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Volume 5, Issue 2, Spring 2016
Infinity Journal
Page 5
Risk Distance
Geoffrey Demarest, Ivan B.Welch, and Charles K. Bartles
An economist, Professor Boulding demonstrated his thinking
with charts. As depicted in Figure 1, Professor Boulding
imagined the geographic world simplified as the limitless line
A-B, with point A being one country and point B another in a
world of only two countries.The line between points A and B
represents the distance between the two countries.
Figure 1: The Loss of Strength Gradient in a single-line world.
[iv]
Lines A-H and B-K represent each country’s amount of military
coercive power.The slope of the lines H-L,H-E,or K-M represent
the loss of effective military power as distance increases –
the loss of strength gradient. Point D (between A and B) is
derived as the geographic point in the world at which the
two countries, although unequal in overall military capacity
and capability, have equal strength. The graphic suggests
(shown by line H-H’) that country A could achieve enough
military power such that country B would have no place in
the A-B world where B would enjoy military strength equal
to that of A. However, part of Boulding’s suggestion, in an
obvious simplification of the bi-polar US-Soviet confrontation,
is also that a modest increase in coercive power on the
part of B, the Soviets, could ameliorate or overcome even a
great effort on the part of A, the United States, to increase
its total and relative coercive power. An increase in coercive
power by country B (represented by the line K-K’) might
move the geographic point of equality to point D’ and so
on logically. In his theoretical schematic, B could even move
the geographic point of equal power closer to A in spite
of A having increased its total power more than did B. With
this observation about the relationship of force-to-distance
in mind, Professor Boulding supposed that placing coercive
force forward in Europe was a more reasonable way to
favorably enhance relative US strength than an increase in
total US power would be. Even this conclusion he clothed in
disclaimers and exceptions.
In Figure 3 below, we re-make Boulding’s A-B single-line world
into a globe, but continue to consider the strict competition
of only the two countries A and B (we drop the allusion to the
Cold War, now centering the two competitors on the poles),
then the line of equal power (Circle D) makes a parallel
around the world.[v] That parallel is closer to one pole than
to the other, reflecting the greater total coercive force of A
over B. In this simplified world, the surface area wherein B
continues to enjoy greater strength appears in the shape of
a beanie or simple yarmulke.
Figure 2: The Loss of Strength Gradient in a circular world.
Depicting the points of equal power and the areas of
superiority would become quite an intellectual and artistic
chore if we were to populate our imagined, spherical world
with several countries of differing amounts of military power,
each with varying national sizes and shapes. If we were to
interpolate the idea further toward reality by including many
dozens of countries, all conspiring alliances and constantly
evolving in coercive power, the depiction would be nearly
impossible to create. Perhaps because of that impossibility,
writers on strategy who have gone about comparing
countries’ military power tend to overlook the effect of
distance entirely. They concentrate instead on direct factors
of strength such as territorial space, population, economic
performance, diplomatic acumen, technical innovation,
cyber power, cultural influence and so on.None of the entries
in a recent bibliography (prepared by the library of one of the
US national strategy colleges) on the elements of national
power discusses distance.[vi] This oblivion to the effect of
distance on power does not, however, make the influence of
distance go away.
All the above begs another question regarding the true
measure of distance itself. Distance can be categorized as:
Euclidean, cost or friction, and risk. Euclidean distance is
unimpeded ‘normal’ mathematical or geometrical distance
measured in established units such as meters or miles –
sometimes said, ‘as the crow flies’. For most purposes, we
measure
cost distances
as the time and money or other
resources necessary to move people and things from one
location to another. Risk distance, again, is the distance to
a perceived, theoretical point in time and space beyond
which it would be imprudent, irresponsible or self-destructive
to proceed in some activity. For the most part,
cost
and
risk
distances are inversely related: Increases in a cost distance
can shorten the predicted risk distance for military endeavor.
For instance,a perceived point of unacceptable risk might be
closer to home or sooner in time if extreme hot dry weather