Future War In Cities: Rethinking a Liberal Dilemma

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This book is the first full-length study of a key security issue confronting the west in the twenty-first century, urban military operations - as currently being undertaken by US and UK forces in Iraq. It relates military operations in cities to the wider study of conflict and security in an era of urbanisation, expeditionary warfare and new power conflicts; its central process is urban operations, but its context is the changing security environment, whose features are revealed in conflicts within cities.

Within a framework analysing conventional operations, the author identifies the contextual factors that affect operations in urban environments. She advances an explanation as to why questions of theoretical understanding and policy response are as important as tactical concerns, and why cities will represent a politically significant area in the future. In doing so, Alice Hills demonstrates that urban operations present a unique set of political and moral challenges to both policy-makers and military commanders. Future War in Cities offers a rethinking of the liberal dilemma associated with the use of force across the spectrum of conflict, from terrorist attacks to major conventional operations.

Future War In Cities: Rethinking a Liberal Dilemma Review

"Attack cities only when there is no alternative," advised Sun Tzu 2500 years ago, and after studying recent urban battles, Dr Hills comes to the same conclusion. However two-thirds of the world now live in cities, many of which have a population of 5 million or more. And some of the cities are controlled by inhumanely cruel regimes, or by hostile and dangerous ones.

These regimes pose a dilemma for liberal Western nations. If they do not intervene, they are seen as condoning brutality, and they risk being harmed by large-scale organized crime, or by WMDs.

But if they do intervene, they often become involved in a war that makes existence for the regime's victims even more brutal, consequently increasing hostility towards the West.

Hills compares the response of highly trained British forces in Northern Ireland and Basra (with 3 months special training followed by only 4 months active service) with those of French in Algiers, the Israelis in Jenin, plus the Americans in Hue and Baghdad, and she makes a very detailed analysis of the Russians in Grozny.

These forces all began with rules of engagement calling for minimum aggression, to protect non-combatants and the urban infrastructure. But when the intervening soldiers started receiving significant casualties, their tactics became much more violent. Hills relates how entire Russian artillery batteries, with unlimited supplies of surplus Cold War ammunition, were used to level tenement buildings containing just one sniper. To little avail: the demolished buildings then impeded their armoured vehicles while their Chechen enemy were still protected in tunnels and sewers.

Despite the recent development of digitized technology that was so successful in the open country of Afghanistan, today's urban warfare remains surprizingly similar to that of three decades ago. GPS and sensors are not as effective as mouse-holing bars and mirrors on sticks. She notes that the most effective urban weapons are the controversial thermobaric rockets derived by combining WWII-style RPGs and flame throwers.

Western armies are developing tactics for urban warfare, but Dr Hills says that to date that there have been no strategic urban studies done in the West. She suggests that the critical strategic element is infantry with high morale, good NCOs, and relevant urban training.

The first section of this book is rather heavy going. Try dipping into some of the more descriptive chapters in the middle of the book first. And if you only have limited time, go to the last chapter and "afterword" where she has summarized all her thinking.

Dr Alice Hills was formerly a lecturer at the UK Joint Services Staff College at Shrivenham, and now lectures in conflict, development and security at the University of Leeds.

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