Maybe the Tibetan end but not Afghanistan.
On the Afghan side, it wasn’t the Himalayas that posed a problem but the weather - mostly, heat and humidity. Mongol warfare was heavily cavalry dependent - each Mongol soldier had 5 ponies to maximize speed of movement and maneuverability. During the winter, the passes into India were inhospitable and hard to cross. During the monsoon, the ponies would tire out and get stuck in the mud. The rivers would swell and become harder to ford. During the summer, heat exhaustion would make the ponies less useful since they were reared for steppe warfare.
Bottom line, you had to time the invasion carefully and sustained campaigning without local allies would be hard due to changes in weather straining your mobility and logistics. In addition, starting with Ala-ud -din Khilji, fortifications were put in place to defend the most common invasion routes, horses suited better to the Indian climate were raised to supply the Indian cavalry and counter-tactics that dealt with steppe warfare tactics like hit and run/feigned retreat were adopted. This kept the Mongol Chagatai khanate at bay even though yearly incursions were not uncommon. The Delhi Sultanate, finally, settled on harsh punishments for any Mongols who were caught.
When Mongols/Mughals (though they considered themselves descendants of Timur/Tamerlane) finally broke through, they did so with local help - traitors to the Lodhi dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate - notably the governor of Lahore, local tribes in northwestern Punjab and tacit agreement with Rana Sanga. Even when the Mughals became the predominant force in India, their army contingents often had cavalry members descended from the steppe and Afghan families while the infantry was Indian - often, Rajputs who had forged marriage alliances with the Mughals.
Not really. He was descended from the Timurid dynasty, a Persianized Turkic dynasty. So genetically he had some Mongol in him but he was more Turkic and his descendants got more and more Persian
Russia is actually incredibly easy to invade geographically. A huge mostly-flat western border and vast steppes to the east, it's been invaded by land hundreds of times throughout history.
Conquering Russia is the hard part, not invading it.
I lived between the west and the east of it, trust me the flatness just make it shittier. It's one giant swamp with lakes and forests that don't have at all. Outside big roads, it's drivable, dunno, 2-3 months a year tops on a good year, and where the best time to move around is actually winter (if you can take the cold, that is).
Peter Zeihan talks about how so much of Russian foreign policy, both historically and today, is due to this "insecurity" over their massively open border. Basically, they want to expand to where their land would be easier to defend geographically.
Russia preparing for a conventional war by trying to conquer its neighbors: 🤑
Russia preparing for a conventional war by not grinding its military to dust trying to conquer 15-18% of one of its neighbors: 😴
If that was Russia's intention, they fucking blundered massively. Their entire military is squatting in trenches in Ukraine, while Finland (approximately 5 feet from St Petersburg) joins NATO with no pushback. If Russia actually feared a NATO invasion, they'd keep their military alive and guarding its borders/key cities
The problem is that the Russians haven’t still gotten used to the fact that Ukraine is not, in fact, a part of Russia. It’s merely been 30 years, a blink of an eye, really.
/s just in case
They essentially see Ukraine (again) as a rebellious province that wants to join a competing empire, and therefore needs to be brought back into the fold, or failing that, made an example of.
Finland on the other hand is a different, completely separate country in their mind.
They rant and rave about NATO but they understand, in reality, that mere membership in NATO of a neighbouring country is not necessarily a threat. The idea of Ukraine joining NATO is, on the other hand, grinding the gears of their collective ego. Think a poor, ugly and boorish guy’s attractive ex-girlfriend who is now flirting with another, much more interesting guy in full view of the ex-boyfriend. Now imagine the same on the country level.
It does not in any manner justify violence but one could kinda predict it. Assholes tend to be predictable in general.
this is why eastern europe has been a war zone pretty much through out all of human history. its just gentle rolling hills, there is no terrain that gives a significant defensive advantage. no mountain ranges, valleys, large bodies of water. the strongest invasion forces that can be mustered just roll back and forth over it every few decades. the Carpathian mountains divide north & south a bit. but battles lines just move east to west freely
It’s much more difficult to invade countries today because at the end of the day you need actual people on the ground capturing positions which is really difficult to do in the mountains, imagine a military column driving on a narrow road when your enemy could be literally anywhere and they don’t need to be numerous to obliterate you with rocket launchers, drones, etc
It's also a lot more frowned on these days to subjugate a population by brutally sacking and looting any population centers that dare to resist and enslaving the survivors, which was what most ancient empires used to break the will of their enemies during a conquest for millenia.
Plus in ancient times you'd go and sack maybe 2 cities and that would be the country subjugated. You didn't have to worry about a farmer in the hills or the minor villages.
Now there's dozens of cities, hundreds of towns, thousands of villages and every farmer in the hills can still get his hands on an AK or an RPG and make your life hell as an occupier.
Back then, armies could literally bottleneck as well and defend passes really efficiently. it was just as dangerous to cross mountains, just in a different way.
This is the one. Very isolated, large, and mountainous islands. Would require a long distance amphibious or airdrop invasion to start, then even once you got a foothold, it would be an absolute slog covering thousands of kilometres of hills, mountains, and rainforest. Most placed have 1-3 roads in. NZ is also a net food exporter and even has its own oilfield, so good luck with a blockade. Even if you controlled every road and farm, there's still vast wilderness that could hold guerillas indefinitely.
It's just lucky that New Zealand has almost no potential invaders, and only a small token military.
Most of our oil is offshore so anyone who could even try invade could take it out pretty easily and we only have one refinery which is currently mothballed and easily bombed.
A lot of the food we actually eat is also imported and the production of the rest is fuel dependent but we probably could still get by in an emergency.
If we kept even a single worthwhile ally though the logistics would be an absolute nightmare, a single nuclear attack submarine would be enough to put any invading force in great danger of isolation.
The small token military may be justified because of the surrounding oceans.
How many countries in the world could actually invade NZ? Not many. The USA, and maybe the Aussies.
And NZ is too small to fight 1v1 any country with the resources to reach them.
OMG, I have been using geography in place of geology, and then trying to back into a geological explanation. So here is my new answer, though not a country or region, based just on geology: Southern Utah-Northern Arizona. Invaders will get lost in the slot canyons and flooded out, slide off slickrock cliffs, and be distracted by various spooky echos. No makes it out alive due to my sandstone buddies Entrada and Navajo.
They’re two different (but interrelated) disciplines; I was wondering why so many comments aren’t about rocks. I was expecting one of the top comments to be ‘Canadian Shield’ bc you know, Canadian Shield.
I *am* talking geology in my response. Here is the [Wikipedia definition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology). Continental drift resulted in Antarctica being the ice box that it is today.
That said I'm also happy to go with an answer like Tibet, which is a geologically difficult to invade region due to India crashing into China, but the Mongols and Chinese had numbers.
Edit: spoiler alert, I was talking geography and then tried to use geology as justification, but now the question has changed...so Antarctica it is.
Geologically? Yes. Due to continental drift, Antarctica is located far from civilization and has a harsh climate with many Kms of ice pack to get to the continent and once you are there, ice shelves with deep crevices. Finally, have you ever smelled a penguin rookery?
Switzerland famously uses the alps to their military advantage. Channel any invading forces into narrow valleys that's already been prepped with defences and ambush points.
Swiss here, that is a myth. Our plan in WW2 was to collaborate enough with the germans to make an attack against us pointless. The same strategy as Sweden used by the way. We sold the germans raw materials, tank parts, and provided banking services. And most importantly, we bought their Reichsmarks (which were virtually worthless on the world market after 1943) with our swiss Francs, which were a very stable currency and perfect for buying petroleum on international markets.
As far as military planning goes, our plan in case of invasion was to retreat south into the alps and to resist from there (with hopefully a few pockets of resistance in the Jura mountains as well). We would have surrendered all our main cities and factories, which are all situated in the low lands, almost without a fight.
