Engineer Intelligence Study No. 191, Terrain Analysis, Alaska Slope Region, Alaska, 1959

The summary on Page 5 is paraphrased as follows. This digital document is a generalized description of the Arctic Slope region -- an area covering approximately 70,000 square miles. Access to the region and the feasibility of various access routes are discussed. Location and extent of natural fuel supplies are given. Factors controlling outdoor work feasibility are summarized graphically on Page 19. A terrain analysis of each of the three major physiographic provinces of the region. Those provinces are the Arctic Coastal Plain, Arctic Foothills, and Brooks Range provinces. Geographic factors which affected cross-country movement, construction, and water supply within those provinces are evaluated. This document contains detailed Landforms and Physiographic Provinces..., Bedrock Geography..., and Surficial Deposits... maps. The distribution list names a number of Corps of Engineers intelligence organizations and the engineering officers of army formations which might be interested in operations in Alaska. The digital document contains a bibliography. High-resolution scans of the large maps (150 to 350 MB) are attached (below) as related files

From baseworld to droneworld

Our planet is garrisoned by a network of around 1,100 bases operated by the U.S. military. Many of these sites exist in shadow because they are used for paramilitary operations by Special Forces and the CIA. These bases range in size and location, but a recent and favoured strategy of the U.S. military has been to construct skeletal “lily pads” that are scattered in remote outposts across the globe. Chalmers Johnson, author of the book Blowback, wrote back in 2004 that “[t]his vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire – an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class”. Of course, neither would the cost of maintaining this “Baseworld” make it to print: billions and billions of dollars spent on everything from air conditioning to internet cafes. While this Baseworld – which counts Guantanamo Bay as the jewel in its crown – is hardly new, the proliferation of remotely piloted aircraft certainly is. Everywhere and nowhere, drones have become sovereign tools of life and death, and are coming to a sky near you

A genealogy of military geographies: Complicities, entanglements, and legacies

This paper argues that historical geography is particularly well positioned to make insightful contributions to military geographies and critical military studies more broadly because of its commitment to critically exploring the genealogies and consequences of military violence, which are too often seen as a given or historically non-contingent. This is demonstrated by a review of existing literature which variously acknowledges the emergence of disciplinary geography in concert with the modern military, traces the contributions of geographers to and their entanglements with the military, and, which accounts for the complicities, consequences and legacies of military activities and violence through an historical lens. The paper reveals how historical geography exposes the knowledges, technologies and lives that produce and are shaped by military activities as being spatially and temporally specific. Further, its suggests future directions for historical geography that would extend and expand the discipline's attempts to more fully acknowledge the place of military geographies in our histories, politics, spatialities, cultures and everyday lives

The 55th College Training Detachment of the Army Air Corps Program On the Gettysburg College Campus, 1943-1944

The 55th College Training Detachment of the Air Force Cadet Program came to Gettysburg College in 1943. It was a separate program designed to provide educated officers for the Air Corps in the United States Army. These trainees would not only learn military drill, physical training, medical aid and flight skills, but they would also study physics, math, English, history, and geography. They were taught by members of the Gettysburg College staff and housed on campus, in dorms and fraternity houses.Their presence on campus was a constant reminder for regular students that the country was in the midst of a war

Erdély és a Partium a magyar hadtörténelemben

Hungarian military history is geographically tied to the Carpathian Basin, as the battles that determined the long-term fate of the Hungarian nation were fought in this geographical region, though Hungarians had also fought a great number of battles outside this area. Due to the physical geography of the Carpathian Basin, certain regions played a more important role than others in Hungarian military history. One of these special regions was Transylvania, which along with the adjacent Partium, became a symbol of the independent Hungarian state during the Ottoman rule. In addition, Transylvania, with its unique geographical separateness constituted a distinct sub-theater during the major wars of independence the Hungarians fought. The battles fought here generally did not have a great impact on the wars of independence, but they still influenced the outcomes. Thus Transylvania and Partium provide a special illustration of history and military geography, one which is inseparable from the Carpathian Basin. The present study discusses the geographical factors that made Transylvania a constant sub-theater of war in Hungarian military history. At the same time, it also describes the region’s geography, touching on how this seemingly peripheral area became an independent power center during certain historical periods

