Urban / City Warfare (merged thread)

[Windows97]

I don't get it (then again I don't get a lot of things) but I still don't see or, rather, cannot envisage, why a military would want to operate in cities. I can understand a domestic COIN / Law enforcement operation or counter-terrorism mission but seriously if you are an invading army why not just isolate a city and exhaust the offending inhabitants. No city can survive without a hinterland. Hell, if it worked for Caesar why not now? All I read and hear is a regurgitation of attritionist fetishes.

[Windows97]

Dr. Russell Glenn, Australian National University, presents, "Megacities: The Good; The Bad and the Ugly" during the 2016 Megacity Mad Scientist Conference at Arizona State University April 21-22, 2016


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgWm9BOVT3E

[davidbfpo]

Windows 97,

Thanks and cited in part:

Dr. Russell Glenn, Australian National University, presents, "Megacities: The Good; The Bad and the Ugly"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgWm9BOVT3E

Having watched most of Dr Glenn's talk I do wonder if sufficient attention has been paid to relatively recent 'Third World' conflicts in large cities, I exclude the Soviet / Russian experience which has been looked at.

Two civil wars come to mind, one with significant external intervention and the second with IIRC with none. The fighting for years in Beirut, in the Syrian Civil War being the first; secondly the civil war in Congo Brazzaville:

Congo's democratic progress was derailed in 1997 when Lissouba and Sassou started to fight for power in the civil war. As presidential elections scheduled for July 1997 approached, tensions between the Lissouba and Sassou camps mounted. On June 5, President Lissouba's government forces surrounded Sassou's compound in Brazzaville and Sassou ordered members of his private militia (known as "Cobras") to resist. Thus began a four-month conflict that destroyed or damaged much of Brazzaville and caused tens of thousands of civilian deaths.

Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_the_Congo

Yes mega-cities are 'talent magnets', surely they are also "poor people magnets"?

I expect anyone who ends up fighting in most 'Third World' cities will strive to reduce any uncontrolled electronic communications - if only to prevent global media reporting. No imagery, no news. Presumably some are watching what media lessons there are with the Syrian Civil War.

[AdamG]

CNN journalist discovers what it's like to be on the wrong side of a sophisticated MOUT ambush.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/...ped-isis-mosul

[AdamG]

How Russia Responds to Cities That Rebel The flattened city of Grozny in Chechnya evokes Aleppo’s siege today

A trip to Grozny is an exercise in forgetting. This southern Russian city—the capital of the republic of Chechnya—was flattened in a government military offensive that began in late 1999. The aim was to return the breakaway, Muslim-majority region to Moscow’s control, and the block-by-block fight left no neighborhood untouched. U.N. monitors who arrived with humanitarian aid in late February 2000 described Grozny as a “devastated and still insecure wasteland,” where only about 21,000 civilians remained.
Today, Grozny is a thriving city of more than 283,000—and a flashy, Dubai-style showcase for Moscow’s ability to rebuild. Minutka Square, once the scene of a gruesome ambush, is now a big-box shopping center. The downtown, which had been leveled by artillery fire and Russian bombing, has been rebuilt with wide boulevards and a neon-lit center that features glass-and-steel skyscrapers and a glitzy high-rise hotel called Hotel Grozny City.
One man has presided over Grozny’s reconstruction: Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen president and trusted local strongman of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Mr. Kadyrov remade Grozny and, in the process, created a cult of personality for himself. His image adorns billboards and posters in the city; a recent nightly news broadcast featured 21 straight minutes of footage of Mr. Kadyrov as he inspected security forces and held a meeting, plus a reading from his Instagram feed.
With the Russian military now poised to resume airstrikes on the Syrian city of Aleppo, Grozny also remains international shorthand for Russia’s destructive firepower and willingness to use scorched-earth tactics. As Secretary of State John Kerry said on Oct. 16, “There are still deep beliefs in a lot of people that Russia is simply pursuing a Grozny solution in Aleppo and is not prepared to truly engage in any way.”

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-russ...bel-1478811150

[AdamG]

As the operation to retake Mosul enters its second month on Thursday, Iraqi forces are preparing for prolonged, grueling urban combat.

They have slowed the tempo of their operations, advancing just a few hundred meters at a time. Iraqi forces have gathered troops many times the estimated 5,000 IS fighters in the city.
But hundreds of thousands of civilians still remain in the city. And the ferocity and magnitude of IS counterattacks and defenses in Mosul is unlike anything Iraqi forces have confronted in the fight against the militant group so far. As a result, overwhelming force can't bring swift victory, and the campaign is likely to take weeks

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...117-story.html

[AdamG]

The Army's chief of staff said Tuesday that in about 10 years, the service must be ready to fight in megacities, a type of warfare that will require future units to resemble today's special operations forces.
Speaking at the Future of War Conference 2017 hosted by New America in Washington, D.C., Gen. Mark Milley said that the character of warfare will likely go through a fundamental shift over the next decade.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...ry.com+News%29

[AdamG]

I don't get it (then again I don't get a lot of things) but I still don't see or, rather, cannot envisage, why a military would want to operate in cities.

Because the enemy always gets a vote, particularly on where the game is played.