Love this essay and this type of geography-is-destiny content you do so well. But some notes:
The Wikipedia article you linked seems to dispute your theory about why 10% of the Russian wheat harvest is left to rot: the explanation in Wikipedia is poor weather conditions. I'm sure that infrastructure is also a factor (exacerbated by and exacerbating the effects of poor weather), but I would check that.
Also, the connection between that ancient inland sea and American petroleum resources is a little hand-wavy. The maps you show have an inland sea... that doesn't cover the part of the US where oil was first discovered: in Pennsylvania and many clusters that were under the former landmass of ancient Appalachia. Obviously you're simplifying to keep the narrative clear but this undermines the argument a bit without some qualifier.
Lastly, it's a bit incongruent talking about how the Mississippi makes the Mississippi Valley so rich... when it's one of the most impoverished parts of the Untied States. You say, "the Mississippi Basin has the best farmland in the world and the best way to transport crops, making the region fabulously rich." But which region are we talking about? Mississippi and Alabama? (Not quite fabulously rich...). The Plains States? (More so!). Western Appalachia? (Less so!) The Midwest? Or are we talking about the entire United States, by extension?
What you mean, I think, is that the Mississippi Basin was the secret for a lot of the initial "primitive accumulation" phase for 19th Century American capitalism and industrial development and that its remains a massive multiplier of commerce today? That can be true even if the actual wealth doesn't deposit as so much silt in the actual river basin itself. Because the closer to the Mississippi River proper you get, the less wealthy things are, relative to the rest of the United States.
On Russia, you’re right that the support is not perfect. All this was certainly true before, and seems to be true now. I had a hard time finding reports on the long-term attribution of farming losses there, but since my prior was positive and the available evidence seemed to support it, and since this is not a fundamental part of the argument, I decided to assume it’s right. I might be wrong and I’m open to hearing evidence of the contrary.
I did fly over the inland sea — oil & gas connection, but it’s there and it’s strong. I didn’t expand on it due to narrative as you point out.
Indeed the Mississippi is not the richest today, because wealth in highly developed countries comes from cities, not farmland. But the farmland underpins everything else, and was certainly a huge factor in the beginning, as you outlined. Even today, it’s over 10% of exports, and if you include oil and gas, over 30%
Thanks for another great article. Since immigration was one of the factors that made America great, do you think that the current immigration policy which will lead to a decline in the American population will have an effect. Also, so far this year, American exports have fallen while Canadian ones have risen (not that Canada can ever be a superpower). If current policy continues, would that have an effect, or is the geographic factor so overwhelmingly dominant? Thanks for you views on this.
The U.S. has been uniquely good at using immigration to become richer. Not all immigration is the same, but in the long term, it would be very bad to eliminate immigration.
You can certainly destroy a country with very bad policy. Examples are Argentina, Venezuela, or North Korea. Hopefully the U.S. will not be so bad. It has the longest tradition of democracy, so it’s pretty safe there.
Not sure what you mean when you say Australia & New Zealand are modeled on the US system. They are parliamentary democracies (like Canada) & modeled on the British system, not that of the US, which is definitely not a parliamentary democracy.
Yes similar but not modelled. Constitutional monarchies with King Charles the sovereign. It would be fair to say a large cultural influence following WWII from the US, but otherwise everything else is from either British colonialism, the indigenous people/s, or the unique identity these countries have formed since
If geography makes the U.S. hard to conquer, its culture makes it nearly impossible: 120 firearms per 100 residents turn the country into a continent-sized militia.
If that were true, then places like Yemen and Ukraine and Ethiopia would also be impossible to conquer, given their high rates of firearm ownership.
And maybe they are, but Russia has certainly made a go at it in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia visited a lot of devastation on Yemen recently.
In contemporary wars of conquest, firearms don't seem to be such a decisive factor. Missiles, drones, and mass fire artillery can do things that simple firearms are pretty impotent to counteract.
Thank you for another intriguing article about geopolitical history. I happened to be procrastinating on some homework so this was a welcome diversion, but otherwise although I have been a paid subscriber since your covid articles, I haven't had much free time to read most of your articles. I went back to college last fall and while very enjoyable, it does consume a large amount of my free time.
