If Strabo visited Australia

An apocryphal story about the 1st century Greek geographer, Strabo, is that he was engaged by a king of a smaller kingdom to explore the likelihood of the king’s army being able to conquer and retain a nearby kingdom.

While a straightforward analysis would be to count the number of fighters and armaments on each side to determine who would likely win in a direct conflict, Strabo’s technique was to consider geographic, social/cultural and economic strengths of the target kingdom.

A management consultant for the Roman era.

Strabo in his travels across the target kingdom, sees that the economic infrastructure is much larger than the natural demand of the population. The key being that the port was much larger than would be expected.

Strabo concluded, and apparently reported back to his client, that the size of the port suggested large trading partners. These trading partners would likely respond to the conquering armies with their own, likely larger armies. Therefore, a small conquering army would be hard pressed to hold this kingdom if that economic connection was threatened.

The insight is not particularly unique in our era but might have been the leading strategic thinking at the time. A business school case study for the universities.

I think about this case because I wonder what Strabo would make of Australia in this present time.

Let’s say that Strabo is hired to travel to Australia on behalf of a fictional country of similar population and armed forces to assess the feasibility of conquering and retaining the country. Strabo, as a geographer, might note the following:

• Australia’s population do not reflect the populations of its neighbours, while its neighbours do resemble each other, suggesting that most of Australia’s inhabitants are not originally from the region. A basic observation but what does this say about alliances in the region if Australia was to attack them?
• An ancient geographer might note the harsh growing conditions of the majority of the country although he might be told that these conditions do not affect the key exports mined from the earth. How would he report this wealth of resource and and it could be controlled?
• Strabo would be interested in the size of export infrastructure located around the continent. This infrastructure would be considered in excess of the natural shipping demands of the domestic population. It would suggest that there are strong trade relationships with large consumers. He might think that that the largest partner would be the most likely to protect the trade connections and come to their aid in event of an attack. Would that be a misreading of the situation?

The issue is that this analysis needs a fictional aggressor but Strabo does provide unique input into a complex situation.