that few other countries would appreciate.\u00a0 As Kaplan writes,<\/p>\n

As heirs to land power, Germans and Russians have over the centuries thought more in terms of geography than Americans or Britons, heirs to sea power.\u00a0 For Russians, mindful of the devastation wrought by the Golden Horde of the Mongols, geography means simply that without expansion there is danger of being overrun.\u00a0 Enough territory is never enough.\u00a0 Russia\u2019s need for an empire of Eastern European satellites during the Cold War, and its [more recent] use of military power, subversion, and the configuration of its energy pipeline routes all designed to gain back its near abroad\u2026are the wages of a deep insecurity.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

But Germans, at least through the middle of the 20th<\/sup> century, were more conscious of geography still.\u00a0 The shape of German-speaking territories on the map of Europe changed constantly from the Dark Ages through modern times\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 Historically changeable on the map, lying between sea to the north and Alps to the south, with the plains the west and the east open to invasion and expansion both, Germans have literally lived geography.<\/em><\/p>\n

Robert Kaplan has had a long and distinguished career as an analyst on geopolitical issues, and he currently writes for George Friedman\u2019s global intelligence service Stratfor<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

I reviewed Friedman\u2019s The Next 100 Years<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, and his follow-up The Next Decade<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Though I have never fully forgiven Dr. Friedman for some of his more outlandish forecasts\u2014such as a Japanese-Turkish military alliance attacking America from bases on the moon\u2014I continue to recommend both books as two of the more thought-provoking long-term forecasts in print today.<\/p>\n

If you liked The Next 100 Years<\/em> or if you enjoy reading Stratfor<\/em> geopolitical insights, then The Revenge of Geography<\/em> is a book you will want to add to your reading list in 2013.<\/p>\n

Readers might notice some similarities between Revenge <\/em>and another book I reviewed, Ian Morris\u2019 Why the West Rules\u2014For Now<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was Morris\u2019 contention that it was \u201cmaps, not chaps\u201d<\/strong> that led to eventual dominance of the West over the globe.\u00a0 In other words, it was the conditions of geography and the chain of events that followed it and not some innate cultural superiority\u00a0 that eventually led to British warships shooting their way up the Yangzi River rather than Chinese warships shooting their way up the Thames.\u00a0 (Adding credence to this view, Kaplan notes that Europe has a coastline that is 23,000 miles long\u2014long enough to encircle the earth\u2014full of natural harbors and that Europe has a higher ratio of coastline-to-landmass than any other continent or major region.)<\/p>\n

Kaplan\u2019s focus is very different\u2014and tends to focus around the impact that major mountain ranges have had on the development of the peoples in and around them\u2014but his conclusions are remarkably similar.\u00a0 In situations where man-made borders based on politics and ideology (such as the former East and West Germany or the current North and South Korea) come into conflict with natural borders based on geography and culture, it is the map that determines the outcome.<\/p>\n

Kaplan reserves some of his most controversial comments for North America, and particularly the relationship between the United States and Mexico\u2014and the role that geography plays.<\/p>\n

The United States has been overly fixated on the Middle East since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.\u00a0 The Obama Administration has since tried to \u201cre-pivot\u201d American policy towards East Asia and the Pacific.\u00a0 But what about Latin America?<\/p>\n

It would seem that the American attitude towards Latin America is best summarized by an off-the-cuff comment that President Nixon once made to a young Donald Rumsfeld: \u201cLatin America doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaplan might beg to differ.\u00a0 Paraphrasing the views of other policy experts, Kaplan writes,<\/p>\n

While the United States was deeply focused on Afghanistan and other parts of the Greater Middle East, a massive state failure was developing right on America\u2019s southern border, with far more profound implications for the near and distant future of America, its society, and American power than anything occurring half a world away.\u00a0 What have we achieved in the Middle East with all of our interventions since the 1980s? \u2026 Why not fix Mexico instead?<\/em><\/p>\n

