Will Russia invade Ukraine?
What will it do in Kazakhstan?
The answer also explains why Putin is the leader Russia thinks it needs, why the USSR collapsed, why it couldn't compete with the US, why it’s the biggest country in the world, & more.
It's due to Russia's dilemma:
Moscow is in the middle of the biggest plain in the world, the Eurasian Plain, that goes all the way to the Atlantic via France. It's been a highway for conquests since forever.
Very famously, from the east, for horse-mounted people like the Mongols
But the threat hasn't just come from the east. Also from the west. Most recently, Napoleon (who conquered Moscow all the way from France), and Hitler (who made it to 30km from Moscow).
There are no mountains to use as a defense in millions of km2.
So after Muscovy became a *vassal state of the Mongols*, it started doing the only thing it could do: grab as much land as it could around Moscow. The only land that was easy to grab was in the north & east, so that's where Muscovy went
It expanded 1st north and then east, all the way to the Pacific, way before it focused on Central Asia or Europe.
They did that because Siberia is basically empty.
And it is empty, you guessed it, because of climate.
Owning Siberia created a massive buffer that anybody would need to cross to attack, stretching supply lines and exposing them to insurrection and counter-offenses.
Muscovy was safe in the east.
But not the west or the south.
Problem: that's where powerful neighbors were
From the northwest, counter-clockwise:
Kingdom of Sweden
Poland-Lithuania
Austro-Hungarian Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Khanates (remnants of the Mongols)
Over 2 centuries, they conquered from them a massive buffer for Moscow
As Hitler showed, that was still not enough. The North European Plain is still a highway.
WW2 gave Russia (USSR) to go as far as it would ever go.
Moscow was finally safe.
This expansion comes at a cost: how do you control millions of km2 with so many ethnicities?
Siberia is easy.
Central Asia is harder.
Easter Europe is much harder.
So the more Russia expands, the more it needs to spend on controlling conquered peoples. On an authoritarian state
Here's the kicker: Russian land might promote expansion, but it's not rich.
The south & southwest are fertile (hence the population), but the north & east are too cold.
Not only that, but all the main rivers are south-north, which make it impossible to trade anything perishable w/ the west. No trade, no wealth.
Summarizing:
• Moscow is in the middle of a massive plain with no defense. It needs to expand: buffer space is the only defense
• The + it expands, the + Russians conquer other ppl, the more they need $ for police & military control
• That's expensive & Russian land is poor
So here's Russia's Dilemma:
The tension between expansion for buffer land and contraction from a poor core that can’t finance an authoritarian state to control different ethnicities that don’t tolerate the expansion.
That's why Russia invaded Georgia when it talked about joining NATO: enemy at the southern border? No thx.
That's why Russia invaded Afghanistan 40y ago: it's at the border of the Eurasian plain, and was at risk of flipping to an enemy (Muslims or NATO)
That's why Ukraine, with 8 million ethnic Russians and in the middle of the Eurasian plain, is a core target for Russia, and why it freaks out when it talks about joining the EU or NATO.
That's why Russia can't tolerate an enemy in the south w/ Kazakhstan, home of 3m ethnic Russians, so it sends the military when there's trouble there.
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
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
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
Can there be an invasion of Iran? Hardly. Two maps explain why, and also why Iran is the way it is today, whether its regime will fall, what other superpowers will do, and in general why Iran is the way it is today
The only truly exposed area is the southwestern corner of Khuzestan, which is a swamp
The biggest superpowers lie to the west, and there the very broad Zagros make it really hard to conquer Iran. The mountain range is tall and wide, making logistics similar to Afghanistan. Very hard.
Iraq learned it the hard way when it tried to attack there in 1980
Listening to the debate, it looks like 🇮🇱Israel & the 🇺🇸US intelligence community disagreed, but that's not really the case!
Both thought Iran was weeks to months away from being able to develop the bomb
So what's the disagreement?
Here are more facts:
• Tehran had just announced a 3rd enrichment site in an undisclosed place
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had recently produced a report censoring Iran for the 1st time in 20y
• It accused Iran of 3 undisclosed nuclear sites
• It claimed Iran had enough enriched uranium for 9-10 nuclear bombs
• All the other countries in the world who have enriched uranium at the same level also have nuclear weapons. Iran is the only country that doesn't have these weapons yet enriches uranium as much
Nuclear is the best source of energy across nearly all the factors that matter. It's the safest, cleanest, densest, most sustainable, geopolitically stable, predictable, dispatchable, and can be cheap.
1. SAFEST
It kills 1000x less than coal
Living close to a nuclear power plant for one year gives you less radiation than eating a banana (graph is logarithmic)
2. CLEANEST
Accounting for all the lifecycle of all energies, it's the one that emits the least CO2