The return of geography

The title of this chapter might suggest that geography has somehow gone missing in action as a body of strategic knowledge. While it is true that some theoreticians bought the superficial view at the end of the Cold War that geography had had its day, that was never the view of those of us who were senior defence policy officers. Strategic theories come and go, but the abiding nature of a nation’s geography remains a key defence planning tool. Indeed, I would agree with Australia’s greatest Secretary for Defence, Sir Arthur Tange, who said in 1986: ‘The map of one’s own country is the most fundamental of all defence documentation.’1 He also presciently asserted that the nature of Australia’s physical environment demands that maritime capabilities occupy a prominent place in defence.2