Botswana - predator or prey?

The world is generally  very unkind to small states, particularly so  to small islands and even more so to landlocked small countries like Botswana. There are literally scores of such  small states in the world and the evidence appears to show quite incontrovertibly that these  tend to be handicapped in terms of high transport  and other business costs and generally have lower and more volatile incomes than larger and better placed countries.

Yet any review of landlocked and island countries tells us that the three richest countries in Europe are either landlocked ( Luxembourg and Switzerland) or an island (Ireland). So why do small landlocked countries in Africa like Botswana, Swaziland and Lesotho continue to incessantly whinge about their unfortunate  status? Being landlocked has not held everyone back, so there really is no basis for us explaining our condition by the facts of our history and geography. Well, not quite.