#31 Tim Marshall | Power Of Geography, Geopolitics, Saudi Arabia & Space

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Tim Marshall returns to the podcast!

To continue along with the international theme and enormous popularity of ‘Prisoners Of Geography‘, Tim Marshall recently published the natural follow-on to this wonderfully geopolitical lens through which to measure the world… ‘The Power Of Geography‘.

It is the themes within this freshly minted book those which Tim and I discuss in this interview. Tim comments on everything from Australia to China to the UK to MBS to Saudi Arabia and even to space. Tim even comments on an accusation often made against him that he is taking a geographical determinist’s view of the world – making for a very interesting consideration for what are the actual building blocks of the world we currently inhabit.

Tim doesn’t disappoint with his broad geopolitical erudition.

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• 00:00 – Introduction
• 06:54 – Donald Bradman (Greatest Cricketer Of All Time)
• 10:43 – UK & Australia Pissing Off Their Main Trading Partners
• 14:24 – On Geographical Determinism
• 21:44 – The Time I Tried Exporting Kangaroo Meat To China
• 23:56 – Ethiopia & Egypt – The Ultimate Example Of The Power Of Geography
• 33:17 – MBS – Mohammad Bin Salman – A Figure For Good?
• 44:03 – Tim Marshall On Space – The Expanding Frontier
• 53:20 – My Ruminations On The Power Of Geography

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Tim Marshall returned to the podcast for the second time, and what I'm sure is also not going to be the last time. He recently published this book, which is The Power of Geography, as 10 maps that reveal the future of our world. It's the very natural sequel to Prisoners of Geography, the enormous bestseller that came out in 2015 or 2016. Terrific book, highlights uh a number of countries, which I'm actually going to do at the end of the podcast, like separately, just to sort of give the the content justice, because it's just perfectly aligned with the geopolitics and power that the theme of this podcast is sort of uh suited towards. He is Tim Marshall, an international correspondent, a foreign journalist, uh super decorated career. He in fact has a chapter at the end of this um documenting a time he was in Syria. I believe it was 2017, 2014. And it's no secret to interview how much sort of admiration and romanticization I have around the sort of international correspondent foreign journalist, um, given some of the guests that have been on the show. But um it's you know, Tim really has had has led a remarkable career, which has led him to have the authority of commenting on so many different cultures that exist throughout the world because you know it's we we can learn, I suppose, geography, history, uh we we can learn certain variables about the way our world works uh through a textbook or just through a video or just through speaking to someone, but the almost impossible and intangible variable of culture is one that has to be lived and experienced because anyone who's ever been to a country that uh and and have had their um sort of reputation and stereotype of that country proven wrong knows how intangible culture really can be and how subtle it can be, and also how powerful it can be. You know, interestingly enough, you go somewhere and um one small conversation you might be able to have by chance with someone at a cafe can actually totally change the way that you thought you understood something about their country. Um but I'm already rambling on in this in this introduction. Uh in the in the podcast, Tim and I covered you know Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, and uh Saudi Arabia, space, um China, and uh Australia's relationship with China, uh as as well as many other things. Um I could have uh like usual, I mean I had I had 25 hours worth of questions for Tim and we uh you know could only fit it into uh an hour long of uh of of an interview. But I think the podcast uh it touched on some of the themes that are in power of geography, but it isn't something that sort of supplements what's actually in power of geography. Um and so there really is absolutely nothing better than sort of the original text itself, so it's absolutely worth uh getting. If Waterstones are listening, I just want to remind them of the positive effects of good karma and perhaps move my name up the the winner's list of the Belleby uh Globes auction that they were running for this special edition of the of the book. Um but I also just need to, I want to take advantage of the fact that I'm getting to speak with you right now, whoever you are, whether it's through the YouTube or whether it's through the podcast. The internet is ridiculously, you know, unfathomably large, you know, functionally infinite, actually, for all s intents and purposes. You know, one person cannot for the for for their entire lifetime touch nearly one percent of the entire s uh breadth that the internet holds. Yet somehow I've managed to find you here that's filtered all the way down to the point where now I'm actually getting to speak directly with you. And so I just wanted to make the most of this um of this of this chance of this, you know, extremely fortuitous and serendipitous uh moment. And just make sure that if you are interested in what I'm talking about here or you're interested in the guests that I have on, it doubles down and triples down on my website, Atlasgeographica.com, where I'm covering really just anything that's an extension of my interests. And if you heard me say this before, then forgive me for having to hear it again. But whether it's from Nisimfeleb, but whether it's to Karl Jung, whether it's to say geothermal energy, uh, even one a little bit more left field, uh, menstruation cups actually was one that I just published recently. A super exciting business opportunity that I'm actually probably going to take up here in in in Europe over from Mexico. Um, all of it's sort of documented there. And I can sort of go out on a limb and assume that if we have this much in common to reach this point on the internet, then it's very likely true that we have more in common than we do not. You know, what the internet is, is it's it's a great sort of uh filter towards like-minded folk, right? And so what we're listening to right now isn't necessarily very popular, um, not because it isn't mainstream or anything, but just because geopolitics is um something that I guess most people just don't really want to consider or think about. But then for those of us who do want to consider it, it's uh one of the most fascinating things that we could possibly be talking about or learning about. So we found it, we found each other this far. Go onto the website, you're gonna find links into the description, join the newsletter and just, you know, sort of get amongst the content the best you can. There's an Asynth 11 inserto podcast, there's the Geopolitics Empower podcast, and there's the Curious Worldview with lots of really uh guests that I am so fortuitous to have coming on uh that is coming out already, but and also in the future coming out as well. And so again, much too many worded introduction. However, there is also one more thing that I'm gonna say at the end of this um interview, which I'm about to play. I sort of just think out loud about power of geography for a while, look at a few of the chapters that meant sort of the most to me, and almost give a bit of a state of affairs. But for now, that's enough from me. And here is Tim Marshall. Tim, welcome back. Thanks so much for giving me the time again, mate.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Uh greetings, and can I just say, Ryan, how happy I am that we're both colour coordinated and now background coordinated? Yes. Serendipity.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah, absolutely. And I uh maybe more of a synchronicity, I would say, rather than a serendipity. But certainly, um, I think it is a pretty good uh uh reflection of our interests, where our real interests lie. Obviously, you've got an entire career of proving that the world's global issues are close to your heart.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Where my real interest lies just there.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

It's a mini-league united scarf. But moving on.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

I wasn't sure. It almost looked like you were you're pointing to the southern tip of Africa. I was a bit like, okay. Um, first question, Tim. Let's uh start off things the same way you started off the book. And and that is, of course, in reference to one of the world's most glorious nations. So you're I was wondering are you a big cricket fan, or did you just know that it would sort of satiate Australians by opening the uh Australian chapter with a Donald Bradman quote?

