(Part 2) Best products from r/geopolitics

>Why?

To survive and continue an existence that provides some measure of certainty. The Chinese hukou system limits the ability of Chinese citizens to migrate to cities with more economic opportunity by barring people from legally residing, receiving social services (education, health, etc.), or working outside of their hukou. As many low-skilled Chinese workers are not allowed to live and work in economically vibrant areas such as the Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen (the Tier 1 cities), their alternatives are to move to a lower tier city/province that may not provide meaningful employment year-round, wither in their current position, or move somewhere with economic opportunity (the U.S., Europe, overseas in Asia, in neighboring Asian countries). If they choose the latter, they are often willing to illegally immigrate.

We are unlikely to see tens of thousands of Chinese pouring across the Russian border for work. Indeed, many who work there now are likely nott planning to do so permanently. However, this doesn't rule out the possibility of long-term demographic shifts in Russia's Far East.

>but I've never seen any numbers

I can think of two reasons, though I'm sure there could be more:

• The numbers are published in Chinese and Russian and researchers in the Anglosphere may not publish this in readily available format (namely, in English) outside of their academic works. People who might be otherwise interested in such a topic- policymakers, researchers, data collectors at an international organization, redditors on a geopolitics subreddit, ideologues- do not have the time, knowledge, or motivation to translate said numbers and have an easily searchable public place for such numbers.
  
  
• Both the Russian and Chinese governments are mutually interested in not drawing attention to the numbers. Like most governments in power, the Russian government (or rather, Vladimir Putin's United Russia) advertises its legitimacy to rule in a flawed democracy via economic opportunity and social stability. Having Chinese immigrants or migrant workers displace Russian workers in struggling rural areas of the Russian Far East (David Remnick's book Lenin's Tomb has a chapter that highlights the issues that plague the Russian Far East) undermines the promise of economic opportunity for Russian citizens of all ethnic groups and their status within society. The Chinese Communist Party also advertises its own legitimacy via economic opportunity and social stability, and having its citizens go to other states for employment in agriculture or manufacturing would be seen as indicative of the CCP's inability to fully provide that- lending ammunition for opposition from party "liberals" and outsiders alike. Additionally, there have been tensions regarding this issue since the dissolution of the USSR. There is no reason to disrupt recent Sino-Russian cooperation, particularly when there are no domestic incentives to push the issue.
  
  
  >China itself is big enough for all Chinese people
  
  China's seaboard (where most of its economic activity lies) is incredibly dense in terms of population. The interior of China has far less economic activity than the seaboard, and is likely the source of many of the unemployed. The hukou system is partially designed to encourage internal migration towards non-tier 1 cities, and has been notably accompanied by the infamous construction sprees by local municipalities that led to the phenomenon known as "ghost cities". Such sprees did not always end in ghost cities as documented by Western media, but were nonetheless an issue.
  
  >Russia isn't that much richer than China
  
  True, but it doesn't need to be rich so much as appear to be better than the alternatives. I'd imagine most Chinese immigrants/migrant workers to Russia were displaced from Chinese agricultural communities and would prefer that sort of lifestyle to industrial work in a non-tier 1 city that is likely facing layoffs due to China's supply-side & state-owned enterprise (SoE) reforms.
  
  >prospects of Chinese immigrant in Russia without knowing the language and local customs aren't good either
  
  Chinese immigrants/migrant workers have interacted with Russians in the area for centuries (the RAND article I listed earlier describes this). Even if you only look at the most modern manifestations of this relationship, Chinese workers have been operating in the Russian Far East since around 1993. While they're unlikely to meaningfully advance in the social structure, they have shown the capability to survive.
  
  >I can imagine that young Chinese people dream about moving to rich Chinese cities, not to Russia.
  
  If they're uneducated, they are often unable to move to rich Chinese cities. Why not move somewhere that is somewhat familiar with Chinese migrant workers/immigrants?

Alex (I hope I can call you that, I mean it in the best way possible), I really like your replies! You get an upvote from me.

I guess I should have said, states are not the only players in IR, and IR cant be described only by state based Realism! I tried to sum it up in just a few words, not a good summation you could say!