But I just wanted to say again how much I do enjoy reading your articles when I can make time (stalling time, ha!) to do so. Your writing is worth subscribing for! Keep writing, and don't let anyone discourage you from writing!
Also while some may accuse you of being political, it doesn't take a genius to see when actions are being taken by the current regime that harm the US and its citizens. I am constantly amazed by those who tell me with a straight face that tariffs are paid by other countries to enrich our country and thus the cost of groceries and other goods will become lower and more affordable. <facepalm> <eyeroll>
Nicely written article. Just curious, did you ever read George Friedman's geopolitical monographs? He wrote them for Stratfor maybe 15 years ago. I think you would enjoy reading them if you haven't already; he does very similar analyses.
Though, do you get your text from LLMs? There are some suspicious spaces to return typos (e.g. "All of the peoples", "The vast majority of prime agricultural"), such that one gets when copying text from ChatGPT. I hope this is has nothing to do with content creation.
I heavily use LLMs but never quote them verbatim (yet!). I find their style imperfect for comprehension.
Sometimes I copy sentences from sources and adapt them to my articles ( including LLMs). That might be one of the sources of weirdness?
Also I was born French and Spanish and only learned English as a teenager. Maybe that’s why you find some atypical sentences. Note that both your examples fit that pattern.
Great article! I love how you highlighted the strategic importance of New Orleans. Controlling the city really does mean controlling the Mississippi.. Thinking that this was once France’s territory..
As always, an interesting article. However, I disagree with the thesis that America's wealth was caused by its geography. In the long run, the wealth of a nation is determined by institutional framework (e.g. market economy vs. centrally planned economy, democracy vs dictatorship, etc) and human capital (factors like education, religion, etc.). That's why South Korea is rich and North Korea is poor. To put it exaggeratedly, you could move the whole US population to a desert, and the desert would become a super power. (Or maybe it's not even an exaggeration - see Israel).
The fact that geo is a major factor doesn’t mean it’s the only factor!
But how weird that the British colonies in temperate regions are rich, and the ones in warmer climates are poor, isn’t it? What a coincidence that the U.S. south is poorer than the U.S. North (caused by a climate-induced civil war)…
I am not sure which poor British colonies in warmer climates do you mean. Australia's GDP per capita is pretty high - even though it's literally a desert :)
Thanks for another stimulating post! I’d just moderate its premise that the US is the richest country on Earth. GDP is not a complete measure of wealth. For example, most Euro Area citizens are in fact richer than most US citizens: the typical (modal) Euro Area household holds more wealth than its US counterpart.
One reason is that while the top 1–10% of US families are indeed wealthier than the equivalent European percentile, everyone below that level tends to be poorer.
Tomas I would love to read your analysis, based on all these parameters you analyze, of the feasibility and challenges were the US to split into what is sometimes referred to as "Pacifica", where WA OR CA NV AZ NM CO (assuming the NV AZ land bridge to NM and CO) plus some assemblage of NE states plus IL, MN and MI. Some writers cite population, education centers, industrialization, ports, and nukes, and the economic centers as impenetrables; I have not seen mention of farmlands and drainages let alone the heartland breadbasket and Mississippi River system. Were such a blue nation to emerge what neighboring states might it have to "conquer"to become contiguous? Would the world recognize it, and decline to recognize the remainder, more or less based on the old Confederacy?
Note I barely talked about the West Coast! If America had had 2000 more years to develop before Europeans arrived, I reckon maybe one country would have emerged in the west coast (probably in California), a different one in the Mississippi, and maybe other ones in the Eastern Seaboard / Great Lakes.
Colorado is on the eastern side of the Rockies so I doubt it would have joined California.
One fact few ppl know is that the Comanches were in the process of creating a huge nation just after the Spanish introduced horses and before the U.S. steamrolled them!
