By its very nature, the Civil War was not a foreign or colonial conflict involving belligerents widely spaced, but was prompted by the secession of neighboring states. For sure, logistical considerations would be very different in those cases where an enemy was not contiguous but was separated by an ocean or two. That being said, Union strategy in the critical western area was predicated on using riverine pathways to advance southwards into the Confederate heartland. Had Kentucky joined the Confederacy, the Ohio River would have offered a more defensible position in contrast to the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers which provided a ready entryway to the south. But still, the North had the more formidable task in its need to conduct offensive operations to destroy Confederate armies and occupy and derange southern infrastructure and war making capacity. While the southland had only to defend its existing territory, the means and methods of doing so were not quite simple, and ranged from a cordon approach of holding the borders, a Fabian approach of giving up territory for strategic advantage, or an offensive-defense of striking first. The Confederacy experimented with all these methods but never successfully settled on a unified strategy. That, and the Union's clearer vision of conquest, was the real deciding factor in the war's outcome.