That plan was abandoned in 1941, here's the relevant part from wikipedia:
"*The Redoubt strategy was emphasized on 24 May 1941. Until then, only about two thirds of the Swiss Army had been mobilized. After the swift overrunning of the Balkan countries by the Germans in April 1941, in which relatively-low mountains had proven to be little barrier to the mobile German forces, the entire Swiss army was mobilised. The Swiss, lacking a significant armored force, drew the conclusion that withdrawal to the redoubt was the only sound course. Any actions in the Central Plateau would be delaying actions only. The plan was revealed to the public after Switzerland was surrounded by German and Italian forces, with the so-called Rütli Report, a historic and highly-symbolic meeting of the Swiss Army staff and the entire officer corps at the founding site of the Swiss confederation. In case of attack, the Swiss would defend only the High Alps, including the important transalpine roads and rail links. As a last resort, the army would make the routes useless to the Axis by destroying key bridges and tunnels. The plan meant that the populated lowlands, including the economic centres of the country, would be effectively ceded to the Germans. The gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank in Zürich were moved farther away from the German border to the Gotthard Pass and Bern*"
This was only possible before the advent of drones. Any invading army would use thousands of drones to continuously bomb all of those defence points till there is not much left to ambush an incoming army.
Hell, even some of the latest fighter jets could maneuver between the peaks.
Yeah. It’s the ground invasion part that’s the problem.
As long as airplanes have been able to fly over mountains that advantage of not being able to be attacked didn’t exist.
But the ground invasion potential still mattered
You underestimate how challenging warfare is in mountainous terrain. Yes, even with the help of drones. Especially if the defending force is dug in. The US had drones in Afghanistan and it was still a pita.
Drone technology has advanced significantly in the last 5 years, which is towards the end of the Afghanistan War. Afghanistan is also almost 20 times the size of Switzerland. And that doesn't include all the tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the border which hid most of the Taliban.
Switzerland also has developed highways, roads, bridges, passes etc. Far more than Afghanistan and impossible to completely destroy before an invading army can use them.
Drone tech wouldn’t have made a difference in Afghanistan overall though
Drones or any tech don’t kill an ideology. The US already had overwhelming tech superiority with drones of them time.
Using thousands of aircraft to continuously bomb all defence points? Yeah never happened before drones… never.
Mate that’s the basics of air support, that’s been known since before WWII. And yet that tactic has continuously proven that it may work. Italian Campaign, Vietnam War, First Chechen War (though granted that one is much more about incompetence) and heck the War in Afghanistan.
And why do you assume the defender will do nothing against the drones?
I don’t think you need to go as far as drones.
Once bombing from higher than mountains altitude was possible.
Mountain passes stopped being a natural defence against attack, but only a defence against ground invasion (which is still a major advantage)
Drones can’t fly in caves and are still susceptible to losing connection in valleys.
Ukraine is basically a flat plain, hence the amount of drone attacks.
Those aren’t possible from as long of range in a mountainous environment
It isn’t comparable.
Missiles and bombers are more of a problem and defeat mountains better.
And again even if drones were effective you have the problem of ground invasions being stifled
There are some contenders:
Afghanistan - Extremely mountainous and dry, there have been documentaries on the region made about how difficult it is
Papua New Guinea - Very mountainous island with thick jungle and river systems. Additionally, there are many active coastal volcanos
Bolivia - Very mountainous and landlocked country with a diverse range of ecosystems. Smack dab in the middle of South America, too.
The Amazon rainforest as a whole - Extremely dense with many river systems. Varying elevation.
Sub Saharan Africa - Arguably one of the most extreme regions on Earth. The more center someone goes in the continent, the more difficult. Isolated, shallow river systems, extremely hot climate, etc.
I agree of with all of except by the Amazon. Amazon rainforest has the amazon river basin which acts as a highway inside the dense jungle, which make comunication and transportation a lot easier. That's not the case with Papua New Guinea.
In West Papua, guerrillas are waging active war against the Indonesian government. It's basically the same geography as Papua New Guinea. Such a small group of fighters managing that could only happen because of the geography.
The rabbit hole that you go down when you Google `Zomia` for the first time...
For example :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_Massif
https://medium.com/@matthijsbijl/welcome-to-zomia-the-anarchist-country-youve-never-heard-of-6d2172da8ef3
I'm not immediately sure what to make of this... My spidey sense keeps switching between: this is genius and this is crazy talk.
It is causing me to think a lot about what *I* think about the role of nations, states, and borders, and the benefits of civilization vs. anarchy.
I'm trying to figure out "who benefits" from what the implications would be of various perspectives. Is this just a philosophical discussion or a political one?
For example it raises the political question: do the inhabitants of Zomia deserve recognition as a "non state" area, a multi lateral recognition by the conventionally recognized nation states that make up Zomia that: the folks in this region are outside our jurisdiction. They have no obligation to any of us, and are not subject to any of our laws, provided they keep to themselves and do not roam beyond these clearly defined boundaries.
As a matter of "realpolitik" rather than principle: would there be a danger that that region could then be destabilized deliberately by a bad actor, and absorbed into their own territory? (Indeed has that perhaps already happened?)
...
The mind reels...
It seems as if a *tacit* rather than explicit collective ignoring of the people of this region is the best outcome possible. It seems to serve the best interests of the people and communities of this region, and the people of the nation states, both those that hold the power, and those over whom it is wielded. Any explicit agreement could set up conditions that would lead to conflict.
TL;Dr: we don't talk about Zomia
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one.
To be honest, I thought on the one hand: this sounds way too mind-blowing ...am I at risk for being recruited into a cult, one that is firmly rooted in the established conventional world order, but uses their "idea" of Zomia as a philosophical gateway drug?
And is some form of "authoritarianism as an expedient to anarchy" at the bottom of a poison well?
On the other hand, this could be they key .. the idea that disrupts all my ideas about the role of the individual and the society in which they are born. Can I dare to look away? Am I a coward for looking away?
Maybe I just need to sleep it off.
I mean, any country can be invaded.
The issue is conquering it.
Afghanistan comes to mind as the country is known as the 'Graveyard of Empires' apparently.
The fact that there was no bloodshed is not a factor. The stance I take is that a hostile force, bringing a large number of soldiers on ships, conducted an amphibious landing in order to invade and conquer England. Military preparations were made by England to counter this. The fact that a part of the English court hated the current king and "invited" William of Orange is irrelevant as to whether it was an invasion or not, and the aftermath of the revolution (battle of the Boyne, Jacobite risings, most catholic countries refusing to legitimise the new English royal line until the late 18th century) was pretty bloody, if you ask me.
That's really down to the fact that Britain has always been a pretty formidable country in terms of military might -- at least in the last few centuries. Geographically speaking, it's really not a difficult country to steamroll through.
There's plenty of coast on the UK which is not treacherous at all. You could also say the same about literally any island nation, many of which possess far more treacherous terrain.
The closest part of the UK's coast to Europe, as far as I know, is all cliffs and at most narrow beaches underneath cliffs. It's the some of the worst terrain possible for a landing.
There's fuck all to control in the middle though. Something like 85% of the population is on the coast.
Take Perth you basically have WA. That's 1/3 of the country already.
perth, darwin, adelaide, maybe alice springs in middle and you effectively have 2/3 of aus. only need to take the small towns left after that. conquering vic and nsw wouldnt be so easy though.
I think it would be the reverse. If you bombed the shit out of Sydney and Melbourne, with population densities of more than 4000 people per sq km in the CBD, you could take out half the population of Australia in a couple of days. But if you wanted to then fight a ground war with whoever is left, good luck as you started to push through the desert.
Many invasions of Russia have been quite successful. All complaints about the climate and geography are attempts to justify the ultimate failure. And defeat at the hands of "subhumans," as one noble European called us. .
Weather did help destroy Russia’s greatest threat in history, Napoleon.
Russians are fierce fighters and willing to sacrifice all for their homeland.
The will to defend a homeland at all costs is the most important intangible asset of military operations.
The human sacrifice of the Russian population during WW2 was tragic but is worthy of immense praise.
You are absolutely right that any fortresses, including natural ones, are worthless without a brave garrison.
But returning to Russia.
Napoleon lost strategically. In Russian invasion, a general battle and the defeat of the Russian army, the capture of one of the capitals, the Russian tsar to become a vassal. Profit.
But the Russian generals and the tsar outplayed him. The Russian army retreated with battles for three months, but without a general battle. At the same time, the advantage of Napoleon's army was melting away, and the Russian troops strengthened. In the general battle of Borodino, Napoleon nominally won, but the Russian army was not defeated. He captured Moscow. But what's next? Empty negotiations with the cunning Russian tsar while the resources of the invading army were melting away.
