Politicians tell us wars are about all

sorts of things.

Finding weapons of mass destruction.

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein

now has weapons of mass destruction.

Destroying nuclear capabilities. You

cannot give Iran a nuclear weapon.

Denazifying a neighboring country.

But what if I told you that all the

major conflicts currently erupting

[music] around the world are actually

about something else?

Taiwan, Ukraine, Iran.

Fundamentally, they're all about the

control of key geographic choke points.

A geographic choke point is basically a

narrow place on a map where a lot of

important movement gets squeezed

through.

>> [music]

>> Imagine a huge crowd leaving a stadium,

but there's only one small exit door.

That door is a choke point. A choke

point can be a narrow sea passage, like

a strait or canal,

>> [music]

>> a mountain pass,

a bridge or valley.

Even though it's small, a massive amount

of traffic has to go through it,

like ships, oil, food, or even armies.

Because they're narrow and crowded,

they're easy to block or control.

And even small disruptions can cause

huge global effects. This makes them

critical for certain countries to

control.

>> [music]

>> And the competition of that control is a

key factor behind many conflicts we see

around the world today.

Let's look at Taiwan.

China has long stated that it plans to

reunify Taiwan. And many people fear

that any move on Taiwan could trigger a

major conflict between the US and China,

potentially escalating to World War III.

People think controlling Taiwan is about

controlling its semiconductor industry.

And that's not incorrect. Semiconductors

are like the brains of machines, and no

one makes them as well as the Taiwan

Semiconductor Manufacturing Company,

TSMC. [music]

They're absolutely crucial to the global

economy, an economic choke point, if you

will.

They're used in almost every modern

electronic device you can think of.

Smartphones, computers, cars, internet

infrastructure, AI, and military

technology.

TSMC produces almost 90% of the world's

most advanced chips.

Controlling Taiwan would allow China to

control the technological linchpin of

the world's economy.

But actually, Taiwan is about much more

than just semiconductors.

Look at Taiwan here on this map.

You see that it sits between China to

the west, the open Pacific Ocean to the

east, the Philippines to the south, and

most importantly, Japan to the north.

To truly understand the significance of

Taiwan, we first need to understand the

history of the relationship between

Japan and China.

Japan and China have a long and often

violent history.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s,

Japan modernized rapidly, while China

weakened due to internal conflict and

foreign pressure.

This culminated in the First

Sino-Japanese War in 1894,

a decisive Japanese victory that led to

Japan's annexation of Taiwan.

Then we come to World War II. Japan is a

relatively small island nation with

limited natural resources, but to have

an empire, it needed lots of oil, iron,

and rubber, which it couldn't find on

its homeland. When the Allied powers

tried to cut off Japan's oil supplies,

it saw no alternative but to try to

expand its territory.

This led to Japan invading Vietnam, the

Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore,

Indonesia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, and some

Pacific islands.

And the most bloody invasion of all,

China.

The Japanese invasion of mainland China

was extremely brutal

>> [music]

>> and included the Rape of Nanking, a

6-week atrocity in which tens of

thousands of women were

and up to 300,000 civilians were killed.

This event remains deeply embedded in

Chinese collective [music] memory.

Fast forward to today and Japan is one

of the closest allies of China's main

strategic rival, the United States.

Japan is still reliant on imports for

most of its oil, food, and supplies.

It imports roughly 60% of its

agricultural products

and over 90% of its crude oil imports

come from the Middle East.

And where do the huge amounts of these

imports have to pass through to get to

Japan?

Yep, you guessed it, the Strait of

Taiwan.

By controlling Taiwan, China would have

the ability to blockade their long-time

rival, Japan.

They'd also be able to blockade South

Korea, the other close ally of the US.

Controlling Taiwan would go a long way

towards checkmating Japan and South

Korea and cementing China as the hegemon

of East Asia.

But it doesn't stop there.

Taiwan sits between shallow seas near

China

>> [music]

>> and deep Pacific Ocean to the east.

This means it would be like a giant

unsinkable base for China's navy.

If China controlled Taiwan, it would

have direct access to the deep ocean,

which would allow it to project naval

power straight into the Pacific.

Crucially, it would allow its deep water

submarines to patrol undetected,

threaten distant targets, and carry

nuclear deterrents more effectively.

Control of the island would unleash the

Chinese navy into the Pacific and around

the world. Now we see why controlling

Taiwan is about more than just

semiconductors.

Okay, let's look at the Russia-Ukraine

conflict.

Have you ever heard Ukraine described as

the breadbasket of the world?

That's because Ukraine produces and

exports a huge amounts of food,

especially grain, that many countries

depend on.

Before the war, nearly 400 million

people depended on Ukrainian grain

exports.

You see, Ukraine has very fertile soil

called chernozem or black soil.

It also has large, flat farmlands ideal

for farming, and a climate that supports

big grain harvests.

Both Russia and Ukraine have coastlines

along the Black Sea.

They use the Black Sea for all their

exports and imports.

There are two key seaports you need to

understand.

The first is Odessa.

You've probably heard about it on the

news.

As we're making this video,

>> [music]

>> Odessa is still under the control of

Ukraine, but Russia wants it badly.

That's because the ports of greater

Odessa are Ukraine's main shipping

outlet to the rest of the world,

handling almost 90% of their

agricultural exports, as well as iron,

steel, and other key export products.

If Russia gains control of Odessa, it

will not only hamstring Ukraine's

economy and possibly win them the war,

but also allow Russia to massively

influence global supply chains. In other

words,

it will give them a huge amount [music]

of global power.

The second key seaport is Sevastopol.

This has been de facto conquered by

Russia since annexing Crimea in 2014.

Sevastopol is a deep water harbor,

naturally sheltered from harsh weather.

Controlling the Sevastopol

>> [music]

>> acts as a central hub for the Russian

Black Sea Fleet,

allowing them to project military power

around the Black Sea

and potentially beyond.

However,

in order to project naval power into the

Mediterranean, the Russian fleets would

have to pass through the Bosphorus and

Dardanelles straits.

Interestingly, they have both been

legally controlled by Turkey since the

Montreux Convention of 1936.

Turkey acts like a traffic controller

for naval and commercial movements. It

generally allows all commercial ships to

pass freely, but it regulates or

restricts the passage of warships,

especially during wartime. This makes

Turkey an important, neutral, but

powerful player.

Turkey is a NATO member, but it also

maintains working relations with Russia.

It walks a tightrope of trying to avoid

escalating tensions, while still

enforcing control over the straits. And

there are land choke points, too.

Russia's core territory sits on the East

European Plain,

a vast stretch of relatively flat land

with few mountains, deserts, or oceans

to serve as natural defenses.

Historically, this has made Russia easy

to invade from multiple directions. Over

the centuries, Russia has been attacked

through these open corridors by major

powers such as Napoleon's France and

Nazi Germany.

Look at this graph showing the amount of

lives lost by country in World War II.

As you can see,

Russia lost more people than any other

European country by far.

Those experiences deeply influenced

Russian strategic thinking.

Russia is effectively trying to plug

these invasion points.

If it manages to do so, it would turn

Russia into an almost impenetrable

fortress.

Controlling Ukraine will plug most of

these invasion points,

but it will need to control Georgia,

Armenia, Azerbaijan, parts of

Kazakhstan, Estonia, Latvia, and

Lithuania to truly finish the job.

Then, there's the Iran war.

If you want to understand the choke

points in driving the Iran conflict, you

can watch this video to the left of me.

Thanks for watching. See you on the next

one.