Aside from the obvious point that Mexico might not want<\/em> to be fixed by its northern neighbor or that the \u201cfixing\u201d might be better done by Mexican citizens themselves than by outsiders, Kaplan does have a valid point.\u00a0 The United States shares a long border with Mexico, and the realities of geography mean that our destinies are linked\u2014regardless of prevailing political views about immigration. \u00a0\u00a0As Kaplan writes,<\/p>\n

It is in the Southwest where the United States is vulnerable.\u00a0 Here is the one area where America\u2019s national and imperial boundaries are in some tension: where the coherence of America as a geographically cohesive unit can be questioned.\u00a0 For the historical borderland between America and Mexico is broad and indistinct\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n

Why does this matter?<\/p>\n

Mexico and Central America constitute a growing demographic powerhouse with which the United States has an inextricable relationship. Mexico\u2019s population of 111 million people plus Central America\u2019s of 40 million constitute half the population of the United States\u2026 85 percent of all Mexico\u2019s exports go to the United States, even as half of all Central America\u2019s trade is with the U.S\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

The destiny of the United States will be north-south, rather than the east-west , sea-to-shining-sea of continental and patriotic myth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kaplan is not so much delving into mass-immigration scare statistics as he is emphasizing the growing importance of our southern neighbors to our own globalized economy.<\/p>\n

Again returning to geography, Kaplan notes that Mexico has far more natural borders internally between its various regions than it does with the United States.\u00a0 Baja California and the Yucatan Peninsula (home of Cancun, Cozumel and many of Mexico\u2019s other famous beaches) are separated from the rest of the country \u00a0by sea and, in the case of the Yucatan, by jungle.\u00a0 And northern Mexico is separated from Mexico City and the central highlands by desert and mountains.<\/p>\n

Kaplan notes something that I have noticed in my own travels.\u00a0 Northern Mexico is very different than southern Mexico.\u00a0<\/strong> The people are every bit as distinct as New Yorkers and Mississippians, and they don\u2019t particularly like each other.<\/p>\n

Northern Mexico, including the large business hub of Monterrey, is gritty and industrial with a strong \u201cget it done\u201d mentality. \u00a0It\u2019s people, by and large, are rugged individualists and very entrepreneurial.\u00a0 As Kaplan notes, Northern Mexico is responsible for 85% of all U.S.-Mexican trade.<\/p>\n

If you can understand Spanish, watch how norte\u00f1os from Monterrey are portrayed in Spanish-language television.\u00a0 They\u2019re generally hard-nosed, no-nonsense small businessmen who, in contrast to the urbane residents of Mexico City, have no interest in or time for cultural pursuits.\u00a0 Oh, and they\u2019re usually wearing an obnoxiously-large cowboy hat and flashy boots.<\/p>\n

Kaplan sees a \u201cborderland\u201d culture along the Texas-Mexico border that is distinct from both the U.S. and Mexican heartlands.\u00a0 It is a hybrid culture, mostly Spanish-speaking but with \u201cAmerican\u201d attitudes towards business and commerce.\u00a0 Both northern Mexico and the southwestern United States are subtly separating from the rest of their respective countries.<\/p>\n

I agree with Kaplan\u2019s analysis, even if I do not share his degree of alarm over drug violence.\u00a0 Kaplan views the loss of control by Mexico City over the drug gangs of the south as further evidence of the northern Mexico\u2019s effective separation.\u00a0 I believe the fears of drug violence are overdone.<\/p>\n

What is the potential result of the interaction between geography and demographics along the U.S.-Mexican border?<\/p>\n

Kaplan cites University of New Mexico Professor Charles Truxillo\u2019s prediction that, by 2080, the states of the American southwest and Mexican north will secede and form a new country of their own\u2014La Republica del Norte.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see about that.\u00a0 In any event, I agree with Kaplan that the realities of geography make some degree of melding between the countries inevitable.<\/p>\n

All in all, The Revenge of Geography<\/em> is a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in geopolitics.\u00a0 I don\u2019t agree with all of Kaplan\u2019s conclusions, but he gave me plenty of fodder for thought.\u00a0 If reading a 350-page tome is not to your liking, check out Kaplan\u2019s writings at Stratfor.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the HS Dent Forecast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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