Knowledge about the potential impact of geography on conflicts is probably as old as
the art of war. Geographers, as well as theorists of international relations have for
long claimed climate, topography and location to be important determinants of state
behavior (Sprout 1963). In an assessment of previous work on geography and war,
Diehl (1991) discusses three theoretical frameworks of particular influence: Sprout &
Sprout (1965) with the notion of ‘environmental possibilism’; Boulding (1962) with
the loss-of-strength gradient; and Starr (1978) with the concepts of opportunity and
willingness. All three emphasize physical distance as the crucial geographic factor
affecting the risk of conflict.
The theoretical link between geographic proximity and conflict has resulted in
the development of the Correlates of War project’s contiguity dataset (Gochman
1991) as well as Gleditsch & Ward’s (2001) minimum distance dataset. But while the
pioneering works by the Sprouts, Boulding and Starr still are considered highly
influential - and later empirical studies have indeed revealed some convincing
findings - they interpret geography merely as a concept of contiguity and distance.
Accordingly, the geography concept acts more as a proxy of interstate interaction
opportunities than measuring the impact of physical, geographic attributes of
conflicting countries. Moreover, international borders and interstate distance as
analytical concepts are mainly relevant when dealing with international conflicts.
To the extent that geography and conflict have been linked in other and more
fashionable ways, they have been subject to either of two approaches. The first one
deals with micro-level analyses of battlefield effectiveness, typically from a military
point of view. In this respect, issues like weapon and soldier performance in varying
topographic and climatic conditions, and how to exploit geographic advantages
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Convention