One can accuse Vladimir Putin’s infamous ambition for Russia's moves on Ukraine, but the real reason may be a lot more earthy and compelling: geography. A 2016 edition of Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography takes a refreshing view of geopolitics. It explains how the rivers, seas, mountains, glaciers, forests and plains dictate international relations of Russia, China, the US, western European nations, Africa, the Middle East, Korea and Japan and Latin America. It also describes how the geography of India and Pakistan — the watery arc of the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal, the Hindukush to the northwest and the Himalayas to the north, the plateau of the Balochistan desert, North West Frontier mountains, and the Karakoram range which leads back to the Himalayas — forms the bloodied rink of a tragic conflict. The common perception (there is a fair bit of truth in it) among international policy experts is that Putin wants to be the person who, on his watch, puts ...