america has a favorable geography which implies a larger capability for the function of global security of exchange, trade and internet infrastructure. as kautilya observed a state operates best with concentric rings of surrounding states that are more friendly the closer the ring. there is also the factor that alliances create large chunks of productivity with larger economy of scale. the mercantilism of american policy, a steady bipartisan trend, isnt from stupidity but rather from fear, a fear of inability to adapt advanced economies fast enough and maintain internal political hegemony or consent. as the output of large countries surpasses that of advanced countries, the firm alliance of other countries with america will be challenged by very hard economic and geographic facts. the trump thrust is nativism and it remains to be seen whether nativism or liberalism is more durable for hearts and minds, but neither can be anything more than extending internal consent long enough to adapt advanced economies to the challenges of intelligent software advance. another factor is the emerging duopoly of near earth orbit military and communications capacity. that is likely to be the umbrella over the major powers and large countries preponderant demographic military capacity. the decline of the west is a myth it remains very strong in software and geographic fundamentals, the disintegration of the western alliance agencies is likely irreversible and holds great promise for global advance, especially the sectors left out of the post WWII alliance - e.g. the gridless subsistence regions, the workers displaced by industrial obsolescence, the sanctioned countries and businesses, Islam and other cultures constrained from development, and the remaining habitats of large mammals. the transition from western hegemony to hegemony of major powers is inevitable in some form, hopefully gets us closer to the kautilyan model, and not the least significant is the implication of reengineering advanced economies, retiring the tactical mercantilist drag, and restoring their role of advancing productivity and the human journey of discovery.
The automobile industry really did the ROTW a solid by outcompeting and stripping back the railway industry. Imagine if the US had a great rail freight network today. It would significantly decrease their reliance on oil and dramatically decrease their goods shipping costs.
Yes US has a geographic advantage. But in 2025 is it the most important one? Technology, population and global networks are now much more important. The article strikes me as highly optimistic that 4% of the world's 8 billion can sustain economic and geopolitical dominance without analysing the possible superior advantages of the other 96%. Geography didn't protect the Native Americans.
Love this essay and this type of geography-is-destiny content you do so well. But some notes:
The Wikipedia article you linked seems to dispute your theory about why 10% of the Russian wheat harvest is left to rot: the explanation in Wikipedia is poor weather conditions. I'm sure that infrastructure is also a factor (exacerbated by and exacerbating the effects of poor weather), but I would check that.
Also, the connection between that ancient inland sea and American petroleum resources is a little hand-wavy. The maps you show have an inland sea... that doesn't cover the part of the US where oil was first discovered: in Pennsylvania and many clusters that were under the former landmass of ancient Appalachia. Obviously you're simplifying to keep the narrative clear but this undermines the argument a bit without some qualifier.
Lastly, it's a bit incongruent talking about how the Mississippi makes the Mississippi Valley so rich... when it's one of the most impoverished parts of the Untied States. You say, "the Mississippi Basin has the best farmland in the world and the best way to transport crops, making the region fabulously rich." But which region are we talking about? Mississippi and Alabama? (Not quite fabulously rich...). The Plains States? (More so!). Western Appalachia? (Less so!) The Midwest? Or are we talking about the entire United States, by extension?
What you mean, I think, is that the Mississippi Basin was the secret for a lot of the initial "primitive accumulation" phase for 19th Century American capitalism and industrial development and that its remains a massive multiplier of commerce today? That can be true even if the actual wealth doesn't deposit as so much silt in the actual river basin itself. Because the closer to the Mississippi River proper you get, the less wealthy things are, relative to the rest of the United States.
Thank you!! All great points.
On Russia, you’re right that the support is not perfect. All this was certainly true before, and seems to be true now. I had a hard time finding reports on the long-term attribution of farming losses there, but since my prior was positive and the available evidence seemed to support it, and since this is not a fundamental part of the argument, I decided to assume it’s right. I might be wrong and I’m open to hearing evidence of the contrary.
I did fly over the inland sea — oil & gas connection, but it’s there and it’s strong. I didn’t expand on it due to narrative as you point out.
Indeed the Mississippi is not the richest today, because wealth in highly developed countries comes from cities, not farmland. But the farmland underpins everything else, and was certainly a huge factor in the beginning, as you outlined. Even today, it’s over 10% of exports, and if you include oil and gas, over 30%
Thanks for another great article. Since immigration was one of the factors that made America great, do you think that the current immigration policy which will lead to a decline in the American population will have an effect. Also, so far this year, American exports have fallen while Canadian ones have risen (not that Canada can ever be a superpower). If current policy continues, would that have an effect, or is the geographic factor so overwhelmingly dominant? Thanks for you views on this.
The U.S. has been uniquely good at using immigration to become richer. Not all immigration is the same, but in the long term, it would be very bad to eliminate immigration.
