Russia's Geographic Challenge 2023
Even though it is the largest country in the world, Russia has an indefensible and unforgivable territory. The core of Russia, which runs from the Volga grain belts up through Moscow proper, is without any natural geographic barrier. This is why the country has traditionally anchored its territory to major geographic barriers far from its core in order to keep foreign powers distant. This has meant that Russian dominance has had to reach east across the frozen tundra of Siberia to the Pacific Ocean, southeast to the Tien Shen Mountains of Asia, south to the Caucasus Mountains bordering Iran and Turkey, and finally west to the Carpathian Mountains in Central Europe.
But there is one major hole in this geographic expanse, the Northern European Plain. The Northern European Plain is a gap between the Carpathian Mountains and the Baltic Sea, which at its narrowest is 300 miles across from Poland. This narrow point, referred to as the Polish Funnel, is just west of Warsaw in the North and reaches Cracow in the South. Russia has faced three major attackers along this axis, Napoleon, Wilhelm II, and Hitler.
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