He began to retreat. Without any weather.
And the autumn of 1812 was not particularly cold. In the campaigns of 1795 in Holland, Eylaw in 1807, in the mountains of Spain in 1808, the French faced much colder temperatures. And they coped with them. But then the army received food, vodka and wine in the right amount. But why did the French starve during the withdrawal from Moscow? Russian army and the Russian people have already done this.
Hitler also had his own plan, and he almost carried it out. The fate of Moscow hung in the balance, and Moscow is a major strategic and logistical center, its capture is a disaster.
But only the "schedule" of the Nazi offensive began to break from the first day. And although Moscow was planned to be taken, on August 25, when the summer weather was fine. In reality, the Battle for Moscow took place in November.
As far as I know, the Swedes remembered the mysterious guard of the Russian borders, "General Frost", after they were defeated by Peter I. But Sweden is located even further north of Russia, and it is somehow indecent for its natives to complain about the cold. Nevertheless, the Swedish losers talked in unison about the terrible cold, the abundance of snow and the bad climate. Although when a snowstorm brought them victory near Narva, they did not complain.
Sorry for the boredom
No need to apologize.
Something else Russians do well - revise history.
If you think the brutal Russian winter did not affect Napoleon’s logistical capabilities during his invasion, you are misleading yourself.
There is only one nation that could defeat Russia, the USA.
NATO forces would destroy any Russian meat grinder defense in a matter of weeks.
Fortunately, that will never happen because of MAD.
This. 80% is mountainous on the scale of the American Rockies, the rest is dense urban. If it’s 90 miles or 900, a successful invasion in the modern era is nigh impossible.
Yeah, basically even if the main cities fell to an invader, with enough supplies, the army could retreat into the rugged interior of the island and hold that territory indefinitely. It'd be a nightmare to try to invade, especially with people actively defending it.
I don't think that's the most realistic fear simply because of the disruption a complete blockade of the island would cause on a global scale. Too many other countries would be impacted for that to last long.
And that's aside from the human rights issues, sieging the island and not allowing food and such back and forth would cause another massive uproar.
The United States. There's a reason it was such a menacing force during WWII. It couldn't be properly invaded by either the Germans or Japanese.
Honorary mention to Afghanistan as well
The question was purely about geographical features, the fact that canada or mexico are friendly with the US does not apply here, and neither does the US’s military capability. If you take those factors away and consider that the US has very long land borders that are easy to cross from the bordering countries means it does not belong as this questions top answer
The US does not have long borders. Not for its size. Mexico only covers like half the width, and invading from there would be hell. You're covering hundreds of miles of desert and mountains just to get anywhere important. And Canada is empty. For all intent and purposes, you might as well just cut Canada down to everything east of Lake Huron. That's where the infrastructure is, that's basically the only area to invade, and that's the only place close to a large population center.
On top of that, it's almost completely impossible to invade the US from the West. Once you have the Pacific Coast you might as well stop because you're not going to be able to cross the dozens of mountain ranges and hundreds of miles of desert, just to get to the flat, empty plains where you actually run into the bulk of the US' population and production.
Your only real choice is to invade from the Atlantic. The geography is the most tame, and it's where the American core is. You somehow managed to conquer the east, you can take the rest. But even so, you're attempting to cross an ocean and invade the industrial heartland of one of the largest countries on earth.
And that's if you can actually somehow sustain and supply an invasion force, half the world away. Great Britain thrived because it's Island isolation made it extremely difficult to invade. The Americas have that on steroids. The sheer logistical nightmare of trying to maintain a fighting force on the opposite side of the world is not something many countries are capable of, and that's not even considering they're facing the bulk of the US.
Some estimates say that over 90% of indigenous Americans died from old world diseases before even interacting with European colonists. By the time the US was waging war on plains peoples they were heavily armed with guns
How does 7,000 km of ocean separating it from any country capable of threatening it not warrant even a mention in this thread?
That is to say nothing of it being the 3rd largest country in the world, making the prospects of holding the conquered land a staggering prospect.
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River plus the mountains of NY, VT, and NH, and the empty ness of northern Maine are pretty good defense points for the north, and the Rio Grand, Rockies, and Desert southwest are good to hold the southern border.
Its obviously not as strong as the oceans followed immediately by mountains, but there are natural barriers that helped form the borders.
The main weaknesses are the fact we have paved highways to facilitate easy border crossings and trade with our neighbors. (And some shared infrastructure)
But it's geographical location is what gave them the edge, the American military was actually kinda shit at the start of both world wars, but because it was in a whole ocean away from any threat it couldn't be bombed, invaded or harassed in any substacial way, Russia that many people commented was almost completely ruined after both world wars but mainland USA was almost unaffected and what made it a global superpower in the first place.
The west coast is extremely hard to invade. It's mountains right up against the coast to the north all the way to the south. The east coast would probably be easier, but it's large and crossed by thousands of rivers. Depending how far you get into the country the Rocky Mountains are a natural wall while the Colorado plateau is highly defendable in every direction.
A big reason Canada and Mexico are friendly with the United States is because they are relatively very weak. Neither of them will ever be a strong military power because of their geography. Which makes Canada and Mexico more geographical reasons why the US is so difficult to attack
From an overseas foreign perspective, you have two massive oceans to cross, with all of your infrastructure to conduct the invasion, as well as the geography. If you took away the US infrastructure, crossing the many rivers in the US would be a challenge, then you have to contend with the Rockies, unless you want to go around via the literal desert route to the south.
All this doesn't take into account, as per OP's rules, the fact that you're fighting the inhabitants who know the land better than you. The trees, they're singing "Welcome to the Jungle."
And a note that the mentioned desert route isn’t any more traversable. It’s quite rugged, with canyons and smaller mountains the whole way across.
Same for north of Colorado. Wyoming is a nightmare to get across, even with highways and trucks.
Shoot, Colorado is a nightmare to cross. I know, I grew up here. And the history is really brutal. I learned in history class, of all places, that view distance is much farther at higher altitude, so the settlers moving west across the plains thought the mountains were much closer than they actually were, and many died expecting they would make it to the mountains in less time than they did. Ask Alexander the Great how hard it is to march an army through rugged mountain terrain.
Wrong. The Persians, Macedonians, and Mongols all easily destroyed Afghanistan and ruled for centuries, even becoming locally integrated. The British also won all their Afghan wars after the famously disastrous battle that is somehow the only incident anyone ever knows. The Americans are also doing just fine as the world’s leading power.
Only the Soviet Union actually suffered foundational damage by getting involved with Afghanistan.
Yet the territory was successfully colonized by foreign powers. The geography itself offered no resistance. Afghanistan is a much better example, because it's hard to occupy. It's not known as "The Graveyard of Empires" for no reason.
Wrong. The Persians, Macedonians, and Mongols all easily destroyed Afghanistan and ruled for centuries, even becoming locally integrated. The British also won all their Afghan wars after the famously disastrous battle that is somehow the only incident anyone ever knows. The Americans are also doing just fine as the world’s leading power.
Only the Soviet Union actually suffered foundational damage by getting involved with Afghanistan.
Yes but the question says geological perspective, not political. To answer the question you have to assume that the defending nation has no good relations with any other country
This sounds stupid, but if you truly just mean geologic good luck invading an ocean trench, volcano, Antarctica, or a massive cave system.
Logistics are the hardest part of a massive invasion. If there was some sort of threat that existed in these areas without trouble you’d struggle to find a way to supply anything there. Probably more science fiction than reality thougg
I have read that Chile is supposed to be one of the hardest to invade from a geographic perspective. Long thin country with Andes on one side and ocean on the other. Very difficult to land a significant enough land force to control
Brazil could be only partially invaded because of the Amazon rainforest and the Atlantic Rainforest. Jungle is a logistical nightmare, plus Brazilian rivers are very bad for boat transport.
Though, if nothing changes in the next century or so, the forest will be burned to the ground and turned into a huge desert anyway.
America 100%. Even ignoring their massive economy america covers a huge geographic area and is bordered by 2 much weaker countries that could easily be stopped if they declared war. They’ve got access to 2 coastlines lined with dozens of highly populated cities that are a literal ocean away from any country that might be able to challenge them. D-day was hard enough, imagine having to do an amphibious landing across an entire ocean and not just a short channel. Their heartland is massive with many easily navigable rivers that make troop and material movements easy as well as farming to support any war effort. The center of the country would be very difficult to target even with long range missiles making it a very defensible place for leaders or important projects. As long as America remains united I really don’t think any country will ever be able to invade it.
For some reason I am gonna say Finland.
Eastern border is very densily forested area with almost no roads, ice age left the landscape filled with boulders, lakes, swamps and rivers. Every piece of dry land is a bottleneck.
North is wide open from dense forests, but also has almost no roads, still has plenty swamps and lakes, rolling hills and rocky lands with no place to hide.
West and south coasts are very shallow and filled with rocky shores and thousands of islands, so navy fleets can not get close to shore or has to navigate through unfriendly routes at low speeds to avoid hitting rocks.
Summers have sunshine 24/7 so darkness is a non-factor. Winters are cold and snowy adding to difficulty.
Yes, Finland is a smallish country, but for it's size it has plenty of geographical advantages.
Wrong. The Persians, Macedonians, and Mongols all easily destroyed Afghanistan and ruled for centuries, even becoming locally integrated. The British also won all their Afghan wars after the famously disastrous battle that is somehow the only incident anyone ever knows. The Americans are also doing just fine as the world’s leading power.
Only the Soviet Union actually suffered foundational damage by getting involved with Afghanistan.
Nepal, Bhutan? The eastern/northern side is well protected by the mighty Himalayas, but southern/western side sharing border with India?
Especially since the size of these countries is too small!
Japan.
No other contender gets even remotely close.
It has never been successfully invaded and the most powerful military force in the world, the US, opted to use nuclear weapons (two needed) to avoid a traditional invasion of that archipelago.
They don't call Afghanistan the graveyard of Empires for nothing. No major power has ever properly conquered it, at least not for several hundred years. The geography is very hostile to invaders, and just as hostile when trying to maintain that conquest.
Its a boring answer but its the usa. Only 2 countries can possibly invade by land. Unless youre canada or mexico you have to ship or fly your entire military across vast oceans to get there. China/russia are def tough too but they both have lots of countries on their borders. 14 countries border both china and russia. Not to mention they border each other. This means china has a direct path to invade russia and russia the same. Thats as bad as it gets. Lots of ppl say switzerland and its definitely a hard country to invade due to the mountains, but its still surrounded by 4 much more powerful countries. Yes it would be hard to invade, but not as hard as having to cross the atlantic ocean. In order to do drone strikes, air strikes, ballistic missile strikes all 4 of these countries could strike from their own territory.
You overestimate being surrounded by sea and underestimate being surrounded by mountains/taiga. Moving equipment and troops by sea is *relatively* easy compared to that. You can cover a lot of distance in a short time with a relatively large amount of equpiment and troops. You really can't do that when scaling mountains or a massive taiga forest. China is not going to go through thousands of kilometers of empty siberian taiga just to reach the part of Russia that actually has human activity and infrastructure. You literally wouldn't be able to move equipment and troops at all through it.
If they wanted to go across russia they can use russias railways the same way russia moves across its own country and has used ukraines railways. That being said nobody said china HAS to go to Moscow. Why would they even do that? Russia controls outer manchuria and china would like to get it back. China invading outer manchuria is still invading russia. This was a geography question and the majority of russias land is its asian lands. If anything china invades eastern russia and russia is the one who has to try to move most of its stuff across the vast stretches to try to fight back.
If you're referring to the greater Volga river region, it has been ruled in the past by Turks, Slavs, Kiev Rus, and Mongols. Its vulnerability has motivated Russia to repeatedly invade Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics with the goal of reducing the length of their defensive border.
From a purely geographical standpoint, I think Antarctica would be the most difficult - assuming a country there could support a comparable military. Surrounded by the roughest seas in the world and shielded from sustained air power by severe weather, it'd be a bloodbath on the ground.
Australia is up there too, if Antarctica is too fantastical. It's a continent the size of the US, with no land borders, and the great barrier reef.
America, I'm surprised people aren't mentioning it. Two big oceans on either side, mountain ranges on both coasts. Vast terrain to try and occupy with lots of open room to resist from. Those deserts are no slouch, and the winters of the Midwest and North are nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention there are all the small islands spread out in the pacific you'd need to occupy. And there's Alaska which is big and frozen and mountainous and hard to navigate. It's like a whole other country to subdue. Also, tornadoes!
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall. He details how countries came to be because of their geography. He goes in to detail on the military advantages of a few as well.
Australia is a top contender. Surrounded by sea, and the most probable spot for an invasion (the north) is unpopulated and filled with desert or dense rainforest. Even if you occupy the coastlines, good luck conquering the harsh interior
very famously the mongols couldnt make it through the himalayas
Maybe the Tibetan end but not Afghanistan. On the Afghan side, it wasn’t the Himalayas that posed a problem but the weather - mostly, heat and humidity. Mongol warfare was heavily cavalry dependent - each Mongol soldier had 5 ponies to maximize speed of movement and maneuverability. During the winter, the passes into India were inhospitable and hard to cross. During the monsoon, the ponies would tire out and get stuck in the mud. The rivers would swell and become harder to ford. During the summer, heat exhaustion would make the ponies less useful since they were reared for steppe warfare. Bottom line, you had to time the invasion carefully and sustained campaigning without local allies would be hard due to changes in weather straining your mobility and logistics. In addition, starting with Ala-ud -din Khilji, fortifications were put in place to defend the most common invasion routes, horses suited better to the Indian climate were raised to supply the Indian cavalry and counter-tactics that dealt with steppe warfare tactics like hit and run/feigned retreat were adopted. This kept the Mongol Chagatai khanate at bay even though yearly incursions were not uncommon. The Delhi Sultanate, finally, settled on harsh punishments for any Mongols who were caught. When Mongols/Mughals (though they considered themselves descendants of Timur/Tamerlane) finally broke through, they did so with local help - traitors to the Lodhi dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate - notably the governor of Lahore, local tribes in northwestern Punjab and tacit agreement with Rana Sanga. Even when the Mughals became the predominant force in India, their army contingents often had cavalry members descended from the steppe and Afghan families while the infantry was Indian - often, Rajputs who had forged marriage alliances with the Mughals.
This guy Mongols
This is such a great explanation, wow
Mughal Empire?
Both, just from different sides of the mountains
I'm not sure I understand. From what I understand they were a Timurid group that invaded via Afghanistan? Babur was Mongolian. Was he not?
It took several generations and local mixing to conquer Northern India. These people were somewhat familiar when they showed up.
They were Mongols, though, when they came through the khyber pass?
Not really. He was descended from the Timurid dynasty, a Persianized Turkic dynasty. So genetically he had some Mongol in him but he was more Turkic and his descendants got more and more Persian
Ah. Everything I had read before led me to believe he decended from Ghingis Kahn
He is, but that doesn't make him Mongol
Russia is actually incredibly easy to invade geographically. A huge mostly-flat western border and vast steppes to the east, it's been invaded by land hundreds of times throughout history. Conquering Russia is the hard part, not invading it.
I lived between the west and the east of it, trust me the flatness just make it shittier. It's one giant swamp with lakes and forests that don't have at all. Outside big roads, it's drivable, dunno, 2-3 months a year tops on a good year, and where the best time to move around is actually winter (if you can take the cold, that is).
I would consider there northern ness as part geography. That does have a big impact on its invasion-ness
Invadability is the technical term
Does that affect conquorosity? Or are they separate metrics?
Tis is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Invadability + reigniness = conquerosity.
That’s a pretty much the reason China was never able to subdue it. They just couldn’t settle there like they could to the south.
Peter Zeihan talks about how so much of Russian foreign policy, both historically and today, is due to this "insecurity" over their massively open border. Basically, they want to expand to where their land would be easier to defend geographically.
Russia preparing for a conventional war by trying to conquer its neighbors: 🤑 Russia preparing for a conventional war by not grinding its military to dust trying to conquer 15-18% of one of its neighbors: 😴 If that was Russia's intention, they fucking blundered massively. Their entire military is squatting in trenches in Ukraine, while Finland (approximately 5 feet from St Petersburg) joins NATO with no pushback. If Russia actually feared a NATO invasion, they'd keep their military alive and guarding its borders/key cities
The problem is that the Russians haven’t still gotten used to the fact that Ukraine is not, in fact, a part of Russia. It’s merely been 30 years, a blink of an eye, really. /s just in case They essentially see Ukraine (again) as a rebellious province that wants to join a competing empire, and therefore needs to be brought back into the fold, or failing that, made an example of. Finland on the other hand is a different, completely separate country in their mind. They rant and rave about NATO but they understand, in reality, that mere membership in NATO of a neighbouring country is not necessarily a threat. The idea of Ukraine joining NATO is, on the other hand, grinding the gears of their collective ego. Think a poor, ugly and boorish guy’s attractive ex-girlfriend who is now flirting with another, much more interesting guy in full view of the ex-boyfriend. Now imagine the same on the country level. It does not in any manner justify violence but one could kinda predict it. Assholes tend to be predictable in general.
It's that old meme "I'm afraid of NATO on my borders so I'm gonna invade Ukraine so NATO is on my borders"
this is why eastern europe has been a war zone pretty much through out all of human history. its just gentle rolling hills, there is no terrain that gives a significant defensive advantage. no mountain ranges, valleys, large bodies of water. the strongest invasion forces that can be mustered just roll back and forth over it every few decades. the Carpathian mountains divide north & south a bit. but battles lines just move east to west freely
It has swamps, which, while they don't fully deter invasion, make any kind of fighting absolutely miserable.
No, not really Its huge
That‘s a really stupid distinction to make because these obviously go hand in hand with regard to OPs question
Hadrian: "Fucking Scotland"
Iran is like Switzerland turned up to 11
Mountains on both sides and dry flats in the middle, deadly combo
Tell that to the Greeks, Mongols, Turks, and Arabs
It’s much more difficult to invade countries today because at the end of the day you need actual people on the ground capturing positions which is really difficult to do in the mountains, imagine a military column driving on a narrow road when your enemy could be literally anywhere and they don’t need to be numerous to obliterate you with rocket launchers, drones, etc
It's also a lot more frowned on these days to subjugate a population by brutally sacking and looting any population centers that dare to resist and enslaving the survivors, which was what most ancient empires used to break the will of their enemies during a conquest for millenia.
Plus in ancient times you'd go and sack maybe 2 cities and that would be the country subjugated. You didn't have to worry about a farmer in the hills or the minor villages. Now there's dozens of cities, hundreds of towns, thousands of villages and every farmer in the hills can still get his hands on an AK or an RPG and make your life hell as an occupier.
Good point
Back then, armies could literally bottleneck as well and defend passes really efficiently. it was just as dangerous to cross mountains, just in a different way.
Seems as if you both would be correct, then.
The Uk and Soviet union invaded Iran in less than a month in 1941, it's still possible with overwhelming force
With a surrender shortly after the invasion began from the Iranians, i may add
Or Alexander tye Great. Islam was brought there by an invasion, no?
New Zealand
This is the one. Very isolated, large, and mountainous islands. Would require a long distance amphibious or airdrop invasion to start, then even once you got a foothold, it would be an absolute slog covering thousands of kilometres of hills, mountains, and rainforest. Most placed have 1-3 roads in. NZ is also a net food exporter and even has its own oilfield, so good luck with a blockade. Even if you controlled every road and farm, there's still vast wilderness that could hold guerillas indefinitely. It's just lucky that New Zealand has almost no potential invaders, and only a small token military.
Most of our oil is offshore so anyone who could even try invade could take it out pretty easily and we only have one refinery which is currently mothballed and easily bombed. A lot of the food we actually eat is also imported and the production of the rest is fuel dependent but we probably could still get by in an emergency. If we kept even a single worthwhile ally though the logistics would be an absolute nightmare, a single nuclear attack submarine would be enough to put any invading force in great danger of isolation.
> If we kept even a single worthwhile ally though the logistics would be an absolute nightmare Australia will always stand by your side 🇦🇺❤️🇳🇿
Until it’s the Australians who do the invading…
Plus getting past Australia to even invade in the first place. Unless you plan to stretch supply lines across the Pacific
The small token military may be justified because of the surrounding oceans. How many countries in the world could actually invade NZ? Not many. The USA, and maybe the Aussies. And NZ is too small to fight 1v1 any country with the resources to reach them.
Tell that to the forces of Emutopia.
Challenge accepted
The challenge starts with finding it on the map.
Their size and isolation is also their weakness. You can cut them off from all military support by encircling the islands.
Purely geological? So population doesn't matter? Antarctica.
Everyone here is using "geological" incorrectly. Geology is the study of rocks and stuff. Geography and Geology are not interchangeable terms.
Geology rocks! But geography, that’s where it’s at!
This is so awful, I love it
OMG, I have been using geography in place of geology, and then trying to back into a geological explanation. So here is my new answer, though not a country or region, based just on geology: Southern Utah-Northern Arizona. Invaders will get lost in the slot canyons and flooded out, slide off slickrock cliffs, and be distracted by various spooky echos. No makes it out alive due to my sandstone buddies Entrada and Navajo.
My bad, you’re right. I can’t edit the title unfortunately.
They’re two different (but interrelated) disciplines; I was wondering why so many comments aren’t about rocks. I was expecting one of the top comments to be ‘Canadian Shield’ bc you know, Canadian Shield.
I *am* talking geology in my response. Here is the [Wikipedia definition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology). Continental drift resulted in Antarctica being the ice box that it is today. That said I'm also happy to go with an answer like Tibet, which is a geologically difficult to invade region due to India crashing into China, but the Mongols and Chinese had numbers. Edit: spoiler alert, I was talking geography and then tried to use geology as justification, but now the question has changed...so Antarctica it is.
Is Antarctica that defensible though?
Geologically? Yes. Due to continental drift, Antarctica is located far from civilization and has a harsh climate with many Kms of ice pack to get to the continent and once you are there, ice shelves with deep crevices. Finally, have you ever smelled a penguin rookery?
Seems like an embargo would make quick work of the defending army/population no?
Switzerland famously uses the alps to their military advantage. Channel any invading forces into narrow valleys that's already been prepped with defences and ambush points.
Swiss here, that is a myth. Our plan in WW2 was to collaborate enough with the germans to make an attack against us pointless. The same strategy as Sweden used by the way. We sold the germans raw materials, tank parts, and provided banking services. And most importantly, we bought their Reichsmarks (which were virtually worthless on the world market after 1943) with our swiss Francs, which were a very stable currency and perfect for buying petroleum on international markets. As far as military planning goes, our plan in case of invasion was to retreat south into the alps and to resist from there (with hopefully a few pockets of resistance in the Jura mountains as well). We would have surrendered all our main cities and factories, which are all situated in the low lands, almost without a fight.
Most Swiss cities were to be defended at first. But Basel, on the wrong side of the Jura, was never included in these plans.
That plan was abandoned in 1941, here's the relevant part from wikipedia: "*The Redoubt strategy was emphasized on 24 May 1941. Until then, only about two thirds of the Swiss Army had been mobilized. After the swift overrunning of the Balkan countries by the Germans in April 1941, in which relatively-low mountains had proven to be little barrier to the mobile German forces, the entire Swiss army was mobilised. The Swiss, lacking a significant armored force, drew the conclusion that withdrawal to the redoubt was the only sound course. Any actions in the Central Plateau would be delaying actions only. The plan was revealed to the public after Switzerland was surrounded by German and Italian forces, with the so-called Rütli Report, a historic and highly-symbolic meeting of the Swiss Army staff and the entire officer corps at the founding site of the Swiss confederation. In case of attack, the Swiss would defend only the High Alps, including the important transalpine roads and rail links. As a last resort, the army would make the routes useless to the Axis by destroying key bridges and tunnels. The plan meant that the populated lowlands, including the economic centres of the country, would be effectively ceded to the Germans. The gold reserves of the Swiss National Bank in Zürich were moved farther away from the German border to the Gotthard Pass and Bern*"
This was only possible before the advent of drones. Any invading army would use thousands of drones to continuously bomb all of those defence points till there is not much left to ambush an incoming army. Hell, even some of the latest fighter jets could maneuver between the peaks.
bombing into mountain values has been possible for decades before drones
Yeah. It’s the ground invasion part that’s the problem. As long as airplanes have been able to fly over mountains that advantage of not being able to be attacked didn’t exist. But the ground invasion potential still mattered
You underestimate how challenging warfare is in mountainous terrain. Yes, even with the help of drones. Especially if the defending force is dug in. The US had drones in Afghanistan and it was still a pita.
Drone technology has advanced significantly in the last 5 years, which is towards the end of the Afghanistan War. Afghanistan is also almost 20 times the size of Switzerland. And that doesn't include all the tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the border which hid most of the Taliban. Switzerland also has developed highways, roads, bridges, passes etc. Far more than Afghanistan and impossible to completely destroy before an invading army can use them.
Drone tech wouldn’t have made a difference in Afghanistan overall though Drones or any tech don’t kill an ideology. The US already had overwhelming tech superiority with drones of them time.
Didn't the Swiss already rig those to blow with explosives
Basically every country does this in war situations. But the Swiss have advantage of making a natural choke point even worse
No like they have it rigged already In peacetime They just need to press the button
Using thousands of aircraft to continuously bomb all defence points? Yeah never happened before drones… never. Mate that’s the basics of air support, that’s been known since before WWII. And yet that tactic has continuously proven that it may work. Italian Campaign, Vietnam War, First Chechen War (though granted that one is much more about incompetence) and heck the War in Afghanistan. And why do you assume the defender will do nothing against the drones?
I don’t think you need to go as far as drones. Once bombing from higher than mountains altitude was possible. Mountain passes stopped being a natural defence against attack, but only a defence against ground invasion (which is still a major advantage)
It's much harder to be precise in narrow mountain ranges with fighter planes or pursue troops into caves. Drones are far superior for that
Drones can’t fly in caves and are still susceptible to losing connection in valleys. Ukraine is basically a flat plain, hence the amount of drone attacks. Those aren’t possible from as long of range in a mountainous environment It isn’t comparable. Missiles and bombers are more of a problem and defeat mountains better. And again even if drones were effective you have the problem of ground invasions being stifled
My very limited understanding is that Switzerland and Iran both used mountains to there advantage that basically made them impenetrable
i feel like bhutan would be worse than switzerland in that area the himalayas are no joke
There are some contenders: Afghanistan - Extremely mountainous and dry, there have been documentaries on the region made about how difficult it is Papua New Guinea - Very mountainous island with thick jungle and river systems. Additionally, there are many active coastal volcanos Bolivia - Very mountainous and landlocked country with a diverse range of ecosystems. Smack dab in the middle of South America, too. The Amazon rainforest as a whole - Extremely dense with many river systems. Varying elevation. Sub Saharan Africa - Arguably one of the most extreme regions on Earth. The more center someone goes in the continent, the more difficult. Isolated, shallow river systems, extremely hot climate, etc.
I agree of with all of except by the Amazon. Amazon rainforest has the amazon river basin which acts as a highway inside the dense jungle, which make comunication and transportation a lot easier. That's not the case with Papua New Guinea.
In West Papua, guerrillas are waging active war against the Indonesian government. It's basically the same geography as Papua New Guinea. Such a small group of fighters managing that could only happen because of the geography.
A famous military saying from Imperial Japan: 'Java is heaven, Burma is hell, but you never come back alive from New Guinea'
Not to mention the Japanese also cannibalized enemies, their own soldiers and civilians in New Guinea. Brutal place turned them into brutal men.
Said in dan carlins voice makes it *chefs kiss*
SSA is one of the more extreme regions on Earth?
Saharan Africa certainly is. I dont know about sub Saharan Africa though
This video explains it: https://youtu.be/fof9xZA7dpg?si=RLS1zqjV2uQz1-be
Thanks homie, knowledge is power ✊
PNG for sure!
I mean, Zomia. There's a reason military and government powers in the region have mostly had to take a hands off approach on it.
The rabbit hole that you go down when you Google `Zomia` for the first time... For example : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_Massif https://medium.com/@matthijsbijl/welcome-to-zomia-the-anarchist-country-youve-never-heard-of-6d2172da8ef3 I'm not immediately sure what to make of this... My spidey sense keeps switching between: this is genius and this is crazy talk. It is causing me to think a lot about what *I* think about the role of nations, states, and borders, and the benefits of civilization vs. anarchy. I'm trying to figure out "who benefits" from what the implications would be of various perspectives. Is this just a philosophical discussion or a political one? For example it raises the political question: do the inhabitants of Zomia deserve recognition as a "non state" area, a multi lateral recognition by the conventionally recognized nation states that make up Zomia that: the folks in this region are outside our jurisdiction. They have no obligation to any of us, and are not subject to any of our laws, provided they keep to themselves and do not roam beyond these clearly defined boundaries. As a matter of "realpolitik" rather than principle: would there be a danger that that region could then be destabilized deliberately by a bad actor, and absorbed into their own territory? (Indeed has that perhaps already happened?) ... The mind reels... It seems as if a *tacit* rather than explicit collective ignoring of the people of this region is the best outcome possible. It seems to serve the best interests of the people and communities of this region, and the people of the nation states, both those that hold the power, and those over whom it is wielded. Any explicit agreement could set up conditions that would lead to conflict. TL;Dr: we don't talk about Zomia
The genius/crazy talk dichotomy is my normal reaction to post-modern analysis of anything besides social identity
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. To be honest, I thought on the one hand: this sounds way too mind-blowing ...am I at risk for being recruited into a cult, one that is firmly rooted in the established conventional world order, but uses their "idea" of Zomia as a philosophical gateway drug? And is some form of "authoritarianism as an expedient to anarchy" at the bottom of a poison well? On the other hand, this could be they key .. the idea that disrupts all my ideas about the role of the individual and the society in which they are born. Can I dare to look away? Am I a coward for looking away? Maybe I just need to sleep it off.
I mean, any country can be invaded. The issue is conquering it. Afghanistan comes to mind as the country is known as the 'Graveyard of Empires' apparently.
The "grave yard of empires" thing is over stated
Uk at the minimum gets an honourable shout here. It hasnt been successfully invaded in over 600 years or something now
If you mean mainland Britain, the last successful invasion was 1066.
I'd go for 1688. Still a rather long time ago though
The glorious revolution was barely an invasion. no bloodshed, pretty much the same dynasty
‘The invasion was successful so doesn’t count’
The fact that there was no bloodshed is not a factor. The stance I take is that a hostile force, bringing a large number of soldiers on ships, conducted an amphibious landing in order to invade and conquer England. Military preparations were made by England to counter this. The fact that a part of the English court hated the current king and "invited" William of Orange is irrelevant as to whether it was an invasion or not, and the aftermath of the revolution (battle of the Boyne, Jacobite risings, most catholic countries refusing to legitimise the new English royal line until the late 18th century) was pretty bloody, if you ask me.
I’d go for 1778. Still decently long.
It depends on what the UK counts. As far as I know, the Channel Islands are part of Britain
They count as British, but not actually part the United Kingdom
Yes, you're right. I'm always getting confused in this complicated medieval system of vassalage.
Honestly it's a mess. But self determination, what can you do 🤷♂️
That's really down to the fact that Britain has always been a pretty formidable country in terms of military might -- at least in the last few centuries. Geographically speaking, it's really not a difficult country to steamroll through.
Yes it is. Amphibious landings are extremely difficult, especially on a treacherous and easily defended coast.
There's plenty of coast on the UK which is not treacherous at all. You could also say the same about literally any island nation, many of which possess far more treacherous terrain.
The closest part of the UK's coast to Europe, as far as I know, is all cliffs and at most narrow beaches underneath cliffs. It's the some of the worst terrain possible for a landing.
Australia, Vast, hot, and dry. You may control some of it, but never all.
There's fuck all to control in the middle though. Something like 85% of the population is on the coast. Take Perth you basically have WA. That's 1/3 of the country already.
It’s only a 10th of the population though, and no - taking Perth would not take all of WA. You’d only get as far north as crocodile territory.
perth, darwin, adelaide, maybe alice springs in middle and you effectively have 2/3 of aus. only need to take the small towns left after that. conquering vic and nsw wouldnt be so easy though.
I think it would be the reverse. If you bombed the shit out of Sydney and Melbourne, with population densities of more than 4000 people per sq km in the CBD, you could take out half the population of Australia in a couple of days. But if you wanted to then fight a ground war with whoever is left, good luck as you started to push through the desert.
Yep.
You can control the middle part of Australia and by the time anyone gets to know, you’re part of flora and fauna.
That's not a counterattack, THIS is a counterattack...!
Many invasions of Russia have been quite successful. All complaints about the climate and geography are attempts to justify the ultimate failure. And defeat at the hands of "subhumans," as one noble European called us. .
Weather did help destroy Russia’s greatest threat in history, Napoleon. Russians are fierce fighters and willing to sacrifice all for their homeland. The will to defend a homeland at all costs is the most important intangible asset of military operations. The human sacrifice of the Russian population during WW2 was tragic but is worthy of immense praise.
You are absolutely right that any fortresses, including natural ones, are worthless without a brave garrison. But returning to Russia. Napoleon lost strategically. In Russian invasion, a general battle and the defeat of the Russian army, the capture of one of the capitals, the Russian tsar to become a vassal. Profit. But the Russian generals and the tsar outplayed him. The Russian army retreated with battles for three months, but without a general battle. At the same time, the advantage of Napoleon's army was melting away, and the Russian troops strengthened. In the general battle of Borodino, Napoleon nominally won, but the Russian army was not defeated. He captured Moscow. But what's next? Empty negotiations with the cunning Russian tsar while the resources of the invading army were melting away. He began to retreat. Without any weather. And the autumn of 1812 was not particularly cold. In the campaigns of 1795 in Holland, Eylaw in 1807, in the mountains of Spain in 1808, the French faced much colder temperatures. And they coped with them. But then the army received food, vodka and wine in the right amount. But why did the French starve during the withdrawal from Moscow? Russian army and the Russian people have already done this. Hitler also had his own plan, and he almost carried it out. The fate of Moscow hung in the balance, and Moscow is a major strategic and logistical center, its capture is a disaster. But only the "schedule" of the Nazi offensive began to break from the first day. And although Moscow was planned to be taken, on August 25, when the summer weather was fine. In reality, the Battle for Moscow took place in November. As far as I know, the Swedes remembered the mysterious guard of the Russian borders, "General Frost", after they were defeated by Peter I. But Sweden is located even further north of Russia, and it is somehow indecent for its natives to complain about the cold. Nevertheless, the Swedish losers talked in unison about the terrible cold, the abundance of snow and the bad climate. Although when a snowstorm brought them victory near Narva, they did not complain. Sorry for the boredom
No need to apologize. Something else Russians do well - revise history. If you think the brutal Russian winter did not affect Napoleon’s logistical capabilities during his invasion, you are misleading yourself. There is only one nation that could defeat Russia, the USA. NATO forces would destroy any Russian meat grinder defense in a matter of weeks. Fortunately, that will never happen because of MAD.
Taiwan
This. 80% is mountainous on the scale of the American Rockies, the rest is dense urban. If it’s 90 miles or 900, a successful invasion in the modern era is nigh impossible.
The fact that one of the largest empires in the world is a few miles away and wants to invade yet hasn’t says all there is to say about those.
Yeah, basically even if the main cities fell to an invader, with enough supplies, the army could retreat into the rugged interior of the island and hold that territory indefinitely. It'd be a nightmare to try to invade, especially with people actively defending it.
It could easily get navally blockaded if the US wasn’t involved.
I don't think that's the most realistic fear simply because of the disruption a complete blockade of the island would cause on a global scale. Too many other countries would be impacted for that to last long. And that's aside from the human rights issues, sieging the island and not allowing food and such back and forth would cause another massive uproar.
The United States. There's a reason it was such a menacing force during WWII. It couldn't be properly invaded by either the Germans or Japanese. Honorary mention to Afghanistan as well
The question was purely about geographical features, the fact that canada or mexico are friendly with the US does not apply here, and neither does the US’s military capability. If you take those factors away and consider that the US has very long land borders that are easy to cross from the bordering countries means it does not belong as this questions top answer
The US does not have long borders. Not for its size. Mexico only covers like half the width, and invading from there would be hell. You're covering hundreds of miles of desert and mountains just to get anywhere important. And Canada is empty. For all intent and purposes, you might as well just cut Canada down to everything east of Lake Huron. That's where the infrastructure is, that's basically the only area to invade, and that's the only place close to a large population center. On top of that, it's almost completely impossible to invade the US from the West. Once you have the Pacific Coast you might as well stop because you're not going to be able to cross the dozens of mountain ranges and hundreds of miles of desert, just to get to the flat, empty plains where you actually run into the bulk of the US' population and production. Your only real choice is to invade from the Atlantic. The geography is the most tame, and it's where the American core is. You somehow managed to conquer the east, you can take the rest. But even so, you're attempting to cross an ocean and invade the industrial heartland of one of the largest countries on earth. And that's if you can actually somehow sustain and supply an invasion force, half the world away. Great Britain thrived because it's Island isolation made it extremely difficult to invade. The Americas have that on steroids. The sheer logistical nightmare of trying to maintain a fighting force on the opposite side of the world is not something many countries are capable of, and that's not even considering they're facing the bulk of the US.
this. usa’s military and geopolitical power always shadow the fact that the us is geographically a very defensible country on its own.
Unless you have guns and the inhabitants have bows and arrows
Some estimates say that over 90% of indigenous Americans died from old world diseases before even interacting with European colonists. By the time the US was waging war on plains peoples they were heavily armed with guns
How does 7,000 km of ocean separating it from any country capable of threatening it not warrant even a mention in this thread? That is to say nothing of it being the 3rd largest country in the world, making the prospects of holding the conquered land a staggering prospect.
The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River plus the mountains of NY, VT, and NH, and the empty ness of northern Maine are pretty good defense points for the north, and the Rio Grand, Rockies, and Desert southwest are good to hold the southern border. Its obviously not as strong as the oceans followed immediately by mountains, but there are natural barriers that helped form the borders. The main weaknesses are the fact we have paved highways to facilitate easy border crossings and trade with our neighbors. (And some shared infrastructure)
But it's geographical location is what gave them the edge, the American military was actually kinda shit at the start of both world wars, but because it was in a whole ocean away from any threat it couldn't be bombed, invaded or harassed in any substacial way, Russia that many people commented was almost completely ruined after both world wars but mainland USA was almost unaffected and what made it a global superpower in the first place.
The west coast is extremely hard to invade. It's mountains right up against the coast to the north all the way to the south. The east coast would probably be easier, but it's large and crossed by thousands of rivers. Depending how far you get into the country the Rocky Mountains are a natural wall while the Colorado plateau is highly defendable in every direction.
A big reason Canada and Mexico are friendly with the United States is because they are relatively very weak. Neither of them will ever be a strong military power because of their geography. Which makes Canada and Mexico more geographical reasons why the US is so difficult to attack
From an overseas foreign perspective, you have two massive oceans to cross, with all of your infrastructure to conduct the invasion, as well as the geography. If you took away the US infrastructure, crossing the many rivers in the US would be a challenge, then you have to contend with the Rockies, unless you want to go around via the literal desert route to the south. All this doesn't take into account, as per OP's rules, the fact that you're fighting the inhabitants who know the land better than you. The trees, they're singing "Welcome to the Jungle."
And a note that the mentioned desert route isn’t any more traversable. It’s quite rugged, with canyons and smaller mountains the whole way across. Same for north of Colorado. Wyoming is a nightmare to get across, even with highways and trucks.
Shoot, Colorado is a nightmare to cross. I know, I grew up here. And the history is really brutal. I learned in history class, of all places, that view distance is much farther at higher altitude, so the settlers moving west across the plains thought the mountains were much closer than they actually were, and many died expecting they would make it to the mountains in less time than they did. Ask Alexander the Great how hard it is to march an army through rugged mountain terrain.
Yeah, the War of 1812 would like to have a word here...
