Map on Monday: PRUSSIA

How a Teutonic State in the Baltic Became Protestant and Changed German History

By A. Joseph Lynch

Although Prussia is often associated with the larger German state, the region of Prussia lies far to the east of modern day Germany, originally stretching from border of Pomerania to Lithuania along the Baltic coast.

There is a great deal of confusion surrounding the geography of Prussia, partly due to the use of “Prussia” for the emerging unified German state and partly due to the fact that the lands once belonging to the old Duchy of Prussia are now under Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian control. Despite its association with Germany, Prussia was located much further to the east along the Baltic coast, just south of modern day Lithuania. Its peoples – one of many Baltic tribes in the region (see right) – were conquered and Christianized in the Northern Crusades by the Teutonic Knights, a Catholic religious order of monastic warriors seeking to conquer and convert the Baltic. Teutonic Prussia became the center the Teutonic State as it continued to spread northwards into what is today Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

The power of the Teutonic Knights reached its apogee at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Its fortunes changed, however, when Lithuania and Poland united against it in the Thirteen Years War (1454-1466). With the defeat of the Teutonic Knights, western Prussia (now called "Royal Prussia") was ceded to Poland and eastern Prussia was left as Teutonic rump state swearing fealty as a fief (or duchy) of Poland. In 1525, during the rising tide of Protestantism, Teutonic Prussia renounced the Catholicism held by its neighbors to the east and south and cast its lot with Lutheranism. The Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albert, in a deal partly orchestrated by Martin Luther, was recognized by the King of Poland as the Duke of Prussia. Poland for its part preferred a Lutheran Prussia over a Catholic Teutonic Prussia under the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy. Though it remained a fief of Poland, its status as Lutheran made the Duchy of Prussia the first Protestant state.

Albert (left), last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, was aided by Martin Luther (right) to renounce Catholicism, convert to Lutheranism, and create the Duchy of Prussia as the first Protestant state with the unlikely support of Catholic Poland.

The duchy entered into a succession crisis in 1618 when its duke, Albert Frederick, died without an heir. Succession fell to his son-in-law, John Sigismund of the Hohenzollern family, who at the time was also the ruler of Lutheran Brandenburg with its capital of Berlin, situated in the Holy Roman Empire. Despite the distance between his two realms and the fact that the Duchy of Prussia was still a Polish fief, Sigismund would rule over both Brandenburg and Prussia in a personal union called “Brandenburg-Prussia.” Sigismund, a champion of Calvinism’s spread, soon found himself ruling large numbers of Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists.

In 1656, Sweden conquered the Duchy of Prussia during its war with Poland-Lithuania. When the tides of war turned against the Swedes, Charles X Gustav of Sweden offered Prussia’s return to Brandenburg on the condition that Brandenburg entered the war as a Swedish ally. Poland, hearing of the offer, countered with an offer of its own: if Brandenburg remained neutral, the Duchy of Prussia would be returned to Brandenburg fully free of Polish fealty. With the defeat of Sweden, Brandenburg-Prussia became more powerful than ever before – but the Poles were willing to accept that over having a new enemy on a second front. The victorious rulers in Brandenburg’s Berlin, however, had even more in mind. They desired the title of king. For this they would need the support of the Holy Roman Emperor – the one person who wouldn’t stand for an upstart king within his borders. Wars, however, require allies – and soon the emperor would be in need of an ally from the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg-Prussia.

In 1701, Brandenburg-Prussia agreed to support the Hapsburg family in the War of the Spanish Succession in return for the emperor’s recognition of a kingly title for the Hohenzollern rulers. Because there could be no king vying for power within the Holy Roman Empire, the Hohenzollerns could claim kingship over their lands outside the realm of the empire: the territory of Prussia. Thus the title “King in Prussia” was granted, but was soon replaced with the title “King of Prussia” – and in order to show the extent of their kingship, the name Brandenburg-Prussia was discarded for the Kingdom of Prussia. Thus began the association of relatively small Baltic region with the later entirety of the rising German state. By the end of the eighteenth century, Prussian rulers like Frederick the Great would conquer Silesia from the Austrians and old West Prussia (or Royal Prussia) from Poland. With these territories acquired (see this excellent video map of Prussia's expansion), Prussia dramatically increased in size, physically uniting the disparate territories of the former Brandenburg-Prussian state, and becoming an emerging power on the continent – a status it fully achieved in 1806 with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Kingdom of Prussia, governed in Berlin by the highborn Junker class of the old Brandenburg-Prussian core region, became the center of German unification during the second half of the nineteenth century. By 1871, the Kingdom of Prussia had defeated and taken lands from Poland, Denmark, Austria, and France. It would be governed by the Hohenzollerns until the disastrous defeat of 1918, which led to territorial losses to the French (Alsace-Loraine), Danes (North Schleswig), Poland (Posen, Upper Silesia, West Prussia), Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania. The eastern core of the original Prussian state in the Baltic region remained, but it was once more physically cut off from the larger German state by the loss of West Prussia to Poland.

Nazi Germany’s failed attempt to regain lost German territory – and Europe along with it – led to the loss of Pomerania and Silesia to Poland, and to the end of the original Prussian state in the east. The southern half of old Prussia was incorporated into Poland and the northern half made a part of Russia, which it remains to this day. Konigsberg became Kaliningrad, and the native Prussian population was forcibly evicted and replaced by native Russians. Today the Kaliningrad region is a geostrategically important oblast of the Russian Federation, giving Russia military reach into Europe and providing it with its only Baltic port that does not freeze in the winter. Long gone are the days of the Teutonic Knights, the Junker aristocracy, and German glory. Prussia lives on in our histories, but little is left of it upon ground from which it came.

Map on Monday: FRANCOPHONE NATIONS

The map above (click here for a larger version) depicts the French-speaking nations of the world. While French is the mother tongue of 66 million in France, 11 million more throughout Europe, 6.8 million Canadians, and another 250,000 in South America's French Guiana (an overseas department of France), another 140 million people speak French as a second language. French is an official language in 29 nations. The areas where French has dominated roughly corresponds to French imperial domains across the world: French Indochina (what is today Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), parts of the Caribbean (e.g. Haiti), and large parts of Africa. Although today more people speak some form of Hindi or Chinese, the historic spread of French makes the language an important worldwide medium of communication.

July 27, 2015 Update: With President Obama visiting the Horn of Africa, consider reading our recent post on the region.

Mapping the Schools of Islamic Law; locating the epicenter of terror

About 1/4 of the world's population practices Islam -- 1.8 billion adherents in 2015. The two major branches of Islam are Sunni (80%) and Shia (20%). The purpose of this map is to help us understand that the primary source of violence in the Islamic world comes from a particular subset of one of its legal schools. That Hanbali school centered in Saudi Arabia is the smallest, strictest, and most literal of the four legal traditions in Sunni Islam. Islam means submission to God. Its legal traditions of law and right practice are unlike the theological disputes that have defined many of the intra-religion divisions in Christianity. Islam is, above all, a practice -- starting with the prescribed recitations to the one God of the five daily prayers.

Sharia is a general word for God's Law. When interviewers ask a Muslim if we should all live under Sharia, he would insult the sovereignty of God to say no. The Christian tradition of natural law is rooted in a similar obligation to obey the Divine Law of God. As Ronald Reagan said, "If we ever forget we are a nation under God we will be nation gone under." In Islam, Sharia is a general term of living under God's law, while fiqh is the interpretation of that Divine law.