SPEAKER_02 7:11

I'm a fan of the big test matches, especially England-Australia test matches. Um after that, I I admit I don't follow it. Um yeah, I mean it's it's football first, second, and third. It's League United first, second, and third for me. But no, but I do I do watch the big test. I've just been recently watching New Zealand, uh, England, New Zealand, um, which hasn't gone too well. But but you know, the reason I use that quote, uh Don Bradman saying, you know, grind them into the dust, mate. Is that of course it was about cricket, but it it is part of the uh Aussie spirit, you know, it it's uh it's a tough place. And I also know that cricket really resonates, but but this this concept of grind them into the dust and and play it hard, I just wanted to start the chapter with that because I don't think Australia could have made what it has of itself without that spirit, and that spirit springs from its partially from its geography. You know, you cannot go there, especially in the early days, and be a wuss, basically.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yeah, I have um unbelievable amounts of appreciation, maybe that's maybe a little bit too hyperbolic, but I I I can sympathize a lot with the type of conditions they were struggling with back then, mate, you know, like uh just in the construction of Sydney. But also I think it it you you you wrote that it it really came about um once the sort of diggers became a part of the Australian culture. And the these were the people where it was like all the sort of English uh manners and uh etiquette that might have gone with the first fleet that came on was just out the window because they were like, fuck it, boys, we didn't have to impress anyone here, we're gonna set up our own sort of I don't know, uh social system.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah, and there was no officer class in the diggers. Uh and you know, you're not gonna get very far up there in in in I mean, it wasn't so much partly the outback, but in those incredibly harsh conditions with the old English social class structures. Yeah. And so that and many other aspects, I th which again goes back to geography, you know, forged your more egalitarian um attitude, I think, that that that you you have. I mean, I used to annoy my colleagues, some of my uh British colleagues, English colleagues particular, uh, at Sky News, because in the early days, uh, because I was there almost from the beginning when it launched, um, Sky Television, it was dominated um by Australians, yeah, it was launched by an Australian, uh, and and a lot of Aussies were working there, and I'm not sure it would have worked without that spirit, that what what we you know, the can-do spirit, and you've used the vernacular, so I will also swear, but there was an awful lot of ah fuck it, mate, let's try it. Yeah, yeah. Whereas the British way in those days was, hmm, let's schedule a meeting for next week in which we can um um, you know, get to grips with this subject. I mean, that really was the British television way, and it just went out of the window. So we've got sidetracked, but to bring it back, yeah, Australia's spirit and and its national character is forged by its geography.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, and um I really like the way that you put it in there as well. And we spoke about Australia um from the last uh interview, so I don't want to sort of redo that territory, but I was thinking perhaps you could give your take on what you make of the current development between our two nations since we've both really pissed off our main trading partners, yourself being the European mainland, myself being China. Um we're kind of looking around the world for new friends, but it kind of seems like with this last G7 that we might have rekindled maybe older relationships a little bit more. What what do you take of what do you make of the current state there?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

The the Aussie UK trade agreement, which is only in a trade agreement in in principle, it hasn't it'll be signed off in a few months, probably, is actually it's not that big an economic deal to either of us. You know, it's 0.02% of our GDP or something like that. It is but it is symbolic of global Britain. Um now that's a nebulous uh concept post-Brexit, but if it means anything, it means going out there and and forging new economic and other relationships. So we've gone back to the future. I I think it is a positive thing between the two countries. I mean, uh some of our farmers are very nervous uh uh about it. You know, you will be sending your mass-produced beef into our market, which is more of a specialist beef market, but you know, I I don't go into those sorts of rights and wrongs.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