As for your views, well we agree, and disagree! That tends to be usually the case when we talk about the real word! If we are talking about abstract concepts like mathematics, or simplified ones (which is what every science deals with) than we can be absolute, but the real world just has so many parameters.

Therein lies the need to simplify, in order to produce a theory (a mechanism) to better understand the interactions that occur in the world. I will not disagree with you that the world is not totally described by realism. But I believe all the other "actors" you mention above contribute a lot when looked at the human perspective, but quite less compared to states. Less enough so to be considered negligible.

The inclusion of them would mean that it would be very much harder to formulate a theory to be able to explain world affairs. Now, I do believe a time will come with enough computing power, that will allow better theories to be formed. They will be more like simulation models. I have written about simulations in my thesis (so I researched into the amply) and have come to truly believe they will hold a greater place with every decade.

Now, in relation to the world of the past, the world of today could seem totally different. The one difference in my mind is the Nuclear one. NGOs non state actors, TNC's and all the rest you refer might seem the thing of the present. But look at the Dutch East India Company, look at the The British East India Company with its two opium wars. These wars were fought on behalf of private companies, but where so vital and intertwined with the State they originated from that it became a national issue.

Trade has always gone along, from ancient times. And the more trade a state can command, the more powerful it is. Even in [roman times] (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Europe_180ad_roman_trade_map.png) trade was going on all around the Mediterranean.

So things have not changed since then, in my book. We have only become nuclear, but that has other implications, more on the military side (which still are big though, and influence IR). 10.000 years are not enough to change human nature. Humans are the same, the world is the same. Technology has improved, but has not altered those conditions, only made the easier. The laws of the game are the same

A little note here on laws being the same. Great book by Lee Smolin. You can also listen to him here to see if you might want to purchase it. It takes about how the physical laws might actually evolve

So, to sum it up, I believe realism is the best we've got for now!

ADDITION: As to why states want to survive, I have some theories which I can lay out, once I properly formulate them.

I just have to make another reply because the amount of ignorance in this post is just simply staggering.

More on Mao, many people do not worship Mao. Those who look at him favourably are also divided on the opinion. On one hand Mao is acknowledged as the person who liberated China from colonial meddling and division. He's the one who united a fragmented China.

On the other hand, the general consensus is that while he was a great general, he was a terrible ruler.

His great leap forward and cultural revolution were utter failures. Even the current government acknowledges it and moved on from Mao's policies.

Nowadays, it isn't a crime to criticise the cultural revolution, discuss or WRITE about it in a best selling novel. Case in point, in 2006, a chinese author by the name of Liu Cixin published a sci-fi novel named "Three body problem", in the first two chapters he unapologetically portrayed the failure and brutality of cultural revolution.

The book became the best selling sci-fi novel in China. In 2015 it was translated into English in the west and won the prestigious Hugo award for best novel. Obama read it and recommended it as his favourite book to read during his presidency.

Proof:

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500440486&sr=8-1&keywords=three+body+problem

Just gunna ramble on a bit here, hope you don't mind.

So, it's pretty tough. As has been noted by many before, the story changes so rapidly that a book written in 2013 will be wildly out of date by today. For example, you might still regularly see some people talk about China as export-dependent, ignoring the two massive stimulus programs which transitioned the country into a truly consumption-based economy. Blogs and newspapers are good to follow. The obvious problem is that within China, censorship is at work. The South China Morning Post is based out of Hong Kong and is usually pretty good, Gary Liu has taken it in a great direction. Caixin is good for more specifically economic and business-related coverage. WhatsOnWeibo shows you how kaleidoscopic and weird the Chinese social media sphere can be, and reflects popular discourse within China. Shangaiist can be fun.

The other reason it's tough is that China's economic explosion is so spectacular that the "rise of China" narrative can actually distort Western coverage. And there is a LOT of coverage - most of which is just above HuffPo-levels of reheated ideas and cliches. More and more writing on the subject is overly saturated with the anxious language of the Thucydides Trap meme. Conversely, some analysis gets so caught up in the spectacle of Chinese growth, or the apparent efficiency of the Chinese state, that they forget to incorporate things like the system of concentration camps in Xinjiang. It's hard to find a balance. I digress. Obviously some of the big Western media outlets can have good coverage. Financial Times is usually solid, their Alphaville blog in particular. Bloomberg is of course standard stuff. Brad Setser runs a great blog on global capital flows, which discusses China constantly. Sean Kenji Starrs at the University of Beijing does phenomenal work on how American companies assemble their products in China, and how the profits flow across the Pacific - a very important subject to understand, given the China2025 program. I'm sure I could find a copy of a journal article for anyone interested. Okay, now that we've got that cleared, a few books.