There are four major schools of legal tradition (fiqh) in Sunni Islam. The major source of modern violence in Islam is not so much Sunni vs Shia, as one legal school of Sunnis set against the Shia violently and against other Sunnis ideologically. Within Sunni Islam, the Hanafi school is the largest tradition representing about 42% of Sunnis. The map shows their predominance in Turkey, Central Asia and South Asia where 3 of the 4 largest national Muslim populations live. The Shafi'i school has 30% of Sunni Muslims and is the tradition of both Indonesia and the Somalians in the Horn of Africa. The Maliki school (18%) predominates in the countries of northern Africa with the exception of Egypt.

The smallest school of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam is the Hanbali school. This last school to form was organized by the followers of Ahmad ibn Hanbali (780-855 AD). He had led a purification movement against the elasticity of interpretation which he thought was betraying the original teachings and practices of Muhammad. He proposed that approved actions and the law be based more exclusively on the actions and sayings of Muhammad. If the prophet did some action or advised it then that was warrant to do it today. Most interpretations and analogies modifying the actions of believers according to Hanbali were methods of softening the original purity and strength of the Prophet's message. A more general word for a return to the ancestors is salafism (salafi = ancestor). This purification movement was further refined by ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328) and in more modern times by Muhammad ibn Wahhabi (1707-1792). It was ibn Wahhabi who made the initial pact with Muhammad Saud that continues to this day in the form of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.The discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia and the military alliance of the Saudis and US has financed an aggressive international building program of Wahhabi schools (madrasas) in Muslim countries with other fiqh traditions (esp. Somalia and Pakistan). Saudi oil wealth has also provided for new mosques (and Hanbali interpretations) for Muslims living in western countries. The Saudis are extremely active in funding University chairs and think tanks in the West as well.

The Salafist Wahhabi brand of the Hanbali school targets Shia, Jews, and Christians as their chief enemies. They justify violence since it was  the practice of the early ancestors and therefore a model for practice today. It would be as if a school of Jewish thought today emulated the slaughter by Moses and Aaron of the 3000 Jews worshiping the Golden Calf as a fitting method for dealing with the American Jewish Reform movement. The salafist Hanbalis rule the streets of Saudi Arabia and are the ideology behind Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al Shabaab just to name a few. They have exerted a huge influence in Pakistan. The five last attacks on US soil by terrorists have all been by Salafist Sunnis. Their behavior represents a gross deviation from Shia Islam and the three other traditional schools of Sunni Islam (95% of Sunnis). The map is clear: this ideology is centered in Saudi Arabia and controls both Holy Cities. The map shows us also the encircling coalition that can be built to isolate and eradicate this demonic twisting of Islam. This smallest school of law is the richest and most missionary-minded of all the fiqh traditions. For centuries it was shrinking and losing status. But the historical troika of American arms, Saudi oil, and Wahhabi ideology has created a nightmare in the Mideast that spilt over into America on 9/11/2001. The American political, military and intellectual class has never attained  the religious literacy to understand the loyalties that still shape this conflict. The map shows the geostrategic vulnerability of this movement if it is named and isolated. Such an encirclement will not be led by "moderate Muslims." It will take courageous men of God who are willing to submit to His Will and dare look the devil in the eye. They will be men of Sharia, strong Muslims, who set themselves against the lawlessness of the Wahhabi cult. For now the most powerful Christian nation, America, and the only Jewish nation, Israel, are in league with a demonic sect perverting Islam. May we understand this map and work that nations might live in fraternity under His Law.  

David Pence and A Joseph Lynch

     

A concise geographic history of Israel from Joshua to the time of Jesus

The map to the left (click to enlarge) displays the division of the Promised Land between the Tribes of Israel. The world map at the bottom right corner locates Israel at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea along the important trade routes connecting historic Mesopotamia with Egypt to Israel's southwest and with Greece and Rome to its west across the seas.

Geographically, Israel was split into east and west by the Jordan River with the Sea of Galilee in the north and the Dead Sea to the south. The area as a whole may be divided into four geographic regions: the coastal plains along the Mediterranean, the central hills (which run from the peaks in the north's Golan, through the hilly Galilee, down to the hill country of Judea in the south), the Jordan Rift Valley connecting the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, and the Negev Desert in the south (which claims more than half of modern Israel's land area).

Recall that the twelve Tribes of Israel are the descendants of the twelve sons of Israel (renamed from Jacob). Of these twelve sons, lands were allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad on the east side of the Jordan while Asher, Naphtali, Zebulan, Issachar, Dan, and Benjamin were given lands on the west side of the Jordan and in the northern part of the Promised land. To their south were the lands of Judah and Simeon. Of Israel's other two sons - Joseph and Levi - the Levites became a priestly caste following their zeal for the Lord at Sinai in the punishment of 3,000 idolatrous Israelites. Rather than being given lands, the Levites governed a series of Levitical cities. As for Joseph, his descendants were given a double share in that his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim were adopted as sons in their own right by Israel and given extensive lands and prestige in the Promised Land (indeed, the northern half of the Promised Land would be known as "Israel" or "Ephraim" in later years). The capital of the northern kingdom of Israel? ...  Samaria.

                                                               

Around the year 732 BC, the northern ten tribes were taken into captivity by the Assyrians while the southern Kingdom of Judah was captured by the Babylonians in 586 BC. After the destruction of the Babylonian Empire by the Persians 539 BC, the people were allowed by Cyrus the Great  to return and rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem. The area was captured by Alexander the Great in 333 BC and remained under nominal Greek control until the Maccabean Revolt from 166-160 BC. During that time, the Maccabean family forged the Hasmonean dynasty and expanded the kingdom to include Edom - one of Israel's old enemies to its southeast. In 139 BC, the Roman Senate recognized Israel as a Jewish state but later forced it to become a Roman client state in 63 BC. In 37 BC, the Romans overthrew the Hasmonean dynasty and replaced it with the more pro-Roman Herodian dynasty and its founder Herod the Great of Edomite lineage.

Upon the death of Herod the Great in 7 or 8 AD (click here to read Dr. Taylor Marshall's excellent work on dating Christ's birth and Herod's death), the kingdom was divided among his sons Archelaus, Antipas, and Phillip (see map at right). Rome soon decided to unify Samaria (which included much of the old northern kingdom), Judea, and Idumea (Edom) into one province called Iudaea. The capital of this province, however, would not be Jerusalem but Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Part of this administrative change was Roman rule over the province through its governors or procurators, the fifth of which being Pontius Pilate from 26-36 AD. Not included in this new province was the region of Galilee - an area vastly different from its southern neighbor. Perea, where John the Baptist preached and baptized, and Galilee remained under the rule of Herod Antipas (who beheaded John the Baptist and partook in the trial of Jesus because most of Jesus' ministry occurred within his realm).

The majority of Jesus' public ministry took place in Galilee. Seven centuries after the dispersal of the northern tribes, the Galileans were mostly non-Jewish, though some towns (Nazareth and Capernaum) and all of the "men of Galilee" who were Christ's apostles were Jewish. Only Judas Iscariot of the apostles and Jesus himself were from Judea. To the south and west of Galilee were Samaria and Judea, both places where Jesus spent a great deal of time (He was born in Judea's Bethlehem, 5.5 miles south of Jerusalem). To its southeast was the Decapolis - an area of ten cities deeply influenced by Greco-Roman culture and majority Gentile in population. It was in the Decapolis that Jesus exorcised a possessed man in Mark 5, and from this man that word spread throughout the Decapolis about Christ. In Tyre to the northwest, Jesus worked another exorcism among a heavily Gentile population. Jesus also traveled into the far northeast. It is here that we find Caesarea Philippi, the site where Jesus changed Simon's name to Peter, made him the rock upon which the Church would be built, and gave him the keys to the Kingdom.

