A major task of modern militaries is predicting and preparing for the next war. Historically, those armies that accurately envision the future combat environment win the first battle of the next war – and often, the first battle is the last battle. An examination of the trends in ground warfare since World War II indicates that it is highly likely that most decisive combat in the 21st century will occur in cities. This vision of future war is supported by the historical trends of the last fifty years, global population trends, current events, and the nature of war itself. Preparing for future war in cities should therefore be the main concern of modern armies. History, as outlined in the previous chapters, provides some important hints to what type of battle that preparation should emphasize.
The history of urban combat since World War II demonstrates that urban battles have increasingly become common and, importantly, have been decisive. Stalingrad was not the largest battle fought on the Eastern Front nor were the losses suffered by the Germans at Stalingrad catastrophic. Thus, for purely material reasons, there was no reason at the time to think that Stalingrad was anything but a temporary setback. In fact, many World War II scholars believe that the German defeat on the Eastern Front was due to decisions made during Operation Barbarossa. Still, to the Germans of the World War II generation, Stalingrad was the beginning of the end. This is because of the immense psychological impact that the defeat at Stalingrad had on Germany. Because armies fight for cities not just for purely military gain, but also for political, cultural, and economic gain, the results of urban combat can have far-reaching effects well beyond the immediate change in the balance of the military situation. Stalingrad was a decisive turning point in World War II not so much for the loss of the German Sixth Army, but because Hitler had declared it an important and necessary objective, yet despite his declaration the Red Army denied him. Stalingrad dispelled the myths of the invincibility of Germany, and Hitler. The effect of that evidence on the psyche of opposing sides on the Eastern Front was immense but cannot be measured in numbers of divisions.
The history of modern urban battles demonstrated the vast variety of scenarios in which decisive urban operations may occur. At one extreme is full conventional global war. Stalingrad and the battle of Aachen represent urban combat at that extreme of the conflict spectrum. The battles of Hue and Seoul demonstrate that similar decisive conventional urban combat is also likely to occur in smaller-scale conventional regional conflict. At the opposite end of the spectrum from global and regional conventional war is urban combat prosecuted by modern armies operating in an internal security role. In this role, fighting against terrorists and revolutionaries, urban combat more closely resembles police work than conventional military combat. The French experience in Algiers and the British experience in Belfast and Londonderry represent this part of the spectrum of urban warfare. The late 20th century and first decade of the 21st century highlighted a hybrid type of urban warfare that lies somewhere between intense conventional combat and low-intensity internal security operations. This is the type of combat prosecuted by the Israelis in Operation Defensive Shield and by US military forces in Iraq. In hybrid urban warfare, many aspects of conventional combat are present such as the requirements for artillery, air, and armor support. Hybrid urban combat, however, requires much more than sophisticated conventional military capability. Hybrid combat also requires military capabilities not normally necessary for conventional combat. These include special operations capability, civil affairs expertise, sophisticated intelligence gathering focused on the human terrain of the urban environment, and close coordination between military and political policy. To be effective, it also requires combined operations and common policy with the government and military forces representing the urban population. In the hybrid urban combat environment, military forces must be able to operate simultaneously across the entire spectrum of urban combat intensity.
In the late 1990s the US Marine Corps famously described this hybrid urban combat as the “Three Block War.” The Three Block War envisions that on one block tanks and airpower will support conventional attacks to destroy enemy combatants or capture a geographic feature. On the next block a robust military presence guards vital infrastructure and the civilian population against guerrilla and terrorist attacks. On a third block, a military unit focuses on training and working with police, rebuilding infrastructure, and establishing civilian governance institutions in close cooperation with the host government and the civilian population. This is the essence of contemporary and future urban combat. Success in the Three Block War requires ground forces organized, trained, and equipped for urban warfare in the 21st century.
The trends of military history support the idea that warfare in the 21st century will be dominated by operations in the urban environment. But it is not just military history that supports the idea of the increasing decisiveness of urban combat. The importance of urban combat is also supported by population demographics. Since World War II, increased access to modern medicine has led to a global population explosion. Between 1990 and 2009 the global population increased 28 percent. It has increased even more dramatically in developing parts of the world, areas that are the most likely setting for warfare in the 21st century: Africa’s population has increased by 58 percent while the population of the Middle East has grown by 54 percent.