ECONOMICS:

• • Red Capitalism by Carl Walter is a critical examination of how China has achieved the staggering transformation of it's economy. By the late 80s and mid 90s, China was in economic chaos. The opening of the country - with it's new proliferation of SEZs, the total reimagining of rural life with decollectivization, and the explosion of state loans to the provinces and SOEs - threw the socio-economic life of the country into free-fall. In a troubling lookalike performance of Gorbachev's recent policies, corruption spiraled out of control as a newly forming class of oligarchs took shape, SOEs and provincial governors burned through money with nothing to show, peasants were dislocated, and inflation soared to as high as 24% - scrambling the balance of interests within the country. Unrest proliferated, from peasant uprisings, to student protests (like Tianenman Square), to mass strikes, to new religious movements such as the Falun Gong. The country appeared to be on the brink of civil war at points. How did the CCP pull back from the brink? In two incredibly oversimplified words; domestic credit and foreign capital. Under the guidance of men like Hank Paulson and Hank Greenberg (of Goldman and AIG respectively), China totally rearranged the way it distributed credit. They made their banks more like real banks, and they gave the People's Bank of China the independence and expertise it needed to effectively bring inflation to heel. At the same time, the American investment bankers were brought in to help bring minority stakes of the SOEs to international equity markets, while strategically cutting the fat from the bone. The central government reigned in the autonomy of the provinces with a cycle of purges, helping to quash corruption for long enough to pull in American corporations looking for a new home. Complete with a blow-by-blow look at monstrous stimulus program unleashed during 2008, this book contains a more statistically thorough look at common ideas of a potential "hard landing", or the "balance of financial terror" between both sides of the Pacific.
  
  
• • For a book with an alternative viewpoint on many of the same issues, Markets Over Mao by Nic Lardy is a great deconstruction of the role that the CCP plays in the economy. Lots of solid data, compellingly argued. Basically - the State-Owned Enterprises aren't what you think, their partial privatization has created a massive rust belt in North China, their operations are widely disliked by the public, and the private-public balance is just generally very, very weird.
  
  SOCIETY:
  
  
• • For some subjects with a bit more of social commentary, Scattered Sand by Hsiao Hung Pai documents the story of China's vast, rural migrant labor force. These 200 million migrants contribute to something like half of Chinese GDP. They were instrumental in the first phase of the CCPs post-Deng, improvised, boot-strap development policy, where foreign capital would expand the low end of their value-chains to China's coastal cities - taking advantage of the low wages that were kept low, in part, by this reserve army of migrant labor. The book observes the extremely precarious nature of life for these workers, how they are transforming the gender relations of the countryside, the culture of the cities, and the uneven, festering relations between labor, capital and the Party.
  
  
• • Another quick book I enjoyed on a profound Chinese political issue is China and the Environment by Sam Geall. China used more concrete in 3 years than the United States did over the whole of the 20th century - which meant state-owned industries had migrant miners drudging tons of sand from the bed of the Yellow River, flooding the plains, so that it could be processed in dirty, coal-fueled plants - whose pollution contributes to China's alarming, soaring cancer rates. Not to mention, that same factory is pumping carbon into the atmosphere, further warming the climate to the point where the Gobi Desert is rapidly expanding, destroying the livelihoods of local farmers and racing toward Beijing. These are the kinds of environmental issues you get in a society which has catapulted itself into capitalism as fiercely as China has. As such, the environment is a deep, existentially political issue for millions of ordinary Chinese, in a way which is frankly unthinkable for the Western world. In the book Geall intimately examines the kinds of intense, grassroots politics you get when the problems loom this large.

> also many people don't understand or exaggerate that developed and undeveloped part, years ago i was with a friend of mine and we were talking to some girl from germany for fun, and she asked us "do you in syria have cars and phones like us?"

