To understand Russia, read this. “Siberia was the easy part. But it still left Moscow completely exposed to southern and western threats. Conquering those lands would prove harder though.” https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/problem-of-russia
Being rich is not always good in long term. “Saudi Arabia is burning a huge share of its revenue in subsidizing its population, either directly, or indirectly via unproductive public jobs.All this work performed by millions of people… You can’t… Read More »Saudi Arabia’s Ordeal
Geography to the rescue. “If you notice, there are two very different types of regions here, the mountains that catch water, and the plains that emerge around their rivers. The mountains are hard to rule, but defensible. The plains are… Read More »How Did Islam Spread So Fast?
And some history that you should know.
History is mor3 complicated and narratives matter. “By the time Pope Urban II preaches the First Crusade at Clermont in 1095, Islamic powers have held two-thirds of formerly Christian territory for more than four hundred years. The immediate trigger is… Read More »Load-Bearing Walls
History is connected. “We tend to learn history in discrete chunks, carved up by area studies and chronology. The Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Queen Elizabeth I and the Spanish Armada, the Sengoku, the conquest of the New World,… Read More »The Empresa de China & the Hapsburg Bid for World Supremacy
Reading Magna Carta is quite interesting. Most people, like me, think it is about freedom as such, but in the end it is a business contract. And war was necessary to have it written. “Neither we nor our officials will… Read More »Magna Carta, 1215 – The National Archives
Profesional military has its downsides. “an overweening executive that now most endangers the bargain, threatening to break the American civil-military bargain by dragging the military into politics. Remember, the civil-military bargain is not merely a pact of submission by the… Read More »Collections: The American Civil-Military Relationship
There is login in the madness. “Once balancing fails, everyone’s interests suddenly recalculate in a diametrically opposed way. So long as balancing was possible, it was in most state’s interests to oppose the leading power in an effort to contain… Read More »Collections: The Status Quo Coalition
Only Carthage really threatened Rome. “Carthage spends a combined forty-years at war with Rome in the third century, peaking at more than 160,000 men in the field, matching Rome on land and at sea, matching the Roman capability of fighting… Read More »Collections: Raising Carthaginian Armies, Part V: How a Carthaginian Army Fights