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connections with the hinterland must complement maritime locales. Capabilities diminish
to some degree if even one of those attributes is deficient or absent.
SECU~[ LOC./-\TI O i~l~
Secure locations physically separate friends from foes. The British Isles, only 22 miles (35
kilometers) west of continental Europe, last saw successful invaders when William the
Conqueror defeated King Harold at Hastings in 1066. Hitler's cross-channel attack plan
code-named Operation Sea Lion aborted in September 1940. -~ Japan has never been stormed
by outsiders. The continental United States has seen no hostile forces on its soil since the
War of 1812, when British troops burned the White House and Capitol, bombarded Fort
McHenry in Baltimore, and unsuccessfully sought to sack New Orleans. Canada and Mexico
have been friends of the United States for more than a century. No nation now has sufficient
amphibious assault capabilities to bridge the watery miles that isolate America from its
enemies, then seize a foothold on defended U.S. shores. Spaced-based weapons, long-range
aircraft, missiles, and transnational terrorists consequently pose the only potentially serious
external threats by armed adversaries.
Buffer zones make admirable shields. Joseph Stalin swallowed six European countries in
the mid-1940s (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria),
then rang down an Iron Curtain. Those so-called "satellite states" separated forces in
NATO's center sector from the nearest Soviet border by several hundred miles. Demilitarized
zones (DMZs) provide variable degrees of protection, depending in large part on geographic
circumstances. Incursions across the Korean DMZ, for example, have been restricted to hit-
and-run raids since 1953, partly because no overland bypasses are available on that narrow
peninsula, whereas enemy troops and supplies consistently circumvented the barrier between
North and South Vietnam via the open flank in Laos.
Armed forces that do battle on more than one front at a time must overcome serious
strategic, tactical, and logistical problems or risk defeat. Israel found satisfactory solutions
during two wars with Egypt and Syria, first in 1967 and again in 1973, 4 but German forces
that saw combat on Eastern and Western Fronts during World War I, then on four fronts
counting North Africa and Italy during World Warll, were spread too thinly during both
conflicts and both times they lost. Soviet leaders for that reason understandably feared the
possibility of simultaneous wars with NATO and China after the Sino-Soviet split in the early
1960s. s
TI ~[-DI-STAI~I CE FACTO ~S
Time, distance, and modes of transportation not only determine how fast armed forces can
move from one place to another but influence abilities to perform most effectively
immediately upon arrival. Well-conditioned rifle companies take longer to march 20 miles
(32 kilometers) at 2.5 miles per hour (4 kph) than airmobile troops in huge transport aircraft
take to cross the Atlantic Ocean, yet the "grunts" may arrive more eager to fight, because jet
lag accompanied by fatigue, digestive disorders, and reduced proficiency commonly afflicts
flight crews and passengers who swoosh rapidly through several time zones and thereby
disrupt their "metabolic clocks" (24-hour circadian rhythms). ~
Great distances between home bases and operational areas reduce opportunities for
timely employment of military power in emergencies. Lengthy lines of supply and
14 PART ONLY: PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY