The Geography of Human Conflict: Approaches to Survival

Neville Brown’s The Geography of Human Conflict was chosen runner up to the winning title ‘D Day’ by Antony Beevor for the yearly Duke of Westminster Medal for Military Literature prize organized by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies This book is mindful of Geography’s big dilemma. How can the subject curb the encroachments of other disciplines: environmental studies, human ecology, political science, geophysics . . . ? The author believes that what we know as “strategic studies” needs urgently to address a clutch of geography-related considerations customarily seen as outside its remit. Climate change is of singular import, security-wise. Moreover, other pressures on our planetary ecology and resource base, currently appear as critical, taken collectively. Societal and philosophic contradictions are deeply endemic, too, not least within the modern post-industrial nations. Again the attendant security implications may lend themselves well to geographical interpretations. … Informing the study throughout will be an awareness of the interactions between Space and Time, addressed not metaphysically but in mundane terms. Then again, while linear distance and bearing are becoming less crucially important, the two-dimensional aspects of geographic space (areas and densities) are becoming more critical. Germane, too, is the medium-term (20 to 30 years?) prospect of biowarfare displacing nuclear bombs as the most menacing form of mass destruction. The classical Chinese concept of yin and yang will be examined as lending itself to singularly fruitful application to conflict limitation in an ever-shrinking world. … Throughout a distinction is preserved between those questions the author believes can be answered definitively, and those which as yet can only be aired. For both, historical experience will be evaluated in order to give more depth to the interpretation of modern challenges – actual and predicted. Emphasis will be laid on the development of regional associations strong enough to deal with various aspects of a survival strategy: nuclear deterrence, peacekeeping, arms control, developing economic resources, rural and urban ecology. A final review concludes with how one might hope a planetary community can evolve in the longer term – i.e. up to one or two centuries ahead