Читать книгу Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century - Anthony King - Страница 12

It is now universally acknowledged that the principle reason for the rise of urban warfare is demographic. There are simply so many people now living in cities that conflict has necessarily converged on urban areas. In 1960, the world population was 3.5 billion, of whom 0.5 billion lived in cities. In 2020, the world population was 7 billion, of whom 3.3 billion lived in cities.⁶ As early as 1996, commentators began to notice this urban turn. Russell Glenn, one of the first urban experts, rightly noted the military implications of this demographic revolution: ‘Demographics ensure that cities will become future battlegrounds.’⁷ At the same time, a prominent US Army officer, Ralph Peters, made the same point: ‘We declare that only fools fight in cities and shut our eyes against the future. But in the next century, in an uncontrollably urbanizing world, we will not be able to avoid urban deployments.’⁸ Their predictions have been vindicated. Commentators from across the spectrum have been all but unanimous about the prime cause of the rise of urban warfare in the twenty-first century:⁹ ‘The rise of urbanization – and all of the complexity it entails – increases the likelihood that at least some future conflicts will take place in cities.’¹⁰ Similarly, the US Army’s publication, Megacities and the United States Army, noted that the rise in the number of huge urban conurbations has increased the likelihood of fighting in cities. Since more people live in cities today than in the past, in often desperate conditions, it is inevitable, on this account, that conflict has and will become more metropolitan. Urbanization, in and of itself, has forced war into cities:

The nexus between globalization, urbanization and rapid demographic growth in the ‘global South’ of the developing world appears to be changing the character of warfare. We appear to be on the cusp of an ‘urban century’ dominated by burgeoning megacities with a growing potential for violent implosions capable of causing major political crises.¹¹

Demographics are plainly important. However, in addition to urbanization, scholars have also emphasized the asymmetric advantages of fighting in cities for weaker, nonstate insurgents. Cities offset the advanced weaponry that states possess, while maximizing the utility of suicide attacks and IEDs. Plainly, cities have always offered major defensive advantages. However, scholars have claimed that, against technologically superior state forces, contemporary cities – especially ones with rapidly growing slums – now offer the best opportunities for evasion, concealment, ambush and counterattack.¹² By operating in cities, insurgent groups also enhance the protection afforded by the laws of armed conflict and international humanitarian law. Knowing that Western powers, in particular, will seek to minimize civilian casualties, insurgents have actively sought to operate among the people.¹³ Indeed, the city offers such advantages that some have claimed that urban insurgency has constituted the major military challenge of the early twenty-first century.¹⁴