I'm looking at the suggesting English beef is superior to Australian cattle.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Um I'm saying that I think mass-produced beef and the scale that you do it at and the prices you sell it at are inherently uh cheaper and inferior. Not to go not saying that from a nationalistic perspective, it's just that you you know we don't do it on that mass industrial scale the way the way you do, and consequently you can sell it for cheaper. Okay. No, but it symbolically um it is part of this growing idea of global Britain, for better or worse, for right for wrong, and our ties and relationships with a democracy because yeah, you know, you have royally uh had your economy screwed up because you've taken a stance against China, starting with the Covid row, but it cost it about more than that, and we we are more reluctantly slowly following in a similar direction. I mean, we haven't fallen out with the Chinese the way that you have, um but we may do, uh, and we're sailing our aircraft carrier down there at the moment, uh, and as a another statement of A, Global Britain, B, we have made the choice that you have made, and that is push comes to shelf, we're sticking with the Americans. I mean, that that's the big stuff that is behind what's going on with both of our countries. We have both uh nailed our colours to the mast, and amid the pressure and the pull from both of the great superpowers, we both have clearly now, much more clearly than even a year ago, we've made our choice.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yeah. And on the theme of the power of geography, you say that the trade, um the trade deal is quite marginal, you know, infinitesimal almost. Um it's a function of geography, isn't it? Despite the fact we have seemingly, you know, every other variable working for us in terms of cultural integrations, similar economies, similar consumers. It's just the fact that it costs a lot of money to send things to literally the other side of the world. And so uh again, like the the power of geography theme stays true there. Um just sort of move on to the next one, Tim. So there's two questions that I am I think are the most fascinating to ask you. And this is this is the the first. So in the opening of Disunited Nations by Peter Zihan, a book I'm sure you're very familiar with, he makes an homage to the importance and uh underrepresented importance of geography in understanding the modern world. And in your own book, you uh write in the introduction that politics is important, but geography is more important. And so um, with books titled Prison of Geography, Power of Geography, can you take a few minutes to just think aloud about the geographical determinist worldview, um, which I'm sure you don't subscribe, but still there is a little bit of an undercurrent to it in in your writing there in that introduction.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Oh no, there is, and and I am that in the respect of that I think it is a determining factor. And this is something I I find myself having to explain over and over again to a sometimes hostile uh uh uh approach because I'm not a geographic determinist, because that is someone who thinks that it's all baked in for the geography and there's nothing you can do about it. And I don't argue that. I argue that you are a prisoner of geography and that everything that a country does is within the confines of geography. Now you can bend the prison bars, but Ethiopia building its dam on the Blue Nile is bending the bars of the prison, allowing it to do something different with its geography to get hydro power, to to free power to all the homes in the country, hopefully. But it's still doing it within the confines of geography. If it didn't have a great big bloody river, it wouldn't be able to do that. So my approach is I always start from looking at a country's geography because I realise that within that there are certain things you can and can't do. And if you haven't got a great big bloody river, you can't build a hydro dam. And only then do I move on to the history of the country, which has been partially determined by those factors, which rip which direction do its rivers flow in? Where is the big mountain that defines its its uh extent? And only then do I look at the current affairs. That's if I'm really trying to look at a situation. I mean, normally you just look at the current affairs. But what I'm arguing is if you don't understand that geography, you you are mixing my metaphors or or analogies, you can either look at it that you need these three tranches uh which are all compatible with each other to understand, or from another direction, if you look if you start with the foundation of geography and then build onto that your study of history and then the politics, you're on a f a firm footing. I mean, those are two different ways. But I I I find it hard to understand an argument that dismisses just how important the geography is. And I'm frequently asked, Ryan, oh well, hasn't technology overcome geography? To which the answer is no. It's simply changed what is important about some aspects of geography. And even cyber does that. I was asked this the other day at a book festival I was giving a talk out. And I said, okay, cyber warfare, they said it does away with geography. I said, no, it doesn't. Two examples, and there are more, but two. Firstly, you are going to choose where you centre your cyber attack on. And if you've chosen my capital city, you've chosen it because of its geography and its demography and its economic importance that it's got this, that. You know, that is that is a geographic. You know, it's just because it's a cyber attack doesn't mean you haven't chosen the target for the attack based partially on geography the way you would if you were flying a missile at it. So you're still within the confines of geography. And then I said, by the way, when when I find out where where you where you did this from, I'm going to come there and kill you. So I I have to find out geographically your location, then work out how I'm going to come there and kill you. I mean, I deliberately use that provocative language because it kind of makes more interesting. Yeah. But but those were two examples of how cyber does not negate geography, it simply changes it.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I suppose I can simply I mean, I'm sure you understand as well why someone might make that argument why a cyber attack is negating geography. Although you do just explain a reason why geography still matters. But there is a big difference between, you know, Genghis Khan marching his Mongols through the uh through the Eurasian steppe versus you know him just being able to send a missile over the top. Like that missile negates the long before geographical primary. But I think you say perfectly, it sets the limitations. Because I I agree with you, I it it it it is kind of bizarre that that one could one could argue for a totally geographical determinist worldview, you know, the idea that anyone could have uh landed in the you know eastern coast of the United States and turned it into the biggest economy in the world.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Like it's not true, they had all the right ingredients there, but you still need all the other factors, whether it's a huge stroke of luck in you know the Saudis couldn't have done it because A, there was only X hundred thousand of them in the 1700s or whatever, and B, there were there's hardly any trees in Saudi Arabia. So how the hell are you gonna build a navy? Yeah, yeah. It's this isn't flippant. Um, you know, I mean I'm re I'm reducing it, I accept, but you know, it's not a flippant point. Yeah. Britain partially did that because there's loads of oak trees in Britain, very hard wood, very good for building boats, by the way, ships. Honestly, much better than other woods, and we had a lot of oak trees. Is that genuinely a factor? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cannibals, I wouldn't say they bounce off them, but you know, you set a much better chance in a in a warship made of oak.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Um and and also if you crashed into it. So, you know, so genuinely Britain's oak trees were a factor in it having an empire, as was coal, which we also had a lot, had a lot of.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah. I think you still have it, right? It's just not worth digging up anymore.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, it's um it's a bit mocky, although I I I see that you haven't, it hasn't prevented you from carrying on. No.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Your industry is declaring as well. I you're right, and it's definitely a sore point um in Australia as well, but it's kind of a um just an ugly truth. Ugly truth, I don't know, but it's just a kind of sad truth that I think a lot of Australians just do their best not to acknowledge. The fact that we do, the only reason we have such a high standard of living is because we are just giving ingredients to the rest of the world that's sort of ruining the environment, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

That's that's true of that's true of many of us. Yeah, we are trying to wean ourselves off it, and I I think we will, but you know, it's gonna be slow and and hard. Yeah. Um I mean, you know, and also there you are, stuck where you are, in the lucky country, 25 million of you, loads and loads of coal just up the road, China wants to buy it.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

You'd be pretty stupid to then get in the bad books of China though, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Yeah, third of your wine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Export, sorry, exactly. I I um I had this is a totally, you know, probably completely useless tangent. But I um I had a had an idea when I was back there to sell kangaroo meat to the Chinese because obviously um they buy the pen. Folds is you know this Australian brand, which is just incredibly wealthy and successful because the Chinese like drinking Australian wine because it has this prestige to it. And I thought you drive most uh sort of country roads in New South Wales Victoria, there has hundreds of kangaroos on the side of the road. Uh, you know, famously um impossible animal to domesticate, but nonetheless, there's still a lot of them around. They say as much as 60 million. So there's three kangaroos for every person that goes to Australia. So I'm thinking, all right, you know, let's do something about this kangaroo meat. Let's get the Chinese interested in it. And it was like an interesting um lesson in what soft power actually means when I started looking into it a bit and I started speaking with Chin Chinamen and like trying to learn like would people like to buy this and stuff. Anyway, um, it turned out that they they thought kangaroo meat was very sort of lower class, very, very sort of disgusting meat. And I thought that's such a bizarre because nutrition-wise, it's great, it's super lean and it's wild, right? It it's not full of all the sort of soy and bacteria that our domesticated animals um are full of. And so um I was thinking, great, but yeah, and then I and then it was compared with the wine, and why the wine is m is prestigious is because it comes from like these nice parts of New South Wales, and all the sort of rich celebrity Australians drink it. And this is what the China um, because there's loads of young Chinese in the Australian universities, that's what they're drinking, and they know that kangaroo meat is kind of like bush meat. Anyway, it was like an interesting lesson in soft power how how sort of motivation is.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

