[crocodiletears]

Predicting, advising, and describing political behaviors within the bounds of their constraints are geopolitic's raison d'être. 100% accurate all the time? No. But then again, neither is any other predictive field.

Friedman, and Zeihan have both proven very prescient over the last decade or so.

Besides, I hardly think there's a lot of latitude for interpretation. As far back as 1958 the USAF was mulling over nuking the moon as a show of force with incidental scientific ramifications. Sagan was involved in it. [0]

I think willfully ignoring those parts of the story stretch credulity within the context where the events of the space race happened borders on historical revisionism for the sake of creating a moral parable about the virtues of human endeavor.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119