Map on Monday: Ten Most Populous Christian Nations

The above map (click to enlarge) displays the ten most populous Christian nations in the world. Although Hilaire Belloc once quipped that “Europe is the faith and the faith is Europe,” Italy is the only western European nation on this map. Rather, the great majority of the ten most populous Christian nations in the world are found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Christianity in Ethiopia, for example, has ancient roots that predate the conversion of much of Europe.

What the second map reveals may come as a surprise to many. The purple areas display the nations of the world whose populations are majority Christian. The pink-colored nations are nations with a significant Christian minority. Despite the world's vast cultural diversity, Christianity appears as faith that can be lived equally by Africans, Asians, and Latin Americans. Christianity, like mankind, can live and grow in all parts of the world.

Today's maps reaffirm the fact that Christianity is a world religion for all humanity. The Kingdom of God is being established in the interplay of the Universal Church with all its local eucharistic manifestations and the diversity of the nations with all their many tongues. The church cannot be captured by a passing age (the Modern)  nor a fleeting direction (the West). It is the whole human species that the new Adam has come to reincorporate in his Father's Kingdom so we can once again be about our original mission.

This article originally appeared on Anthropology of Accord on October 6, 2014.

Map on Monday: SUNNI ARAB STATES

LINGUISTIC AND COMMUNAL LOYALTIES OF THE MIDEAST AND CENTRAL ASIA: A THREE-PART SERIES ON THE ARABS, PERSIANS, AND TURKS

PART I: THE ARAB STATES

by A. Joseph Lynch

The map above depicts the Arab world in terms of language rather than ethnicity or in terms of the Sunni-Shia division of Islam. While the term "Arab world" is often haphazardly used to connote the entire Islamic world, defining the actual geographic limits of the Arab world is difficult to determine. The nations of the Mashriq ("the place of sunshine"), or Islamic lands between the Mediterranean and Persia, may be Arab ethnically and linguistically but they are not all Sunni Arab states. Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Lebanon all boast either Shia majorities or large minorities. Given the recent turmoil in the region we may consider the following list as the Sunni Arab states of the Mashriq: Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

The nations of the Maghreb ("where the sun sets") are considered "Arab" states despite their Berber ethnic ancestry. The Arabic language and Sunni Islamic faith, combined with its history in the first century of Islamic expansion between AD 632-732, roots the Maghreb firmly in the Arab world.
Sharing in a strong regional identity, the states of the Maghreb forged the Arab Maghreb Union in February 1989 (Algeria: 39 million pop.; Libya: 7 m; Mauritania: 3 m; Morocco: 32 m; Tunisia: 11 m.)  Although there are rivalries and conflicts within the union, particularly over the fate of Western Sahara (part of Morocco or an independent state?), the AMU boasts a collective population of 88.5 million, and significant amounts of phosphate, oil, and gas. Its geographic location near western Europe and past relationship to the former French colonial empire makes it an important connector to mainland Europe.

With a population of 86 million, Egypt is by far the largest Sunni Arab state (Algeria by comparison ranks #2 at a population of 38.7 million, less than half that of Egypt). Although it is geographically in the Maghreb, its cultural and history tie it more closely to the Mashriq. Rather than being identified with either half, however, Egypt is treated as the center or heart of the Sunni Arab world. It is for this reason that the Arab League - the regional organization of Arab states - is headquartered in Cairo.

MEMBER NATIONS OF THE ARAB LEAGUE

The Arab League was founded on March 22, 1945; it has grown steadily over the decades to include twenty-two member states (Syria, however, has been suspended since November 2011). The total population of the Arab League member states stands at about 366 million. Although the League has no official military body, its leaders in 2007 reactivated a joint defense and peacekeeping force (the former Arab Liberation Army) which had been dissolved since the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. This force includes over 3 million active duty men and another 2.2 million in reserve. While it is highly unlikely that this pan-Arab military force would be brought to bear as a unified whole, ten Sunni Arab nations of the Arab League have begun military operations in Yemen -- not against the Sunni Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula but, rather, against Shiite Muslims.

It is to these Shiites and to the Persian civilization that we shall turn in part two of this series.

See also our previous Map on Monday posts on the following nations comprised largely of Arab, Sunni Muslims: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria.

This article first appeared on Anthropology of Accord on April 27, 2015

Map on Monday: SYRIA

The Physical Ecology, Communal Loyalties, and Geopolitics of Syria

by David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

Physical Ecology: Natural Resources and Physical Geography

Syria is a nation about the size of Wisconsin but with four times the population (23 million vs. 5.5 million).  About a fourth of its land is fit for agricultural use. Syria is situated on the eastern end of the Mediterranean, wedged in between many contending powers of the Middle East. Syria is bisected into north and south by mountain ranges which run from its border with Lebanon to the Euphrates river in the east. In its far south, another mountain range anchors Syria's border with Jordan. The Golan Heights may be found along its border with Israel - but this area has come under Israeli control since the Six-Day War and annexed in all but name in 1981 (the western end of Golan Heights actually includes almost the entire eastern bank of the Sea of Galilee).

Syria's climate can be described in three zones. The western (coastal) and northern regions consist of cultivated land where fruits, olives, and tobacco are grown. Bordering this area to the south and east are steppe-lands where one may find nomads and sheep herders. As one travels further south and east, the steppe gives way to desert. The one exception to this is the Euphrates River which runs from the northwest through the southeastern corner of Syria into Iraq's Anbar province. Along the Euphrates are cultivated lands where sheep are raised and wheat is grown.

Among Syria's natural resources are petroleum, phosphates, chrome and manganese ores, asphalt, iron ore, rock salt, marble, gypsum, and hydropower. Sales of oil comprised 20% of Syria's GDP prior to the civil war with the vast majority of it sold to the European Union. With the spread of ISIS, there have been times that the Islamic State has produced and sold more Syrian oil than the Syrian government. Syria's top two oil refineries are today operating at less than 10% capacity. Syria's phosphate mines (located outside of Palmyra in the heart of Syria) were captured by the Islamic State in May 2015; and in June the Islamic State destroyed the gas pipelines to Damascus which were to heat its homes in the months ahead. The Islamic State is working hard to deny Syria access to its own natural resources.

Communal Loyalties: Ethnicity, Language, and Religion

The Arabic language is used across Syria, with several major dialects. The nation is a smorgasbord of ethnic groups (see map below). Approximately 60% of Syria is comprised of Sunni Arab Muslims. The rest of Syria's population is made up of various minorities like the Sunni Kurds (9%) in the north,  Shiite Alawites (12%) on the Mediterranean coast, Levantines - Arabic speaking Christians (9%) further inland from the coast, Druze (3%) in the south, and small Shia-Islamic groups (like the Ismaillis and Imamis) at a combined 3% of the population.

Colonial rule often employed ethnic and religious minorities opposed to the Sunni majority. The map reveals the disparate nature of this alliance. The Kurds are off in the extreme north and northeast while the Druze are located in the extreme south. Alawaites and Christians are located much closer to the Mediterranean coast, isolated from both Druze and Kurds.

