Cities have remained a center of gravity for most conflicts and conventional wars, though they became a focal point in strategic planning only at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Russo-Ukrainian War has reignited the debate on the future of modern warfare and the trends that continue to point toward its urban nature. Battles raging in the major cities highlight the importance of strategic control. In the context of political optics, there is no better example than the intense battles which occurred in Mosul, Aleppo, and Raqqa between 2011 and 2018 to retain control as part of broader politico-military objectives.

Recently, American military leaders have predicted that the next urban battles will be fought in megacities. Gen. Charles Krulak contended that the foundations of future warfare were not laid by Operation Desert Storm but by U.S. combat missions in Somalia and Russian lessons from the First Chechnyan War. These predictions are based on two factors: the migration from rural to urban areas, and the rise of intra-state conflicts.

By 2050, the overall growth of the world’s population could rise to 2.5 billion people residing in urban areas. The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) recently highlighted the immediate need to identify alternative approaches to urban operations. History continues to remind us that urban warfare is no longer an instrument of war, as close-quarter battles and house-to-house sieges have elevated from tactical alternatives for small unit action to the main offensive as a part of broader strategic planning.

Urban operations are tactical maneuvers (part of an offensive or defensive action within the gambit of strategic planning) involving at least two actors and are carried out with an intent to lay siege to a city to gain access to its infrastructures. Three cases of urban operations conducted between 2016 and 2022—Kyiv, Marawi, and Mosul—are especially notable.

Kyiv Offensive (Russo-Ukrainian War, 2022)

The offensive to take Kyiv used standard Russian doctrine and started with the bombardment of the city following a sabotage attempt from special operations forces (dressed as Ukrainian soldiers). The Ukrainian authorities killed approximately sixty saboteurs in intense battles. After heavy artillery bombardment, Russian armored columns began approaching the city, with the intent to siege it. This advance met a Ukrainian counter-offensive which not only destroyed Russian armor but the resulted in severe Russian casualties, including the tank column commander, and forced them to retreat. The Ukrainian population and military quickly mobilized to defend the city from Russian forces, and the siege was broken.

Siege of Marawi (2017)

The siege of Marawi was a five-month-long urban battle that raged in the southern Philippines. The battle occurred between the Philippine armed forces and the Maute and the Salafi Abu Sayyaf groups (ISIS affiliates). The battle witnessed government troops trained in irregular warfare engaging in house-to-house combat, which decimated the main city. With a population of 200,000, the city of Marawi was divided geographically between majority Catholic neighborhoods and Muslim-dominated areas in the south. In Marawi, combat operations were strictly limited to the city center after the fighters retreated there and remained throughout the battle. The ISIS affiliate groups intended to use the conflict for propaganda that would enflame regional and global inter/intra-religious tensions.

Mosul Counter-Offensive (2016-2017)

The Battle of Mosul was the single largest military battle led by Iraqi Government forces in support of coalition troops to retake the city from the grip of ISIS fighters, who had captured it in June 2014. The battle is credited as the single largest military operation since the invasion of Iraq and the toughest urban battle since World War II.

The operation began with Iraqi and coalition troops retaking control of areas in Nineveh Governorate surrounding Mosul, and engaged ISIS on three main fronts outside Mosul, clearing one village after another. In addition to the significant loss of both military and civilian lives, Mosul was decimated during the nine-month-long offensive. ISIS never aimed to retain explicit control over the city but sought to inflict serious losses to the Iraqi army and create instability in Baghdad by prolonging the fight. It also tried to propagandize the fight and the harm committed against civilians to bolster recruitment.

Taking the aforementioned case studies into account, it is important to comprehend the true character of urban operations:

First, cities and towns have symbolic importance. This is reflected by the various governments’ decisions to accept infrastructure damages and loss of civilian lives if it meant controlling urban areas. The siege of Kyiv is one such example that highlights how capturing a capital city can strengthen one’s political motivation. However, if such a campaign fails, it provides many opportunities for propaganda, as witnessed during the offensives on Mosul and Marawi where the symbolism was effective for terrorist groups in attracting recruitment.

