Geography is the study of the physical features of the planet and as such plays an essential role in all forms of military and naval planning.
The sea is defined by its uniformity and essential connectedness. Though the sea forms a barrier between land masses, it is also the very means by which land masses are connected to one another. Straits and narrow sea lanes can acquire vital significance for navies, as sites of blockade or maritime conflict. By contrast, the sheer vastness of the ocean makes it a place where it is easy to get lost but impossible to hide.
Geopolitics is the study of how the geography of land and sea shapes political outcomes. Whereas Alfred Thayer Mahan theorised the importance of sea power, other thinkers such as Halford Mackinder and Nicolas Spykman stressed land, its features and resources, as the real determinants of state power. The reality is that sea and land are related as peaks are to valleys and an adequate understanding of one requires knowledge of the other as well.
More narrowly, geostrategy is an approach to foreign policy responsive to geographical features and how they shape political conflict and cooperation, especially in the domain of defence planning.
Perhaps the most crucial element in the naval history of Great Britain is its status as an island. Australia’s geographical features – at once a continent and an island, completely ‘girt by sea’ – are equally important in shaping its maritime outlook.
Learn more:
Australian Rendezvous: Maritime Strategy and National Destiny in the 21st Century
Russia and China in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean: Implications for the Five Eyes