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Beneath the Surface of Brexit
Beneath the Surface of Brexit
Geography matters, the balance of power matters, and democracy–it’s not yet clear if democracy matters or not.
I’ve been asked to comment on Brexit. I’m happy to do so, but not by promoting a position yes or no, or by attempting to unravel the political machinations, as I have neither the knowledge nor the interest to do so.
What I can do is propose two beneath the surface contexts which might be useful in understanding what’s really going on. These are the impressions and opinions of a distant observer, someone who is neither an expert nor a resident of the United Kingdom / Great Britain.
It seems to me that geography is still salient. As an island sea power, England is close enough to the continental land-based powers of Europe to fear invasion or continental hegemony but independent enough to not rely too completely on continental European powers.
This is not just a consequence of its temperate weather (thanks to the Gulf Stream) or being an island; the historical reliance on sea power places it in the same general category as the other historic blue-water sea-power-based European nations: The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden.
These sea-power nations projected power and secured trading rights and colonies by controlling the seas and access points to interior lands, the so-called Rimlands.
Continental powers such as Russia, France and Germany have at various times made formidable attempts to create rival blue-water navies, but in each case the British or American fleets eventually limited these claims to dual power bases (both land and sea-based power).
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The Tyranny of Geography
The Tyranny of Geography
Everyone can see that geography determines the fate of a nation in its pursuit of specific historical paths and the adoption of well understood psycho-nationalist orientations. Without wide seas or tall mountains as natural barriers, over time Russia has developed feelings of distrust towards foreigners and a reasonable nervousness with respect to invasions and external dominance.
For Greece, close proximity to Turkey (which is Islamic and, at times, aggressively hostile) has instilled a mindset that would not have been there if the natural environment were different. The hundreds of sparse islands in the Aegean Sea require massive military spending to provide a fleet to defend them.
Countries like China and Japan with enormous physical barriers to protect them — an endless landmass or a vast ocean — historically have managed to avoid numerous or fatal invasions. The exact opposite is true for countries like Poland, Lithuania, Austria, and the Ukraine, whose lack of strong physical defences has condemned them, over the centuries, to be subjected to external aggression, as well as to serve as pathways for invading armies headed toward their goal of conquest.
Very often, events that determine the fate of a specific country unfold on the basis of the geographic idiosyncrasies of that territory. Greece’s fortunes, for example, were shaped in accordance with the concerns and interests of the great powers of the time. These were always centred on geography.
The Greek state was formed as a result of a radical shakeup in the structure of the Ottoman Empire and by the needs of the dominant powers of the period to handle the emerging geopolitical vacuum. The sea battle of Navarino, on the western coast of the ancient region of Peloponnese, which clearly signalled the ultimate success of the Greek revolution against the Ottomans, rewarded the efforts of Britain, Russia, and France to put an end to the Ottoman control of the islands of the Aegean, Egypt, and the Black Sea.
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If Geography and Demographics Are Destiny, Who Will Be the Winners and Losers in 2025?
If Geography and Demographics Are Destiny, Who Will Be the Winners and Losers in 2025?
Owning any asset in poorly positioned nations is an inherently risky bet going forward.
The dictum “demographics is destiny” proposes that all the complexities of finance, society and politics are ultimately guided by demographics: the relative size of each generation, birth rates, death rates, etc.
For example, an oversized generation of retirees and an undersized generation of workers to support them has far-reaching consequences that can’t be legislated away.
The influence of demographics isn’t limited to pension costs. Some analysts have made the case that oversized generations of young men align all too well with the launching of wars.
The point is that birth/death rates—low and high–have consequences that impact national destinies for decades.
Another school holds that geography is destiny: if a nation’s geography is favorable, the barriers to prosperity and stability are low, while the barrier is high for nations with unfavorable geography.
Peter Zeihan, author of the 2014 book, The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder, lists the core geographic attributes that are either favorable or unfavorable in ways that influence a nation’s long-term prosperity and built-in geopolitical challenges.
What does geography have to do with prosperity, stability and geopolitical risks?
Navigable rivers that reach deep into productive interior regions lower costs of transport dramatically, while natural harbors enable low-cost access to international markets via ships.
Natural barriers to invasion such as oceans, deserts and mountain ranges dictate whether a nation must spend heavily on military defense of the homeland or whether the cost of defense is lightened by favorable geography.
Zeihan extends geography into the political realm, noting that nations with difficult-to-defend borders require a strong central government to organize taxation and defense, while nations with few contiguous threats (for example, the U.S.) can be governed in a more decentralized fashion.
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