Airborne assault on corregidor: a study in weather, terrain, and cultural landscapes

In many ways, military forces using advanced technologies have been able to overcome a number of the inherent and traditional challenges posed by physical geography. However, geography continues to play a significant role in military planning and operations in two areas that have received little attention in the literature, namely airborne operations and the cultural landscape. This case study sought to contribute to these discussions by analysing the American operation to seize Corregidor Island in February 1945. As a primarily airborne assault, the operation was heavily contingent on weather, but also on terrain for sufficient drop zones, and the cultural landscape and terrain intelligence of the American forces proved vital in this regard. Through analysing archival military planning documents, maps, images and other primary and secondary sources, this study found that the physical terrain and enemy defences dictated the overall plan, but two features of the cultural landscape, the parade ground and golf course, were essential to the airborne operation, serving as the smallest drop zones used in World War II by US forces. While these two spaces enabled the assault, their small size, the buildings surrounding them, and the prevailing winds made this mission the most dangerous and highest jump casualty airborne operation of the war. Despite the casualties incurred by these features, the bombed-out buildings and debris on the drop zones arguably prevented even greater casualties because of the cover these provided once paratroopers were assembled on the ground. The intent of this discussion is to demonstrate how airborne operations are inherently contingent on geography and the challenges and opportunities the cultural landscape could pose during a military operation.Keywords: military geography, airborne operations, Corregidor, cultural landscape,terrain intelligenc

Damage, recovery, and the geographies of military–civil entanglements

This paper explores two forms of entanglements between military and civilian phenomena and activities, in contexts of recovery from damaging events. One concerns global civil–military entanglements in low earth orbital space, where recovery from damage is necessary for sustaining the civilian and military service support systems on which we increasingly depend. The other uses the damage caused by the UK state’s regimes of financial austerity to highlight how gendered, spatialized forms of personal labour through military Reserve forces sustain recovery. Both suggest ways in which military and political geography and geographers can find new ways of thinking through civil–military entanglements

Military transformation on the Korean Peninsula : technology versus geography

This thesis provides an explanation of one RMA issue: the effectiveness of contemporary military technology against tough geography, based upon case studies in the Korean peninsula. The originality of the thesis is that it will provide a sound insight for potential foes’ approach to the dominant US military power (superior technology and sustenance of war). The North Korean defence strategy – using their edge in geography and skill – tried to protect themselves from the dominant US power, but it may be impossible to deter or defeat them with technological superiority alone. This research also provides a valuable example, through Stephen Biddle’s technology and skill theory, which claims that, in the future of war, the skills of the unit (tactical readiness) are as important as the technology involved. By examining three case studies, the thesis aims to reveal that technological superiority alone cannot guarantee military success against the foe that possesses the geographic advantage and the capability to use its benefits. The first case study of the Imjin Wars will examine the significance of geography and capability to using the geographic edge in the Korean peninsula. The second case study of the Korean War will examine how technology alone failed to overcome the skilled and geographically advantageous defenders in modern warfare. Finally, by examining possible conflict scenarios of US-ROK alliance and North Korea, this research will seek to prove that contemporary military technology alone would not guarantee military success and deterrence against North Korea, which is both geographically advantaged and highly skilled.Publication date not given on thesi

A Comparison of the Calormenes with the Arabs, Turks, and Ancient Babylonians

Notes some of the parallels between Lewis’s Calormenes and traditional Arabian society and government, Babylonian religion, Turkish military dress and tactics, and general Middle Eastern geography and architecture

Studio portrait of Jovan Dragašević

Half-length shot of an elderly seated man with a distinctive moustache. He is dressed in a suit that seems to be made of tweed.Jovan Dragašević (1836, Požarevac – 1915, Niš) was a Serbian colonel and honorary general. In 1860 he graduated from the Artillery School and at the beginning of 1861 he became a professor (of History, Ethnography and Geography) at the same school (which later became the Military Academy). He is one of the first Serbian officers to have been a scientist, especially in the field of military geography. He wrote patriotic lyrics and romantic nationalist stories, was the editor of the "Vojin" military journal (1864–1870) and the founder as well as the first editor of the "Warrior" journal (1879–1888). During the Serbian-Turkish War (1876–1877), he served at Supreme Headquarters and then as Chief of the General Staff