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Conference Summary
URBAN WARFARE:
OPTIONS, PROBLEMS AND THE FUTURE
Daryl G. Press
January 1999
The summary of
a conference sponsored by the MIT Security Studies Program.
Held May 20, 1998 at the Officer's Club, Hanscom Air Force Base, Bedford,
Massachusetts.
Lt. Col. Rick
Reece, USMC, Commandant Fellow at the MIT Security Studies Program helped
greatly in organizing the conference program. Administrative assistance
was provided by Amy Briemer, Kristen Cashin and Catherine Foster.
The sight of American troops patrolling foreign cities has become
common. Since the end of the Cold War, American military forces have been
sent on a stream of deployments to far-away cities. These urban operations
pose a set of challenges to American forces which the Department of
Defense, and particularly the Marine Corps and Army, are working to
address. What are these challenges, what are the prospects for reducing
the difficulties of urban operations, and what broader options does the
United States have for avoiding costly urban engagements?
This paper addresses these questions by focusing on three issues that
were raised at the conference on urban warfare hosted by the Security
Studies Program at MIT on May 20, 1998. The first issue involves the
inevitability of urban operations and the potential costs of preparing for
urban operations. Advocates of increased efforts to prepare America's
Marines and Soldiers for urban fighting point out that, regardless of the
strategic wisdom of urban operations, U.S. leaders frequently order troops
into cities. This trend is likely to continue, they argue, so the military
must prepare itself to carry out these operations. Critics of this view
counter that preparations for urban operations are futile and
counterproductive. They are futile because the operations will always
raise unacceptable risks to U.S. troops. They are counterproductive
because American political leaders will wrongly conclude that urban
operations are easy; this perception may, in turn, increase the likelihood
of future U.S. deployments. The best approach, according to these critics,
is less emphasis on preparing for urban operations and stronger efforts at
educating policy makers about the risks of urban combat.
Who is right? Are future urban operations inevitable, and if so,
shouldn't U.S. forces be prepared? Or are these operations avoidable, and
do preparations increase the likelihood of deployment?
The second issue is about the feasibility of dominating enemies in an
urban environment. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, innovations in
American military doctrine, technology, and training caused an
extraordinary leap in the lethality of U.S. forces against an armored
enemy in clear terrain. Could the United States develop the same dominance
over enemies in urban terrain? Or is there something about urban combat
that makes it more difficult to generate tremendous advantages over an
enemy?
The third issue focuses on alternatives to urban operations. Can the
United States achieve its foreign policy objectives without deploying its
forces into urban centers? How practical are the alternatives?
Simple answers to these questions are elusive. Part of the problem lies
in the complexity of the subject, but another part of the problem is
caused by the way we have grouped a wide range of operations under the
single heading, "urban operations." Urban, after all, is a kind of
terrain, not a type of operation. Many different types of operation are
conducted in urban terrain. Thinking about specific types of missions in
urban terrain allows a more focused debate on the inevitability of urban
operations, on the prospect for U.S. forces developing dominance in urban
terrain, and on the possibility of achieving U.S. objectives without
sending American troops into cities.
One goal of this paper is, therefore, to divide "urban operations" into
analytically useful categories which reflect the different kinds of
operations U.S. forces conduct in urban terrain. These categories are 1)
policing operations; 2) raids; and 3) sustained urban combat. All
categories have blurry edges, but these categories permit a more focused
debate on the types of operations that America should prepare for, and the
wisdom of sending U.S. forces into potentially hostile cities.
This report also makes three arguments. First, the contention that "we
often do urban operations, so we must prepare for them" makes sense for
policing missions and for some types of raids, but it does not justify the
development of capabilities for sustained urban combat. American forces
have not been sent into sustained urban combat for three decades.1
The only way to justify the improvement of American
capabilities for sustained urban combat is to show that, in contrast to
the past thirty years, U.S. national interests might demand sending U.S.
forces into sustained urban combat. Justifying preparations for sustained
urban combat on these grounds will be difficult.
Second, evidence suggests that investments in superior doctrine,
training, and technologies can generate substantial military advantages
over enemies in urban terrain, especially for policing missions and raids.
These advantages could translate into very favorable exchange ratios for
U.S. forces, analogous to the advantages currently enjoyed by American
forces in anti-armor operations. Despite these advantages, however, the
cost of many urban missions will surpass the number of casualties that
Americans are willing to suffer. In other words, even a 20:1 exchange rate
might not be a big enough advantage for U.S. forces because the political
goals which motivate most policing missions and many raids are not
sufficiently critical to U.S. national interests to justify the loss of
many troops.
Third, there are attractive operational and strategic alternatives to
many types of urban operations. The foreign policy goals which motivate
most policing operations, and some raids, can usually be achieved through
other means. And these other means present lower risks and higher returns.
When taken together, these arguments suggest that America should only
send forces into urban operations on rare occasions and for limited
purposes -- principally raids to evacuate embassies and free hostages. At
the same time, American forces should continue to prepare for two types of
missions. They should prepare for embassy evacuation and hostage rescue
missions, because these missions will frequently be in the national
interest, and they should prepare for policing operations, because policy
makers frequently deploy U.S. military forces on humanitarian missions,
despite the existence of better alternatives.