Syrians also remember historical groupings of "Greater Syria." A term originating with Ottomans, it not only referred to present-day Syria, but it also included Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Sinai Peninsula, and the city of Antioch (the pre-Islamic capital of Syria now under Turkish rule). Syrian nationalist, Antun Saadeh, sought the creation of a pan-Syrian state to include the areas above along with Iraq. He grounded his vision in the region's physical geography by fixing the limits of Greater Syria with the following natural boundaries: the Taurus and Zagros Mountains in the north, deserts and the Persian Gulf in the east and south, the Gulf of Aquaba and Suez Canal in the southwest, and the Mediterranean island of Cyprus in the far west. While the modern Syrian state has never expanded to this extent, the Hashemites of Jordan had been promised rule over a Greater Syria for  helping the British defeat the Ottomans during WWI. The Hashemites once controlled Iraq, the western edge of Saudi Arabia, and parts of what is today Israel.

Syrian Ethnic Groups (click to enlarge)

Geopolitics: Political Geography and Foreign Policy

Syria's internal communal loyalties define its geopolitics. If we were to divide Syria into four main groups - Arab Sunnis (60%), Shiites and other Muslim minorities (19% ), Christians (10%), and Kurds (9%) - we have a good idea which nations will be lining up to support these four ethnic and religious peoples. Here, religion is the key to understanding the current struggle.

President Assad is part of the Alawite Shiite tradition which has dominated the Syrian officer ranks for a half century.  His father was Hafez-al-Assad and the leader of the nationalist-socialist movement in the secular Baath party. He assumed rule in the “Corrective Movement “ of 1970.  The father ruled until 2000 and was succeeded by his son.  The predominance of Alawite Shia in the military was fostered during French rule which favored minority groups over the Sunni majority in positions of military authority. Check out this excellent short history of the Baath party, Arab nationalism, ethnic differences and the Sunni-Alawite rivalry in 20th century Syrian history.

President Assad has protected the minority Christians, Druze and Kurds. He also has a considerable number of Sunnis in his government. Shiite Iran and Orthodox Russia will support his state. The Lebanese Shiites (Hezbollah) and Maronite Christians will not want to see the Syrian government  fall. The Sunni majority in the East may reconfigure themselves with the Sunnis in the Western regions of Iraq. Among the rebels, the Salafist Sunnis are establishing control over the opposition forces. This is ISIS and Al Qaeda (al Nusra in Syria). They will be supported by Saudi Arabia (salafist Sunni) and the Gulf States. The Syrian civil war seems similar to the Spanish Civil War where the local conflict provided a battleground attracting foreign recruits eager to depose the “fascist Franco.” Those international recruits were predominately Communist while the Syrian foreign fighters are principally Salafist Sunnis. Both of these killing movements masked their claims as battles for popular democracy.

The alliance between Iran and Syria is multifaceted. A reliable American who's reporting and analyzing Syria is Oklahoma professor Joshua Landis.

The Turks along Syria's northern border are Sunni Muslims - but their Turkic ethnicity makes them stand apart from the broader Arab Muslim Middle East. Turkey sees Syria in a few different ways: 1) Syria is a place to show Turkish might and win a renewed place of leadership in the Muslim world (recall Turkey was at the heart of the last Islamic caliphate - the Ottoman Empire); 2) intervention in Syria is meant to keep the Kurds from controlling Syria's northern border since Turkey has long worked to control the Kurdish minority within Turkey proper; 3) Turkey, like the Saudis, would like to see President Assad toppled and replaced with a Sunni. The Kurds of Syria -- like those of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey -- seek autonomy, and then a nation.

A partition of Syria based on geographical religious and ethnic loyalties was proposed in 2011 by Fabrice Balanche, a French researcher, who mapped Syria's religious and ethnic communities long before the Arab Spring.

Update 11-20-2016:The election of Donald Trump and his advocacy of a Russian Syrian alliance will dramatically improve American strategy in the Mideast. We have advocated this change for several years.

Update (10/10/16): Syrian War Video: The short and excellent video below from Vox offers a concise overview of the Syrian War, the various factions, and a timeline narrative. It is well worth five minutes of your time to watch.



For more information on Syria, visit its page on the CIA World Factbook.

For more information on the region, see the following previous Map on Monday posts:

• Map on Monday: JORDAN
• Map on Monday: TURKEY
• Map on Monday: IRAN
• Map on Monday: EGYPT
• Map on Monday: SAUDI ARABIA
• Map on Monday: THE GULF STATES

This post originally appeared on Anthropology of Accord on September 14, 2015

Map on Monday: THE TURKIC PEOPLES

LINGUISTIC AND COMMUNAL LOYALTIES OF THE MIDEAST AND CENTRAL ASIA: A THREE PART SERIES ON THE ARABS, PERSIANS, AND TURKS

PART III: THE TURKIC PEOPLES

by A. Joseph Lynch

To many people, the word 'Turk' refers to the old Ottoman Turkic Empire and its ambitions to conquer eastern Europe and control the Mediterranean. Its more modern connotation places it with the NATO-member state of secular Turkey. While Turkey is of course a Turkic state, it stands at the far western edge of the broader Turkic steppe peoples that share a common language and generally share (with the exception of Shia Azerbaijan) a common Sunni Islamic faith. Despite their Sunni background, Sunni Arab states view them generally as outsiders due to their ethnic and linguistic differences.

Geography was also no help to the integration of Turks within the broader Islamic world as the Turks of central Asia are separated from the Sunni Arab states by the Caspian Sea and Shia Iran dominating the Iranian Plateau. Landlocked, these nations fell under the rule of Soviet communism, and are to this day drawn between Russian, Chinese, and the greater Islamic orbits. At its farthest east reaches, Turks find themselves directly under Chinese rule in Xinjang Province where Turks make up 45% of the population. China invests heavily in central Asia, in large part to keep Chinese Turks from finding an ally in its brother nations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

The most important Turkic player in the Mideast core is, of course, Turkey. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Turkey maintained a European orientation, joining NATO and hoping to join the EU. As the War on Terror intensified and EU membership slipped out of Turkey's grasp, Turkey's renewed Islamic faith reoriented the nation to the Mideast. At first an outsider, Turkey won renewed favor among its brethren by supporting the Palestinians and working to resolve tensions with Tehran. Having played a vital role in Islamic leadership since defeating the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 through the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Turkey has returned from its roughly hundred-year European orientation to seek leadership in the broader Islamic world once more.

One cannot fully understand the events in the Islamic world without understanding the underlying communal loyalties of Arab, Persian, and Turkic Muslims in their Sunni and Shia faiths.

This third and final part of our series was preceded by posts on the Sunni Arab States and Persia-Shia Islam.

[This article first appeared on Anthropology of Accord on May 11, 2015]

Map on Monday: The Spanish and Portuguese Empires

The map above (click to enlarge) depicts the vast reach of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires at their heights, and the time periods at which each portion of their realms gained independence. The map reveals some differences in strategic outlook between the two empires. While the Spanish sought to move inland and plant the Spanish flag (and faith) in new territory, the coastal nation of Portugal tended to retain its colonial lands and outposts along the coasts of South America, Africa, and Asia. Here we see the Spanish as a landed empire and the Portuguese as a maritime empire. Nevertheless Portugal gave South America its largest nation, Brazil, and bestowed on it the Portuguese language.

Another feature that stands out is the independence of much of Latin America prior to the active colonial divisions of Africa. Long before European nations began entering the African hinterlands, nations such as Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia had gained their independence.

