Military Strategy Magazine - Volume 7, Issue 4

Volume 7, Issue 4, Winter 2022 24 I. On Fortification What is a fortification? Probably every person to whom this simple question is posed will think for a moment that the answer is easy. Very practically, one might say that fortifications are structures which enhance the power of defence;[v] somewhat more abstractly, perhaps, that they represent the ‘endless duel between immobility and manoeuvre’;[vi] or even philosophically, that they are a physical manifestation of the fear of being attacked.[vii] But a little reflection on the widely divergent structures with different purposes to which the appellation may be applied will suffice to show that a definition is not so readily found as might have been expected. For one thing, while resistance to attack is a primary quality of a fortification it is striking how often they incorporate design features that weaken their defensive capability.[viii] Likewise, while fortifications are often situated in naturally inaccessible terrain, the better to resist attack, we just as often find them in places that are far from ideal defensively. [ix] We may surmise, therefore, that the design and siting of fortifications reflects more than military considerations. Commercial needs, political context, and even cultural aesthetics supersede tactical exigency in decisions about where and in what form they are employed. For another, while fortifications as fixed structures are themselves immobile, their role in operations is very often to act as a base of mobility for one’s own forces while at the same time restricting or channelling the movement of one’s enemy.[x] In other words, they are in no way antithetical to manoeuvre; indeed, the construction of a fortification may well constitute a ‘manoeuvre’ insofar as its intended effect is to dislocate an opponent and to stymie their strategies. [xi] Once again, we may surmise that fortification plays a role in operations that is complex and far-reaching. Moreover, while many fortifications are constructed for fear of attack, it is equally apparent how frequently they play the central role in the conquest of new territory.[xii] In short, fortifications serve offensive strategies just as well as defensive ones. From this we may surmise that the utility of fortifications in war and warfare are more flexible than might be supposed from their superficial simplicity. Finally, while we often judge the quality of this or that fortification as a singular construction, fortification as a strategy really comes to the fore when the fortresses are seen as comprising parts of a larger network.[xiii] From this we may surmise that the appropriate frame of reference for answering the perennial question ‘do walls work’ is strategic, which is to say that we should be precise about for what policy objective that they work (or fail to work) and judge them on that basis. Indeed, it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that fortifications are quintessentially strategic in nature. Obvious hints toward this quality would include their cost and durability as well as their significant peacetime importance. While expedient and cheap fortifications abound, it has often been the case that serious fortifications have consumed a high fraction of national expenditure over a period of many years. Hadrian’s Wall or China’s Great Wall spring to mind as well-known examples but there are plenty more recent.[xiv] One might argue that fortification is the oldest recognisably complex human strategy.[xv] Even today, the traces of the fortified compounds and linear barriers built with great expense and effort by the first settled peoples to ward off the attacks of nomadic raiders are visible on the landscape. In contemporary terms such sums equal or exceed that which a government might consider when investing in something like a fleet of nuclear submarines or a continental anti-ballistic missile system. Like those sorts of assets, fortifications are a highly durable good. They also possess a similar peacetime role, both as deterrent and as an enduring symbol of national power. For these reasons I suggest that it is useful to think of what I term ‘fortified strategic complexes’, by which I mean largescale projects of military engineering designed to shape a conflict or confrontation by altering the conditions of movement in an area over an extended period. The point at hand, though, is that fortification strategies remain highly relevant. Let us look at some examples. II. Pacification The 13th century conquest of Wales by England was, as the cliché goes, more of a process than an event. Long after the closure of ‘major combat operations’ the recalcitrant Welsh had to be pacified into acceptance of their new rulers. The means by which this was achieved: a network of castles and fortified colony towns, many of which still exist as monuments of the skill of mediaeval military engineering. The projectwas immensely costly—it effectively bankrupted the treasury of Edward I. Ultimately, though, it worked. [xvi] The English did not invent this strategy of pacification by any means. The Normans did the same thing to the Saxons under William the Conqueror, as did the Romans for that matter throughout the Empire, and so too has done practically every other expansionist power in history from Tsarist Russia to the United States of America.[xvii] The European imperial powers did it on a global scale, which is why their fortresses dot the map from the Arctic circle to the Tropics and beyond.[xviii] It is not that fortified strategic complexes for pacification always lead to success, for no strategy does; it is, rather, that all such campaigns—successful or otherwise—require them. The recently concluded war in Afghanistan provides an illuminating example. Fortified Strategic Complexes David Betz

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