That's um how the world works, and it's why when you don't do your homework um you can become a real cropper in in business.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

Just as an aside on that, country that buys the most kangaroo meat in the world, Russia. Don't have no idea why, but it is. Alright, Tim, so you brought up uh Ethiopia's um uh hydroelectric dam, and this is you know such an amazing example of how one nation's just by the stroke of luck got access to this amazing geographical thing, for lack of a better word. Definitely needs to be a better word than thing. But the yeah, they're the tabletop of Africa, so they say, and so a lot of rivers are birthed in Ethiopia, and they have started to build a giant dam on the border of Sudan to hold the Nile, and famously the Nile feeds Egypt, right? So this is a great example of the power of geography where a country can genuinely tap another country's water supply, and then obviously all the second, third, fourth, fourth order implications after that uh, you know, you can imagine. So this is an amazing example of one country's power of geography over another. Could you give us another, maybe speak about the GERD, but also just think about another example as as explicit as that, as one country having a power of geography over another?

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Um it I it doesn't get much more explicit than that. Um, because yeah, you know, without the Nile, Egypt dies. And, you know, all more or less, 85 million of them, I think there's probably more now, would have to leave if for whatever reason the Nile suddenly stopped flowing. And theoretically, uh Ethiopia more or less will have that power in the future, which is why there's such tension and even a threat of war uh between them. Uh it probably won't happen because Ethiopia will not turn the tap off. Yeah, but it's very, very tense. And I don't think there is a better current example in the world, but there are other uh examples vaguely similar. The Turks damned the Euphrates uh up in the highlands of the Anatolian plain in the 70s, and they're still doing it. And this has given them their hand on the tap as the Euphrates flows into um Syria and Iraq, and they nearly fought a war in the 70s and I think early 80s uh because of that. India and Pakistan share the same headwaters coming down from the Himalayas, um, and again it's a source of great tension. Other than water, I mean you you've put me on the spot when I'm uh I'm I'm looking around, but water's a really good one, isn't it? Because it it flows down through several countries in in example after example, and of course, until relatively recently, we didn't have the power to really stop it. You know, smaller bits you can divert and use, and you know, there are villages in France where people have generations of families have hated each other because of uh access to water. But no, that that is that is just a crystal clear example of those issues and and the power that geography can give you. Um let's hope that they settle it equitably, which which means getting a treaty, we guarantee that if we have X qubits of water, you will have Y qubits of water. Uh, but at the moment they can't agree on the qubits. And basically, not to bore you, but it goes back to an agreement made between the British and the Egyptians when more or less we were still a colonial power, and of course the Ethiopians are saying, why on earth are we bound by some some treaty that a colonial country made with Egypt? We're not, and it's a work in progress.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yeah. Um, I was thinking another example, obviously, like you say, there's no better example than that because water is the the building block for everything, not just your agriculture, but just what you drink and wash yourself with. And so Egypt, I I don't know, is it 80 million people? Uh how many people are in Egypt?

SPEAKER_02 28:01

It's at least 85 million.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

So a lot of people, massive his history, massive culture, a bit of a a bit of a military US ally. Um, like you say, they might have make a treaty, but obviously the treaty goes out the the window um the second someone decides to abuse it.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

And ultimately, Ethiopia does have its hand on the tap, which means it's and it would be considered an act of war because it is an existential threat.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Yeah, totally. I was thinking another example would uh was the Amazon and Brazil. So the Amazon is uh the you know world's lungs more or less, yet Brazil uh has the power over the world's lungs, and they can just if if the government chooses so, they can chop down as much as they like, burn down as much as they like, salt as much earth as they can. Um and that, you know, could be another example, or perhaps the Arctic melting in Russia's border with that as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

The Brazil one's a very good example, but it's not quite the same because it's very limited what Egypt could do if uh if I mean I mean I looked at the military aspect of it, they would have to come through Sudan, which may or not which is a very long, hot, dry supply line, you know, hundreds of miles through the desert, with the Ethiopians knowing you're coming, or down the Red Sea and through Eritrea, which is now more or less an ally of Ethiopia-ish. They're not going to allow that. The Egyptian planes currently, I don't think, can get there and back uh even with refueling. The dam is incredibly well protected, state-of-the-art missile difference. Really?

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

So they they they they probably it's I mean that might that that military balance might change in the future, but they can't do much about it. I mean, obviously, if they were about to turn it off completely and kill 85 million Egyptians, there would be a world pressure on Ethiopia. But you know, you don't have to take the nuclear option. Sorry, which brings me to uh Brazil. In the event that Brazil woke up one morning, Bolsonaro woke up one morning and said, Right, I'm just gonna chop down the whole lot tomorrow, you know, there are levers that can be pulled. You know, hang on, we're not gonna buy you beef or or anything else that you make. Uh, and um there's all sorts of uh pressure could be brought to bear uh to bring a Brazil to heel. Egypt's ability to do that to Ethiopia is is severely limited. What was the other example you gave?

