Prisoners of Geography

Crucially, the invasion of Afghanistan also gave hope to the great Russian dream of its army being able to “wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean,” in the words of the ultra-nationalistic Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and thus achieve what it never had: a warm-water port where the water does not freeze in winter, with free access to the world’s major trading routes. The ports on the Arctic, such as Murmansk, freeze for several months each year: Vladivostok, the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean, is ice-locked for about four months and is enclosed by the Sea of Japan, which is dominated by the Japanese. This does not just halt the flow of trade; it prevents the Russian fleet from operating as a global power. In addition, waterborne transport is much cheaper than land or airborne routes.

Why didn’t you put some mountains in Ukraine?”

The name Pakistan gives us clues about these divisions; pak means “pure” and stan means “land” in Urdu, so it is the land of the pure, but it is also an acronym. P is for Punjab, A is for Afghania (the Pashtun area by the Afghan border), K for Kashmir, S for Sindh, and T stands for “tan,” as in Baluchistan.