THE ROLE OF CITIES

During the years between world wars one and two, strategists like J.F.C. Fuller contemplated the role of cities in light of his work on the emerging theory of maneuver warfare (3GW). They speculated that cities, particularly large ones in a strategic locations, could be used to dampen or stop the rapid advance of maneuver forces seeding chaos in their rear areas. This analysis proved out, particularly in the steppes of Russia, as cities proved their ability to first slow and then bleed maneuver forces dry. Within the context of emerging theories of system disruption, that are emerging as this war slowly ramps-up, cities play an entirely different role. As the events in Baghdad are proving daily, cities can be engineered to radiate instability rather than dampen it. This is accomplished through acts that leverage three attributes of modern cities. These include:

• Extreme mobility and interconnectedness (for example, high rates of automobile and cell phone ownership).
• Complete reliance on high volume infrastructure networks.
• Complex and heterogeneous social networks that are held together under pressure.

Blitzing the system

The key to unlocking the disruptive potential of cities within this new form of warfare, is to attack key points (systempunkts) within target infrastructure and social networks to force a change in the city's dynamic. Infrastructure attacks, particularly on power/fuel/water, negate the ability of the government to deliver political goods (for example, in October Baghdad only received 2.4 hours of electricity a day). This halts economic activity and forces the population to rely upon primary loyalties for daily survival (families, neighborhoods, religious organizations, gangs, etc.). It also damages the ability of the government to deliver political goods, which are the key to legitimacy. As a result, primary loyalties rise and nationalism falls. Next, attacks on the social fabric along fault lines (religious, ethnic, class, etc.), are then used to force these primary loyalty groups to arm themselves for security. Finally, as these manufactured groups naturally come into conflict (for access to resource, protection, or revenge), the city's intrinsic interconnectedness allows it to assume its own emergent dynamic, replete with feedback loops that accelerate conflict.

What this means

The extreme leverage afforded by this method means that Che's dream of a foco insurgency is finally possible. A small group can, if the targets are properly chosen, force a state into failure and keep it there. The key is to limit attacks on the government forces to only those necessary to fracture their moral cohesion, and focus the majority of effort on those activities that accelerate social and economic fragmentation. Unfortunately, once a global guerrilla effort ensconces itself in a major city, all hope of ejecting it within any relevant time period becomes moot. We are sure to see more of this activity in the future. Key insights include:

• City collapse offers extreme economic rewards in the form of smuggling and black markets. The more it is deprived, the greater the reward. This creates a positive feedback loop as groups involved in the disruption gain from these activities. For example, insurgent and militia involvement in gasoline smuggling and black market power generation in Baghdad.
• The collapse of a central city prevents any hope of countrywide economic recovery. Further, the chaos the city generates radiates outward through refugee flows. As this occurs, the social conflicts are exported, and other cities begin to fall into chaos like dominos.
• The sheer complexity and size of modern mega-cities with populations in the millions defies remedy. Once destabilized, these cities will either continue in chaos until either they depopulate or the exhaust themselves. Of course, further impetus (attacks on systempunkts) towards instability can recharge the mechanism as needed.

Comments

[zenpundit]

"This analysis proved out, particularly in the steppes of Russia, as cities proved their ability to first slow and then bleed maneuver forces dry"

There's a caveat to this example. Hitler pursued nonmilitary, ideological, goals in regard to Russian cities and their populations than ran counter to the professional preferences of the Wehrmacht general staff and aggravated the difficulties the German armies faced.

These ideological goals were overriding and superceded operational concerns, being laid out by Hitler personally during the planning of Barbarossa; the most infamous example being of course the " Commissar Order" but that was but a small part of Nazi plans for " the East".

[bobw]

John,
There's a great irony here I dont get: all or most of your illustrations come from the U.S. assault on Iraq, which is the principal cause of the chaos in Baghdad that followed. You're not calling the U.S. a global guerilla, are you?

[adam]

Zenpundit,

As you note Hitler did go for nonmilitary and ideological goals. On the other hand both the US in Iraq and Israel in Lebanon and Palestine have done the same. Arguably the British in Afghanistan have done so as well with their recent offensive against opium growing farmers whose only significant crime is to feed their kids. Certainly an ideological view, as evidenced by the neo-cons, does mean that reality has been regularly ignored over the past 5 and a half years.

One of the classic examples of this is that WMDs, which were proclaimed to exist, did not. However the effect was that the US left more than a million tons of military equipment undetonated (to allow WMDs to be found) and unguarded (not enough troops).

Oddly enough the locals helped themselves at the all-you-can-fire-at-the-Americans smorgasbord that the US left behind. Who'd have thought that could happen? (actually other parts of the US government did, but the bumbling, ideological, Pentagon was in charge, not them).

However that blunder merely speeded up the evolution of the insurgency. We've seen the US in Iraq reach the same state as the Russians in Afghanistan in roughly a quarter of the time and without direct support from another superpower.

From the start of the US invasion a 10 to 20-year insurgency was on the cards. For ideological reasons under Bremer and Garner (though more so under Bremer's neo-con economic and de-baathification policies) the US did nothing to reduce the likelihood of the insurgency, rather the reverse in fact. The net result was to lose control of all of the major cities of Iraq over the next few years; and this control was never really regained despite numerous attempts at urban fighting.

Now I'll cheerfully grant that nobody the neo-cons will miss has paid for those errors so its cost-less mistakes for them, but for the US as a whole its been a disaster.

At this stage we're working out whether the shattered remnants of the state formerly known as Iraq will spill over into Syria (the Israeli view, highly optimistic, based on their desire to gain additonal land from a weakened neighbour), Saudi Arabia (moderate view, slightly pessimistic, based on concern over the attitudes of the Eastern provinces of Saudi) or Iran (American view, barking mad, based on the screenplay of The Passion of the Christ or whatever they've decided on this week).

Certainly there were, prior to Iraq, a number of American military men who expressed doubts (though who, strangely, never had the moral courage to resign - the ghost of Joachim Fest's General von X must be laughing). Even so they have now been replaced by largely worthless ideological yes-men. We could point to the comments of General Pace this week saying that Rumsfeld is working on what God tells him (Weird thought: Rumsfeld is Joan of Arc? I bet he's planning to be damn careful at the Pentagon barbeque this year...).

(John, sorry for missing so many good threads - a combination of actual work and a house move has seen me with a lot less spare time than I'd want)

[Hans Suter]

Are these Jane Jacobs's import replacing cities or megaslums with exurbs ? I mean disrupting Milan isn't disrupting Naples.

[kevin]

"The key is to limit attacks on the government forces to only those necessary to fracture their moral cohesion, and focus the majority of effort on those activities that accelerate social and economic fragmentation. "

Or attack in ways that provoke hostility and manipulate government forces to overreact indescriminately.

[Scout006]

John,

I found your analysis to be spot on, and I am perplexed after being in the military for 28 years why our military analysts refute this type of analysis as unfounded. More complexing, and even more dangerous, is the reluctance of the U.S. government (not just the military) to transform the various organizations (to include underlying doctrine, authorities, funding, etc.) to enable our nation to effective counter, or at least mitigage these threats. That said I could challenge a couple of your posts, and will when time permits, but I will follow up on Bobw's question now. While I agree with most, if not all your observations, on the conflict in Iraq, that doesn't necessarily point to a global trend. Can you demonstrate other examples of 4/5GW outside of Iraq? Iraq is unique in many ways, not just our idiotic approach, but simply the people and their history. Could another Iraq scenario really happen anywhere else? Where else do you have Iran, Syria, and Saudi as neighbors? Where else was the country a basically open storage facility for thousands of tons of munitions that are now being used to build an endless reign of IEDs? Where else will be stupid enough to disband an Army and try to change a culture? Again I concur with your analysis, I just don't think guerrillas in too many other locations will ever have the advantages that the guerrillas did in Iraq.

