Mormon is crafting the conflict by examining the preparations on both sides of the coming conflict. Having shown the preparation of Amalickiah to come to war, Mormon now turns to Moroni’s efforts. Moroni is fighting a different type of war than Amalickiah. Amalickiah is waging a war of conquest, and Moroni is waging a war of defense. As we begin this description of a major Lamanite/Nephite war, we should understand some of the realities of military actions in Mesoamerica:
“City-states generally controlled relatively modest areas, so they confronted attacking armies at the outskirts of the city, and the defenders’ defeat in battle meant defeat of the city-state. The attackers could immediately follow up such a victory by sacking the city. Empires and multicity groupings, by contrast, controlled relatively large areas and intercepted attacking armies at their borders, where the loss of a battle meant only a tactical defeat rather than the loss of the entire polity. The defenders could simply fall back, regroup in friendly territory, and renew the fight. Thus complex polities could not be easily conquered in their entirety; the attackers could only chip away at the borders, cine each side’s main centers remained far from the battle, and transport and logistical constraints made deep penetration of hostile territory very difficult. Nevertheless, the advantage lay with the aggressor: defenders risked their armies and their polities.” (Ross Hassig. Aztec Warfare. University of Oklahoma Press, 1988, pp. 23-24).
There will be a few differences in the Nephite defense of their lands from what Hassig describes, particularly in the location of conflicts. Most of the Nephite defenses take place at fortified sites rather than in open battle. One of the reasons for this difference is the geography of the land of Zarahemla which made it difficult to amass a defensive army in the borders of the land. Hassig is speaking of central Mexico where there is a larger amount of more level territory. In the land of Zarahemla we have the Sidon river valley, and Nephite controlled territories on the other sides of the mountains that formed the valley. This configuration made it difficult for the Nephites to move large armies horizontally across their territory. We have seen that the Lamanites are able to use three different approaches to Nephite territory. They can come up the coast towards Ammonihah, directly into the Sidon valley through Manti, or along the far side of the mountain range into Antionum and on to Jershon. With three possibilities for an attack point, and with the difficulty of rapidly moving troops across the mountains to each of those attack points, Moroni’s tactics had to concentrate on defensive positions rather than a large confrontation. Nevertheless, the concept of the defense of the territory still holds. The Nephites had a friendly territory in which to operate, and the loss of one city will not conclude the war, as will be evident as this war continues.
Moroni’s construction of specific defenses was a continuation of a long-standing practice of the Nephites:
“At the beginning of their history the Nephites put up a mobile defense against their enemies, making skillful use of the wilderness to “fortify against them with their armies” (Jacob 7:25). This method was never given up, as we can see in the ordering of the evacuation of the land of Jershon which “gave place in the land … for the armies of the Nephites, that they might contend with the armies of the Lamanites” (Alma 35:13). But in the third generation the Nephites “began to fortify our cities, or whatsoever place of our inheritance,” a project rendered necessary and possible by the great increase of population (Jarom 1:7-8). From this time on the strategy of fortified cities and “places of security” (Alma 50:4) becomes the rule, though the fighting is still mostly done in the wilderness. Of recent years students have come to realize that the earthen mounds, circles, walls, and hill-forts that are virtually the only surviving remains of many an Old World civilization actually represent the normal and typical life of ancient people, and from them they have reconstructed manners of living and warfare that exactly correspond to those described in the Book of Mormon. (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3rd ed. [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988], 416.)
The types of fortifications Mormon describes fit into a pattern that is known to have existed in Mesoamerica:
“When Cortez crossed southern Mexico during his epic journey to Honduras, he discovered fortifications around the Laguna de Terminos area very similar to those Moroni erected in the first century B.C. (Alma 53:1-5) in the east coastal lowlands only a few score miles from Cortez’s route. The Book of Mormon describes a ditch being dug around the protected area; the excavated earth was piled inward to form a bank. Atop it a fence of timbers was planted and bound together with vines. That very arrangement is now well documented archaeologically. The National Geographic Society-Tulane University project at Becan in the center of the Yucatan peninsula has shown the pattern to be very old. Webster’s interpretation of the excavations sees a massive earthen rampart around that center somewhere between A.D. 250 and 450, during the period when the final Nephite wars with the Lamanites occurred. The impressive size of this defensive construction is shown by Webster’s observation that from the top of the embankment (not counting the probable timber palisade on top) to the bottom of the ditch the distance was nearly 35 feet. “An enemy force caught in the bottom of the ditch would have been at the mercy of the defenders, whose most effective weapons under the circumstances would have been large rocks.” Moreover, “the extreme width of the defense provides additional protection, for heavy missiles can be thrown only with great difficulty from the embankment to the outside edge of the ditch in most places. To throw ‘uphill’ from the outside is almost impossible. Defenders, possibly screened by a palisade, could have rained long-distance missiles on approaching enemies using spearthrowers and slings.” Compare these statements with Alma 49:22: "But behold … [the attacking Lamanites] were swept off the fortification by the stones and arrows which were thrown at them.” (John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1985], 261.)