That just means 'developed' and 'underdeveloped' are poor labels, or that 'underdeveloped' contains a much wider group than the other one. Factfulness separated people in 4 income groups, perhaps this is better with you?:

> Level 1: People live on less than $2 a day. Rosling estimates that one billion people are living at or below this threshold. They get around on their own two barefoot feet, cook over an open flame like a cookfire, fetch water in a bucket, and sleep on the ground.

This is what most people understand if they hear the word underdeveloped/developing. Basically, tribes and very conservative lifestyles.

> Level 2: This is the income group where the majority of the world's people live. They get by on between $2 and $8 a day and might have some possessions like a bicycle, a mattress, or a gas canister for cooking at home.

This is the stereotypical view of Eastern Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America in movies, and while this might be true in those regions for rural areas, most of the people living there are level 3 and 4.

> Level 3: This is the second most populous category on Rosling's list, after level 2. People in level 3 live on anywhere from $8 a day to $32. They have running water, might own a motorbike or car, and their meals are a rich and colorful mix of foods from day to day. They also probably have electricity and a fridge, which makes things like studying and eating enough varied nutrients easier.

What you were talking about are countries in Level 3.

> Level 4: Like level 1, roughly one billion of the world's people live on this level. They make $32 a day or more and have things like running water (both hot and cold) at home, a vehicle in the driveway, and plenty of nutrients on their plate. They've also likely had the chance to finish twelve years of school, or more.

Basically, the people who want to help.

Some good recommendations here, but I would strongly encourage you to get a reader/textbook for a good foundation. I really like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415666635/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_PvssDbQ5V9FT8

This gives a good history of geopolitics as well as very important theory. As far as book goes, I’d recommend Edward Said’s “Orientalism”.

1. I found this example from earlier this year on short notice but I've been seeing articles like it for a few years now. Its an extension of multiculturalism vs. nativism so it wasn't an entirely unfounded assertion to make in the past. I can bring up more links from the past if you like. Think "democrats are globalist" insults.
   
   
2. Re second point, its common talk among the foreign affairs scene in DC if you get on the subject of longer term things. You can see and example here although there are a number of other articles in Foreign Affairs, the Diplomat, etc. But growth of non-state actors, rise of multinational threats and degree to which states will have to respond to things collectively. There used to be some criticism but that's dissipated since Trump has been elected. As an added note, I see you're in DC, not sure if you've ever taken the opportunity to attend think tank events there, but they're free and great.
   
   
3. Partially from Francis Fukuyama's Ezra Klein interview but mostly from my own background in organizational bureaucracy and United States public administration. Don F. Kettl's System under stress covers it sort of well. The gist is that the structure of governance systems the world over, but particularly in the United States (remember that we have the world's oldest constitution in continuous use) are failing to address new phenomena as change is happening more quickly than these systems can adapt, particularly that of the United States. Note that "At 222 years old, America’s governing document is broadly considered the world’s longest surviving constitution, according to Dr. Steven Frank, the Constitution Center’s chief historian" and that "The funny thing is, the things which make constitutions endure aren't really found in the U.S. one" Both parties have attempted to radically change how government functions for some time now, the most important question to ask is what non-ideological factors make them think government needed to change. Doesn't even address more fundamental organizational problems in the US as a whole or human civilization writ large.
   
   
   

Two great books I just finished:

The first, The Wizards of Armageddon by Fred Kaplan, is a fantastic overview of the development of U.S. nuclear strategy during the Cold War. Kaplan is a great writer who knows how to clearly detail and express information, with some humor sprinkled in making it a fun read. (Just as an aside, if you want to fit this book and nuclear strategy in general into the historical context of U.S. Cold War grand strategy read Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War By John Lewis Gaddis.)

My second recommendation, this one for modern nuclear strategy in the 21st century, is Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict by Vipin Narang. It is a brilliant book and very important for understanding how states chose various nuclear strategies/postures and the deterrent power each nuclear posture holds. Amazing book.

I still haven't watched it but I've heard Syriana tackled some geopolitical topics and was pretty good

Although if you wanna analyze a movie that perfect depicts the way geo- or actually any politics is actually conducted in this day and age in the US I'd recommend Coens' "Burn After Reading"

It's neither geopolitical in nature, nor is it a war movie, but it captures the sheer incompetence of the foreign policy establishment in the US quite perfectly.

