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More from @tomaspueyo

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

Aug 14

Moscow is one of the weirdest capitals:
• Biggest European city
• Extremely cold
• Little farmland
• To Russia's extreme west
• Not on a coast or main river

How did it create the biggest country on Earth?

It involves horse archers, human harvesting & tiny animals 🧵

The first shocking fact is that Russia is so far north it's at the edge of arable land. How can you create a capital with so little food? Why not in the middle of the most fertile area on Earth?

This far north is extremely cold
Moscow is the 3rd coldest capital in the world and by far the biggest: with 20M ppl, its metro population is 8x bigger than the 2nd biggest cold capital, Stockholm!

Read 20 tweets

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

Jul 28

This map tells you how a seemingly innocent difference, like wheat vs rice eating, can have dramatic political, economic, and cultural ramifications:
🧵

The areas that harvest wheat vs rice are different. Why?
Because of climate

Rice needs heat and lots of water. Ideally, flooding the fields to also kill weeds. Rice dies with frost.

Wheat resists it well, prefers cooler temperatures, but dies when it's flooded

Read 12 tweets

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

Jul 7

Did you know the West's trade deficits to China are not recent, but started 2000 years ago? This is the story of how silk, porcelain, tea, opium, and silver have determined the history of the world 🧵

The Romans already complained about deficits to China! Mainly because of silk

Back then the Chinese already preferred manufacturing and selling products than consuming foreign products. Chronicler Solinus ~200 AD: The Chinese "prefer only to sell their products, but do not like to buy our goods."

Read 12 tweets

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

Jun 25

Why did 🇮🇱Israel strike 🇮🇷Iran now, and not months or years ago or in the future?

A unique combination of a dozen factors converged to make the moment unique for 🇮🇱Israel: 🧵
1. No Hamas to its southwest
2. No Hezbollah to its north
3. No Assad threat to the northeast
4...

4. No more Syrian army to attack 🇮🇱Israel's planes: As the new forces of HTS took over Syria, Israel bombed all the existing Syrian military. No more fighter jets or surface-to-air missiles to threaten 🇮🇱Israel

5. Ability to fly over Syria to refuel
This is critical, because 🇮🇷Iran is ~600-1000 miles away from 🇮🇱Israel, so 1200-2000 miles round trip

The range of Israel’s stealth F35 is only about 1,350 mi
To operate inside 🇮🇷Iran, 🇮🇱Israel needed refueling over Syria

Read 7 tweets

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

Jun 23

Was 🇮🇷trying to get a nuclear bomb?

1. From Feb 2025 to Jun 2025, it increased its amount of enriched uranium by 50%
2. It now had 400kg of highly enriched uranium, enough for 9-10 bombs
3. This is 60% enriched uranium. Fuel only requires 5% enrichment.
4... 🧵

4. It's easy to go from 60% to 90% (weapons grade), it only takes weeks
5. The only country on Earth with such enriched uranium and without a bomb is 🇮🇷Iran
6. The IAEA (nuclear watchdog) found 3 secret nuclear sites

7. When 🇮🇷Iran didn't respond to this accusation, the IAEA censured it
8. 🇮🇷Iran responded to the censoring by saying it would open a 3rd enrichment site in a secret spot

Read 9 tweets

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

Jun 22

Now that the 🇺🇸US has bombed 3 of 🇮🇷Iran's nuclear sites, where will the war go from here?
It depends on 🇮🇱Israel: 🧵

🇮🇷Iran never wanted the war, and its forces are being decimated. Its ability to send missiles to 🇮🇱Israel is being degraded every day. If it could sign a ceasefire while saving face, it would

Meanwhile, 🇮🇱Israel has kept striking Iran non stop. Its daily airstrikes didn't go down substantially in the first few days. Its ability to keep striking 🇮🇷Iran remains unabated

So when will it stop?