Research

My research examines how major and great powers assess the value of territory under existential threat and how they develop strategic depth to preserve state survival. 

I argue that states do not assign equal value to all territory: areas containing political command structures, military-industrial capacity, and critical resources carry the highest survival value because they sustain war-making capacity essential to continued self-reliant resistance. 

When these core areas become vulnerable to surprise attack or rapid penetration, states respond by developing strategic depth through territorial expansion or core relocation. 

Using comparative case studies and process tracing across seventeen historical and contemporary cases from 1931 to 2025, the project explains how geography, military technology, and windows of opportunity shape territorial adjustment in both conventional and nuclear contexts.