I think it was one of the inspirations for Stephen Walt's new book about the US FP establishment too

Sure, although it really depends on which geopolitical facets you enjoy the most.

Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard. Heavily influences US foreign policy. http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives/dp/0465027261/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462464442&sr=1-1&keywords=zbigniew+brzezinski

George Friedman's The Next 100 Years. This is the guy that started Stratfor and this book is a large part of why they started getting so much attention. I really like Friedman but I do find his actual prose can be pretty droll. http://www.amazon.com/Next-100-Years-Forecast-Century/dp/0767923057/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1462464571&sr=1-3&keywords=george+friedman

Charles Lister's The Syrian Jihad. Good read. http://www.amazon.com/Syrian-Jihad-Al-Qaeda-Evolution-Insurgency/dp/0190462477?ie=UTF8&keywords=charles%20lister&qid=1462464907&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1


Any of Kissinger's books would probably be worth reading. Even if you don't like the guy, he's not dumb by any stretch, and he's still pretty influential.

If I think of more I'll post 'em.

This is a good essay. It's based around a lot of the information that came out the last couple months thanks to Niall Ferguson's excellent and rather fair biography of Henry Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist. If you are curious about Kissinger, or separately want to know which track people follow to rise to important places in the halls of government, I recommend giving it a read over a few days--though it's a bit long, at around a thousand pages.

Anyone who has actually read what Kissinger says in his writings and his memoirs, rather than what other people say about him, knows that he isn't a realist, has never used those terms to describe himself, never called a realist author his idol or role model, and plain isn't a realist.

He believes in American democracy, that people living in foreign nations should be able to self-determine, and that the United States is a force for good in the world. Kissinger's argument for U.S. foreign policy strategy is that it should be based around certain principles and values that we as Americans hold dear, and that the American population would be self-motivated to rally behind--while still not being unrealistic about which means are used to attain it, as well as what is achievable in the short term.

Here is early Henry Kissinger from 1958, summing up his thoughts much better than I ever could:

>Unless we maintain at least an equilibrium of power ... we will have no chance to undertake any positive measures. And maintaining this equilibrium may require some very difficult choices. We are certain to be confronted with situations of extraordinary ambiguity, such as civil wars or domestic coups. ... There can be no doubt that we should seek to forestall such occurrences. But once they have occurred, we must find the will to act and to run risks in a situation which permits only a choice among evils.

>While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive. ... It would be comforting if we could confine our actions to situations in which our moral, legal and military positions are completely in harmony and where legitimacy is most in accord with the requirements of survival. But, as the strongest power in the world, we will probably never again be afforded the simple moral choices on which we could insist in our more secure past.

>... To deal with problems of such ambiguity presupposes above all a moral act: a willingness to run risks on partial knowledge and for a less than perfect application of one’s principles. The insistence on absolutes . . . is a prescription for inaction.

The hivemind bullshit about Henry Kissinger being a biting realist, a warmongering criminal, or a malevolent force in the world needs to stop. The bad rap he receives in casual manner from every Joe Schmoe from corner of the internet is terrible--I fully expect to get "contradicted" even in /r/geopolitics by people who haven't even read a page of Kissinger's writings in their life, who feel he's the worst war criminal ever despite having done nothing morally distinguishable from any other National Security Adviser and Secretary of State who has ever served. He's far and away one of the most outstanding, patriotic, humanity-loving Americans who ever lived in this century, and he should receive the respect he deserves for his outstanding accomplishments in national service to the nation.

> Are they not saying the current problems of manufacturing jobs going away, income inequality, underemployment, or the recession are related to NAFTA?

