| Conflict follows humanity wherever it goes, and the world’s population is increasingly living in cities. That means armed conflicts of the future will increasingly be fought within cities—often megacities, with 10 million or more residents.
How will sprawling urban environments impact counterinsurgency efforts?
- The omnipresence of innocent civilians: Higher risk of collateral damage that could undermine counterinsurgency efforts.
- More allies for insurgents: Operating out of global economic centers means insurgents can establish mutually beneficial relationships with organized criminal networks, traffickers, and other local groups.
Insurgent and terrorist groups are adapting to operate in dense urban environments…but so are counterinsurgent forces Read all https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/tech/street-sense-urban-battlefields-future?utm_source=Join+the+Community+Subscribers&utm_campaign=df9cdfc40c-TCB+October+23+2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_02cbee778d-df9cdfc40c-122492169
Vanda Felbab-Brown, expert on nontraditional security threats, including insurgency and organized crime:
- “Insurgents are often highly indifferent to the civil casualties they themselves cause…yet, across the world, the political costs of civilian casualties tend to be far higher for governments than for the insurgents or criminal groups.”
- The danger of inadvertently causing harm to a city’s bystanders “limits not only the choice of weapons, but also the choice of allies.”
Read more from Felbab-Brown, who is Senior Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings. https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/tech/civilian-deaths-city-fights-embolden-insurgencies?utm_source=Join+the+Community+Subscribers&utm_campaign=df9cdfc40c-TCB+October+23+2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_02cbee778d-df9cdfc40c-122492169
David Kilcullen, lead author for the U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Handbook:
Urban Combat: ‘Cities Are Sponges That Soak Up Troops’
- New tech available to today’s urban insurgents: “They can use social media as reporting networks or command-and-control systems. They can use local light industrial capabilities to create backyard workshops to manufacture weapon systems…”
- “Constant co-evolution is the name of the game here. As governments develop new tools or techniques, insurgents and guerrillas are constantly adapting too.”
Read more from Kilcullen, who also served as Special Advisor for Counterinsurgency to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/tech/urban-combat-cities-are-sponges-that-soak-up-troops?utm_source=Join+the+Community+Subscribers&utm_campaign=df9cdfc40c-TCB+October+23+2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_02cbee778d-df9cdfc40c-122492169 |