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Uh Russia, Russia in the Arctic.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Well, yeah, I mean again, that's everybody's fault that it's melting. Yeah. But the only person really benefited to take advantage of that is Russia. So they are they are so doing.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

This um this would be too much of a tangent to discuss now, and and uh I'm not sure. I certainly don't know anything about it, but I it made me think how what what it's like the legal um legally what can be done about the sort of water the rights to the water. Does because the the river is birthed in Ethiopia, does that mean it's theirs? Um, you know? I and I just thought, man, that's like for international lawyers, maybe a fascinating thing to go down.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Well, it is, and a lot of time and money is spent on it, but it is theirs. Um, just the same as the wood that is in the highlands where the Blue Nile originates, that's their wood. Okay, you can't argue that, oh well, we can go in and have part of it. No. But of course, obviously it is different because it the wood doesn't get up and walk off and go to another country as the water doesn't move. So, of course, it becomes comp really complicated. But no, they they have the right, which is why all these treaties uh have grown up. There are there are treaties between all countries about the flow of water and an agreement on how much you can hold back and how much must come to us. And you get into morality because again, as you don't with the trees, you get into this morality that this is a shared resource, um uh uh and it is a very, very complex um and it goes go go to the law lawyers, and in the event that there isn't a treaty between them, one country can go to um various international bodies. I mean, if it's C, for example, you uh uncloss United Nations Law of the C, it goes to um I've forgotten the affiliated organization, which is actually in London, uh, which will arbitrate for you, and then you're supposed to both agree on it. So it's really, really complex. A little bit like the moon, which I'm sure we may come to shortly.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Uh the and there's like a hierarchy of resources, though, isn't there? You know, like the the the wood isn't isn't, even though it does quite a lot, that actually would be right high in the hierarchy. There's nothing more important than water, not even oil. You know, it is just it's the resource, and therefore maybe it could be considered different. But uh on to on to the next Tim. Um okay, so I've got to make a strategic decision here, because there are four questions we could go down, and I'm thinking the yes-no favourite food, steak, chips. Alright, I'll keep a very easy one for you then. Mohammed bin Salman, MBS, is he a figure for good?

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Morally, no. Uh in the round, perhaps, uh, insofar as he's clearly a despot. You know, he's the de facto ruler of a uh one not even a one part, a one family state in Saudi Arabia. Um he clearly was involved somehow in the murder and dismemberment of a Saudi journalist in a Turkish. Uh he presides over a a place that just yesterday beheaded a young man for being old in a demonstration, a young Shia guy who was, I think, 15 when he allegedly particip participated in the uh in the in the in the demonstration. Uh wasn't arrested until he was 26 and 1.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

That's wild, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Yeah, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

But the reason why um he's not just necessarily automatically a bad thing, even if he might be a bad person, is that he is slowly, and I think it has to be done slowly, taking off some of the social um restrictions on people. Women are coming into the workforce slowly, being allowed to drive, cinemas are now opening. Um, they're trying to saudify the workforce because they know that as we stop buying their oil, they haven't got anything else to sell, so they better generate an economy. They are diversifying, they're building solar farms, etc. So, you know, it's not entirely bad for everybody, even if personally you wouldn't want to go for a drink with them, but of course, piggyback.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

You wouldn't drink anyway. Drink meal anyway. Femented yogurt. Um, I um I really loved the Saudi Arabia chapter as a country I I really didn't know anything about. Um something really interesting from it was the fact that most of the labor in Saudi uh Arabia isn't actually Saudi. It's not Saudi citizens, and it seems like the majority of the Saudi citizens are just chilling in air con with welfare.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Yep. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, there are I mean, you know, I've been to one or two of the of the poorer areas and it is full of relatively poorer Saudis. Uh but but they don't tend you know, you'll never you won't find a Saudi fisherman, they're from Bangladesh. You probably won't find a find a Saudi taxi driver, they're probably from Pakistan. You pro or you won't find a Saudi maid, because they wouldn't allow the women to to go and house to clean anyway, yeah. They're probably from Indonesia or the Philippines, you know, and just replicate that over and over again. And you've got about 12 million foreign workers, yeah, and it's not sustainable. It's insane because um they they send money out of the country, of course. Why why wouldn't they to help their families? Uh and and the Saudi workforce, especially the women, sit at home uh in subsidized air-conditioned houses, you know, and in in the long term, it is not sustainable because I mean I think I make the point in the book when oil was discovered, there's two million of them. There's now 25 million of them. What the hell are they gonna sell to buy things that are gonna sustain 25 million people? And that's what MBS has seen. He's seen that future and he's doing something about it. Yeah, but no, it's it's I mean, I remember once I was in uh going into a hotel in Riyadh, um, Big Flash Hotel, and there was a woman, where was she from? I think from the Philippines. Her job was to throw rose petals over me as I walked in. Not just me, I'm sure. I mean, could have, you know, maybe oh, Tim's coming, yeah. But you know, anyone that walked in.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

You got the special treatment, Tim.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Throw rose petals. You know, you'll bring someone from the Philippines to throw rose petals at the it's not sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Yeah, yeah. No, that that's kind of crazy. Um does it stem from a c uh uh like a classism, a superiority within the Saudi Arabia state? Like, did their culture change immensely in the last few generations since oil was discovered? Um, you know, completely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

They were mostly desert dwellers and nomads, um uh small towns desert uh nomads. Oh hell yeah. Yeah, okay, yeah. Fierce, yeah, fiercely. But but contrary to what ever most people, many people think, people tend to think of Saudi Arabia as a Wahhabi country, and the Wahhabi being one of the most austere forms of Islam. And yes, that is the ruling classes religion, because the Wahhabi family married into the Saud family, and and those are the two pillars. But the Wahhabis only really is Wahhabiism is only really practiced in the interior, the harshest of areas, um, although Riyadh now, because that's that's the capital. Um and the the rest of the country are are less austere and don't regard themselves as Wahhabis, but certainly um the Ichhwan, the the um the fighters that helped the family of Saud take over the whole place were fiercely, fiercely Islamic. But they you know they forged the country by fighting the other tribes on camels just a hundred years ago. Um they didn't have any major cities, um, they were absolutely tribal, uh, and now here they are in this modern technical industrialized country based on oil with air condition everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Um you said make sure you bring your uh winter jacket when you go to Saudi Arabia.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

