Robert D. Kaplan’s, The Revenge of Geography, offers a compelling theory on how geography influenced world history and is currently influencing present day society. I concur with Kaplan’s theory that it is impossible to say that geography has not affected the way people have conducted their lives. Geography has had an enormous impact on the way in which countries have prospered, suffered, won and lost wars, and how their overall histories have been influenced. Russia is a good example of a country for which geography has had a substantial impact. It’s vast size, long borders, extreme climate and abundance of natural resources have all made a significant contribution to its becoming a powerful nation historically, today and the expected future.…show more content… “ At some 17.1 million sq. kilometers Russia is 1.8 times the size of China, 1.7 times that of the USA and 70 times that of the United Kingdom.” Most would think that being such a large country would be a huge advantage. However, in many instances it has proven to be a weakness. One of the weaknesses is that Russia’s borders are very long and lack natural borders (unlike China which is surrounded by mountains and seas on all sides except to the north, where the Great Wall stands). So, while China only had to worry about the possibility of attacks from the north, Russia had to worry about being attacked from almost all its borders. As Kaplan states, “Because the land was flat, and integrally connected in its immensity to Asia and the Middle East, Russia was itself conquered.” Russia had to continuously invade territories in Eastern Europe and in China to keep its own territory safe and