You can certainly destroy a country with very bad policy. Examples are Argentina, Venezuela, or North Korea. Hopefully the U.S. will not be so bad. It has the longest tradition of democracy, so it’s pretty safe there.
An interesting & thought provoking article.
Not sure what you mean when you say Australia & New Zealand are modeled on the US system. They are parliamentary democracies (like Canada) & modeled on the British system, not that of the US, which is definitely not a parliamentary democracy.
They are all liberal democracies, all formed after the U.S., and the legislative stack is quite similar to that of the U.S.!
Yes similar but not modelled. Constitutional monarchies with King Charles the sovereign. It would be fair to say a large cultural influence following WWII from the US, but otherwise everything else is from either British colonialism, the indigenous people/s, or the unique identity these countries have formed since
Yes, fair. Not modeled constitutionally. I meant legally.
If geography makes the U.S. hard to conquer, its culture makes it nearly impossible: 120 firearms per 100 residents turn the country into a continent-sized militia.
True!
Fun fact: I believe Switzerland has more arms per person!
But what if those firearms are turned on each other due to widening gaps in wealth and internal culture?
A civil war is not out of the question.
According to Wikipedia the United States has 120 privately owned guns per 100 people, and Switzerland has 27 privately owned guns per 100 people
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_guns_per_capita_by_country
I was wrong! Thanks for that.
If that were true, then places like Yemen and Ukraine and Ethiopia would also be impossible to conquer, given their high rates of firearm ownership.
And maybe they are, but Russia has certainly made a go at it in Ukraine and Saudi Arabia visited a lot of devastation on Yemen recently.
In contemporary wars of conquest, firearms don't seem to be such a decisive factor. Missiles, drones, and mass fire artillery can do things that simple firearms are pretty impotent to counteract.
Tomas,
Thank you for another intriguing article about geopolitical history. I happened to be procrastinating on some homework so this was a welcome diversion, but otherwise although I have been a paid subscriber since your covid articles, I haven't had much free time to read most of your articles. I went back to college last fall and while very enjoyable, it does consume a large amount of my free time.
But I just wanted to say again how much I do enjoy reading your articles when I can make time (stalling time, ha!) to do so. Your writing is worth subscribing for! Keep writing, and don't let anyone discourage you from writing!
Also while some may accuse you of being political, it doesn't take a genius to see when actions are being taken by the current regime that harm the US and its citizens. I am constantly amazed by those who tell me with a straight face that tariffs are paid by other countries to enrich our country and thus the cost of groceries and other goods will become lower and more affordable. <facepalm> <eyeroll>
Thank you!
Tariffs are uncontroversially bad across most economists! The silver lining of the current ones is that democrats will learn to oppose them!
Very impressive research, and well written and understandable article.
Nicely written article. Just curious, did you ever read George Friedman's geopolitical monographs? He wrote them for Stratfor maybe 15 years ago. I think you would enjoy reading them if you haven't already; he does very similar analyses.
I quoted it here! Yes it’s one of the big inspirations for this article
Great article.
Though, do you get your text from LLMs? There are some suspicious spaces to return typos (e.g. "All of the peoples", "The vast majority of prime agricultural"), such that one gets when copying text from ChatGPT. I hope this is has nothing to do with content creation.
I heavily use LLMs but never quote them verbatim (yet!). I find their style imperfect for comprehension.
Sometimes I copy sentences from sources and adapt them to my articles ( including LLMs). That might be one of the sources of weirdness?
Also I was born French and Spanish and only learned English as a teenager. Maybe that’s why you find some atypical sentences. Note that both your examples fit that pattern.
Great article! I love how you highlighted the strategic importance of New Orleans. Controlling the city really does mean controlling the Mississippi.. Thinking that this was once France’s territory..
It sounds stupid that they would sell it, but the reality is they would have never been able to hold it.
As always, an interesting article. However, I disagree with the thesis that America's wealth was caused by its geography. In the long run, the wealth of a nation is determined by institutional framework (e.g. market economy vs. centrally planned economy, democracy vs dictatorship, etc) and human capital (factors like education, religion, etc.). That's why South Korea is rich and North Korea is poor. To put it exaggeratedly, you could move the whole US population to a desert, and the desert would become a super power. (Or maybe it's not even an exaggeration - see Israel).
