Introduction

Abstract

The relationship between geography and naval warfare is an intimate one. Nowhere is this more so than where the oceans meet the shore; that is, in the zone known as the littoral. It is in this zone of often narrow, restricted, shallow waters that the myriad complexities of geography come into play; creating both great opportunities and vulnerabilities for friend and foe alike. As the above quote intimates, when this reality is neglected by civilian and/or military leaders, as it often has been in the past, the consequences can be quite serious.

Geographical factors are both obvious and crucial to the naval practitioner: they affect his basic calculations of time, space and available force. For the archetypal armchair strategist, be he academic or politician, these constraining facts of life are too easily relegated to the sidelines. It is well to remember the World War One jingle which went: Big fingers, little maps, means lots of deaths for the chaps (Booth, 1979, p. 174).