1. What If Ukraine Had Better Natural Defenses?We don’t need much imagination to answer this question. Look at Ukraine’s west. It’s the only part of Ukraine that has a natural barrier: the Carpathian Mountains. I haven't found a single invasion that came from there.¹ So it looks like a few more mountain ranges would have been handy for Ukraine. But we have even better evidence than that. We just need to look west of the Carpathians, to the Pannonian Basin. This is the historic region from which Hungary emerged. And here are a thousand years of history of the Pannonian Basin: For a thousand years, this has been more or less the same polity: Hungary and its predecessors, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The only time when this was interrupted was during the ~150-year Ottoman occupation. And it’s not just stability: Hungary, which formed with Austria the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was also one of the major players in Europe until it lost in WWI. Just to make it crystal clear, this is Austria-Hungary superimposed over a topographic map: It’s pretty reasonable to assume that, had Ukraine benefited from such mountain ranges around its borders as defense, it would have become a much more powerful state. 2. Why Didn’t This Happen to Germany or Russia?Germany is nearly half the size of Ukraine, and has nearly double Ukraine’s population. Its GDP per capita is about four times that of Ukraine. It’s one of the world’s biggest economies, and was one of its superpowers. Meanwhile, Russia is still arguably a superpower—albeit dwindling—and is more than twice as rich as Ukraine on a per capita basis. Yet they’re both as exposed to the Eurasian Plain as Ukraine! GermanyGermany is no Ukraine. It’s true that, like Ukraine, it’s in the middle of a vast plain, with sea on one side and mountains on the other. But the differences are remarkable. A big chunk of Germany is defended by several mountain ranges:
This leaves three sides of Germany exposed: the west around Belgium, the north from the sea, and the east with what today is Poland. We’ll talk more in depth about Germany another day, but for now, let’s just note a few facts. First, like Ukraine, Germany took a long time to coalesce into a country:
Compare, for example, the history of Spain. This map shows how closely related Spain was to other regions around it. The darker the blue, the more time these regions were united. You can see that the darkest blue is for present-day Spain, while lighter blue corresponds to the long period Spain belonged to the Roman Empire. Something similar happened to France: Mostly present-day France, with some union with the rest of the Mediterranean under Roman rule, and a bit with England after the Norman conquest. Now look at this. If you consider the historical boundaries associated with Munich, in southern Germany, you get a much blurrier picture. It still somewhat shows the influence of Rome. Meanwhile, if you look at the historical borders associated with Berlin: Again, it’s much blurrier than France or Spain, and also has completely different influences compared to Munich. Now compare this with Ukraine: You can basically tell where the Eurasian Plain is, just by looking at the historical borders associated with the middle of Ukraine!! This suggests a few things. First, the sea is an effective barrier, since seafaring civilizations could occupy the coasts but seldom invaded inland. This was true for Ukraine, but also for Germany. The Vikings invaded from the north, but their raids eventually stopped, and no more continental threats emerged from there. Second, any threat is limited by mountains, even smaller ranges like those on both sides of Germany. And since Germany is situated on one of the narrowest parts of the North European Plain, it was much easier to defend than Ukraine—even if it was harder to defend than countries like Spain or France. RussiaAs we saw in the article about Russia, its exposure to the Eurasian Plain is as high as Ukraine’s. Not surprisingly, it’s also been invaded time and again by nomads from the east. Like Ukraine, it faced threats from the sea—first the Vikings, and then Scandinavians, mainly from Sweden. Unlike Ukraine, however, Russia also had to contend with threats from the west, where countries like Germany, Poland, and Lithuania emerged. Even France attempted to conquer Russia—and managed to reach Moscow. So in many regards, Russia is the mirror image of Ukraine. But Russia has a few advantages that Ukraine doesn’t. First, it’s much, much colder. It wasn’t the Russians that beat the French or the Nazis. It was the cold². That means that most of the northern border is secure, outside of the Baltic Sea. Second, the Urals were a major barrier to horse-mounted hordes from the east. In fact, there’s just one opening on that side—and it goes straight into Ukraine. As a result, Moscow was less exposed than Ukraine, and unlike Ukraine, it could protect one of its sides: the east. Its strategy was first to conquer all the north. Then, it started moving east. Both Russia and China addressed the threat from horse-riding nomadic invaders by simply conquering their lands. The question becomes why Russia could