It's so cold in Saudi Arabia. The the the the but I I need to um qualify all that by saying that despite all that, there is still a the the the many elements of the culture are absolutely still rooted there. For example, women completely covering up, you know, that's just a yeah, I solid gloves on their hands in case your passions are inflamed by seeing their naked hands. Um the separation, the the genuine um um uh belief in Islam, and the the the ability and and want to be a hospitable host, because that also comes from the desert, uh a culture where you know you welcome in uh as a host uh the stranger in your midst. That is also all deeply uh still rooted, and it's and and that's why it's still such an amazingly conservative um culture. It's a different religion and a different country, but I I remember when I first first time I ever went to uh Israel and I was in the uh uh the uh Haradi Orthodox part of Jerusalem, and I saw this guy wearing the black hat with the ringlets and the 16th century Polish nobleman uniform, which is where all that stuff comes from, on a mobile phone. And I was kind of like did a double take because this is straight out of the 16th century that what he's wearing, and he's on his mobile phone. And I I thought about it a lot and and went into it and met lots of people and talked to them. And reluctantly I think that yes, actually, in his head, a large part of his head is actually still in the 16th century, this guy. And we shouldn't make the mistake of looking at the technology and assuming that therefore they share some of like, say, the West or other cultures. Yeah, their cultural headspace. I mean, they're obviously they do some, um, but it's a mistake to think that just because you're on a mobile phone and a computer and all the rest of it, that your headspace is similar to the compilers. Whoops.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

We've lost Eurasia. Um it's falling out of the top ten. Yeah, like um just to compliment that point there, uh this this experience you had of a man dressed in a essentially a medieval outfit on the phone, and maybe he still has a medieval uh mindset. Um you know, I always I look at it with a lot of cynicism when um people make a big deal out of the fact that Saudi Arabia allows women to drive now, as as if this is some sort of um just amazing um uh movement towards uh the liberation of of women in Saudi Arabia, because and it it doesn't need to be explained. Anyone can sort of see the um the irony to to that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Well not everybody, I mean this is getting even more of a subject, but but but you're clearly not a cultural relativist because and neither am I. Um because postmodernism and cultural relativism and and all the other issues does argue that that um one is not necessarily better than the other, and this is dangerous territory because then everything's embedded in some cultural context, yeah. Yeah, I am you know we are not better, I am not better, but there are elements, I am free to argue that of uh the system I live in that I think are better than those, and there are elements in those. One being uh respect for family, respect for the elderly, taking care of the you know, we we've lost that, and it is to do with the detriment of our society. But I am free to argue that I think that a culture that treats women as far as they do uh as equal both in law and perhaps to a lesser extent in practice, I think that aspect of the culture is superior to a culture that um treats women as inferior and weakened to be protected and all the rest of it. But you know, as you know, you can be fiercely attacked for that view.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah, certainly. I mean, I I I do I do agree with you on what you said that you mentioned postmodernism, uh postmodernism. Stephen Hicks, the man who wrote the book Explaining Postmodernism, he's featured on this podcast actually before and is coming on again. So um yes, uh, but that is not relevant to the power of geography. Um, however, was a very interesting um take on Saturday Graper, and I'm happy I got it out of you. I've noticed we've gone over the time. Can you give me one more, please?

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Yeah, please, please.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

All right. So I think um it's yes I got the impression that you're most sort of giddy and maybe excited or at least interested in the last chapter the chapter base and it is also one of geography which is um yeah which you stay and I think it's totally true because it's still you know it's part of the earth right and you make the you make a very compelling argument for just how uh reliant our society is on these satellites okay so um very unsustainably uh reliant as well and I was just hoping you might be able to uh expand on that point you you you're right to pick up that I was most giddy with excitement and I think it's because um obviously I discovered many things in writing the other nine chapters um I didn't know but it was all territory that I was familiar with.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

I mean I I have a basic knowledge of the history of Spain and geography Ditto Ethiopia Turkey etc but when it came to space you know I learned so much and the more I went into it the more interested I became in it and then hit upon this idea of trying to describe it as geography and then the analogy being the choke points on Earth the Suez Canal, the Malacca Strait etc and realizing that there are similar geographies of space um oceans of gravity mountains of radiation belts and choke points of the where the satellites are put etc and um I was interested yesterday the um the this week the after the G7 there was the NATO summit and one of the things they came out with in the communique is is a recognition that they need to put a so much more into a space force for NATO. I mean obviously the Chinese have got one the Americans and the Russians have got one NATO requires a space force and also they've agreed that an attack on one in space is an attack on all whereas I don't think that was factored in because I make the point in this chapter that our treaties and laws are five decades behind the technology that we have including the moon treaty etc so the satellites are are the are the most um relevant thing here because that's the the closest to the future it's now in that we rely on them for our communications we rely on them for uh weather forecasts traffic systems shipping military communications alone completely derail society yeah you know you turn it off and you can turn off the banking system which in turn will cause an economic um at the very least a recession if not a depression if not a collapse and so when as we're reliant on that with a few backups undersea cables and telephones although I haven't got one anymore uh landline um you ditched your phone well uh I was made to get one a land uh a line but I've just haven't got a phone okay well I've got a mobile you've got a mobile okay all right sorry but I haven't got a mobile if you're just ditching all the text you're not allowed to get your your um uh your your uh broadband unless you get a telephone line okay so you had to get a telephone line I just didn't bother getting a telephone number anyway sorry I digress so if you knock one of these things out it's massive massive damage and if there's a war in space the debris may well knock out some of the communication satellites so it's hugely dangerous. The problem is is that the Russians have already tested a killer satellite you know they killed one of their own satellites straight out of Austin powers um and and because they've done that obviously you're not gonna do nothing you're going to start slowly arming your satellite for defensive purposes only I'm sure we can shoot offensively but no we've only got this for defensive purposes and so you're gonna get these armed satellites up there which means that the arms race which was already up there in a sense anyway is is actually a front and center part of military strategy.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah and that's a dangerous place and as I said the the the treaties are you know decades decades ago there was some very sci-fi yeah there was a cool tech uh I'm I'm hoping that you can explain a little bit what the current state of affairs is up in the skies.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

You know who owns what what how are things leaning okay yeah yeah thanks the geography um in the age of hot air ballooning when it when it first um started not not way back at the origins but when it became a thing and you could use it for warfare zeppelins and stuff the French wanted to argue that your vertical sovereignty as it's called stopped at one and a half thousand meters and the British wanted to argue it's unlimited. So in other words it doesn't matter how high up you go you know hundreds of thousands of miles if you're still above my country that's my sovereignty we still haven't agreed. 150 years later 120 we still haven't agreed how high is vertical sovereignty so at what point can you limp put your satellite?

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Now it's what's the argument against unlimited it seems like that's a quite a rational way to think about it.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

Um do you have to ask my permission to fly your communications satellite if it goes over my ah right okay yeah fair enough and that would complicate things a little bit because you have to ask my permission to put your military ship within 12 miles of my shoreline you know but this is we haven't worked it out. Sure yeah so at the moment there's sort of a gentleman's agreement for want of a better word that where earth space ends and space begins that's that's after that you know it's a free for all problem with that we can't even agree on where that is some people think I think it's 80 miles up and some people think it's a hundred miles up again there are ballpark agreements on this so we've got to sort that out where where does it end what is your vertical sovereignty then we've got to work out and have in law uh what can you have up there? Now there is a treaty the Outer Space Treaty which says you can't have weapons of mass destruction so we've already got a treaty that says you can't put a nuclear weapon on a satellite fine but there's nothing about lasers because in the 60s lasers they were just sci-fi that was James Bond film so there's nothing to stop me putting an amazing array of offensive um lasers on Ditto when we go all the way up to the moon um the moon treaty says uh you you you you can't um have bits of it but the moon treaty hasn't been ratified lots of people have said yeah great the moon treaty but they haven't ratified it through their parliament so it doesn't have any legal standing in the international community and now many countries about 12 of them I think have actually agreed to um spheres of influence on them Japan is one of them so Japan's gonna have its sphere of influence but Russia and China haven't signed this agreement so Russia and China land next to Japan what's Japan gonna say oh this is my sphere of influence and they're gonna say who says so again you know these are things we need to start um discussing at the highest pun intended the highest level and I was just absolutely fascinated by by the whole thing and the geography of it and the and and the geopolitics of it and how how completely reminiscent it is of all the things we've ever done on earth and argued about and have to come to agreements about who has what who can do what you know it's just it's just a mirror image of it there. And so I just thought it was um something worth writing about nice yeah well Tim uh again thank you so much for giving me uh a handful of your time well thanks Ryan I should say to people um you know I I've been trying to get out of here but I'm the one at fault because I was 40 minutes late because I was on a deadline for something and Ryan was very gracious about it.

