History and philosophy of geography: real wars, theory wars

The war against Iraq in 1990-91 was the first full-scale GIS war. It put geography on the public agenda in a quite palpable if impalatable way as it claimed an estimated 200 000 Iraqi lives (Bamaby, 1991). The Defense Mapping Agency and the National Oceano-graphic and Atmospheric Research Laboratory provided the ’digitized map data for the Desert Shield operating area’; a California company supplied the ’ruggedized DOS-based’ software called Map, Operator, Maintenance Station (MOMS); the pilots slotted the resulting portable GIS (Geographic Information Systems) packages into cockpit com-puters, and the ’turkey-shoot’, as a USA general called it, was on (Schulman, 1991). ’Geo-smart ’ bombs were not only programmed to seek and destroy real-life targets but to photograph them as they did so. On the ground, tank commanders picked their way through the desert using smart, 3-D simulations of the terrain ahead. And the global citizens of CNN (Cable News Network) were treated to map-rich battle simulations throughout the perverse extravaganza thanks to GIS software and techniques similar to those guiding missiles and artillery. ’Certainly, applying advanced GIS and related technologies to the conflict in the Persian Gulf substantially increased the mission’