It ' s almost like Obama knew every word he spoke would be scrutinized by History . He ' s gonna win . <| sep |> this is a often cited fallacy . Empires dont stop conquering once they hit natural barriers , because now they feel safe and lose the desire to conquer they absoluetely dont , but because overcoming those natural barriers is hard for both sides . Conquering beyond them is as difficult as it is getting conquered from those directions . The need for safety is not really an excuse . Once an empire has grown strong enough to overcome such a barrier , they usually do see for example Japan and England . The reason Russia so far didnt conquer beyond those natural barriers is because they lack the power to do it .