Navigating Complexity
The role of defense technology in urban warfare
Good morning!
This weekend, Israel has launched its ground assault into Gaza, a punitive expedition against the terrorist organization Hamas. It’s been three weeks since Hamas launched a massive terrorist attack against Israel, launching thousands of rockets, flying gliders, and cutting holes through fences to kill, maim, rape, torture, and kidnap Israelis.
Gaza City, while not the most densely populated city in the world, remains incredibly dense with estimates ranging from 21,000 people per square mile up to 42,000 per square mile.
The Russo-Ukraine war similarly saw significant urban fighting.
The reality is that wars in the future will likely still happen in and around cities.
The Challenge of Urban Warfare
I won’t dive too deeply into the challenges of urban warfare, as others have covered it far better (I’d suggest checking out John Spencer’s work).
Some of the things that are of concern in urban warfare, though, include:
Canalized terrain: forces moving through an urban area are heavily restricted on their movement. There is no real freedom to maneuver through buildings, so these forces must move along roads and streets to buildings.
High civilian populations: urban warfare dramatically increases the risks of collateral damage. That’s clearly not a concern for a terrorist organization like Hamas that uses children as human shields, and it’s clearly not a concern for states like Russia that glibly kill civilians.
Strong preference for the defense: It is much easier to defend in urban terrain than it is to attack—assuming the attacker doesn’t just level the city.
As such, in the future, our forces will need technology, tactics, techniques, and procedures that increase their situational awareness, allow them to overcome obstacles, and kill enemies while protecting civilians. That’s a tall order.
Technology for Urban Warfare
Certain technologies will greatly enhance a military’s ability to fight and win an urban fight. Increased precision targeting will enhance lethality while mitigating collateral damage, autonomous systems will improve situational awareness while protecting forces, non-lethal weapons will mitigate unnecessary civilian casualties, enhanced communications will ensure situational awareness and synchronization of operations, and information warfare will underpin all operations through inform and influence campaigns.
Precision targeting: Precision munitions and targeting have dramatically improved over the past fifty years—and there’s still room for more improvement. Smaller, but more precise, munitions allow a force to hit a specific target while also reducing the ‘risk estimate distance’ (RED). For example, at 280m from impact, a 155mm round has a 0.1% probability of incapacitation. An AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile’s 0.1% probability of incapacitation drops to 210m. Using small, precise weapons reduces the risk of hurting someone unintentionally.
Autonomous systems: Autonomous systems (in all domains) can move ahead of human forces and conduct reconnaissance, mapping out the urban terrain. Coupling these systems with advanced sensors and algorithms, networking them into swarms, and arming them all provide exotic capabilities useful for attacking strongpoint defenses and avoiding harm to innocents.
Non-lethal weapons: One of the overarching themes of technology for urban fights is minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties. Non-lethal weapons (such as directed energy, acoustic devices, and riot control agents like tear gas) all provide means of control crowds without killing. Directed Energy in particular has garnered a significant amount of intention and investment from the military.
Enhanced communications: A military needs to be able to communicate effectively to fight. Communications prevent friendly fire accidents, allow synchronization to achieve massed effects, and provides decision makers with timely information. Advances in jamming have threatened communications, but we’ve seen the development of new technologies to restore those critical lines, for example satellite communications. Additionally, novel application of technologies can enhance battlefield visualization. Imagine a staff officer or commander being able to don virtual reality and immerse themselves in the actual conditions of the fight. Could that improve decision making? Or imagine an infantry squad leader donning augmented reality goggles that overlays critical information on his environment: things like casualty collection points, important checkpoints, or potential adversaries.
Information warfare: The battles in Ukraine and in Israel have demonstrated that war is truly a multidomain affair. The information domain has become critical and contested. For a military to succeed, they must be able to accurately convey information to wide audiences AND they must be able to counter mis- and disinformation. With highly dense populations information, disinformation, and misinformation can all spread rapidly. As such, it’s important to have tools to amplify the correct and accurate information while quieting the mis- and disinformation is critical to the urban fight.
Conclusion
Urban warfare is a complex and challenging arena of modern conflict, but technology offers solutions to enhance a military's efficacy while minimizing harm to civilians.
Advancements in precision munitions, unmanned systems, communication, non-lethal weapons, and information warfare technologies are crucial in navigating this intricate landscape.
As conflicts continue to evolve, innovation in urban warfare technology will play a pivotal role in shaping the outcomes and reducing the human and material costs of urban conflicts.
Keep building,
Andrew