Currently listening to Peter Zeehan's The End of the World is Just the Beginning and this seems to jive with his viewpoint as well. That is - the geographic loc

Currently listening to Peter Zeehan's The End of the World is Just the Beginning and this seems to jive with his viewpoint as well. That is - the geographic location of a country, plus rivers, plus ocean ports, is the core characteristic of those empires that succeeded or failed. He talks about a "cruchy exterior, creamy middle" IE: borders that are protected in some way, for example by an ocean, with an interior of vast farmland easily passable by roads and rail.