Second, civilian casualties are vital for propaganda. Civilian casualties were exploited by ISIS in Mosul and Marawi. Nonetheless, civilian populations were used as human shields, scouts, weapon carriers, and drivers, which allowed ISIS fighters to lay improvised explosive devices or reinforce their positions without being targeted by coalition fire.

Third, complex scenarios overruled commanders’ intent. For offensive actions, commanders had to weigh their losses and analyze the use of superior firepower against the expected loss of civilian lives. In Kyiv, Marawi, and Mosul, air strikes and artillery were directed primarily to minimize losses of coalition troops and overcome challenges arising from a lack of close-quarter battle training.

Fourth, urban warfare is unconventional and improvised. Tactical operations constantly evolved throughout the battle. In the case of Ukraine, territorial defense forces employed Molotov cocktails against infantry fighting vehicles and they mounted man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) on 4x4 vehicles to increase mobility. In the other instances, ISIS equipped vehicles with explosives and altered commercially available drones for kamikaze attacks by lacing them with explosives.

Are Modern Militaries Prepared?

The battles of Mosul, Marawi, and Kyiv have reignited the debate on troop deployments for urban campaigns/offensives. Though U.S.-led coalition forces contributed air and support assets to the campaign, close-quarter offenses were mainly undertaken by Iraqi troops in Mosul. Kyiv became another example where the burden of counter-offensives was undertaken solely by Ukrainian territorial defense forces.

By this, NATO member nations continue to actively revise their capabilities through training simulations dedicated to urban environments. One such initiative is integrating the use of drones with infantry. During urban combat, fire engagement is loosely disciplined and results in a greater expenditure of ordinances in comparison to rural regions. Drones can provide ammunition to a unit pinned under heavy fire. For example, the Ukrainians have used drones to supply ammunition to their units but also employed small hand-held quadcopters for reconnaissance. The U.S. Army is also looking to modernize its mechanized infantry by integrating unmanned small drones with infantry fighting vehicles for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) purposes.

Although modern militaries do seem to understand the need for effective, realistic training, not all militaries have the necessary mechanisms to support it. The Israeli army continues to train its units in simulated settings modeled on urban scenarios; the U.S. and the British Army are still in the process of formulating an urban ecosystem-based training platform. Training sites not only help develop tactical skills for urban offenses but aid in mastering the art of close combat without relying heavily on superior firepower.

Nonetheless, democracies will remain skeptical of participating in urban offensives, and the question of whether decisive firepower should be deployed will remain a point of contention between political leaders and military commanders since the latter share the burden of responsibility when casualties occur among either their troops or civilians. This makes urban offensives additionally unique as residents armed with smartphones may potentially record an engagement and live-stream the operation to the world. This changes such offensives from a battle of tactics to one of narratives, especially for political leaders who may face domestic and international opposition to actions that are perceived as disproportionate or excessive. The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine offers numerous such one-sided illustrations.

Is NATO Prepared for Urban War?

Russian military operations in Ukraine have turned into a full-blown war, risking its spillover into Eastern Europe. When drawing lessons from the ongoing operations, the outcome of this long war will likely be decided in urban cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, or Mariupol—like in most wars fought since the early twentieth century.

NATO retains a focus on large-scale combat operations against conventional adversaries, but is it prepared to engage in combat operations in unconventional settings, especially if the area of operation is urban?

NATO cannot forfeit the concept of urban warfare when it considers combined operations. As population centers remain a form of gravity. Judging by our discussions with a senior instructor at the NATO Joint Warfare Centre and with a former instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School, in Fort Benning, Georgia, it is evident that NATO has taken note of the above context and introduced dedicated training mechanisms for urban operations, including new tactical level training modules and revised techniques for breaching doors/windows and scaling walls. However, the training focuses on evolving tactics and is devoid of operational/strategic-level implications for large-scale urban operations.