I can say with confidence that the trade agreement between the the USA, Canada, and Mexico is most definitely not the primary cause the issues you listed.

http://www.cfr.org/trade/naftas-economic-impact/p15790

>But most economists say it is a stretch to blame these shifts on NAFTA. Manufacturing in the United States was under stress decades before the treaty, and job losses in that sector are viewed as part of a structural shift in the U.S. economy toward light manufacturing and high-end services. Alden says that broader economic trends affecting U.S. employment, such as China's economic rise, wouldn't be substantially altered by U.S. policy shifts toward NAFTA.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w18508.pdf

>We find that not all countries gained from NAFTA. Mexico and the U.S. gained 1.31% and 0.08% respectively, while Canada suffered a welfare loss of 0.06%. Still, real wages increased for all NAFTA members
and Mexico had the largest gains. We decompose the welfare effects into terms of trade and volume of trade
e§ects and Önd that most of the gains from NAFTA are a result of an increase in the volume of trade. We
Önd that the trade created, mostly between NAFTA members, was larger than the trade diverted from other
economies. This was particularly so for Mexico and Canada. The welfare gains from trade creation with
NAFTA members are 1.80% and 0.08% while the welfare loss from trade diversion with the rest of the world
are 0.08%, and 0.04% for Mexico and Canada respectively. Only a handful of sectors were responsible for
the aggregate volume of trade effects. These were sectors highly protected before NAFTA, like Textiles in
Mexico, with a large trade elasticity, like Petroleum, and with a large share of material use and sectoral
interdependence, like Electrical Machinery and Autos.

And the recession was the result of opaque lending practices which under priced risk.

>With wages so low abroad, why pay union wages?

Because they want to operate in the USA. When locating manufacturing on a global scale, cost isn't the only factor managers consider. Operating in lead countries gives businesses access to the latest innovations. Conducting operations close to your consumers helps anticipate their needs and speeds up response times. It also doesn't hurt that the US is politically stable, spacious, gifted with natural resources, a well developed infrastructure, and has strong property rights. For these reasons, a lot of global companies still choose to do business in the US. It may surprise you, but the United States is still by far the second largest manufacturer of goods on the planet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sector_composition#PPP_GDP_sector_composition

If you want to know more, I recommend reading chapter 5 of Total Global strategy.

First of all, thank you so much for the compliment. Brazil is a really interesting country and has a lot of unique things, specially due to the heterogeneity of the population.

I'm not really sure about books in English, but there's an author "Boris Fausto", whose book is the first that comes to mind. This book, published by USP (the most important university in Brazil) is the one I have. I haven't read all of it, due to being busy lately, but I believe it gives a good feeling about Brazil, even though he doesn't cover some cultural aspects and movements, like the Modern Art Week of 1922. So, if I had to indicate someone, it would be him. His "[A Concise History of Brazil]"(https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Brazil-Cambridge-Histories/dp/1107635241/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) is available in English and the comments on Amazon seems to be positive. So I would check it out, for starters. I don't know about any foreign historians or geopolitical writers that cover Brazil in depth.

I believe that, if you read his book and did some research about the culture, you'd get a firm grasp of Brazil.

Indian author and foreign policy expert, Dilip Hiro's After Empire: The Birth of a Multipolar World is a good view of the overall geopolitical situation in the world today. Not a viewpoint you will get much of in first year international studies in the US, which is a good reason to read it right there.

Of course Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard and Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations are the two I read in my first year of journalism with an interest in foreign policy. Both stand up today and have a lot of good insights into the Great Game, though both are a bit dry and academic rather than page-turners.

Despite being factually wrong in many, many regards the take away is our current state of affair are anything but stable, with change being the only constant (Crimea being a good example).

This video has been posted on /r/europe with the comments pointing out some of its gross inaccuracies.

If your interested these are the comments for the same video from /r/history.


My personal quib is the very visualization itself. By presenting the change of euope with a map and changing "states" it falsely attributes our modern nation-states with the kingdoms and political entities of the past, as if they were time immemorial entities . The modern nation-state is based on the political entity of a "nation". What we even conceive of a "nation" didn't exist till after the french revolution (to go with a rough and ready time period). Nations, and the states that claim to be their legal representations, are constructs that did not exist 400 years ago.

So to start the video at 1144 and have nomenclatures such as "France" or "England" is a model simplifications which result in a falsifications by misrepresenting and wrongly equivocating the nations we have today with previous political entities which existed in the same geographical areas.

The European age of cartography didn't begin till the end of the 15th century. Why that's important is videos like this engage in historical revisionism. As without maps you cannot have imagined political communities superimposed onto a map, creating the entities we colloquialy call countries, so to do so reifies things that didn't exist in the way it's being portrayed to us the viewer.

For more information on Nationalism check out Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson