It is a refreshing point of view. We, the generation of city-dwellers, no longer understand the foundation upon which our city wealth rests. For us, the farmland is "an unimportant middle of nowhere" and we see the ultimate worth in some cities that, if looked from the article's POV, can be easily discarded without any change in the world power/wealth balance.
It seems that grain meant the same in 19 century that oil means today. And for grain, you need a lot of territory with population and transportation and security. With oil it's different, you have to be lucky and here it is: population isn't that important anymore, neither is territory per se.
It's like chess, checkers, risk, go, Starcraft, etc.
You can put a crappy player in a great position on the board, giving them great "resources". But a significantly better player will often still be able to win.
Compare North Korea to South Korea. Same culture, same geography, same genetic pool -- but as a society the North Koreans went horribly horribly wrong. North Koreans went with a political and economic philosophy (communism) that was and is far inferior to capitalism.
That's my fundamental disagreement with this article. Human intellect driven by forces in the culture and society have a great more to do with a country's "importance" on the geopolitical stage than resources.
It seems that grain meant the same in 19 century that oil means today. And for grain, you need a lot of territory with population and transportation and security. With oil it's different, you have to be lucky and here it is: population isn't that important anymore, neither is territory per se.