The Portuguese and Spanish were two very different cultures but they were also deeply united by their common Catholic faith. Their robust military and imperial character was forged in the experience of expelling the Muslims from their rule on the Iberian peninsula. Portugal and Spain  helped return Christianity to its character as a global faith. From the Americas to Africa, from the Arabian Sea to the Pacific Ocean, missionaries brought the Faith to lands across wide oceans and over harsh lands. It was from the Spanish and Portuguese Empires that Christian nations were forged. One Asian example of this is the Philippines -- Asia's largest Christian nation. It is no small fact that the immigrants who come to the United States across our southern border share with us the Christian faith. We meet them in our churches. The Europeans undergo a very different experience when their southern neighbors enter their lands. To paraphrase Philip Jenkins: immigration from the south transforms the US from a Christian country into a more Christian country. We can thank the Spanish and Portuguese for that.  

May the global Catholic nations awaken, and may our Christian nation awaken as well to our shared brotherhood. One Church, many nations.

This post originally appeared on Anthropology of Accord on December 1, 2014.

One of the heroes of the "Purple Heart Battalion"

                                   

SHIZUYA HAYASHI was serving in the 65th Engineers in Hawaii when Pearl Harbor was bombed. After the attack, there was uncertainty about what to do with the Japanese Americans in this unit... [The following June] Hayashi and 1,400 other Nisei soldiers were sent to Camp McCoy in Wisconsin, where they formed the 100th Infantry Battalion, the first combat unit in the history of the U.S. Army made up mainly of Japanese Americans. After more than a year of instruction, the 100th became the most intensively trained unit in the Army... It received its colors and the motto it had requested: Remember Pearl Harbor.

In September 1943, the 100th landed at Salerno, Italy, where the Germans were amazed to see Japanese Americans fighting against them...

Late on the afternoon of November 29, 1943, Private Hayashi's platoon was attacking the Germans... The Germans were firing their 88 mm artillery, called screaming mimis by the GIs... In an effort to find cover, the Americans stumbled through a minefield, setting off deadly explosions. A bullet grazed Hayashi in the neck; his commanding officer was shot in the back.

As night fell, Hayashi and two other GIs were separated from the rest of the platoon. After waiting all night to be rescued, Hayashi sent his two comrades to look for help at daybreak. Drawn by their loud conversation, the Germans opened fire and advanced on them. One German, looking for the two men, came within three feet of Hayashi, then fired at point-blank range. He missed, and Hayashi killed him. In the face of grenades and rifle and machine-gun fire, Hayashi rose, alone, and shooting his automatic rifle from the hip, charged a German machine-gun position, killing nine of the enemy. When his platoon tried to advance, and an enemy antiaircraft gun began to lob shells at them, Hayashi returned fire, killing nine more Germans. Then he came upon a boy, perhaps thirteen years old, in uniform, curled up and crying. Hayashi couldn't shoot -- he took the boy prisoner, along with three other Germans.

[from Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier]

Map on Monday: CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF THE WORLD

Christianity: The Global Faith that Comprises the Majority of the World's Nations

by A. Joseph Lynch

The above map displays the Christian nations of the world, with purple-coding for those nations whose Christian population exceeds 50% and the pink-coding for nations where Christianity comprises 10%-50% of the population. Christians should resist ideologies that split the baptized Body of Christ into the West, the Latins, and the Slavic Orthodox. These regional distinctions obfuscate our underlying unity as Christians and our distinctive political forms as nations.   

In a previous Map on Monday, we presented a map of the top ten most populous Christian nations. Only one of those nations - Italy - was located in Europe. What's more, although neither Nigeria nor China are shown above as purple, they are nevertheless host to the sixth and eighth largest populations of Christians in the world. Christianity is truly a global faith that is rapidly increasing throughout the world. 

Philip Jenkins, author of The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (book review coming soon), notes that  10 million Africans were Christian in the year 1900 - but this number is projected to be 633 million by 2025. The 2025 projection for Christian populations of Latin America and Asia will grow to 640 million and 460 million Christians respectively.

A mere glance at today's map reveals the stunning majority of the world's nations having a Christian majority, yet few of these nations have acted to protect persecuted Christians. In a Minneapolis Star Tribune essay regarding Christian persecution, Dr. Pence rightly asks "Where are the Christian nations?" 

Map on Monday: RE-THINKING AMERICAN ALLIANCES

We at the Anthropology of Accord have argued that one must understand religious loyalties if he is to properly understand the interplay of nations. We have attempted to present this to our readers through our essays and weekly "Map on Monday" posts.

We further argue that a deeper appreciation of these religious loyalties should foster a re-examination of America's alliances. This is particularly true when we consider our relationship with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - both home to the Salafist Islamic movements that foment terror organisations like Al Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab.

Four posts in particular - two essays and two map posts - strongly make this case. Two of these essays were first published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune as Commentaries.  We suggest you read them as a whole to better enter into our argument:

1. Religion, Men, and the Nations - an essay from Dr. Pence
2. The War on Terror: Redefining Friend and Foe - an essay from Dr. Pence
3. Map on Monday: SAUDI ARABIA - map post by Dr. Pence and A. Joseph Lynch
4. Map on Monday: PAKISTAN - map post by Dr. Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

Map on Monday: SAUDI ARABIA

Stratfor - short for Strategic Forecasting, Inc. - is a private global intelligence company that offers geopolitical insight into the interplay of nations. Stratfor has developed an excellent series of short (~2-4 minute) videos which provide the viewer with a specific nation, along with its basic history, geography, culture, and geopolitical allies and adversaries. In the following video, they present the geographic challenges facing Saudi Arabia.


                                         A SHORT PROFILE OF SAUDI ARABIA
by David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch




Saudi Arabia has a population of 30 million, with 8 to 9 million foreigners. Almost all the physical labor and service work in the kingdom is done by the foreigners. Most are from Muslim countries but there are over a million from the Philippines. Christians are not allowed to worship. Saudi Arabia has the fourth largest military budget in the world after the US, China, and Russia. They have the most oil reserves in the world and are the top oil producer. Over 15% of Saudis are Shiites, but they are clustered in the oil-rich Eastern Province where the Shiites are an oppressed majority (see map at right). Over 50% of Saudi oil is in the Eastern province with its Shiite majority and 20-30% foreign worker population. There is a Pakistani taxi-driver joke that the best proof that Islam is the true religion is that God gave it to the Arabs, and yet it is still here after all their years of misrule.  

Here is how the Saudi Embassy describes the three historical Saudi States:

In the early 18th century, a Muslim scholar and reformer named Shaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab (1702-1792) began advocating a return to the original form of Islam. Abdul Wahhab was initially persecuted by local religious scholars and leaders who viewed his teachings as a threat to their power bases. He sought protection in the town of Diriyah, which was ruled by Muhammad bin Saud.

Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab and Muhammad bin Saud formed an agreement to dedicate themselves to restoring the pure teachings of Islam to the Muslim community. In that spirit, bin Saud established the First Saudi State, which prospered under the spiritual guidance of bin Abdul Wahhab, known simply as the "Shaikh." By 1788, the Saudi State ruled over the entire central plateau known as the "Najd." That State was displaced by the Ottoman Empire in 1818.

By 1824, the Al-Saud family had regained political control of central Arabia. The Saudi ruler Turki bin Abdullah Al-Saud transferred his capital to Riyadh, some 20 miles south of Diriyah, and established the Second Saudi State. Ottoman armies again forced them out in 1891.

Al-Saud sought refuge with the Bedouin tribes in the vast sand desert of eastern Arabia known as the Rub’ Al-Khali, or ‘Empty Quarter.’ From there, Abdulrahman and his family traveled to Kuwait, where they stayed until 1902. With him was his young son Abdulaziz, who was already making his mark as a natural leader and a fierce warrior for the cause of Islam.

The Modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The young Abdulaziz was determined to regain his patrimony from the Al-Rashid family, which had taken over Riyadh and established a governor and garrison there. In 1902, Abdulaziz – accompanied by only 40 followers – staged a daring night march into Riyadh to retake the city garrison, known as the Masmak Fortress. This legendary event marks the beginning of the formation of the modern Saudi state. After establishing Riyadh as his headquarters, Abdulaziz captured all of the Hijaz, including Makkah and Madinah, in 1924 to 1925. In the process, he united warring tribes into one nation. On September 23, 1932, the country was named the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an Islamic state with Arabic as its national language and the Holy Qur’an as its constitution.

Abdulaziz is the father of all the subsequent kings of Saudi Arabia, including present-day King Salman and the Crown Prince Muqrin.

Oil was discovered on the Shiite majority island of Bahrain in 1932, but Standard Oil of California hit the motherload in 1938 just across the Persian Gulf in the Shiite eastern province of Saudi Arabia near the village of Dammam. Over the years the Sauds allied with SOCAL and then  eventually took over all the oil revenues. By 1988 Saudi Aramco completely controlled the country's resources. The Saudis have utilized their dominance in the market to boycott the US, Japan, Britain, and Canada after the 1972 Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War, causing the energy crisis of 1973. The Saudis can also glut the market to punish their oil-producing enemies (Russia, Iran, and American fracking companies) as we see today in the precipitous 2015 oil price drops.

Smoke rises from the Grand Mosque in Mecca (1979)

The enormous oil wealth of the Saudis, their original bargain with the most intolerant of all Sunni religious traditions, and their admirable ability to negotiate betwixt allies and enemies -- all combine to place them at the center of the religious and national confusion in the Mideast. As one example of sorting out the confusion, two important events happened in November 1979. The Iranian Shiites began to hold US hostages in our embassy, and the mosque in Mecca was seized by Sunni Salafists.

In response to the mosque seizure, the control of daily cultural life by the Wahhabi clerics tightened throughout the nation. The long memory of the Iranian hostage crisis and the amnesia of the much more consequential Mecca event is a prime example of the Sunni-Shia confusion which has so perplexed American policymakers in the Mideast. Finally, policymakers who take Islam seriously as a religion must not forget that there is another claimant to the holy places in the Sunni world. The Hashemite story of the 1924 Saudi seizure of the Hajiz (the area of Mecca and Medina) is a different narrative than told on the Saudi embassy web page.

For the Jordanians, the story of the holy cities of Islam is not a triumphant  tale of the Saudi-Wahhabi concord. The emir of Mecca from 1908 to 1917 was Hussein bin Ali. The Young Turk revolution in 1908 set an increasingly nationalistic and secular movement against the Arab-friendly Islamic arrangements of the Ottoman empire. Hussein did not think of himself as an Arab nationalist, but he found the young Turkish nationalists to be the enemy of his Arab kinsmen and their religion. Hussein sided with the British against the Ottomans (who sided with the Germans and Austrians in World War I). After leading the great Arab revolt against the Ottomans, the Hashemite clan would be betrayed by the British in Iraq and Syria -- and usurped in the holy cities by the Sauds. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a very different Sunni civilization than their Saudi neighbors. They, too, have been longtime allies of the United States and represent an alternative approach to how Islam and the nations shall be configured.

Saudi Arabia is more than the Saudi clan and the Wahhabi clerics. It is Shiites in oil-rich provinces, as well as foreign workers who do the work but can neither worship nor speak freely. It is other Sunnis with different ideas of an Arab nation or Islamic caliphate. Those Sunnis love God and the Islamic ummah, but they may not feel the same about the House of Saud.  

See January 31st's Religion and Geopolitics Review for many articles examining Saudi Arabia, as well as our book review on the Kingdom.

Originally posted on February 2, 2015

Map on Monday: SOUTHEAST ASIA

The Physical Ecology, Communal Loyalties, and Geopolitics of Southeast Asia

by A. Joseph Lynch 

Physical Ecology: Natural Resources and Physical Geography

Mainland southeast Asia forms a long, north-south peninsula bordered by (from northeast to northwest) the Gulf of Tonkin, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, the Strait of Malacca, the Andaman Sea, and the Bay of Bengal. Within the boundaries of these waters may be found the five nations of this regional post: Vietnam,(92mill) Cambodia(15mill), Laos(7mill), Thailand,(68mill) and Myanmar (or Burma)(52mill). At roughly the size of Texas, Myanmar is by far the largest nation in the region. The rest, compared to US states, fall into the following order: Thailand (larger than California), Vietnam (New Mexico), Laos (Minnesota), and Cambodia (North Dakota).

The physical geography of the region is marked by a mountainous north, with ranges extending southwards along Vietnam's border with Laos and Cambodia, and down the Kra Isthmus dividing Myanmar and Thailand. The region's lowlands are generally minimal, with Vietnam's low-lying coastal plains wedged in between the mountains and the sea. Myanmar's central valley region extends southward toward the Andaman Sea with mountain chains running along its east and west. Cambodia and south-central Thailand (the "rice bowl of Asia"), however, enjoy the benefits of the Mekong and Chao Phraya river systems and the low-lying areas for agriculture.

The region's climate is dominated by a monsoon cycle of wet, humid, hot summers and dry winters. Natural resources vary from nation to nation, with Thailand rich in tin, rubber, natural gas, tungsten, tantalum, timber, lead, fish, gypsum, lignite, fluorite, and arable land; while Laos is relatively poor in resources beyond its dense forests, and some deposits of gypsum, tin, and gold. Vietnam's access to the South China Sea makes it a regional competitor for natural energy resources like gas and oil, but it is also rich in coal, iron ore, and copper. Cambodia's limited natural resources include its forests, energy resources in the Gulf of Thailand, along with some moderate amounts of mineral resources. Myanmar is a mineral-rich nation with an estimated ten trillion cubic feet of natural gas off its coast - but its state of extreme low development often leaves its resources untapped.


Communal Loyalties: Ethnicity, Language, and Religion

With the exception of Myanmar's 135 distinct ethnic groups, the region's nations are each relatively uniform in ethnicity. Roughly 96% of Thailand's inhabitants are ethnic Thais, while 90% of Cambodians are of Khmer descent. About 86% of Vietnamese are of the Viet ethnicity and 60% of the population of Laos are ethnic Laos. Myanmar, despite its vast ethnic diversity, remains 68% ethnic Bamar and 10% Shan (both peoples originate in south China's Yunnan region). Myanmar has seen years of internal conflict with the ill-treated Shan.  Myanmar does not recognize the Muslim Rohingya ethnic group from the state of Rakhine as indigenous natives deserving citizenship.  (See Buddhists expel "historical Muslim invaders" from AOA  and Burma profile Map on Monday of AOA)

The region's majority languages are formed by the Austro-Asiatic Languages ("austro" meaning "south") spoken in Vietnam (i.e. Vietnamese) and Cambodia (i.e. Khmer) and the Tai-Kadai Languages of Laos (i.e. Lao), Thailand (i.e. Thai), and part of Myanmar (i.e. Shan). Myanmar is also home to the Burmese language related to the broader Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The colonial history of Britain and France has also left a lasting French and English presence in the region. Beyond these languages, however, is a host of diverse languages rooted in the region's small ethnic groups.

Theravāda Buddhism is the most practiced religion in the region with 67% of Laos, 80%-89% of Burmese, 95% of Thais, and 97% of Cambodians adhering to the religion. The path to enlightenment and Nirvana in Theravāda Buddhism is marked by a seven-stage Path of Purification: (1) Purification of Conduct, (2) Purification of Mind, (3) Purification of View, (4) Purification by Overcoming Doubt, (5) Purification by Knowledge and Vision of What Is Path and Not Path, (6) Purification by Knowledge and Vision of the Course of Practice, and (7) Purification by Knowledge and Vision. This Path of Purification was written around the year AD 430 by Buddhaghosa, whose works comprise the orthodox understanding of Theravāda Buddhist doctrine and systematized summations of Buddha's teachings. {Update Oct 2018: See Our Map on Monday:Mapping Buddhism}

Almost half of Vietnamese practice "folk religions" while decades of Communist rule have left roughly 30% practicing no religion.There are 6million Catholics and 12 million Buddhists.


Geopolitics: Political Geography and Foreign Policy

Bordering the nations of this regional post are other important actors in the broader southeast Asia: Malaysia (and Singapore), Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, India, and China.We will look at the geopolitics and military history  of each country in future individual postings. AOA on President Diem and the Vietnam War.

Some Additional Resources 

For more information on Cambodia, visit its page on the CIA World Factbook.
For more information on Laos, visit its page on the CIA World Factbook.
For more information on Myanmar, visit its page on the CIA World Factbook.
For more information on Thailand, visit its page on the CIA World Factbook.
For more information on Vietnam, visit its page on the CIA World Factbook.

See also the video from Geography Now! on Cambodia.

This post originally appeared on Anthropology of Accord on November 16, 2015

Map on Monday: YEMEN

The Physical Ecology, Communal Loyalties, and Geopolitics of Yemen

by David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

Physical Ecology: Natural Resources and Physical Geography 

Yemen is a small middle-eastern country at the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, 1500 miles long and 500 miles north to south. Its location at the mouth of the Red Sea's egress into the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea via the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait makes it an important nation geostrategically in the region. Yemen has a hot and humid coastal plain with a young, rugged, and mountainous interior. To the north and east is the "Empty Quarter" of Yemen (Rub' al Khali) where the desert leaves no place for human civilization to prosper -- no water or vegetation, just Bedouin nomads herding camels across the desolate wasteland. Off its coasts, Yemen also controls five islands, some in the Red Sea and others in the Arabian.

Yemen is the poorest nation in the Middle East with few natural resources. It has limited oil and natural gas reserves. Roughly 60% of Yemen's inhabitants live off of agricultural production (25% of the overall Yemeni economy stems from agriculture). Coffee has been produced in Yemen for hundreds of years (in fact, "mocha" coffee is named after Yemen's historic Red Sea trade port town of Mocha just north of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait). Most agricultural production occurs in the Shia-dominant western Yemen. Despite not having any internal waterways or lakes, Yemen's proximity to the ocean gives it access to fish and seafood. Further inland may be found marble and minor deposits of coal, gold, lead, nickel, and copper. Water scarcity is a rising problem for Yemen. The problem stems largely from a lack of natural water reserves above ground, illegal use of aquifers, and the 40% decrease in annual rainfall over the past decade. There is even a looming possibility that Yemen's capital, Sanaa, will run out of water by 2025. 

Communal Loyalties: Ethnicity, Language, and Religion

Yemen is home to roughly 24 million people, 63% of whom are under the age of 25. Yemen is dominantly an Arab nation (and Arabic is Yemen's primary language), though Monsoon trade brings some populations of South Asians and African-Arabs. Yemen is a Muslim country, but one that is divided between Shiites and Sunnis. About 40% of Yemen is comprised of Shiite Mulsims, and most of these live in the northwestern side of the country surrounding the capital of Sanaa (see map at bottom). A major tribe of the Shiites are the Houthi who recently (January 2015) displaced the American-backed Sunni president. They know they cannot run the whole country and have not organized a coup.

Geopolitics: Political Geography and Foreign Policy

Yemen has land borders with two nations on the Arabian Peninsula. Its northern border is with Saudi Arabia (29 million in 2013). Oman (3.6 million) is to its east. Yemen is also located in proximity to the Horn of Africa. Across the Red Sea from Yemen is the split Christian-Muslim country of Eritrea. Djibouti - which is 94% Sunni Muslim - sits astride the western side of the Bab-el-Mandeb. To Yemen's south, across the Gulf of Aden, Somalia (home to the Sunni Muslim terror group, Al-Shabab).

The eastern part of Yemen was called Southern Yemen (see map at right) in the decades it was ruled as a socialist state during the Cold War. That is where Al Qaeda is strongest. Northern Yemen was the western non-Marxist entity. These were united in 1990 but never achieved an integrated national communal identity. Muhammad is said to have told his followers to flee to Yemen as a last refuge because of its mountainous geography.

The reconstitution of Al Qaeda in Yemen by jihadists fleeing Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan is the theme of the best book on the country's last century. Gregory Johnsen, author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and America's war in Arabia, believes Yemen (like Syria and Iraq) is set for a dramatic redrawing of its borders. The same author describes how the recent bombing campaign of Saudi Arabia against the Houthis of Yemen is helping Al Qaeda. The Sunni government of Yemen, in a similar way to the the Saudi monarchical families to their north, usually comes to some arrangement with Sunni Salafist purists like al Qaeda -- don't overthrow us and we will nod approval as you fight Shiites and Americans.

For more information on Yemen, visit its page on the CIA World Facebook. A Oct 2016 update on the bloody war waged by Saudi Arabia against the Shia Houthis.  The US has become implicated in a humanitarian  disaster which is becoming recognized for what it is-- a religious cleansing against Shia by the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia. This has been a credential building exercise by the present King’s son  Prince Muhammad bin Salman  who is not the crown prince but is moving up in the line  of succession.  He is using this slaughter to prove his militancy to the Salafist clerics who will have some role in approving the next king.

This post originally appeared on Anthropology of Accord on January 26, 2015.

Map on Monday: RUSSIA (PART 3)

Russian Geopolitics: The Political Geography and Foreign Policy of Russia

by A. Joseph Lynch

Russia's regional military commands: the structure of Russia's military ground defenses (compare to a map of the US commands)

In this third article of a three-part series on Russia, we discuss Russia's political geography and geopolitics. To read the previous articles, follow these links: Russia: Part 1, Russia: Part 2.


Russia is the world's largest nation by land area, while also having the world's third longest coastline. This brings Russia into physical contact with fourteen different nations and makes it a major player across the northern hemisphere and Eurasia. The following sections will examine Russia's relationship to neighboring nations and regions.

