geography

• India did not achieve hegemony due to its topography

79:2.5The fail­ure of In­dia to achieve the hege­mony of Eura­sia was largely a mat­ter of to­pog­ra­phy; pop­u­la­tion pres­sure from the north only crowded the ma­jor­ity of the peo­ple south­ward into the de­creas­ing ter­ri­tory of the Dec­can, sur­rounded on all sides by the sea. Had there been ad­ja­cent lands for em­i­gra­tion, then would the in­fe­ri­ors have been crowded out in all di­rec­tions, and the su­pe­rior stocks would have achieved a higher civ­i­liza­tion.

• China protected by its g.

79:6.124. Ge­o­graphic. China is pro­tected by the moun­tains to the west and the Pa­cific to the east. Only in the north is the way open to at­tack, and from the days of the red man to the com­ing of the later de­scen­dants of the And­ites, the north was not oc­cu­pied by any ag­gres­sive race.

79:6.13And but for the moun­tain bar­ri­ers and the later de­cline in spir­i­tual cul­ture, the yel­low race un­doubt­edly would have at­tracted to it­self the larger part of the And­ite mi­gra­tions from Tur­kes­tan and un­ques­tion­ably would have quickly dom­i­nated world civ­i­liza­tion.

• influential in determining peace or war
• protection of North America by oceans allowed unmolested development

81:6.5The con­fig­u­ra­tion of con­ti­nents and other land-ar­range­ment sit­u­a­tions are very in­flu­en­tial in de­ter­min­ing peace or war. Very few Uran­tians have ever had such a fa­vor­able op­por­tu­nity for con­tin­u­ous and un­mo­lested de­vel­op­ment as has been en­joyed by the peo­ples of North Amer­ica—pro­tected on prac­ti­cally all sides by vast oceans.