Chapter 13. Landscapes as Force Multipliers

Komori’s call to ‘read the situation’ echoes the Eastern approach to strategy, where one looks to increase awareness of current conditions first and, instead of relying on power to influence the situation, one seeks to harness shi^⁠2 — the strategic potential — from it. A boulder lying flat on the ground very different strategic potential from a boulder rolling downhill — the boulder itself hasn’t changed, but its potential has been harnessed. This explains why, in The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote that, an expert commander is one who seeks strategic advantage from conditions. But, to do this, one must be able to ‘read’ the Landscape clearly first.

For millennia, people have used maps to read their Landscape. The earliest known map, carved into a mammoth tusk, dates back 27,000^⁠3 years and we’ve been using maps ever since, from Babylon and China, to Greece and Rome, up to the present day, where modern maps continue to benefit from technological advances (e.g. GPS). We use maps because they help us see into the distance, navigate our way through an unfamiliar Landscape, find alternative routes if the way ahead is blocked, and track progress as we go. Maps have endured throughout human history because they’re an effective aid to decision-making.

In 480 BCE, Xerxes, the Persian king of kings, launched his second invasion of Greece ahead of an army the size of which the ancient world had never seen before. The thirty Greek states formed a Congress to consider their options. The Peloponnesians, from the southern peninsula, argued for the Greek forces to fall back and establish a strong line of defence on the Isthmus of Corinth — a narrow neck of land linking the peninsula with central Greece. But the Phocians and Locrians, from the central states, and the Macedonians and Thessalians from the North, rejected this proposal as it would leave their states at the mercy of the invading army. The Congress also considered a Thessalian proposal to send an allied force of 10,000 men to the Vale of Tempe, a deep gorge between the two northern mountains of Olympus and Ossa through which the Persian army would pass. However, the Macedonian king Alexander warned of a secret route around those mountains that, should the Persians learn of it, would enable them to by-pass the Vale and any Greek army waiting in ambush.

Listening to the discussion was Themistocles, Athen’s foremost politician and general. Eventually he rose and, with the aid of the map, explained how he read the situation: The Persians would attack from the North by sea and land, aiming to conquer the great city-states of Thebes and Athens. Their navy would have to sail through the Straits at Cape Artemisium and their army, even if they discovered the secret route through the Vale of Tempe, would have to pass through a narrow coastal passage at Thermopylae, which got its name (“Hot Gates”) due to the presence of sulphur springs nearby. Here, Themistocles proposed, is where the Greeks could use the Landscape to their advantage and negate the Persian’s numerical superiority.

Themistocles asked king Leonidas of the Spartans if he would set an ambush for the Persians at this narrow pass, that had a sheer drop to the Aegean Sea on one side and near-impassable mountain terrain on the other. The Landscape here, Themistocles calculated, would act as a force multiplier, enabling even a small force of determined fighters to hold back the advancing Persians long enough for the rest of the Greek states to fully-mobilise and march North. Themistocles further proposed to lead his Athenian fleet North to block the Persian navy at Artemisium, cutting off the supply lines their massive army depended on. This would force Xerxes to either break through quickly at Thermopylae or retreat, lest he had to face the fully-mobilised Greek army that would be marching North to confront him.

With a map, and some local knowledge, Themistocles was able to turn the Greek Landscape into a weapon. The vast Persian army would be forced through the bottleneck at Thermopylae that would be defended by a small force of 7,000 men from the northern states and 300 Spartan Hoplites^⁠5.

Every Landscape has such potential (shi) that can be harnessed. All it takes is a map and a bit of local knowledge to see it and learn how to exploit it.

¹ Innovating Out of Crisis: How Fujifilm Survived (and Thrived) As Its Core Business Was Vanishing. Shigetaka Komori (2015)

² See chapter eight — The Eastern Approach to Strategy.

⁴ This is a slightly more detailed rendition of the well-known story Simon Wardley has used to explain the utility of maps in developing (military) strategy, which can be watched here (from 08:25, although the entire video is worth watching as a great introduction to Wardley Mapping): https://vimeo.com/189984496

⁵ We will revisit this battle in Part Five to consider the successful counter-moves the Persians then made.