Tim Marshall > Quotes

“What the British have now is a collective memory of greatness. That memory is what persuades many people on the island that if something in the world needs to be done, then Britain should be among the countries which do it.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Vietnam is an irritation for China. For
centuries the two have squabbled over territory, and unfortunately
for both this is the one area to the south which has a border an
army can get across without too much trouble – which partially
explains the 1,000-year domination and occupation of Vietnam by
China from 111 BCE to 938 CE and their brief cross-border war of
1979. However, as China’s military prowess grows, Vietnam will be
less inclined to get drawn into a shooting match and will either cosy
up even closer to the Americans for protection or quietly begin
shifting diplomatically to become friends with Beijing. That both
countries are nominally ideologically Communist has little to do
with the state of their relationship: it is their shared geography that
has dened relations. Viewed from Beijing, Vietnam is only a minor
threat and a problem that can be managed”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“It was long said to be impossible to build a railway through the permafrost, the mountains and the valleys of Tibet. Europe’s best engineers, who had cut through the Alps, said it could not be done. But the Chinese built it. Perhaps only they could have done. The line into the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, was opened in 2006 by the then Chinese President Hu Jintao. Now passenger and goods trains arrive from as far away as Shanghai and Beijing, four times a day, every day. They bring with them many things, such as consumer goods from across China, computers, colour televisions and mobile phones. They bring tourists who support the local economy, they bring modernity to an ancient and impoverished land, a huge improvement in living standards and healthcare, and they bring the potential to carry Tibetan goods out to the wider world. But they have also brought several million Han Chinese settlers.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Gagarin, Buzz Aldrin and many others are the descendants of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, pioneers who pushed the boundaries and who changed the world in ways they could not have imagined in their own lifetimes. Whether for better or worse is not the point; they discovered new opportunities and new spaces in which peoples would compete to make the most of what nature had put there. It will take generations, but in space, too, we will plant our flags, ‘conquer’ territory, claim ground and overcome the barriers the universe puts in our way. When we are reaching for the stars, the challenges ahead are such that we will perhaps have to come together to meet them: to travel the universe not as Russians, Americans or Chinese but as representatives of humanity. But so far, although we have broken free from the shackles of gravity, we are still imprisoned in our own minds, confined by our suspicion of the ‘other’, and thus our primal competition for resources. There is a long way to go.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Everything in our history tells us we cannot resist the call of the unknown.”
― Tim Marshall, The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World

“The Israelis feel threatened by the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons. It is not just Iran’s potential to rival their own arsenal and wipe out Israel with just one bomb: if Iran were to get the bomb, then the Arab countries would probably panic and attempt to get theirs as well. The Saudis, for example, fear that the ayatollahs want to dominate the region, bring all the Shia Arabs under their guidance, and even have designs on controlling the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. A nuclear-armed Iran would be the regional superpower par excellence, and to counter this danger the Saudis would probably try to buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan (with whom they have close ties). Egypt and Turkey might follow suit.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“The battle for the future of the Arab Middle East has to an extent taken the spotlight off the Israeli–Arab struggle. The fixation with Israel/Palestine does sometimes return, but the magnitude of what is going on elsewhere has finally enabled at least some observers to understand that the problems of the region are not down to the existence of Israel. That was a lie peddled by the Arab dictators as they sought to deflect attention from their own brutality, and it was bought by many people across the area and the dictators’ useful idiots in the West.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“All the sovereignty issues stem from the same desires and fears – the desire to safeguard routes for military and commercial shipping, the desire to own the natural riches of the region, and the fear that others may gain where you lose. Until recently the riches were theoretical, but the melting ice has made the theoretical probable, and in some cases certain. The hunger for energy suggests the race is inevitable in what some Arctic specialists have called the ‘New Great Game’. There are going to be a lot more ships in the High North, a lot more oil rigs and gas platforms – in fact, a lot more of everything. However, there are differences between this situation and the ‘Scramble for Africa’ in the nineteenth century or the machinations of the great powers in the Middle East, India and Afghanistan in the original Great Game. This race has rules, a formula and a forum for decision-making. The Arctic Council is composed of mature countries, most of them democratic to a greater or lesser degree. The international laws regulating territorial disputes, environmental pollution, laws of the sea and treatment of minority peoples are in place.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“There’s a fine line between giving away your secrets and deterring your opponent by letting them know how strong you are.”
― Tim Marshall, The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World

“Pakistan is an Islamic state with a history of dictatorship and populations whose loyalty is often more to their cultural region than to the state. Islam, cricket, the intelligence services, the military and fear of India are what hold Pakistan together. None of these will be enough to prevent it from being pulled apart if the forces of separatism grow stronger. In effect Pakistan has been in a state of civil war for more than a decade, following periodic and ill-judged wars with its giant neighbour India.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“A two-year-old doesn’t know much, but it knows when its world has just been turned upside down.”
― Tim Marshall, Shadowplay

