During a recent Telstra-ASPI luncheon speech, Robert D. Kaplan took the audience on a tour of the ‘hot spots’ of insecurity around the globe. The crux of Kaplan’s presentation (and his new book The Revenge of Geography) is that in the globalised world of tweets, ‘likes’ and viral video, analysts have forgotten the enduring impact of geography, and the indelible effects it has had (and continues to have) on national and international security.

While this approach is useful to explain the development of the nation-state, with its linkage to geographical and territorial identity, today there is a range of non-state actors and transnational groups, whose motivations and actions aren’t as deterministic, and whose existence and structure are more virtual than linked to any discrete geography. To get a handle on these players, it’s perhaps necessary to broaden the notion of geography.

For example, an understanding of Yemen’s history, the role that its mountainous geography has played in its development (or lack thereof) and the challenges that this presents to the capacity of a central government to maintain any semblance of order would clearly make for a more sophisticated response from Western analysts and policymakers to cooperation with local bodies on the threat posed by al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula. Together, a good grasp of the physical and human geographies of the area provide a firm foundation for the investigation of transnational terrorism, why it has emerged from there and its intrinsic characteristics. Indeed, seeking to gain such an understanding without a foundation in these matters seems deeply problematic and perhaps reminiscent of some of the recent failures of counterterrorism policy. Read more