re: Halford Mackinder’s 1904 paper “The Geographical Pivot of History” is relevent today.

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The USSR under a more capitalist system would have thrived.

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Sure, of course. But you are making an argument that the key to world hegemony is to have a capitalist system. That is in stark contrast to that old paper’s assertion that the key to world hegemony is to control Eastern Europe. Plainly that is not so, as no one who has controlled Eastern Europe has been the world’s leading nation since The Ottoman Empire, and all that’s left of them are upholstered footstools.

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There is no potential to dominate from there, at least not for the foreseeable future.

Much of the northern half is permafrost with brutally cold winters, so much so that population is sparse. As you move south, you run into mountains, scrubland and deserts as water becomes more scarce.

Even if the climate were to warm up enough to make the winters more (relatively) mild and push the permafrost further north, it's still a MASSIVE region that must first be populated enough to become a power, then have enough population with enough of a common focus to begin projecting that power outward.

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Replying to my own post because this just came up on my Youtube scrolling and it's a bit more organized than my ramblings: