In the future, I can say with very high degrees of confidence, the American Army is probably going to be fighting in urban areas. We need to man, organize, train and equip the force for operations in urban areas, highly dense urban areas, and that’s a different construct. We’re not organized like that right now.
– Gen. Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army
The world is urbanizing, and doing so quickly. By 2030, 60 percent of the global population will live in cities. At the same time, the US military remains committed to maintaining the capability to conduct an immensely wide range of operations—from humanitarian...
In 2001, when U.S.-backed Afghan fighters forced the Taliban out of Kabul, the capture of the city was largely a symbolic victory. In many ways, the more meaningful fight would rage in Afghanistan’s rural areas, scattered with villages from the ruggedly mountainous...
Editor's note: Each week, we ask a practitioner, scholar, or observer of war to list the top books that have influenced the way they think about war and strategy. We all watch global trends with the hope of predicting the future. The military rightfully makes...
Diplomats, donors, and investors gathered last week in Kuwait for a conference dedicated to rebuilding Iraq. As the country emerges from the destructive war against ISIS, Iraqi authorities will need over $88 billion for reconstruction efforts. Some of the worst damage...
Fifty years ago this week, during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, a US Army major famously remarked to a journalist, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Pilloried for its callousness, one fellow officer who claimed to have been present even said it...
There are no urban warfare units in the US Army—not a single unit designed, organized, or equipped specifically for the challenges of operating in cities. There are no research centers dedicated solely to the study of military operations in cities. There are no...
For the first time since the Korean War, the U.S. military has to worry about enemy bombs dropping on them in combat. This threat doesn’t come from multibillion-dollar next-generation aircraft dropping precision-guided bombs on open battlefields. Instead, it comes...
It will take months, possibly years, to fully understand how the senseless attack in Las Vegas will change American society. Hotels are considering metal detectors, X-ray screening of guest luggage, and mandatory room checks. Some are even questioning whether open-air...
Mosul has been wrested from the three-year-old grasp of ISIS. In Raqqa, the cityscape is one of ruin and devastation as efforts to dislodge the group continue apace there, as well. However, a fundamental question remains. Each city has thus far survived the...
Mosul is destroyed. Many of the estimated 875,000 residents displaced by the fighting can’t return home because their houses are among the piles of rubble left behind. Mosul joins cities like Stalingrad, Hue, Grozny, and more recently, Aleppo and Raqqa—all destroyed...
In this episode of the Modern War Institute podcast, MWI editorial director John Amble speaks to Dr. Russell Glenn, a senior adviser for plans and policy to the deputy chief of staff, G-2, of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command. Dr. Glenn has spent nearly...
The battle for Mosul represents the future of warfare—and it wasn’t pretty for America’s allies. A ragtag army of a few thousand Islamic State fighters managed to hold the city for months against some 100,000 U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces. The ISIS fighters...
As Iraqi forces liberate Mosul, now is a good time to reflect on what lessons this recent round of urban combat means for the United States. After defeating ISIS’s mobile defenses of car bombs and suicide vests in Mosul’s suburbs, Iraqi forces attacked into prepared...
The Army does not have a school for learning how to operate in dense urban terrain. Beyond simply training soldiers for such a complex setting, one of the reasons the Army should establish such a school is to create a laboratory for innovation. Units in an urban...
We've published a number of articles on the unique characteristics of military operations in dense urban terrain. We also recently launched the Urban Warfare Project, which will continue to develop as a dynamic home for even more content we have in store. In...
The world is urbanizing, and doing so quickly. By 2030, 60 percent of the global population will live in cities. At the same time, the US military remains committed to maintaining the capability to conduct an immensely wide range of operations—from humanitarian...
As the global population evolves toward a denser, more urban-centric environment, the battlefield landscape will likely follow suit. Where the US armed forces of the twenty-first century once militarily dominated the rural landscapes of Afghanistan and the deserts of...
“The Army will never need to fight in a megacity.” Over the past few months, MWI has published several articles exploring combat in megacities and examining the Army’s preparation for such an operating environment. The response these articles have produced has brought...
Train as you fight. It’s the first of the Army’s ten principles of training, meant to ensure that the Army will develop and execute tough, realistic training. As long as we train as we fight, no soldier should confront a situation or an environment for the first time...
In 2013, David Kilcullen, an advisor to Gen. David Petraeus during the Iraq War, was asked how the US military reduced violence in Baghdad by 95 percent. “We did it by killing the city,” he responded. “We shut the city down. We brought in more than 100 kilometers of...
A few weeks ago, I published the article “It’s Time to Create a Megacities Combat Unit.” This article received both criticism and support. Some of the supportive messages suggested that I take the next step and offer an organizational solution. If trends in both...
MWI’s Maj. John Spencer was interviewed for this episode of the BBC program The Inquiry, which examines the ongoing battle for Mosul and the challenges of urban warfare.
The conclusion of a two-part story about the first operational deployment of a purpose-built Army unit designed specifically to fight in megacities.
In 2029, a purpose-built Army unit designed to fight in megacities gets its first test.
Global population growth and migration trends make it increasingly likely that the US Army will find itself fighting in megacities in the future. In order to be prepared for the challenges this will pose, the Army should create a unit manned, equipped, and trained entirely for this purpose.
Ground forces face a unique problem in complex, urban terrain: a lack of concealment. But the technology already exists for a unique, low-cost, and rapidly deployable solution that could immediately enhance the combat effectiveness of US forces in an urban battlespace.
Maj. John Spencer argues that the miles of concrete walls that lined streets and surrounded bases in Baghdad demonstrate that the most effective weapon in an urban counterinsurgency is concrete.