conquer everything to its east unimpeded. The answer is that all the regions north of the central Asian mountain ranges are poor and sparsely populated, largely due to the climate and geography. The Himalayas and Tibet stop most of the rains coming from the south. The humidity coming from the west rains on Europe and the Urals. The farther east, the less water. It’s also colder the further east you go. Also, the Himalayas, Tibet, and other mountain ranges in central Asia force rivers to flow northwards. They rarely connect with each other, and they all freeze in winter. This made them nonviable for trade, condemning the area to poverty. Moving eastward from Europe, the last river to flow south is the Volga—the birthplace of Muscovy. All this meant that no big, stable, agricultural civilization was viable east of Moscow, which meant that as soon as the nomadic threat was neutralized, Russia could focus on exclusively defending its west and southwest borders. It took centuries for Russia to neutralize its eastern threats, but once it did, it became one of Europe’s biggest powers. These are the reasons why Germany and Russia are not as exposed as Ukraine, which has allowed them to reach more of their potential than Ukraine. We can see this logic at play with the other countries in the Northern European Plain. Both Poland and Lithuania have appeared and disappeared several times in history. You can see the historical borders associated with Warsaw (Poland’s capital) here: And Lithuania here: Both of them are quite blurry, like Ukraine. Their borders have changed constantly throughout history. And like Ukraine, both have experienced threats of invasion from all sides of the Eurasian Plain and are protected by the sea only to the extent that there are no big naval powers in the region³. This supports why Ukraine, unlike Germany and Russia, is where it is today: geography. 3. How Does That Explain Ukraine Today?Based on Ukraine’s geography and history, we can deduce its geopolitical goals:
Clearly, the immediate priority is to defend against Eurasian Plain attacks. Today, Ukraine has stable borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania—all of them in the European Union and NATO. Its relationship with Moldova is so-so—especially because Transnistria, the Moldovan region closest to Ukraine, is semi-independent, Russian-speaking, and Russophile. But Moldova is a small, weak country. Ukraine would love to be an ally of Turkey, because it would secure its coast and facilitate trade with the rest of the world. Thankfully, Turkey is part of NATO, and therefore an ally of the US, which makes it unlikely to threaten Ukraine’s access to markets as long as it remains an independent country. This leaves, of course, Russia. Ukraine is completely exposed to Russia—the same as Belarus. Belarus solved the problem by allying with Russia—and becoming a vassal state. But Ukraine has much greater potential, and doesn’t want to. So Ukraine’s most important priority by far is to win the war against Russia. But not just that. It needs to reach a permanent solution that will forever eliminate its eastern threats, after 8,000 years of invasions. Seen this way, the fact that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons sounds a bit stupid. Maybe it should simply develop them again? Obviously, this would tremendously escalate the risk of nuclear war, so the US would be against it. Therefore, if Ukraine has a nuclear project, we won’t know until it’s discovered or the nuclear tests are captured by sensors around the world. In any case, this is why Ukraine is throwing everything it has at the war and is pushing hard to join NATO. NATO membership would provide Ukraine with a safeguard against Russia (protecting its north and east), and it would automatically make it a military ally of Turkey, securing its southern coast in one swoop. Once Ukraine defeats or fully protects itself from Russia, its next priority would be to stabilize the country. Ukraine suffered more economically from the end of the Soviet Union than most other ex-Soviet countries. In fact, Ukraine is the worst-performing economy of all ex-Soviet Union countries. Its fall was hardest after the break, and its progress has been weak ever since. How come? It’s a combination of factors:
In other words, Ukraine lost its ties to the east but also couldn’t tie itself to the west, leaving it in limbo and without a source of income like oil and gas. But all of this is also very exciting. If Ukraine joins the EU and NATO, it would be very reasonable for it to follow the steps of other Northern European Plain countries like Poland or Lithuania: All of this is why Ukraine wants a future in the EU and NATO: Without them, it’s alone. 1 The Mongols did invade from the east to the west through the mountains, but it’s one of the very few such invasions, and it was east to west. 2 For the same reasons, the Soviet Union had a hard time attacking Finland in WWII, and that poor performance bolstered Hitler’s resolve to attack the Soviet Union. 3 Which was not the case for a big chunk of history. 4 I mean physically the east. Not THE East. Ukraine would use physically its north and south to trade with THE West. |