SPEAKER_01 52:33

So um no worries mate no worries mate look I'm gonna give a nice intro um before I get it on as well but again really compelling book absolutely loved it and uh you know I'm sure another one will come out don't forget your Mexico chapter that's a that's a hugely important uh country in the world looking forward and maybe a Swedish chapter as well if you just want to have a bit of fun. But Tim thank you so much mate all the best.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Ryan yes Swedes don't be fooled by ABBA and Beyond Borg and uh Volvo they were one of the most warlike nations in Europe for centuries interesting okay well I guess that's a bit of a a cliffhanger for the next time you come on cheers.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Cheers mate all the best alright I hope you enjoyed that and I'll just hang around for a little bit I'm gonna riff out loud on some of the chapters and um um yeah just speak out loud about the power of geography and some of the countries that Tim highlights in and we're gonna start with the most glorious nation of all and what else could it be? It's first on the alphabetical order it's um first in all of our hearts it's Australia. So Tim opens up the book with Australia and actually before I do that I'm just gonna quickly say the chapters for you so you can have a little bit of an expectation as to what you might hear. We're going in uh numerical order Australia Iran Saudi Arabia the United Kingdom Greece Turkey the Sahel which is a region not a country uh Ethiopia Spain and finally space but starting with Australia where this enormous country uh Tim highlights from London to Istanbul and I might be getting that wrong but I think it's from London to Istanbul is the equivalent distance from Brisbane to Perth and Brisbane to Perth is the corner to corner and as you can see Europe and Eurasia and everything is gone but um uh the it's the equivalent distance now think about how much land you're covering from London to Istanbul you're going through Western Central Eastern Europe all the way down into the bridge between Asia and Europe um it's at a ridiculous amount of uh distance okay the European continent can fit in Australia once or two two times maybe even three times um so starting with Australia it's huge absolutely huge and what do we know about giant countries it increases the cost of transportation for things because you you just it takes longer to transport things and take and then couple that with the fact that we're also in a very uh isolated part of the world there is not a lot happening around us you can see Indonesia and Papua New Guinea just to the north and obviously China is up here who we're sending 30% of our goods to but coupling our giant distance with also our isolation it's very expensive for us to send shit out and bring shit in. And so that creates a uh a very sort of it creates a culture that understands the need for sort of self-sufficiency which we don't really have but it also creates um an extremely lopsided balance of payments which is basically we just bring in uh a lot more into our country than we sort of take out but look at it from the power geography perspective uh where this Tim Tim gives a a great little uh sort of snapshot history of Australia unfortunately not taking into account the aboriginal population but that's just because there isn't much documented knowledge on it and also for the purposes of understanding modern day Australia it sort of starts with the first fleet um which were a bunch of Englishmen uh accompanied by a bunch of convicts uh also Englishmen who sort of came and populated this country and many atrocities later Australia is now a population of 26 million people more or less with one of the highest standards of living in the world and essentially the country runs off its uh natural resource exportation to China which makes for an interesting sort of dichotomy because we're a US ally but we actually provide the building blocks for US's number one geopolitical risk which is which is China but we somehow maintain all of this sort of soft power internationally we have an absolutely unfair level not unfair unjustified or at least we punch above our weight in terms of our level of soft power because by economic standards military standards our Australia is rather insignificant. But thinking about it from the power geography um perspective there it's it's it's in an incredibly hard country to invade um if you just take a look at it it's surrounded by water and also pretty much everyone lives there on this red slither and then with some people here some people here some people here some people up here's essentially no one in Australia there I think 95% of the population lives on 5% of the land and most of that is on the east coast there which is why the Sydney and Melbourne property markets are some of the most expensive in the world it's extremely densely populated. There actually isn't many places to live in Australia ironically just by the fact it's this enormous enormous country so snapshot natural resources gives us our extremely high standard of living China is who is buying them and we're extremely hard to invade we're rather insignificant because of our geograph because of our geography and our isolation actually now I've said that that's really the point of Tim's chapter highlighting the power of geography what Australia is is because of its crazy geography and its crazy isolation. He even gives a little bit of an explanation draw linking from the diggers to modern day Australia how even our geography shaped more or less our culture Iran I don't remember enough of it to get to do justice so you're gonna have to read that for yourself. Saudi Arabia Tim and I cover in the podcast so you've already heard that so you don't need me to hear it again. The United Kingdom this is one which I was very interested to hear about because Tim obviously gives a terrific sort of snapshot again history of his own country because let's not forget Tim's an Englishman or at least I think he's an Englishman but he's certainly from the United Kingdom and essentially what he's explaining is now post-Brexit Britain you know what what what are they? What does their geography sort of say about them? How does their geography help or hinder them? Basically why does they and he again the power of geography he explains why the United Kingdom never sort of see themselves as European and it is part of their geography. They're an island and they're not connected to France despite the fact that the I think at least and this will rub both the French and the English the wrong way there are way more similarities between the French and the English and there are differences because they actually are only separated by this much land but it's water it's uh some sort of strait I don't know its name but um it it it sort of shaped this culture in the United Kingdom where they are a very staunchly not European. They're English they're Welsh they're Scottish they're Irish so it's a look at how maybe geography shaped the culture a bit also with geography they have these terrifically strong oak trees this is a point Tim made in the interview uh and that was a building block for creating the world's strongest navy um they might have had the expertise but without the wood it actually wouldn't have been possible and you can make the argument that the expertise wouldn't have happened if the wood wasn't there in the first place. It all starts with the incentive I don't want to go too much into the sort of politics of the geopolitics of the United Kingdom because I don't think I'll do it justice. But that's in uh obviously the book as well Greece amazing country also one which I don't think I'll do very good justice to um but as a snapshot from and this is taking in Tim's work with in a combination with say Janus Varapakis's work and um doing my best to understand the situation in Europe because Greece from the outside especially from the American perspective they sort of see it as this sort of failed state where no one pays the taxes and no one works and they're just a burden on the European Union. That narrative is easy to um uh create but it's not true uh it's a lot more complicated than that Greece is an island chain with very, very limited amounts of arable land. The agriculture they produce is as good as you'll get anywhere in the entire world but it's extremely limited which means it can't be scaled to the point of exportation which means it's just mostly consumed domestically or maybe throughout Europe which means they don't get much money for it which means they can't develop this really sort of thriving economy off say the back of agriculture. Something about Greece is they have one of the most thriving shipping industries in the entire world a lot of the shipmakers and sort of uh ship consultancy companies and ship insurers and ship um finances are actually Greek companies so it's you know it's like a little it's it's like an intellectual stem from their economy which is explained by the fact that they are a seafaring nation. I mean Greek Greece all the way back is defined by its pearly blue waters um but it's a chain of islands that has mountains you know fun fact is you can ski in Greece whereas most people will just think of Greece as the sort of um quintessential Mediterranean island um but it's limited by its geography and because of its limitations it leans on Europe a lot a lot and that was understood by the European Union before Greece came into the European Union which makes it a rather unfair situation where they become the punching bag for Europe and the people that how can people whose problems can be blamed on um their own culture rather than some very real geographical hindrances to begin with I don't know if I did that justice. Turkey the Sahel I don't know too much about them the Turkish chapter is amazing. The Sahel one is very interesting but Turkey is a country that's becoming more and more geopolitically significant for many obvious reasons but then also fascinatingly some non-obvious ones as well just the f just where they are the the geography of where they are they're the bridge between um Asia and Europe. Historically Istanbul's one of the most quintessential trading cities in the world I'm pretty sure the word bazaar I don't know if it's from Turkish or if it's from Arabic or where it's from but a bazaar is like a very Turkish idea or at least I think it is I don't think I'm getting that wrong but you know and the bazaar is the market right so it it it it it's a it's a trading hub. It's a trading hub. And Spain there was also a chapter uh committed to Spain I don't know enough to do that one justice but we'll just do a quick one of Ethiopia because this is a fascinating one which we did touch on uh in the in the interview but just as a quick recap the Nile starts in Ethiopia the Nile River which is famously Egypt's Nile River but the Nile starts in Ethiopia and a giant uh dam called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been built on the Ethiopian border with Sudan which is essentially holding the Nile River or at least it has the potential to hold the Nile River it's just a matter of tapping it or not. And what happens if um Egypt's flow Egypt's uh sort of girthy flow of the Nile is inhibited upon chaos absolute chaos so although it's unlikely to result in the chaos the threat of it is enough the power of it is enough and as Tim says in the interview it really is the most explicit example of how of how one country can have the power of its geography over another country. Then finally we touched on space which Tim also did at the interview at the uh in in the inter in the interview at the end um so I don't want to retouch it here but I just wanted to mostly sort of riff on the power of geography for a minute and talk about how exciting it is to look at the world from this perspective you know to to to to look at the world from this perspective of what are your building blocks, where did you start and how does this explain where you have gotten to today and then how can we sort of think about what the actual limitations are so we know maybe where we're going in the future or what the best directions are for us to go in. Something like the concept of this book is something which you know would be fascinating. I mean let's just look here that country could get a serious rap this country get a serious rap this country look at that look at the power of geography over Argentina that Chile has here and what's the only reason they have this sort of gap because this is a freaking mountain range it's a natural border but there again it's the power of the geography that's dictated the difference between two cultures this giant mountain range that runs down between it this is all Amazon it's all a giant jungle it's lawlessness it's absolute lawlessness geography Brazil can't do anything about that it's like limitations on their culture on their economy on their politics because of the geography now the United States has fallen off the wall as has the European Asian continent, so we can't really comment much on there, but this continent here. Limitations of geography. So just love the idea of looking at the world that way. And um, you know, it's very clear how much I enjoyed prisoners of geography, power of geography, but also just the uh idea of looking at geopolitics through a geographical lens and not simply a sort of diplomatic and political one. But anyway, if you have stayed around till this end, you're an absolute ledge, and um cheers, cheers. Let me know if this was at all interesting, or if it was boring, or if it was not good. Um But I wanted to roll the dice and see if it went alright. So that's all from me. Cheers, tune in for the next one, subscribe to the podcast, ladies.