John:

In college (Geography), I had to write a book report, so I found the smallest book in the library---one from 1930---The Geography of Conflict. The same ilk as those ref'd in The Revenge Article, but accurately identified all the problem areas----Balkans, Middle East, Indo-China, the Falklands, etc...

I think his point is really that we had a brief mental lapse where, somehow, conflict was going to be based on something else. But, it always comes back---time to put away the toys and get back to the basics.

In Iraq, I was very frustrated by the lack of adequate administrative and political geography, and believe that that gap contributed to our problems their. In 2008 (not 2003), nobody knew where the provinces, qaddas and nahias were, or why that should matter. People assume that because we have superb visibility and physical mapping and imagery, that we understand what things on the ground mean.

In 2008, it took a lot of oar pulling by a lot of people to get a de-classified and properly licensed set of GIS shapefiles and imagery in the hands of Iraqi ministries and provincial technocrats so they could start understanding and planning their own country. Few people understood how important that effort was---but, fortunately, we found angels in the right places.

In 2008, the Iraqis appointed a Kirkuk committee, and their first question was: which Kirkuk are we supposed to study? Pre-1976, Kirkuk included Diyala (north of the River), Tuz Khormatu (now a province of Salah ad Din), two districts from current Erbil, and well into Sulimaniya.

There was so much change for so many reasons in the last 20 years in Iraqi provincial boundaries, that it was rare to find a ministerial or provincial official with an accurate map of provinces in 2008. Few Americans understood it. Amidst the confusion, many things went wrong, or became confounded.

Multiply the basic boundary confusion by the complex historical and cultural issues played out over Kirkuk, Diyala, etc..., and it was easy to understand how dense and challenging a permanent resolution might be. Khanakin, for example, lies near a mountain gap for a major route of The Silk Road; the fighting, and wash of history, over that place goes back into unwritten history.

As the cartographic/demographic expert for the Kirkuk issue, I would always find a US person stumbling in to ask where "the Green Line" was, as if they were back home and trying to by an ADC Map at the 7-11. Instead, I had maps for about six different prospective green lines, and theories to support, perhaps, three more. That was the problem----it was a BOUNDARY dispute.

Fortunately, the military lives and dies by geography, and the people and activities that take place thereon, so it never took long to explain the problem. But try explaining that to non-military folks and you could tell that their eyes glazed over. They just did not understand basic geography, or how it drove the world and policy; I think the article was driving at the non-military/non-geographers whose abilities to direct and effect real-world policy is extremely limited by their lack of awareness...

I could write a book on the examples to support it, but it would be embarrassing to too many people.

To me, the article was very important to folks who don't get it, and directly ties to another important book of last year on cadestral (property lines) systems.

Steve