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link in the description much of Russian
history can be summed up in just these
five words and then things got worse
back in 1900 the Russian Empire was one
of the most powerful nations on earth 8%
of the human population called Russia
home and 17% of the Earth's land was
directly governed by her but
fast-forward through a century of
disaster with a world war a civil war
another world war the Cold War the
collapse of the Soviet Union and tens of
millions of deaths along the way and you
arrive to the situation that Russia
finds herself in now after being invaded
by Western European armies twice during
the 20th century and with the perceived
threat of a third invasion by NATO cold
war-era allies the Soviet Union set up
buffer States like a security system
that any invading army would have to
break through first however in the early
1990s this entire security belt began
unraveling East Germany Poland
Czechoslovakia Hungary Romania and
Bulgaria all once loyal members of the
security defense system defected over to
the other side NATO in the European
Union even worse for Russia the former
Soviet republics of Lithuania Latvia and
Estonia all also joined the other side
following the collapse of communism
placing the city of st. Petersburg the
second largest city in all of Russia
within a mere 134 kilometers from NATO
territory within a few short years NATO
territory had been pushed all the way
from Berlin to the literal doorstep of
Russia and all without a shot being
fired but the overall strategic
situation for Russia is much worse than
that
Greece and Turkey are both members of
NATO - and can block Russian ships from
accessing the Mediterranean Sea the US
now has a large military presence in
Afghanistan down to the south right on
the border of the old USSR Japan and
South Korea meanwhile our strong US
allies in the East that can both largely
block Russia's access to the Pacific if
required and China stands today as a
gigantic continental behemoth they're
good
also potentially stand in the way of
Russia's continental ambitions in Asia
if you were in charge of the Russian
government and knowing how the history
of the 20th century unfolded for your
country you'd probably be more than just
a little nervous about this fragile
geopolitical situation but fear not for
a textbook outlining exactly what you
should do as the leader of Russia was
published for you to follow back in 1997
the book is called the foundations of
geopolitics and it was written by this
kooky dude named Alex song better Dugan
basically a step-by-step playbook for
Russia getting out of this dicey
situation over the course of the 21st
century and it's evidently quite popular
within certain political circles inside
of Russia and has even apparently been
used as a textbook by the Russian
general staff Academy so here's how it
basically would play out if you were in
charge and decided to follow it through
to the letter
first off let's figure out the situation
in Europe the book recommends that you
work as hard as you can
to set up an alliance with Germany you
should offer the disconnected Russian
territory of Kaliningrad which used to
be a part of Germany prior to messy
world war two back to them in exchange
for this alliance you should offer
Germany the once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity no strings attached for real
this time
domination over Central and Eastern
European Protestant and Catholic states
like maybe Czechoslovakia Austria and
Poland
you know nothing about this should raise
any alarms or sound too familiar to the
rest of the world I promise once Germany
is in your pocket you need to begin work
on convincing France to join in on the
fun one way or another or whatever means
you have the United Kingdom though will
probably never join you so it's going to
be better to just cut them off and keep
them isolated from the rest of Europe as
much as possible the less the UK can
influence the politics of Europe the
better for you as for those pesky Baltic
States that you used to control don't
worry just give Estonia over to Germany
sphere of influence and let them deal
with it it's not like Estonia is already
a part of Germany sphere of influence or
anything Latvia and Lithuania meanwhile
should either be taken over by you or
given us some kind of
status taking over Finland may not have
really worked out as well as intended
the last time around but this time could
be different
while Finland isn't a member of NATO and
therefore won't be defended by NATO
probably they are an EU member which
does complicate things but regardless
Finland needs to be slurped up into
Russia for this plan to work so it's
best to strike at the most opportunistic
time that you get Poland can get carved
up between you and Germany just like the
good old times or it could also be given
some kind of a special status Romania
Macedonia Serbia and Greece should all
united team up with you at this point as
the fellow Orthodox it floods that they
are you know despite that whole pesky EU
thing oh and then there is Ukraine which
is basically just second Russia so just
take all that over using whatever means
you can whenever you see a good
opportunity just like Finland ok so
Europe is all good let's move on to the
Middle East an Asian strategy next Iran
needs to be a key ally of your new
government they don't like America you
know like America it'll be great in
order to help this along though you
could both invade Azerbaijan and divide
it up between you two
nearby Armenia should be made an ally of
your new government as well to further
lock down the region but Georgia Georgia
should be completely torn apart and
eventually absorbed into Russia using
whatever means you have available
geopolitical shocks need to be employed
in Turkey to keep them distracted from
everything else you're doing around them
while all the countries in Central Asia
that used to be Soviet republics should
be reincorporated at some point if
played successfully most of Western and
Central Asia should be yours now just
like most of Europe meanwhile China
could pose the biggest challenge to you
inside of Asia and therefore China must
be destroyed you should start by
absorbing Mongolia because if you've
already done everything previously to
this then who's really gonna stop you
now and then try your best to take over
the lesser populated Chinese provinces
like Zhen Shan and Tibet before moving
on to the Manchuria region you can
compensate China by offering them a
dominion over Southeast Asia the
Philippines and Indonesia instead since
you know you're not
really use those anyway as an ally of
the United States Japan must be
convinced to leave that all behind this
can hopefully be done by offering Japan
back the Kuril Islands which were taken
from them by you back in 1945 after the
war combined with an effort to spread as
much anti-american propaganda as
possible in the country in Japan might
soon become your friend instead and
therefore will probably allow your
fleets unrestricted access into the
Pacific and finally there's the United
States itself which probably won't just
sit back and let you do all of this you
need to use your special services to
infiltrate the country and user
espionage tactics to fuel as much
instability separatism and chaos as
possible you must actively support every
single extremist isolationist
secessionist and radical group that you
can even if the support is going to
opposing groups the goal here is simply
to cause as much chaos and uncertainty
as possible and keep the United States
as distracted from world events and from
what you're doing as possible
anti-american sentiment and ideologies
should simultaneously be encouraged and
supported all across the world to sow as
much global dissent with the current
world order as possible with the United
States
hopefully focused on more domestic
problems that your spies have
exacerbated you may find the good
opportunities to strike elsewhere in
Europe and Asia and your work to
steadily build back Russia's lost power
and influence can continue without
interference
because if the United States gets
directly involved with your shenanigans
it's all probably gonna be over the
foundations of geopolitics sort of reads
like a textbook from an alternate
history or timeline it's kind of fun
imagining what the world would be like
if everything discussed in the book came
true but unfortunately the book has
never been properly translated from
russian into english there's plenty of
other books about alternative history
that you can actually read about though
like the man of the high castle which
explores a world in which the Axis
powers were victorious in world war ii
or 11/22/63 which explores a world where
JFK was never assassinated
and both books are available on audible
if you're like me the best way to fit
reading books into a busy schedule is
through audible audiobooks audible has
an enormous library of books and audio
programs including an entire section
devoted to alternate history that you
can listen to entirely offline anywhere
with their apps best of all though you
can sign up for free by clicking the
link in the description or by going to
audible.com/veritasium five-zero-zero
and a download man in the high castle
11/22/63 or any other audio book that
you want for free in addition to two
audible originals also for free thank
you so much for watching and I'll see
you again next week