“Exhausted by war, and with safety ‘guaranteed’ by the American military, the Europeans embarked on an astonishing experiment. They were asked to trust each other. What is now the EU was set up so that France and Germany could hug each other so tightly in a loving embrace that neither would be able to get an arm free with which to punch the other. It has worked brilliantly and created a huge geographical space now encompassing the biggest economy in the world.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“The Middle East - the middle of what? East of where? The region’s very name is based on a European view of the world, and it is a European view of the region that shaped it. The Europeans used ink to draw lines on maps: they were lines that did not exist in reality and created some of the most artificial borders the world has seen. An attempt is now being made to redraw them in blood.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Because Israel is so small it has no real ‘strategic depth’, nowhere to fall back to if its defences are breached, and so militarily it concentrates on trying to ensure no one can get near it. Furthermore, the distance from the West Bank border to Tel Aviv is about 10 miles at its narrowest; from the West Bank ridge, any half decent military could cut Israel in two. Likewise, in the case of the West Bank Israel prevents any group from becoming powerful enough to threaten its existence.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Chinese involvement is an attractive proposition for many African governments. Beijing and the big Chinese companies don’t ask difficult questions about human rights, they don’t demand economic reform or even suggest that certain African leaders stop stealing their countries’ wealth as the IMF or World Bank might. All the Chinese want is the oil, the minerals, the precious metals and the markets. This is an equitable government-to-government relationship, but we will see increasing tension between local populations and the Chinese workforces often brought in to assist the big projects. This in turn may draw Beijing more into the local politics, and require it to have some sort of minor military presence in various countries.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“A fegyverkorlátozás ősi problémája az, hogy senki nem tárgyal a fegyverek korlátozásáról olyanokkal, akiknek nincs fegyverük.”
― Tim Marshall, Future of Geography : How Power and Politics in Spac will Change Our World

“China has locked itself into the global economy. If we don’t buy, they don’t make. And if they don’t make there will be mass unemployment. If there is mass and long-term unemployment, in an age when the Chinese are a people packed into urban areas, the inevitable social unrest could be – like everything else in modern China – on a scale hitherto unseen.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“The USA is seeking to demonstrate to the whole region that it is in their best interests to side with Washington – China is doing the opposite. So when challenged, each side must react, because for each challenge it ducks, its allies’ confidence, and competitors’ fear, slowly drains away until eventually there is an event which persuades a state to switch sides.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Until a few years ago Turkey was held up as an example of how a Middle Eastern country, other than Israel, could embrace democracy. That example has taken a few knocks recently. President Erdoğan’s remarks on Jews, race and gender equality, taken with the creeping Islamisation of Turkey, have set alarm bells ringing. However, compared with the majority of Arab states Turkey is far more developed and recognisable as a democracy. Erdoğan may be undoing some of Atatürk’s work, but the grandchildren of the Father of the Turks live more freely than anyone in the Arab Middle East.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Different powers have invaded the subcontinent over the centuries, but none have ever truly conquered it. Even now New Delhi does not truly control India and, to an even greater extent Islamabad does not control Pakistan. The Muslims had the greatest success in uniting the subcontinent under one leadership, but even Islam never overcame the linguistic, religious and cultural differences.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Because the Arab states have not experienced a similar opening-up and have suffered from colonialism, they were not ready to turn the Arab uprisings into a real Arab Spring. Instead they soured into perpetual rioting and civil war. The Arab Spring is a misnomer, invented by the media; it clouds our understanding of what is happening. Too many reporters rushed to interview the young liberals who were standing in city squares with placards written in English, and mistook them for the voice of the people and the direction of history. Some journalists had done the same during the ‘Green Revolution’, describing the young students of north Tehran as the ‘Youth of Iran’, thus ignoring the other young Iranians who were joining the reactionary Basij militia and Revolutionary Guard.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“The mountainous terrain of Iran means that it is difficult to create an interconnected economy, and that it has many minority groups each with keenly defined characteristics. As a result of this diversity, Iran has traditionally centralised power and used force and a fearsome intelligence network to maintain internal stability. Tehran knows that no one is about to invade Iran, but also that hostile powers can use its minorities to try and stir dissent and thus endanger its Islamic revolution.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Each time humanity has ventured into a new domain it has brought war with it.”
― Tim Marshall, The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World

“India and Pakistan can agree on one thing: neither wants the other one around.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“Bangladesh’s problem is not that it lacks access to the sea, but that the sea has too much access to Bangladesh: flooding from the waters of the Bay of Bengal constantly afflicts the low-lying territory.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“In modern times, is that anyone stupid enough to contemplate invading America would soon be forced to reflect on the fact that it contains hundreds of millions of guns, readily available to a population that takes its life, liberty and pursuit of happiness very seriously. In addition to the formidable US Armed Forces, there is the National Guard, state police and, an urban police force that can quickly resemble a military unit. In the event of an invasion, every US Folsum, Fairfax, and Farmerville would quickly resemble an Iraqi Fallujah.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“In 1989 in Eastern Europe there was one form of totalitarianism: Communism. In the majority of people’s minds there was only one direction in which to go: towards democracy, which was thriving on the other side of the Iron Curtain. East and West shared a historical memory of periods of democracy and civil society. The Arab world of 2011 enjoyed none of those things and faced in many different directions. There were, and are, the directions of democracy, liberal democracy, nationalism, the cult of the strong leader and the direction in which many people had been facing all along – Islam in its various guises, including Islamism. This is the complex internal struggle within societies where religious beliefs, social mores, tribal links and guns are currently far more powerful forces than ‘Western’ ideals of equality, freedom of expression and universal suffrage.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography

“The Arab countries are beset by prejudices, indeed hatreds of which the average Westerner knows so little that they tend not to believe them even if they are laid out in print before their eyes. The routine expression of hatred for others is so common in the Arab world that it barely draws comment other than from the region’s often Western-educated liberal minority who have limited access to the platform of mass media. Anti-Semitic cartoons which echo the Nazi Der Stürmer propaganda newspaper are common. Week in, week out, shock-jock imams are given space on prime-time TV shows.”
― Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography