Infinity Journal Volume 5, Issue 2, Spring 2016

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Volume 5, Issue 2, Spring 2016 Infinity Journal Page 8
References
[i] The term ‘culminating point’ dates back at least to Carl von Clausewitz, the Napoleonic era, and classic strategy. See on this point, Karl von Clausewitz, On War,
translated by O. J. Matthijs Jolles in Caleb Carr,The Book of War, New York: The Modern Library, 2000, pp. 838, 886; Howard, Michael and Paret, Peter, eds. Carl Von
Clausewitz, On War, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 528, 566;
[ii] Kenneth E. Boulding, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory. New York: Harper & Row, 1962, p. 162.
[iii] See, on this point,Waldo Tobler,“A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region,” Economic Geography, 46 (2) (1970): 234-240.
[iv] Kenneth E. Boulding, ibid, p. 162.
[v] This is adopted from Geoffrey Demarest,Risk Loss of Strength Gradient and Colombia’s Geography of Impunity.University of Kansas,ProQuest,UMI
Dissertations Publishing, 2013.
[vi] Ike Skelton Library, “Elements of National Power” (bibliography) Joint Forces Staff College Norfolk, VA, 2011,
bibliography/Elements_of_National_Power.pdf (accessed August, 2013). For the exception, see, K.Webb,“The Continued Importance of Geographic Distance and
Boulding’s Loss of Strength Gradient,” Comparative Strategy,Volume 26, Issue 4, 2007.
[vii] Meanwhile, the likelihood of a deadly encounter with an armed enemy is itself a factor in the measurement of cost. (Moving within range of the enemy’s
weapons, for instance, presents the potential for additional costs.) Thus the two, risk and cost, can be said to form what might be termed an endogeneity, that is, a
cross-influencing relationship.The militarily relevant distance is the distance to the limit of prudence – to the ‘bridge too far’. On Operation Market Garden in WWII,
see, Cornelius Ryan,A Bridge Too Far, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.
[viii] The assertion was inspired by Colombian terrain and the effect that Colombia’s innumerable slopes have had on smuggling success, landmine placement
and the difficulty of military pursuits.“Every left-or-right dilemma presented to the pursuer shortens the distance to the pursuer’s culminating point (his prudent risk
distance).With a little help from landmines and snipers, the fugitive can augment his enemy’s perception of the cost-distances, that is, greatly shorten his enemy’s
risk distance.” Geoffrey Demarest,Winning Irregular War: Conflict Geography. Leavenworth, FMSO, 2014, p. 359.
[ix] As a matter of after-the-fact military critique, leaders are discredited who purportedly fail to press an opportunity to finish off a weaker force. Some will argue
that Meade should have pursued Lee after Gettysburg. See, for instance, Center for Military History,American Military History,Washington, D.C.: United States Army,
1989, p. 254,
[x] Carl von Clausewitz, On War. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 267; General Phillip Sheridan, according to
Aradmin,“Civil War Cavalry Leaders Tribute Henry Rifle.” America Remembers, July 26, 2013. ?taxonomy=product_
type&term=simple
[xi] On this point we recommend James G. Reily, Middle Eastern Geographies of World War I, Fort Leavenworth: School of Advanced Military Studies, 2010
(monograph). Reily applies the Clausewitzian idea of ‘friction’ especially well, ibid, page 8. [Not ironically cost-distance is also called friction-distance]
[xii] The map itself was designed and created by Mr. Chuck Bartles.
[xiii] The reference is to Operation El Dorado Canyon, a raid on Libya in mid-April 1986. On this episode, see, for instance, Joseph T. Stanik, El Dorado Canyon:
Reagan’s Undeclared War With Qaddafi,Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003; Robert E.Venkus, Raid On Qaddafi. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.
[xiv] On this episode, see, for instance, Jake Tapper,The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2012.
[xv] As a prompt for understanding risk distance and for the Marine in us all,note Presley O’Bannon’s exploits at Tripoli.The US Navy might move thousands of miles
within prudent risk,but in order to be strategically effective,force had to be moved a few more miles – on land.On this episode,see,Richard Zacks,The Pirate Coast:
Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805, New York: Hyperion, 2005.
[xvi] None of our assertions are formed from any classified documents or other forms of classified input whatever. The Access Environment map is informed
completely by unclassified, publicly available knowledge.
[xvii] Traditional military geography has concentrated almost exclusively on physical aspects of terrain. See, for instance, John M. Collins, Military Geography of
Professionals and the Public.Washington D. C.: Potomac Books, 1998.We take the approach that it is only a didactic convenience to distinguish between human
and physical geography; and that it is better to imagine geography as an interaction, not a separation of humans from their surroundings. As such, we tend to
reject presentations that would divide‘human terrain’from physical terrain.Even in the militarily purest kind of combat,when a unit‘takes a hill’, it takes the hill from
someone or at someone’s expense.
[xviii] Please excuse our conflation of the electrical term ‘impedance’ in the layer title, along with its everyday cousin,‘impediment’ in the color category subtitles.
Webster’s Second Collegiate defines impedance as,“1.The total opposition offered by an electric current to the flow of an alternating current of a single frequency:
it is a combination of resistance and reactance ....” We do not wish to carry the analogy with electricity any farther. The appeal of the term impedance over
impediment is in its denotation of overall blockage to passage presented as a combination of both passive factors and active factors, which is measured
according to area and density, and is generally asserted in relation to a single opposing phenomenon. In our map, impedance is synonymous with implied risk
(also describable as perils or hazards) and possibly synonymous with other expressions of difficulty or potential cost.‘Access denial’, for instance, connotes to us
those measures and preparations that might be taken by an armed force to create a greater degree of overall challenge for going into a given space. It would be
part of the impedance, other parts including physical geography, population, intangible factors occurring at home, and so on.
Risk Distance Geoffrey Demarest, Ivan B.Welch, and Charles K. Bartles