NATO’s Allied Joint Doctrine for the Planning of Operations is largely based on U.S. Joint Operations Doctrine and focuses on standoff and enhanced precision strike capabilities with an intent to annihilate the adversary before it even makes initial contact with friendly forces. This is possible through air superiority and technical capabilities such as signal jammers or electromagnetic pulse devices.

With this in mind, adversaries will seek to engage NATO in battles for cities for three reasons: 1) cities are a symbolic representation of political power, economic strength, and population; 2) the urban settings deter NATO’s tactical and technological supremacy; and 3) urban engagements put a halt on numerical superiority, quantitively a major disadvantage to NATO.

Consequently, the deep battle concept which is fundamental to the NATO/U.S. doctrine loses its relevance in urban operations. NATO doctrine provides two solutions to resolve this predicament: military blockade or complete annihilation. Putting it simply: liberation through death and destruction. This form of liberation was tolerable in Raqqa and Mosul, where military commanders were overwhelmed by ISIS fighters mounting serious defenses in the occupied cities. Yet for a military alliance based on collective defense, none of the said options will be politically acceptable.

It is also important to highlight the political leadership’s reluctance to ponder the changing nature of warfare and the implications of future combat operations. This is evident from NATO’s 2019 Annual Report, which highlights the alliance’s investments in employing innovative technologies to enhance its operational military capability without exhibiting any details on future urban operations or technologies for urban combat. The document is devoid of any references pointing toward the likelihood of urban operations in the future. To our surprise, none of the military exercises cited in the report featured urban operations scenarios.

The Way Forward

In comparing recent urban battles with historical urban offensives, it confirms the trends predicted in the early 1990s: Cities have greater tactical significance and strategic vitality not only in intra- and inter-state conflicts but also in regional socio-political dynamics and international terror campaigns.

For NATO, it is not a challenge that fundamentally alters tactical, strategic/operational level decisionmaking in unconventional scenarios. Although not usually urban in nature, some lessons can be drawn from the NATO presence in Afghanistan, especially the importance of human intelligence, humanitarian aid/support, and constant engagement/dialogue with regional political actors. As witnessed in Afghanistan, political support to regional parties provided clarity in military decisionmaking—in urban cities, the relationship between political actors becomes more intertwined due to the presence of multiple stakeholders such as non-government institutions, civil society groups, and international aid agencies. This relationship becomes further complex with the simultaneous employment of combat and stabilization operations.

For NATO, these challenges may be interpreted by political leadership differently, however, for military leadership and planners, it is imperative to take the ongoing engagements seriously. The solution to challenges will not emerge from innovative technological mechanisms—simply because meagerly integrating them in training simulations is not sufficient on its own to prevent civilian/military casualties or save a city from destruction. Instead, military leaders must integrate infantry and special operation units with mechanized and armor forces while simulating urban battle and permitting the participation of civilian urban warfare experts, academics, and humanitarian aid-centric institutions for constant operational/tactical revisions. It is important to note that the idea is not to have a large pool of civilian/military advisers who can provide constant training to militaries with smaller armed forces. The idea is to ensure that lessons learned from successive urban offensives are internalized by NATO military planners before NATO forces are drawn into an intense urban battle. A form of this training is occurring with the U.S. Army National Guard’s 40th Infantry Division’s urban training center in California.

Anant Mishra is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS) Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff (HQ IDS) where he undertakes his research on interoperability during complex operations. He is a Visiting Fellow at the International Centre for Policing & Security, University of South Wales, Pontypridd.

Edward Salo, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history, and the associate director of the heritage studies Ph.D. Program at Arkansas State University. Before coming to A-State, he served as a consulting historian for various projects across the globe.

Image: Flickr.