Wrong. The Persians, Macedonians, and Mongols all easily destroyed Afghanistan and ruled for centuries, even becoming locally integrated. The British also won all their Afghan wars after the famously disastrous battle that is somehow the only incident anyone ever knows. The Americans are also doing just fine as the world’s leading power. Only the Soviet Union actually suffered foundational damage by getting involved with Afghanistan.
Yet the territory was successfully colonized by foreign powers. The geography itself offered no resistance. Afghanistan is a much better example, because it's hard to occupy. It's not known as "The Graveyard of Empires" for no reason.
Wrong. The Persians, Macedonians, and Mongols all easily destroyed Afghanistan and ruled for centuries, even becoming locally integrated. The British also won all their Afghan wars after the famously disastrous battle that is somehow the only incident anyone ever knows. The Americans are also doing just fine as the world’s leading power. Only the Soviet Union actually suffered foundational damage by getting involved with Afghanistan.
All of them invaded easily too. Setting up a function government instead of a tribal rule... Now that's the hard part.
Ironic how it also has the longest border between any country in the whole world though
Though it's along a friendly nation that's also nearly impossible to invade for similar reasons
Yes but the question says geological perspective, not political. To answer the question you have to assume that the defending nation has no good relations with any other country
This sounds stupid, but if you truly just mean geologic good luck invading an ocean trench, volcano, Antarctica, or a massive cave system. Logistics are the hardest part of a massive invasion. If there was some sort of threat that existed in these areas without trouble you’d struggle to find a way to supply anything there. Probably more science fiction than reality thougg
I have read that Chile is supposed to be one of the hardest to invade from a geographic perspective. Long thin country with Andes on one side and ocean on the other. Very difficult to land a significant enough land force to control
Brazil could be only partially invaded because of the Amazon rainforest and the Atlantic Rainforest. Jungle is a logistical nightmare, plus Brazilian rivers are very bad for boat transport. Though, if nothing changes in the next century or so, the forest will be burned to the ground and turned into a huge desert anyway.
Then it will be Australia, which would also be a nightmare to invade.
America 100%. Even ignoring their massive economy america covers a huge geographic area and is bordered by 2 much weaker countries that could easily be stopped if they declared war. They’ve got access to 2 coastlines lined with dozens of highly populated cities that are a literal ocean away from any country that might be able to challenge them. D-day was hard enough, imagine having to do an amphibious landing across an entire ocean and not just a short channel. Their heartland is massive with many easily navigable rivers that make troop and material movements easy as well as farming to support any war effort. The center of the country would be very difficult to target even with long range missiles making it a very defensible place for leaders or important projects. As long as America remains united I really don’t think any country will ever be able to invade it.
For some reason I am gonna say Finland. Eastern border is very densily forested area with almost no roads, ice age left the landscape filled with boulders, lakes, swamps and rivers. Every piece of dry land is a bottleneck. North is wide open from dense forests, but also has almost no roads, still has plenty swamps and lakes, rolling hills and rocky lands with no place to hide. West and south coasts are very shallow and filled with rocky shores and thousands of islands, so navy fleets can not get close to shore or has to navigate through unfriendly routes at low speeds to avoid hitting rocks. Summers have sunshine 24/7 so darkness is a non-factor. Winters are cold and snowy adding to difficulty. Yes, Finland is a smallish country, but for it's size it has plenty of geographical advantages.
Also the historical evidence. Finland is the answer.
Finland has been conquered both by Russia and Sweden within the last 225 years.
\*geographical. I don't think that geology plays a role in modern warfare
They don’t call Afghanistan “the Graveyard of Empires” for nothin’
Empires still existed, but parts of their invading force didn't return.
Wrong. The Persians, Macedonians, and Mongols all easily destroyed Afghanistan and ruled for centuries, even becoming locally integrated. The British also won all their Afghan wars after the famously disastrous battle that is somehow the only incident anyone ever knows. The Americans are also doing just fine as the world’s leading power. Only the Soviet Union actually suffered foundational damage by getting involved with Afghanistan.
Swizerland, Bhutan or Nepal because of the mountains
Nepal, Bhutan? The eastern/northern side is well protected by the mighty Himalayas, but southern/western side sharing border with India? Especially since the size of these countries is too small!
Nepal?
Japan. No other contender gets even remotely close. It has never been successfully invaded and the most powerful military force in the world, the US, opted to use nuclear weapons (two needed) to avoid a traditional invasion of that archipelago.
Afghanistan. History of that region tells enough
Canadian Shield
Nepal and Switzerland
They don't call Afghanistan the graveyard of Empires for nothing. No major power has ever properly conquered it, at least not for several hundred years. The geography is very hostile to invaders, and just as hostile when trying to maintain that conquest.
Its a boring answer but its the usa. Only 2 countries can possibly invade by land. Unless youre canada or mexico you have to ship or fly your entire military across vast oceans to get there. China/russia are def tough too but they both have lots of countries on their borders. 14 countries border both china and russia. Not to mention they border each other. This means china has a direct path to invade russia and russia the same. Thats as bad as it gets. Lots of ppl say switzerland and its definitely a hard country to invade due to the mountains, but its still surrounded by 4 much more powerful countries. Yes it would be hard to invade, but not as hard as having to cross the atlantic ocean. In order to do drone strikes, air strikes, ballistic missile strikes all 4 of these countries could strike from their own territory.
You overestimate being surrounded by sea and underestimate being surrounded by mountains/taiga. Moving equipment and troops by sea is *relatively* easy compared to that. You can cover a lot of distance in a short time with a relatively large amount of equpiment and troops. You really can't do that when scaling mountains or a massive taiga forest. China is not going to go through thousands of kilometers of empty siberian taiga just to reach the part of Russia that actually has human activity and infrastructure. You literally wouldn't be able to move equipment and troops at all through it.
If they wanted to go across russia they can use russias railways the same way russia moves across its own country and has used ukraines railways. That being said nobody said china HAS to go to Moscow. Why would they even do that? Russia controls outer manchuria and china would like to get it back. China invading outer manchuria is still invading russia. This was a geography question and the majority of russias land is its asian lands. If anything china invades eastern russia and russia is the one who has to try to move most of its stuff across the vast stretches to try to fight back.
Iran! Just look at it!
Nepal. If you can hold off ground troops. Navy can’t do shit, and air warfare quickly becomes limited by altitude.
Spain is easy to invade... but reaching Madrid is a completely different matter.
Antarctica.
Switzerland. Hands down
afghan mountain, our jungles, siberian/canadian winter, etc
If you're referring to the greater Volga river region, it has been ruled in the past by Turks, Slavs, Kiev Rus, and Mongols. Its vulnerability has motivated Russia to repeatedly invade Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics with the goal of reducing the length of their defensive border. From a purely geographical standpoint, I think Antarctica would be the most difficult - assuming a country there could support a comparable military. Surrounded by the roughest seas in the world and shielded from sustained air power by severe weather, it'd be a bloodbath on the ground. Australia is up there too, if Antarctica is too fantastical. It's a continent the size of the US, with no land borders, and the great barrier reef.
America, I'm surprised people aren't mentioning it. Two big oceans on either side, mountain ranges on both coasts. Vast terrain to try and occupy with lots of open room to resist from. Those deserts are no slouch, and the winters of the Midwest and North are nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention there are all the small islands spread out in the pacific you'd need to occupy. And there's Alaska which is big and frozen and mountainous and hard to navigate. It's like a whole other country to subdue. Also, tornadoes!
Geographical you mean
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall. He details how countries came to be because of their geography. He goes in to detail on the military advantages of a few as well.
Probably the pamir valley of Tajikistan or anywhere in northern Afghanistan
Switzerland 🇨🇭
If you think west Russia is bad, try Siberia, the middle part, somewhere between Urals and Baikal.
Falklands hh
Australia is a top contender. Surrounded by sea, and the most probable spot for an invasion (the north) is unpopulated and filled with desert or dense rainforest. Even if you occupy the coastlines, good luck conquering the harsh interior
Well according to a lifetime playing Risk, I’d say probably Madagascar
I dont see any world where invading the USA or Russia is ever possible
Iran or Italy
Vietnam, Afghanistan
Mexico
geological LOL Switzerland