Eurasia is the world's axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions: Western Europe and East Asia.
My apartment's only about a block away." "Isn't that handy." "Fate," he countered as he took a seat on the sofa and made himself at home. "Fantasic, isn't it?" "One day very soon, I'm going to tell you what you can do with that fate of yours.
It is a noble land that God has given us: a land that can feed and clothe the world; a land whose coastlines would enclose half the countries of Europe; a land set like a sentinel between the two imperial oceans of the globe.
Time and place often give advantage to the weak over the strong.
Memphis is in a very lucky position on the map. Everything just gravitated to Memphis for years.
England in a way is lucky. It's an island, so the frontiers are given by the sea.
At the outset, at least, all three groups had something else to recommend them, as well: They were headquartered 3,000 miles away from the East Side of Manhattan.
In battle, topography is fate.
The Philippines is strategically located and blessed with the greatest resource: its people, who are hard-working, very loyal, and very adaptive.
The dependencies of inner and outer Mongolia are the bulwarks of China. The desert of Gobi, stretching for ten thousand li, is a barrier set by Heaven to the Russians, and if they seek to invade our borders, they will find it everywhere along the Northern frontier difficult and troublesome.
The luckiest person in the world is somebody who is born into a small, shabby-genteel town on a major railway connection with 24,000 souls and a bird sanctuary and whose grandfather owns a farm and whose father owns a business -whose family is mildly prosperous but not rich, which means you can leave the town.
What drives the attractiveness of a trans-shipment hub are really three things. Location, location, location is very helpful. But so is productivity - a stable labor force and getting ships in and out as quickly as possible. And then, getting costs as low as possible will drive carrier behavior.
India has the right, if she only knew, of becoming the predominant partner by reason of her numbers, geographical position and culture inherited for ages.
When a society is economically dominant, it is easy for its members to assume that such dominance reflects a deeper superiority—whether religious, racial, genetic, ethnic, cultural, or institutional—rather than an accident of timing or geography.
Maybe when you were born on the top of the mountain you could pretend the mountain didn't matter, but those who climbed it and those born at its base who could never climb at all knew differently.
We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; (2) entangling ground; (3) temporising ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy.
Some of us are born in the right place, and some of us have to go look for it.
