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ABSTRACT
A change in modern warfare concerns the battlefield and the increasing urbanisation of conflicts. The article analyses the reason and consequences of conflict urbanisation comparing recent experiences, the American experience in the Battle of Mosul and the Russian experience in Syria. Through this comparative study, the essay’s goal is to emphasize the centrality of the concept of battle and attrition in modern warfare and to extrapolate some lessons learned in order to identify both elements of continuity and novelty in modern urban contexts. The conclusions highlight similarities of the two approaches, difficulties, and trends in current scenarios.
KEYWORDS:
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2024.2322677.
Notes
1. UN, “68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN:”https://www.un.org/uk/desa/68-world-population-projected-live-urban-areas-2050-says-un.
2. Kilcullen, Out of the Mountain, 30.
3. King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 2.
4. Fox, Urban Warfare.
5. Fox, The Reemergence of the Siege.
6. Fox, Urban Warfare.
7. King, Urban Warfare.
8. Data shows that Coalition strike extensively ISIS’ GLOC using airpower during the battle of Mosul, see Wasser et. Al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, table 5.10, 245.
9. Kilcullen, How Will the IDF Handle Urban Combat?
10. Fontenot, ed., On Point: The United States Army in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
11. West, No True Glory; O’Donnell, We Were One.
12. Gaughen, Summer Operations Northwest of Baghdad.
13. On these two battles see Hoffman, Tip of The Spear.
14. Townsend, Multidomain Battle in Megacities Conference.
15. Wasser et. Al., The Air War Against the Islamic State.
16. Ibid., table 4.12, 170.
17. Fox, The Mosul Study Group.
18. Maurer, ISIS’s Warfare Functions.
19. Bunker, Contemporary Chemical Weapons Use.
20. See King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 1, and Ashour, How ISIS Fights.
21. Knights, Mello, Defeat by Annihilation.
22. King, Urban Warfare.
23. Knights, Mello, Defeat by Annihilation.
24. West, Fry the Brain.
25. Ashour, How ISIS Fights, 60.
26. The Abrams was a crucial weapon for Iraqi security forces in the fight against ISIS and in this context the American support was essential since the Iraqi army could not maintain the tanks without American help. For this reason in Iraq was deployed a group of General Dynamics contractors that allegedly rebuild most of Iraq’s 140 M1 Abrams three times. Axe, Made in America.
27. Fox, The Mosul Study Group.
28. King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 1.
29. Ashour, How ISIS Fights, 53.
30. Fox, The Mosul Study Group.
31. King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 8.
32. Ashour, How ISIS Fights, 54.
33. Knights, Mello, Defeat by Annihilation.
34. Ashour, How ISIS Fights, 61–62.
35. Clark, The Russian Military’s Lessons Learned in Syria.
36. Grau, Bartles, The Russian Ground-Based Contingent in Syria.
37. Borshchevskaya, The Russian Way of War in Syria, 28.
38. Thomas, Russian Lessons Learned in Syria.
39. Ibid.,
40. Bartles, Grau, A New System Preserves Armor Dominance.
41. Thomas, Russian Lessons Learned in Syria, 8–9.
42. Ibid., 12.
43. Clark, The Russian Military’s Lessons Learned in Syria, 32.
44. McDermott, Deciphering the Lessons Learned by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, 2014–2017.
45. Fox, The Russo-Ukrainian War. Fox, The Donbas in Flames.
46. King, Urban Warfare.
47. Ashour, How ISIS Fights, 53.
48. Wasser et. Al., The Air War Against the Islamic State, table 5.12, 248.
49. Fox, The Mosul Study Group, 7.
50. On the use of tunnels and the underground in modern combat, see Daphné Richemond-Barak, Underground Warfare.
51. King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 8.
52. On the centrality and role of the tank in modern urban warfare contexts, see King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 8.
53. On the vertical dimension of urban fighting, see Graham, Vertical.
54. King, Urban Warfare, Chapter 6, and Head, The Battles of Al-Fallujah.
55. A definition of “decisive battle” does not exist and very often that definition depends on the context. However, it has to be understood as the battle that change in a crucial way the balance of power in the competition between the two conflicting sides. In terms of urban warfare Stalingrad was a decisive battle.
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Andrea Beccaro
Andrea Beccaro is professor of Strategic Studies, International Relations and Security Studies at SUISS, University of Turin. He worked in several research institutes (Freie University, Berlin; College of Europe Warsaw; IRAD, Rome) and his research is mainly focused on strategic thinking, security issues on MENA region (mainly on Iraq, Syria, Libya), modern terrorism (mainly ISIS), and theory and practice of irregular warfare, i.e. counterinsurgency and modern evolution. His last works include: Irregular conflicts and Technology, in «Small Wars & Insurgencies», 2022; Russia, Syria and Hybrid Warfare A Critical Assessment, «Comparative Strategy», 2021; ISIS in Libya and Beyond: 2014-2016, «The Journal of North Africa Studies»; The “Gray Zone Warfare” notion: the “Gerasimov doctrine” and the Russian approach to “hybrid” operations, CeMiSS, Rome 2020.