That dramatic increase in global population has been accompanied by a vast global rural to urban migration. In 1800, only 3 percent of the world’s population lived in cities, but by 2000 almost one half of the global population lived in cities. By the year 2030 the UN projects that 60 percent of the world population will live in cities. This shift from rural to urban population will be most dramatic in those developing nations where simultaneously the population growth is most dramatic: in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. An important subset of this move by people to the urban environment is the accompanying growth of urban ghettos and shantytowns. One-third of the global urban population lives in poverty and disease-ridden urban ghettos. This environment is characterized by crime, disease, and political unrest. Warfare is conducted in response to politics; politics is the interaction of citizens in society; and increasingly in the 21st century those citizens will interact in, and be citizens of, cities. Urban combat will be the most likely type of combat, regardless of the specific political circumstances prompting war in the 21st century, simply because the urban environment will be the dominant residential environment across the globe.
The most recent important military activities support the trend that urban operations will dominate warfare in the 21st century. The US military operations in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 were conducted almost entirely within Iraq’s large cities. The 2011 Libyan civil war that resulted in the overthrow of the dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was primarily a conflict fought in Libya’s urban centers. The war began in the city of Benghazi in February 2011 and was characterized by government and rebel forces fighting for possession of Libya’s important coastal cities. The rebels won the war and successfully ousted the dictator when they successfully captured Gaddafi’s capital city, Tripoli, in August 2011. The same type of popular urban discontent that swept through Libya affected other Middle Eastern dictatorships in 2011 and 2012. In all cases, that discontent was centered among the large urban populations. In some cases, such as Egypt, major military operations were avoided as the government addressed the discontent by responding to the demands for reform.
In other countries, such as Syria, the disaffected urban population rose up, resulting in brutal urban combat involving revolting citizens and dissident military units on one side and the army loyal to the government on the other. Thousands of civilian casualties and millions of dollars of infrastructure damage resulted. The historical trends represented by the case studies in this book, combined with global demographic trends, and validation from the most recent significant military actions resulting from the “Arab Spring” of 2011 indicate that future ground warfare will undoubtedly focus on operations in and around the world’s cities. Also, it is unlikely that future urban combat will be conducted on a small scale. In 2007 there were 468 cities with populations over one million. Modern militaries must be prepared to enter these large cities and conduct effective operations, and this will require the military capability to be effective in an environment of over a million potentially hostile civilians.
Preparing for war in the future means preparing to fight in the world’s large cities. History illustrates many of the capabilities that the ground forces will need in future urban combat. The forces must be well trained and technically competent. The Russian experience in Grozny demonstrated that conscripted forces are likely to suffer grievously in urban combat and, as importantly, are likely to respond to the challenges of intense urban combat with indiscriminate or poorly coordinated violence resulting in inordinate civilian casualties. Success in the urban environment without extensive civilian casualties requires professional military forces. The force, however, does not have to be large. If the battle space is properly structured and sufficient time is allowed for operations, even relatively small combat forces can be very successful. The battles in Aachen, Seoul, Hue, and Ramadi all demonstrate that small but well-trained forces can be successful, even in intense urban combat, if well led.
Future urban military operations, as the historical record supports, will not just be about urban combat. Because the civilian population is integral to the urban environment, urban combat must be closely and effectively coordinated and synchronized with political policy. It will not be possible to execute truly successful urban combat operations unless those operations account for the welfare of the civilian population, and political policy ensures that the needs and grievances of urban residents are adequately satisfied. To help accomplish this, military leaders must carefully plan urban combat operations in conjunction with political guidance so that, unlike the French in Algiers, military victory does not contribute to political defeat.
One of the keys to the success of urban combat is to ensure that military forces conducting urban combat represent the urban population. This may be impossible for a foreign military force to achieve, therefore it is imperative that any military operations in urban areas are conducted by combined forces that include representatives of the urban population. General MacArthur understood that the politics of urban combat are as important as the tactics, and he therefore ensured that the X Corps included a small but very politically important South Korean military component. Similarly, 1BCT of 1st Armored Division ensured that all of its operations in Ramadi included elements of the Iraqi army and if possible the Iraqi police; not for their military capability but for the legitimizing influence they had with the civilian population; and for the political effects that Iraqi army success had on the stability of the Iraqi government. Commanders in urban combat must always remember that war is for political purposes, and in urban combat political purposes often are more important than tactical military requirements.
Urban combat has been a critical facet of warfare since the beginning of recorded military history. It dominated warfare for most of history. As modern militaries enter the 21st century they should understand that urban combat is again the dominant characteristic of war. This change is, however, not a sudden development. The trend of military history since World War II clearly shows the increasing frequency and decisiveness of urban combat. Similarly, military history also contains many of the secrets for understanding and operating in the complex urban environment of the future.