The remainder of this paper has five main sections. First, I describe
the reasons to expect continued U.S. involvement in urban operations.
Second, I list the main challenges posed by urban terrain. Third, I
summarize some of the ways which U.S. forces are trying to mitigate these
challenges. Fourth, I disaggregate urban operations into three categories.
Finally, I draw conclusions about the potential for improving U.S.
capabilities in different types of urban mission, discussing the
possibility of achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives without embarking
on urban operations and the wisdom of preparing to conduct policing
missions, raids, and sustained urban combat.
A Future Full of Urban Operations
Wars tend to draw troops into urban areas. Cities have historically played
an important role in military campaigns because roads and rail lines
usually intersect in cities, and ports and airfields are frequently
located near major metropolitan centers. Movement into a theater through
ports and airfields, or within a theater on roads or rail, requires the
control of major cities.
There are reasons to believe that America's future conflicts will
involve more urban operations than those in the past. First, the world is
becoming more urban. About half of the world's population lives in cities
today; 70% will live in urban areas in 25 years.2
As the number and size of cities grow, so will the
frequency that overseas wars involve urban fighting. Second, cities are
the political and economic centers of modern countries. Whatever America
decides to fight for in future decades, the chances are good that it, and
the people who control it, will be located in cities.3
Finally, Americans will frequently be drawn into
cities because no enemy's military can compete with U.S. forces in open
terrain. Urban terrain, for reasons described below, negates many U.S.
advantages and capitalizes on America’s unwillingness to kill
non-combatants.4 Enemies
will put their forces -- conventional or guerrilla -- in cities to fight
on the most advantageous ground possible.
The Challenges of Operations in an Urban
Environment
Urban warfare poses a different set of challenges than those that
confronted the U.S. military for nearly forty years. During the Cold War
the U.S. military prepared to fight a numerically superior foe, in armored
warfare, on relatively open terrain, with long-range precision weapons. A
clash between NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have required the
coordination of several corps of NATO ground forces. In urban terrain, by
contrast, engagements occur at short-range, maneuver and command and
control are difficult, and battles are typically fought at the squad level
without substantial coordination or fire support from higher echelons.
Finally, urban operations raise political risks which were less-relevant
in Cold War scenarios.
For years the U.S. military has been working to detect and kill the
enemy at longer range than the enemy could target U.S. forces. The goal
behind these efforts was to force the enemy to cross a "killing zone"
before they could engage U.S. forces with their shorter range systems.5
In urban terrain, however, America's long-range
weapons are less useful. Long-range acquisition is difficult because
obstacles obstruct line-of-sight and because enemy infantry hide in and
move through buildings. A skillful enemy will deploy his forces in ways
that prevent long-range direct fire engagements. Indirect fire support is
difficult in urban terrain, too. Most artillery shells and many
air-to-ground weapons fall at too-shallow an angle to be effective in
densely built up areas. Furthermore, low flying aircraft are vulnerable to
shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and rocket-propelled
grenades (RPGs). And because engagements are fought at very short range,
the dangers of friendly fire from artillery or air support are multiplied.
The navigation and communication difficulties resulting from urban terrain
(described below) further complicate effective fire support as units have
difficulty knowing or reporting their own positions or the positions of
friendly and enemy forces. The long range of America’s high-tech weapons
is negated in a dense urban environment.
Urban terrain also makes maneuver difficult. Streets channelize the
movement of ground vehicles. Because ground routes are predictable, cities
offer ideal terrain for setting ambushes. The Russian Army learned this
lesson in Chechnya. Their armored thrust into Grozny was anticipated by
Chechen guerrillas who ambushed the Russians from the sides, rear, and
above. The narrow streets, soon blocked by burning Russian vehicles, made
it difficult for the embattled Russian armored columns to advance,
counter-maneuver, or even withdraw.6
Urban terrain impedes American command, control,
communications and intelligence (C3I) more than most other types of
terrain. Navigation is difficult in dense urban areas. Global positioning
system (GPS) navigation devices require contact with at least three
satellites to generate a location, and this is often impossible either
inside buildings or outside among high-rise structures. Even when ground
forces can determine their exact position in a city, communicating this
information to their superiors is not simple. Radios rely on line-of-sight
transmissions which are obstructed in built-up areas, especially inside
buildings.
Finally, urban terrain raises political problems for U.S. forces.
First, using massive firepower to overwhelm enemy positions can cause
substantial physical damage to a city including the destruction of vital
infrastructure and cultural sites. Enemies who sense America’s reluctance
to destroy these sites may strategically locate their forces near these
locations. Second, urban operations can easily kill large numbers of
non-combatants. Civilians are difficult to distinguish from enemy
infantry. If enemy forces stop wearing uniforms, the risk to civilians is
even higher.
In sum, urban areas deny America many of the technological advantages
that it developed during the Cold War, they constrain maneuver, they
strain C3I systems, and they raise substantial political problems by
putting non-combatants and non-military targets in the way of military
forces.
