ABSTRACT
Natural features determine much in human experience, both in peace and war. Artificial features too may become dependent upon the natural surrounds, or dominate them, but always lending extra meaning to a nature that otherwise seems beyond human influence. In these layers of a perceived space permeate other perceptions of time, or senses of history imagined and memorized, also surviving in records and other traces. All perceived time and space inform discourse about political and economic interests, which in turn often subordinate both terrain and people. The very communication of these perceptions becomes an important realm in itself, emanating from physical space but affecting human perceptions in a subtler internal process. Study of a war almost inevitably considers such influences on the circumstances, plans, perceptions, and actions of its participants. Together these aspects make up this study’s broad application of the term “battlespace” as the boundaries defining combatants’ strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and constraints. Such considerations allow combatants to decide their best courses of action, and to anticipate those of their adversaries.1