I. RUSSIA AND JAPAN

The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 witnessed a stunning defeat of Russia at the hands of the rising Japanese. The Battle of Mukden - Japan's most decisive land battle - inflicted some 80,000 Russian casualties; while the renowned Battle of Tsushima Straits - an equally decisive naval battle - annihilated the Russian fleet, sending eight Russian battleships to the bottom. These battles had many long-term consequences: the most fundamental was a sensibility among the dark skinned colonized people from Egypt to Vietnam to India that a white military power could be decisively defeated by one of them. It is striking how many leaders of national liberation movements that would come out of WWII pinpoint the defeat of the Russians by the Japanese as the battle that turned the world of white invincibility upside down.  Despite Japan's defeat in the Second World War, Russia and Japan never settled their border dispute (see a map of the disputed Kuril Islands from Stratfor) or signed a formal peace treaty. As Japan, today, reemerges from its pacifist slumber to face a nuclear North Korea and a growing China, its prime minister, Shinzo Abe, looks to end the border dispute with Russia and even help Russia re-enter the G8. Abe's forward-thinking policy towards Russia - like his policy towards re-armament - will necessitate the re-shaping of his people's views on Russia. A 2010 survey showed that 72% of Japanese hold an unfavorable view of Russia (thus making the Japanese the most anti-Russian people surveyed). For more information on Japan, see our previous Map on Monday: JAPAN.

II. RUSSIA AND CHINA (AND CENTRAL ASIA)

The relationship between Russia and China has improved since the near war of 1961. Both had sought at the time to be the leader of the communist world movement and their rivalry eventually drove China into closer relations with the United States. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, China and Russia have forged stronger ties in the face of American power. Russia's smaller population 143.5 million versus China's 1.36 billion, and weaker economy (China exports four times the value of Russia's exports, and China's GDP is five times higher than Russia's GDP) mean that in the new Russian-Chinese partnership, Russia plays a junior role. China certainly values its relationship with energy-rich Russia, and a peaceable border allows both nations to divert military forces elsewhere. Russia does, however, fear Chinese influence in its Far East where Chinese immigration and investment could reorient Russia's eastern extremity towards its southern neighbor. China - seeking to build a "New Silk Road economic belt" - has become the largest trading partner of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Russia's history and current relations with the region (both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan belong to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union while Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Russia's variant of NATO) bring Russia and China into some regional competition.

III. RUSSIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

Russia is giving military support to the Assad regime in Syria, recognizing his legitimate rule over the nation. From their Syrian naval base and several air bases, Russia has launched air and missile attacks on ISIS and Syrian opposition forces. Russia sees itself as a protector of Christians and established states in the region. It, therefore, sees the bonds between Syrian Christians with the Assad regime as yet another reason to support Assad while attacking ISIS. Russia's involvement in Syria has led to some significant tensions for Russia with the region's Sunni powers opposed to Assad: Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in November 2015 (to which Russia has asked Turkey to return the Hagia Sophia to Christians), and overproduction of oil by Sunni regimes such as Saudi Arabia have driven the price of oil - along with Russia's oil revenues - spiraling downward. Russia has a strong regional ally in Iran. Russia has invited Iran to join its Collective Security Treaty Organization. Member nations have the same defense pact as NATO: an attack on one member is an attack on all - an undoubtedly alluring promise in the face of Shiite Iran's tensions with its Sunni neighbors waging a fierce religious persecution of Shiites. Here Russia has come to the defense of the Shiites in Yemen in addition to Iran and Syria, supporting the Houthi rebels (who are trying to fight off the Saudis and al Qaeda) by both diplomatic and military means. Russia is also very involved with the Caucasus region, Russia's land bridge to the Mideast. Here Russia has strong historic ties to the Christian nations of Armenia and Georgia. While Russia would undoubtedly side with Armenia in any dispute with Turkey or Azerbaijan, Russia and Georgia have been at a loggerheads for years with Russia supporting breakaway regions within Georgia. Russia has also had to face counter-terrorism activities against Salafist Sunnis in the region, with fierce fighting in Chechnya. Russia stemmed the terror in Chechnya largely by winning the support and action of Chechen Muslim leaders like the Sufi-Sunni, Ramzan Kadyrov, who is the current President of Chechnya (see also this story on Chechen support of Kadyrov and this BBC profile of Kadyrov)

For more information on the nations of the region, see our previous 'Map on Monday' posts on: IRAN, TURKEY, SAUDI ARABIA, SYRIA, YEMEN, JORDAN, THE GULF STATES, EGYPT, and THE NATIONS OF THE CAUCASUS.

IV. RUSSIA AND EUROPE

Russia's relationship with Europe has been deeply shaped by geography. As a land power with its core region on the European side of the Urals, Russia has sought to anchor its defenses in the south by the Caucasus and Carpathian Mountains, and in the north by the Arctic and Baltic Seas. The North European Plain to Russia's west, however, is a 300-mile gap in the this defensive arc. Having faced invasions through this passage from France in 1812, and Germany in both 1914 and 1941, the Russians occupation of eastern Europe during the Cold War was seen a geopolitical necessity by the Soviets. At the conclusion of the Cold War, Russia withdrew its military from eastern Europe with the promise that NATO would not spread to the east. Rather than accepting peace and partnership with Russia, however,  NATO broke its word and spread across eastern Europe. The spread of NATO to the Baltic states now puts NATO troops on Russia's borders. A future addition of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO would create three invasion routes into Russia in any future war between Russia and NATO. Russians universally view the era of President Boris Yeltsin not as the coming of democracy but as a national disgrace for the Russian nation when they were ruled by a drunk; and the economic assets of the state were stripped by capitalist opportunists from the national treasury. Russia has acted to secure influence in a special fraternity of Orthodox nations such as Ukraine (where the E.U. and the U.S backed a coup against an elected President sympathetic to Russia) and Georgia. For hundreds of years Russia has considered Crimea part of Russia as a Russian-speaking naval base with a long history of blood shed for the motherland (AOA on Russia, Ukraine, and Crimea) For an excellent examination of Russia European geopolitics, watch this short Caspian Report video.

V. RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES

Given the United States' role in NATO, tensions between Russia and the United States have increased significantly in recent years. In fact, Russia has named the US and its allies as a strategic threat to Russian security. Russia has given a decided "no" to Hilary Clinton's reset button - since "reset" meant a return to the days where a weak Yeltsin and a weak Russia were taken advantage of by Mrs. Clinton's husband. Indeed, the bombing of Belgrade during the Kosovo War was a major civilizational blow against the Orthodox nations poisoning any reintegration of  Russia and the European nations. American politicians on both the Left and Right generally speak of Russia as a threat to American security, and there are many who advocate increasing the tensions with Russia and use this position as proof of their strong leadership skills on foreign policy. Russia has retorted by announcing plans to build a memorial in front of the US Embassy in Moscow dedicated to those killed in the Native American Genocide.  Besides the war of words, America and Russia are competing in a physical theater: the Arctic. Americans may think of the world as a flat map, but the Russians have a keen understanding of a spherical world with a northern pole. As new waterways have opened in the far north, Russia has begun building up its Arctic defenses (see this map of Russia's bases across the Arctic) and naval presence (Russia has 40 icebreakers in the Arctic compared to the two icebreakers of the US). Russia has the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world with its total weaponry more than the combined forces of the seven other nuclear armed states.
(An AOA UPDATE ON US, RUSSIA ,UKRAINE).

VI. RUSSIA, AFRICA, AND SOUTH AMERICA

Russia has also looked beyond its neighboring regions to Africa and South America. Russian investment in Africa has quadrupled in the past decade from under a billion dollars to now over 4 billion dollars. Russian investment in Africa has also led to an expansion of Russia's control over European energy while also building up strong allies in the continent (many African countries, for example, abstained from voting for Russian sanctions over Crimea). In the face of American involvement in Russia's geopolitical neighborhood, Russia has decided to become more involved in Latin America. In 2015 Russia and Argentina entered into a strategic pact in which Russia offered support to Argentina regarding the Falkland Islands.