Tactical Improvement in American Urban Warfare
Capabilities
The challenges of urban warfare are being addressed.7
Because long range acquisition and targeting are
difficult in an urban environment, U.S. forces are working to become more
lethal at close-in engagements. For example, realistic training exercises
in urban terrain, using MILES systems8
or chalk bullets, may give light infantry forces the
same type of artificial combat experience that the National Training
Center (NTC) gives to armored forces. Computer simulations and virtual
reality can also be used to supplement the more realistic exercises.
Efforts are being made to improve C3I in urban areas and to increase
the maneuverability of American infantry. Urban communications can be
improved by new radios which perform better in obstructed areas.9
Antennae repeaters and creative efforts to use
existing city infrastructure (e.g., cellular phone networks) might reduce
some of the communications problems. Additionally, better training in
small unit infantry tactics at the squad level may substantially reduce
C3I problems. While vehicular movement through cities will remain
difficult, some new technologies, like non-explosive wall breaching
equipment, may increase the ability of infantry to maneuver within and
between buildings.
Precision weapons can reduce the collateral damage to civilian
infrastructure and minimize non-combatant casualties. Highly accurate
weapons may bring indirect fire support back into the small unit urban
battle because the risks to friendly forces, city infrastructure, and
non-combatants declines with precision.10
Finally, improvements in force-protection
technologies may reduce the number and severity of casualties, making all
types of operations less costly. Strong, flexible, light weight body armor
may reduce the exposure of infantry to small arms fire. Acoustic sniper
detection devices may reduce the ability of snipers to attrit friendly
forces. New weapons and sensors will not "solve" the problems of urban
warfare, but they may reduce the difficulty of urban operations and allow
American forces to exchange very favorably against enemy forces in urban
terrain. Whether these improvements will improve American capabilities
enough to make these operations viable depends on the type of urban
mission, the quality of the enemy, and the number of friendly and
collateral casualties American leaders are willing to risk.
The Types of Urban Operations
Urban terrain creates significant problems for U.S. forces, but are these
problems "solvable" in the sense that the Army and Air Force "solved" the
problem of anti-armor operations in clear terrain against 1980s vintage
Soviet forces? Are there other ways for the U.S. to achieve its foreign
policy objectives without exposing its military forces to the dangers of
urban terrain? To assess these issues we need to disaggregate "urban
operations" into the different types of operations that U.S. forces might
be asked to perform in urban terrain. These categories help identify the
conditions under which urban operations might make sense, the types of
operations that U.S. forces should prepare to conduct, and the feasibility
of U.S. forces developing dominance over enemies in urban terrain.
All categories have blurry edges, but three types of urban operations
can be identified: policing operations, raids, and sustained urban
conflict. Each of these operations is described below and distinguished
from the others by the mission's goals, strategic importance, the nature
of the adversary, and the difficulty.
The first category of urban operations is "policing operations." Like
domestic policing, the primary goal of international policing is to
prevent the outbreak of violence. American peacekeeping operations in
Bosnia and Haiti are examples of policing missions. Policing missions
usually face only scattered and uncoordinated opposition. Adversaries are
often irregular forces who are less-skilled than full-time military units.
The key to success, as in domestic policing, involves maintaining presence
throughout the area of operations, using speed to concentrate overwhelming
force against troublemakers, and separating these troublemakers from the
general population as soon as possible.
Policing missions frequently involve low strategic stakes for the
United States. These missions are usually intended to promote American
values rather than protect America's strategic interests. As a result,
American leaders and the U.S. public are unwilling to sustain many
casualties on policing operations. Success in these missions is possible,
however, because America's low casualty tolerance is offset by the low
risks that these missions tend to pose to U.S. forces.11
The greatest cost of policing operations is the
effect of lengthy deployments on the morale, readiness, and retention
rates in the armed services.12
The second type of urban mission -- raids -- is
a broad category. Raids can have many different goals, for example
evacuating an American embassy, rescuing hostages, arresting enemy
leaders, seizing port facilities or airfields, or taking control of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) sites.13
The common characteristics of these missions is
that they involve 1) the rapid insertion of U.S. forces into enemy, or
disputed, territory; 2) the completion of some mission at the target site
(e.g. evacuation of friendly personnel, or destruction of WMD equipment);
and 3) the extraction of U.S. forces.14
The key to success in a raid is using surprise to
insert overwhelming force to the target and then to extract the raid party
before the adversary can react. The United States has conducted a wide
variety of raids since the end of the Cold War. U.S. citizens have been
evacuated from embassies in Albania and Sierra Leone. American forces
seized an airfield during the invasion of Panama and have conducted raids
to arrest Bosnian Serb war criminals.
All raids are risky. Because of these dangers, although raids are
sometimes launched as part of a humanitarian operation, they usually
involve higher strategic stakes. Only then can the goals justify the
dangers inherent in the operation.
The insertion and extraction of forces is often the hardest part of
raids in urban areas. The proliferation of shoulder-fired SAMs and
hand-held anti-armor weapons has made the insertion and extraction of
forces very dangerous. Success is most likely when the U.S. has good
intelligence about the location of the site, achieves surprise, and
targets a location with weak defenses. If the raiding force is heavily
engaged on their way to the target, they may be delayed long enough to
warn enemy defenses, and they may be attrited beyond the point that they
can carry out their objective.
The action on the objective -- the seizure of an enemy leader or the
evacuation of an embassy, for example -- is also risky. Like insertion and
extraction, success depends on good intelligence, achieving surprise, and
light enemy defenses. If forces at the objective put up a stiff fight and
delay the raiding party, more enemy forces can be mobilized to prevent
extraction. For example, in the first six raids against the clan of Somali
Warlord Mohammed Aidid, U.S. forces achieved surprise, inserted forces
successfully, quickly executed their mission, and were safely extracted.
On the last raid, however, delays at the objective allowed Aidid's clan to
rally their defenses. The ensuing battle delayed extraction by fifteen
hours and lead to the deaths of eighteen elite U.S. soldiers.15
Using the criteria of intelligence, surprise,
and the strength of the defenses, raid missions can be ordered from the
least to the most dangerous. The easiest type of raids are usually
evacuations from embassies. Intelligence is often good -- the U.S. knows
the precise locations of its overseas facilities and may have worked out
evacuation contingency plans. Most of these cases are prompted by violent
instability in the country, rather than a direct military threat to the
compound, so resistance is usually light and uncoordinated. Hostage rescue
is much harder. Getting good intelligence on the exact location of
hostages is often impossible. Furthermore, in a hostage situation, unlike
an embassy evacuation, there is a group of people who plan to resist the
raid.
The seizure of port facilities or an airfield is also a hard mission.
On one hand, gathering intelligence for port or airfield seizure
operations should be easier than for hostage rescue. On the other hand,
ports and airfields are high-value targets and will often be heavily
defended. Enemies should understand that the seizure of local ports and
airfields is necessary for the U.S. to conduct sustained military
operations in many parts of the world, so defense of these facilities
should warrant high quality military assets. Furthermore, to secure a port
U.S. forces may need to suppress mortar or artillery attacks from nearby
urban areas. Depending on the location of non-combatants, counter-battery
fire may not be an acceptable response, and the U.S. might need to launch
raids into the city to suppress harassing fire.
The hardest type of urban raid mission is likely to be operations
against WMD sites. Gathering intelligence on these sites is difficult
because the facilities can be hidden. Chemical weapon facilities can be
disguised to look like innocuous chemical or pharmaceutical manufacturing
plants. Facilities for biological weapons are easy to hide because many
agents, like anthrax, can be cultured without heavy machinery.16
Finally, advances in digging and excavation
technology, which make many facilities impervious to airstrikes, also
conceal the exact location of facilities.17
Even when excavated sites are detected, the layout
and exact location of WMD facilities within them are often unknown.
Nuclear facilities require greater infrastructure than chemical or
biological weapons plants. The Iraqi nuclear program, for example,
employed more than 20,000 Iraqis throughout the 1980s. But even the Iraqi
program went undetected for most of the 1980s and, throughout the Gulf War
the extent of it was not understood.18
Even knowing the location of a large nuclear
weapons facility may not be specific enough intelligence to facilitate an
effective raid. For instance, the Yongbyon nuclear facility in North Korea
is known to be involved in the North Korean nuclear program. The facility,
however, sprawls across acres of industrial complex. Ground forces who
were tasked with clearing out North Korean defenses throughout the
Yongbyon facility and searching the buildings to discover and destroy
critical weapons making facilities might require days or weeks on the
ground. Unless there is extremely precise intelligence, operations would
take so long that they would require an enormous raiding force to fend off
counterattack and would greatly complicate extraction.
Raids against WMD facilities not only pose challenges in intelligence
gathering; they also usually involve well-defended facilities. WMD sites
are very expensive and valuable facilities and will likely attract the
best defenses a state can muster.
Raids to seize enemy leaders are harder to categorize. In some
circumstances, precise intelligence about the location of a leader is
difficult to obtain. Saddam Hussein, for example, moved around constantly
during the Gulf War and was very difficult to track. Other leaders take
fewer precautions. Radovan Karadzic reportedly traveled by car through
NATO checkpoints as late as mid-1997. U.S. forces easily tracked Aidid as
he moved through Somalia. Only after the U.S. announced its intentions to
arrest him did he keep a low profile.
Raids against an enemy's leadership also encounter different levels of
defenses. Karadzic's house in Pale was a well-defended fortification with
security personnel armed with SAMs to guard against a helicopter assault
and sentries to delay a ground advance. Other leaders have very little
security. Raids against leadership targets can, therefore, sometimes be as
easy as an embassy evacuation; other times they are harder than most
hostage rescue missions.
The third category of urban operations is sustained urban combat. The
goals of sustained urban combat are to hold a city, take a city, or
destroy enemy military forces that are using a city for shelter. American
forces have not been engaged in sustained urban combat for thirty years --
since the fighting in Hue during the Vietnam War. The Russian assault into
Grozny is the most recent example of sustained urban fighting.
Sustained urban combat could be waged against forces with skill levels
that range from poorly-trained civilians to regular military forces. For
the reasons described earlier, it is one of the most difficult and costly
types of military operations. Even irregular forces can inflict
substantial losses on an attacking force in sustained urban combat.
The United States could send forces into sustained urban combat in
order to achieve a range of objectives, but because the costs of these
missions is usually great, it is unlikely that the U.S. would embark on
sustained urban combat unless significant national interests were at
stake.
Can the risks inherent in urban operations be reduced? Are there good
alternatives to urban operations -- in other words can the U.S. achieve
its foreign policy goals without sending forces on these missions? Which
types of urban missions should the U.S. prepare for? These are the
subjects of the next three sections.
Urban Operations: Can the Risks be Reduced?
During the Cold War, U.S. forces in Europe were trained and equipped to
achieve overwhelming advantages over an armored foe in open terrain. Could
similar efforts create an analogous leap in the lethality and superiority
of U.S. forces in urban operations? Before addressing this question it is
important to note that developing huge advantages for U.S. forces in urban
terrain, a very ambitions undertaking, might not be good enough to make
urban operations attractive options for U.S. military policy. Even if the
U.S. can develop dominance over adversaries in urban terrain, the low
strategic value of many (but not all) of these missions will make them too
costly.
For example, in a conventional war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, a
10:1 exchange ratio in NATO's favor would have been a tremendous victory
for the West. But in a conflict in 1993 between U.S. soldiers and Somali
gunmen, a 25:1 exchange rate in America's favor was considered to be a
terrible defeat.19 The
difference between these two scenarios is obvious: Americans believed that
defending NATO from a Soviet attack was worth the lives of thousands of
Americans; arresting the Somali Warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid, on the
other hand, did not merit the loss of even eighteen soldiers. The point is
that improved doctrine, specialized equipment, and realistic training can
reduce the risks of various types of urban operations, but these missions
will still be unpalatable if the risks remain high, if the interests at
stake are small, or if there are better ways to achieve the foreign policy
objectives.
Policing Missions
All military operations entail risks, but urban policing missions are
the lowest risk of the urban operations. In most circumstances, American
policing operations will not produce large numbers of U.S. casualties.
Evidence from recent overseas policing missions, and evidence from
domestic policing, suggest that the key to low-risk policing operations is
well-trained troops and an emphasis on force protection.
America’s recent experience in two large military policing missions
suggests that well-trained forces can often conduct policing operations
with low costs. No Americans were killed by enemy forces during the 1994
occupation of Haiti. The most serious incident happened during the first
week of the intervention when a Marine patrol exchanged fire with Haitian
police and paramilitary forces. Nine Haitians were killed; one Navy
enlisted man suffered a minor injury.20
In Bosnia, U.S. forces have gone to great lengths
to maximize force protection. Despite the hardship that these restrictions
have placed on U.S. soldiers, the result is that only one American has
been killed.
The experience of domestic police forces in the United States
corroborates the evidence from the overseas missions. Police are typically
armed no better than the criminals they face. But against scattered
opposition, superior police training can create a very high "exchange
rate" between police and violent criminals.21
Like the police, U.S. troops can be trained to very
high levels of competence at urban policing, and in addition, U.S. troops
can be armed with better equipment than their adversaries. With proper
training and equipment, U.S. forces should be able to police urban areas
with low casualties.
New technologies might reduce the risks of policing operations further.
Sniper detection will help foot soldiers detect enemy snipers. Improved,
light-weight body armor will give foot soldiers increased protection from
hand gun and rifle rounds. Optical equipment that allows troops to look
around corners without exposing themselves will give them greater
protection.
Although policing operations are not risk free, they are the lowest
risk type of urban operation. Whether these operations make sense depends
on the importance that Americans place on the objectives -- usually
promoting American values abroad -- and the alternatives that exist to
achieve these objectives without conducting urban operations.
Raids
The category of raids includes a wide range of missions. Some of
these missions can usually be carried out within acceptable levels of
risk, and they can become easier with improvements in training and
doctrine. Other raid missions are very risky and seem less-amenable to
improvements in U.S. capabilities.
The two biggest obstacles in most raid missions are 1) intelligence,
and 2) the successful insertion and extraction of forces. The better the
intelligence that the U.S. has on the whereabouts of hostages, the precise
location of WMD facilities, and the type and quality of defenses around a
particular objective, the greater the chance of achieving success at low
costs. Improving U.S. intelligence capabilities -- space sensors,
ground-based listening posts, and agents -- is not the type of thing which
immediately comes to mind when thinking of urban operations, but they
might be the best ways to improve the prospects for success in these
missions.