The fact that geo is a major factor doesn’t mean it’s the only factor!
But how weird that the British colonies in temperate regions are rich, and the ones in warmer climates are poor, isn’t it? What a coincidence that the U.S. south is poorer than the U.S. North (caused by a climate-induced civil war)…
I am not sure which poor British colonies in warmer climates do you mean. Australia's GDP per capita is pretty high - even though it's literally a desert :)
God made the US seriously OP. Need to rebalance in the next big update.
Thanks for another stimulating post! I’d just moderate its premise that the US is the richest country on Earth. GDP is not a complete measure of wealth. For example, most Euro Area citizens are in fact richer than most US citizens: the typical (modal) Euro Area household holds more wealth than its US counterpart.
One reason is that while the top 1–10% of US families are indeed wealthier than the equivalent European percentile, everyone below that level tends to be poorer.
Northern Europe has an unbelievably good geography!
Tomas I would love to read your analysis, based on all these parameters you analyze, of the feasibility and challenges were the US to split into what is sometimes referred to as "Pacifica", where WA OR CA NV AZ NM CO (assuming the NV AZ land bridge to NM and CO) plus some assemblage of NE states plus IL, MN and MI. Some writers cite population, education centers, industrialization, ports, and nukes, and the economic centers as impenetrables; I have not seen mention of farmlands and drainages let alone the heartland breadbasket and Mississippi River system. Were such a blue nation to emerge what neighboring states might it have to "conquer"to become contiguous? Would the world recognize it, and decline to recognize the remainder, more or less based on the old Confederacy?
Note I barely talked about the West Coast! If America had had 2000 more years to develop before Europeans arrived, I reckon maybe one country would have emerged in the west coast (probably in California), a different one in the Mississippi, and maybe other ones in the Eastern Seaboard / Great Lakes.
Colorado is on the eastern side of the Rockies so I doubt it would have joined California.
One fact few ppl know is that the Comanches were in the process of creating a huge nation just after the Spanish introduced horses and before the U.S. steamrolled them!
america has a favorable geography which implies a larger capability for the function of global security of exchange, trade and internet infrastructure. as kautilya observed a state operates best with concentric rings of surrounding states that are more friendly the closer the ring. there is also the factor that alliances create large chunks of productivity with larger economy of scale. the mercantilism of american policy, a steady bipartisan trend, isnt from stupidity but rather from fear, a fear of inability to adapt advanced economies fast enough and maintain internal political hegemony or consent. as the output of large countries surpasses that of advanced countries, the firm alliance of other countries with america will be challenged by very hard economic and geographic facts. the trump thrust is nativism and it remains to be seen whether nativism or liberalism is more durable for hearts and minds, but neither can be anything more than extending internal consent long enough to adapt advanced economies to the challenges of intelligent software advance. another factor is the emerging duopoly of near earth orbit military and communications capacity. that is likely to be the umbrella over the major powers and large countries preponderant demographic military capacity. the decline of the west is a myth it remains very strong in software and geographic fundamentals, the disintegration of the western alliance agencies is likely irreversible and holds great promise for global advance, especially the sectors left out of the post WWII alliance - e.g. the gridless subsistence regions, the workers displaced by industrial obsolescence, the sanctioned countries and businesses, Islam and other cultures constrained from development, and the remaining habitats of large mammals. the transition from western hegemony to hegemony of major powers is inevitable in some form, hopefully gets us closer to the kautilyan model, and not the least significant is the implication of reengineering advanced economies, retiring the tactical mercantilist drag, and restoring their role of advancing productivity and the human journey of discovery.
The automobile industry really did the ROTW a solid by outcompeting and stripping back the railway industry. Imagine if the US had a great rail freight network today. It would significantly decrease their reliance on oil and dramatically decrease their goods shipping costs.
Yes US has a geographic advantage. But in 2025 is it the most important one? Technology, population and global networks are now much more important. The article strikes me as highly optimistic that 4% of the world's 8 billion can sustain economic and geopolitical dominance without analysing the possible superior advantages of the other 96%. Geography didn't protect the Native Americans.
You’re spot on. The more time passes, the less geography matters.
It still matters though, especially with such an amazing geography.
Geo didn’t protect native Americans because they hadn’t reached enough tech, so that’s back to your point on the interaction of tech and geo.