From the foreword: "Dr. Demarest's book gives students and practitioners a pragmatic start point rooted in the classic principles of war and simultaneously in the jurisprudential principles of impunity and culpability concepts that apply across the entire plane of human conflict. Demarest reminds us that success in warfare requires control of land, and so an empirical knowledge of geography, both physical and human (if the two could actually be separated) is vital. The study of the spectrum, or firmament, of conflict and how principles of war apply across that firmament requires an unconventional approach. This is not a standard book. Student and teacher can pick up this book and start at the beginning, middle, or end. No matter the start point, the reader will find convention challenged and see that normal is no better than the cycles of a washing machine."