The second way to greatly reduce the risks inherent in raid operations
are steps to facilitate the insertion and extraction of forces. The
primary dangers to helicopters and ground vehicles during insertion and
extraction are RPGs, shoulder-fired SAMs, and hand-held anti-armor
weapons. Infrared-seeking shoulder-fired SAMs are susceptible to
countermeasures; it might be possible to reduce U.S. vulnerability to
short-range SAMs during the insertion and extraction of forces through a
combination of better decoys and new tactics. RPGs and many hand-held
anti-armor weapons, on the other hand, are unguided, so jamming and decoys
are not a viable solution. There are some ways of reducing this threat,
however, through doctrine. For example, night operations increase the
likelihood that U.S. forces will achieve surprise and delay the reaction
of enemy forces once they learn they are under attack. Furthermore,
darkness interferes with the use of weapons that do not have special
night-sights (such as RPGs and many anti-armor weapons). Darkness
complicates all military operations; if the United States trains and
equips its soldiers to operate effectively at night in urban raid
missions, they can generate substantial advantages over our relatively
unprepared enemies, and thereby reduce some of the risks inherent in
insertion and extraction.
Sustained Urban Combat
Sustained urban combat is the most difficult and costly of all urban
operations, but there is evidence that American forces can generate
substantial advantages over enemy forces in urban fighting. Some armies
have become quite good at sustained urban combat, but even an historically
favorable exchange ratio would imply very high U.S. casualties in most
urban combat scenarios. Furthermore, minimizing U.S. casualties may
require taking steps that increase civilian casualties and collateral
damage. America would not tolerate the losses resulting from "favorable"
exchange ratios, and perhaps not the civilian casualties either, unless
important national interests were at stake which could not be attained in
a cheaper way.
History demonstrates that well trained forces can conduct sustained
urban combat and generate favorable exchange ratios. In 1967, well trained
Israeli forces took Eastern Jerusalem from Jordanian forces in 2 days at a
cost of only 200 Israeli soldiers killed. About twice as many Jordanians
died in the battle, and there was relatively little damage to the city.22
The following year, U.S. and South Vietnamese
forces demonstrated that well-trained forces could achieve a much better
exchange ratio in urban warfare if they were willing to destroy the
city. It took 3 1/2 weeks for U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to drive
the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong from Hue. About 5,000 North
Vietnamese were killed in the battle. The costs to the U.S. and South
Vietnamese were 147 Americans killed, 384 South Vietnamese soldiers
killed, and tremendous destruction to large parts of the city.23
The U.S. and South Vietnamese forces were highly
effective at Hue, but at the cost of tremendous destruction to the city.
The Soviets in Grozny demonstrated what happens when a poorly trained army
tries to do what the U.S. and South Vietnamese did in Hue. The Soviets
exercised no restraint in their assault and destroyed much of Grozny, but
they probably only exchanged roughly evenly with the highly motivated
Chechen militia.
The Israelis in 1967, an excellent army, were able to exchange 2:1 with
the Jordanians while refraining from massive use of firepower. Even if the
U.S. could achieve similarly impressive results in the future, the
missions would still be costly. Only 63 Americans died during the ground
attack during the Gulf War.24
Had the U.S. been forced to fight a Republican
Guard division in Kuwait City, and had the U.S. achieved a 2:1 exchange
ratio in the urban fighting, several thousand American soldiers and
Marines would have been killed. Even if the U.S. invests the resources
necessary to prepare its forces for sustained urban combat, only important
national objectives will merit these types of casualties. And these
missions will only make sense if there are no cheaper ways to achieve
these objectives.
In sum, America's recent experiences in peacekeeping, and the
experiences of domestic police in the United States, suggest that policing
can be done effectively and at relatively low risk to U.S. troops.
Technological advances may improve force protection. Some raids are also
feasible at relatively low cost, though the risks involved in inserting
and extracting forces into disputed territory will always make raids more
dangerous than most policing missions. Other raids, on the other hand, and
sustained urban combat, are very high risk missions. The question that
U.S. military policy planners must address in assessing the wisdom of any
of these operations is the importance of the national objectives and the
alternative ways of achieving these goals.
Alternatives to Urban Operations
There are viable alternatives to conducting urban policing operations. The
United States can support its humanitarian values without sending its
military forces to police urban terrain. Flooding, poor sewage treatment,
and dirty drinking water kill hundreds of thousands of people around the
world each year. There are many places in the world in which people need,
and would welcome, American help. Experts on humanitarian operations claim
that America's aid money could be 10-20 times as effective if it were
spent on these 'silent' emergencies rather than humanitarian military
interventions.25 In
other words, America can best express its humanitarian concerns and help
people overseas without sending its troops into overseas conflicts.
Some analysts argue that non-military aid missions are not an
alternative to humanitarian interventions. When CNN shows people dying in
Bosnia, for example, the public will not be satisfied by the knowledge
that the U.S. has saved 100,000 people that year from cholera in South
East Asia. The so-called 'CNN Effect' suggests that Americans will demand
military intervention to stop overseas killing.
This argument, however, is not persuasive. Neither CNN, nor a swell of
public opinion, pushed the Clinton Administration to intervene in Bosnia.
To the contrary, Congress and the public opposed intervention until the
U.S.-brokered peace agreement brought the fighting to an end. Revealingly,
when the President finally explained the need to intervene to the American
people he did it in terms of national security -- warning of the
dissolution of NATO and the history of World Wars beginning in the
Balkans. American leaders are not forced to embark upon humanitarian
military interventions by a crusading public. They do have the opportunity
to choose how and when to help people overseas. Military intervention is
rarely the best strategy; non-military assistance can save many more
lives.
Some types of raids offer attractive alternatives. Ports or airfields
which are heavily defended or located near urban areas might be rejected
in favor of alternate facilities in remote locations. Instead of launching
raids against WMD facilities, the U.S. could rely on deterrence to prevent
WMD use. A policy of technology restrictions to slow the spread of WMD,
and a robust deterrence to prevent WMD use, worked well for the United
States for the past fifty years and may be the most attractive option for
the future.26 Other
raid missions, on the other hand, do not offer attractive alternatives. It
is difficult to imagine an alternative to using ground forces to evacuate
an American embassy or rescue U.S. hostages.
There are alternatives to engaging in sustained urban combat. A city
can be taken, and enemy forces hiding inside can be destroyed, without
sending combat units to fight their way through the city. Instead of
conquering a city, U.S. forces could simply surround it and establish a
loose cordon. In this plan, utilities could be selectively turned on and
shut off to encourage rebellion and desertion from the city. Civilians
would be allowed to leave the city through designated checkpoints at which
they would be identified, disarmed, and then moved to a temporary holding
camp. There they would be fed and given shelter until the enemy had
surrendered and they could return to their homes.27
This alternative has its drawbacks. Enemy forces
could punish the city's civilian population, and they might be able to
hold out in the city for a long period of time, even after water and power
has been shut off. This strategy is not ideal, but compared with the
alternative of sustaining hundreds or thousands of U.S. casualties in an
attempt to seize the city, this less-than-ideal strategy is appealing. It
is easy to think of scenarios in which U.S. decision makers would prefer
to drive enemy forces out of a city quickly -- to prevent the enemy from
destroying the city’s infrastructure, for example -- but it is hard to
think of scenarios in which the need to drive them out quickly will
justify the costs and collateral damage of sustained urban combat.
In sum, there are good alternatives to policing missions, to sustained
urban combat, and to some raids. Policing missions may be the easiest type
of urban operation, but their objectives can usually be met more
efficiently without urban operations. Sustained urban combat is so costly
that even less-than-ideal alternatives will almost always be preferable.
There are also good alternatives to the most dangerous types of raid
missions -- counter-WMD -- and in some circumstances there are good
alternatives to airfield- and port-seizure operations. The raids which
offer the worst set of alternatives are embassy evacuation (the easiest
raids) and hostage rescue (harder missions).
Preparing For Future Operations in Urban
Terrain
The United States Army and Marine Corps are equipping and training U.S.
troops for urban operations. Their new focus on urban operations is
warranted. The U.S. military is likely to spend far more time in the next
decade engaged in urban operations than destroying armored formations in
open terrain. But what type of operations should they prepare for?
This paper argues that U.S. military forces should be prepared to
conduct embassy evacuations and hostage rescue missions in urban areas.
They should also prepare for policing operations. Although policing
missions are rarely in America's interests -- our humanitarian goals can
be achieved more effectively with less risk to U.S. soldiers through
non-military alternatives -- this mission continues to be common. Until
this pattern changes, U.S. troops should prepare for urban policing
missions.
There are not good reasons, on the other hand, for preparing U.S.
forces to engage in sustained urban combat. The United States has not sent
troops into sustained urban combat for thirty years, and it is difficult
to imagine future scenarios that would justify the substantial costs which
these missions entail. There are other ways of disarming enemy forces who
have entrenched themselves in a city. Although these alternatives are not
ideal, they are far better than the likely consequences of sustained urban
combat.
Footnotes
1. The last case
of sustained urban combat for the US military was the battle to retake Hue
from the North Vietnamese in 1968. See Keith William Nolan, Battle for
Hue: Tet, 1968 (Novato, Calif: Presidio Press, 1996).
Return to Text
2. Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, Urban
Warrior: Conceptual Experimental Framework, (Quantico, Virginia: United
States Marine Corps, 1998), p. 2. Return to Text
3. An exception might be oil. It might be possible
in Saudi Arabia, for example, to control the extraction of oil from the
ground and the transport of oil to shipping terminals without controlliing
any major urban areas. Return to Text
4. Harvey M. Sapolsky and
Jeremy Shapiro, "Casualties, Technology, and America's Future Wars,"
Parameters, Vol. XXVI, No. 2 (Summer 1996), pp. 119 - 127.
Return to Text
5. In the Gulf War, American
armored vehicles and helicopters frequently engaged Iraqi ground forces
from outside the range of Iraq's Russian-made weapon systems.
Return to Text
6. For a vivid description of
the Chechen ambushes, see Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Chechnya:
Calamity in the Caucuses (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
Return to Text
7. This section is based on
the presentations at the Security Studies Program's conference on urban
warfare on May 20, 1998. Return to Text
8. MILES is a set of lasers
and laser sensors that is affixed to weapons and personnel to create
realistic training exercises. When soldiers fire their weapons, a laser is
emitted instead of a round of ammunition. If the laser hits a sensor on
antoher soldier or a vehicle, a computer determines whether that weapon is
capable of killing that target. If the target is determined to be killed,
a signal notifies the target that it has been eliminated from the
exercise. Return to Text
9. Currently, however, these
radios are too expensive to distribute below the platoon level.
Return to Text
10. The main hurdles to
overcome, however, will probably not be the precision of the weapon by the
difficulty of locating and identifying enemy infantry at sufficient range
to call in artillery or airstrikes. When the positions of enemy forces,
friendly units, and non-combatants are unknown, or when enemy forces are
intermingled with non-combatants or friendly forces, the utility of
stand-off weapons will remain very limited. Return to
Text
11. Foreign policy analysts
sometimes worry about the risks that a policing mission could become a
Vietnam-like quagmire. But America's casualty sensitivity places an upper
limit on the military costs that one of these missions could incur.
Policing missions can, therefore, easily result in political
failures, but they do not pose great military risks.
Return to Text
12. Maintaining one division
deployed overseas usually ties up three divisions for the length of the
deploment. At any given time one division is deployed, one division is
recovering from deployment, and one division is preparing to deploy. See
James Quinlivan, "Force Requirements for Stability Operations,"
Parameters, Vol. XXV, No. 4 (Winter 1995), pp. 59 - 69.
Return to Text
13. Embassies, airfields,
port facilities and WMD sites are frequently located in or near major
urban areas. Port facilities and nuclear sites may be located in
more-remote industrial parks, but these pose many of the same problems for
U.S. forces as urban areas. Return to Text
14. Raids designed to seize
airfields or port facilities may not involve extraction of US forces
because the raiding party may become an element of the main force.
Return to Text
15. US Rangers and Delta
Force soldiers were delayed when two Blackhawk helicopters were shot
down. US forces moved to secure the wreckage and could not be located by
the extraction force. Furthermore, the humvees and trucks sent to extract
the soldiers took withering machine gun and RPG fire. Most of the eighteen
US fatalities in this raid occurred during the fifteen hours in which the
raiding party waited to be extracted. See Mark Bowden, Black Hawk
Down: A Story of Modern War (New York: Grove Atlantic Press,
forthcoming March 1999). Return to Text
16. Furthermore, because
many biological agents are lethal in very small doses (they are lethan in
much smaller doses than most chemical weapons) a dangerous bio-weapon
arsenal does not require large amounts of biological agent. This means
that manufacturing facilities can be small and dispersed, making them much
harder to detect. Return to Text
17. New excavation
technology may be encouraging America's adversaries to protect and conceal
WMD facilities by burying them. See Michael Wines, "US Hints at Chemical
Arms Bunker in Libya," New York Times, March 7, 1991, section A, p. 13;
Jim Mann, "Problems May Doom US Pact with N. Korea," Los Angeles Times,
November 22, 1998, part A, p. 1. Return to Text
18. See Thomas A. Keaney and
Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report
(Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, 1993), pp. 78 -
79. During the Gulf War air campaign, American military planners had
identified two Iraqi nuclear sites. After the war, United Nations
observers on the ground in Iraq discovered sixteen main facilities and
other smaller sites. Return to Text
19. See Bowden, Black
Hawk Down. The US lost 18 soldiers in the battle. Approximately 500
Somalis were killed. The exchange ratio is, therefore, about 25:1.
Return to Text
20. William Booth and James
Rupert, "Marines Kill Nine Haitians in Battle at Police Station,"
Washington Post, September 25, 1994, p. A1. Return to
Text
21. Only 65 police officcers
were killed by criminals in the United States in 1997; over 350,000
criminals were arrested in urban areas for murder, forcible rape,
aggravated assault, and armed robbery. See Criminal Justice Information
Services Division, "Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 1997,"
Federal Bureau of Investigation, pp. 21, 29; Criminal Justice Information
Services Division, "Crime in the United States, 1997," Federal Bureau of
Investigation, p. 243. Both documents are available on the FBI web site at
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucreports.htm. Return to
Text
22. Trevor N. Dupuy,
Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars, 1947 - 1974 (Fairfax,
Virginia: Hero Books, 1984), pp. 293 - 305 for the length of the attack
and the number of casualties on both sides. The number of Jordanians
killed is estimated using the table on page 333.
Return to Text
23. Nolan, Battle for
Hue, pp. 184 - 85. Return to Text
24. Stephen T. Hosmer,
Psychological Effects of U.S. Air Operations in Four Wars 1941 - 1991:
Lessons for U.S. Commanders (Santa Monica, Calif: RAND Corporation,
1996) pp. 155. Return to Text
25. Thomas G. Weiss, "A
Research Note about Military-Civilian Humanitarianism: More Questions than
Answers," Disasters Vol. 21, No. 2 (Month 1997), pp. 111.
Return to Text
26. Some foreign policy
analysts question the utility of deterrence in the post-Cold War World
because America's future enemies may be dictators who care little about
the fortunes of their people or religious zealots who fear no earthly
punishment. Theses worries, however, do not seem to find support in the
history of WMD use and non-use. State actors, at least, seem to be
deterrable through traditional deterrent strategies and threats.
Return to Text
27. Major General Robert H.
Scales, Jr., "The Indirect Approach," Armed Forces Journal
International, October 1998, pp. 68 - 75. Return
to Text
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