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's that have buffer states like a security system that any invading army would have to break through.

First, however, in the early 19 nineties, 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 and 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 to and could block Russian ships from accessing the Mediterranean Sea.

The U.

S 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, are strong U.

S allies in the east that can both largely blocked Russia's access to the Pacific if required, and China stands today as a gigantic continental behemoth that could 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 cookie dude named Alexander Dugan, basically a step by step playbook for Russia getting out of this dicey situation over the course of the 21st century.

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 humor 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 in 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 that 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 by 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 U.

K.

You 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's already a part of Germany's sphere of influence or anything.

Latvia and Lithuania, meanwhile, should either be taken over by you or given us some kind of special 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 E U 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 and floods that they are, you know, despite that whole pesky you thing.

Oh, and then there's 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.

Okay, so Europe is all good.

Let's move on to the Middle East and Asian strategy.

Next.

Iran needs to be a key ally of your new government.

They don't like America.

You don't like America.

It will be great in order to help this along, though you could both invade Azerbaijan and divided up between you two.

Nearby Armenia should be made an ally of your new government as well toe further locked down the region.

But Georgia Georgia should be completely tort 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 they 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 going to stop you now and then try your best to take over the lesser populated Chinese provinces like Xinjiang 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 going to 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 Curl 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.

And 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 has 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 so as much global descent 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 alternate history that you can actually read about, though, like the Man in the High Castle, which explores a world in which the Axis powers were victorious in World War two 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 APs.

Best of all, though, you can sign up for free by clicking the link in the description or by going to audible dot com slash real life floor or text real life floor to 500-500 and download Man in the High Castle 11 22 63 or any other audio book that you want for free, in addition to to audible originals, also for free.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you again next week.