[John Robb]

Hans, that is a good question. I have to think about city type.

Kevin, the best result for 4GW forces would be for the government to adopt miltias as an expedient defense.

[adam]

South006,

Interesting points. The reasons for the analysts problems can, sadly, be located in the wonderful book On the Psychology of Military Incompetance by Dixon. Recently reissued in a new format this savage 1979 book continues to have punch.

Dixons basic formula is that military ineptitude results from
a) a conservative and traditional attitude b) rejection of information does not follow preconceptions
c) overestimating the abilities of one's own side
d) underestimating those of the enemy, normally on racial grounds or appeals to some "cultural" thinking
e) A belief in fate or supernatural entities (with particular emphasis on Muscular Christianity)

Do these sound familiar?

None of these points have been dealt with in the US military so its fair to assume that any further operations will have the same problems.

Now as for Iraq, other 4/5GW examples might include Somalia which similarly occured around a major city. The locals used mobile phones extensively and effectively to coordinate operations against the US forces.

As for the Iraq scenario occuring exactly as before, probably not. But there are always opportunities for variations on a non-uncommon theme. Major power invades, civilians rise up, major power eventually defeated. Iraq 1920-3 leaps to mind, as does Egypt 1956.

There's always a neighbouring power (OK maybe not in Antarctica) that normally has quite strong opinions on what happens to their neighbours. You can bet that if the US were to invade Mexico, Mexicos neighbours would have several things to say about it. Strangely the initial position of Syria and Iran was supportive to the US actions and it took impressively useless US diplomacy to reduce the situation to its current point (it was Yemen, Egypt and Saudi - all supposedly US friends - that released militants from prison to fight the US forces).

I have to be fair disbanding the army was a unique mistake, but only one that could have delayed the inevitable internal struggle for power; sooner or later the issue was going to arise over who was going to be the new dictator.

[gmoke]

It may be mild in relation to the realities of life during wartime in Baghdad today or Sarajevo a few years ago but Samuel Delany's novel _Dhalgren_ is a good read and an interesting take on a city going through devolution.

[Elam Bend]

Bahgdad's already decrepit infrastructure made this all the more possible. It's not hard to disrupt things when, even in the best of situations, running things would be hard. In this instance it's an almost perfect storm for systempunkt type attacks.

[kevin]

Must read:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/2006/P4670.1.pdf

[Coathangrrr]

"Hans, that is a good question. I have to think about city type.

Kevin, the best result for 4GW forces would be for the government to adopt miltias as an expedient defense."

I'd suggest a fractal model with key cities as systempunkts in a national system.

Example:

The attacks of 9/11 were an attack on multiple systempunkts, the first and most obvious was the economic center of New York, but an attack on that systempunkt was also an attack on one of the systempunkts of the entire US.

[kevin]

http://www.marx.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urban-guerrilla/index.htm

[Telecart]

Adam -

Though I agree with some of your analysis, I have a few comments:

You write "[...]without direct support from another superpower."
Surely, you cannot ignore the significant role Iran backed by China has had in this conflict..? The Shias were ready to put their weapons down until Irani intervention denied that possibility. Iran has a very strong interest in positioning itself as a leader in the Muslim world, and it spearheads it's assault through Shia populated areas in Iraq and Lebanon. Instability costs money to the west, and destabalizes and delegitimizes Sunni and secular western supporters like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. This is a very complex internal religious power struggle I have no intention of getting into, but is definately relevant and you can read up about elswhere I'm sure. China on the other hand has a strategic alliance with Iran (google "Peace Mission 2005" to see how scary it is) and Iran supplies China was a bulk of it's oil cheap. You really can't ignore petropolitics when it comes to this region.
The Russian stance on Iran can also be understood through the US support of the Caspian-Israeli TIPline to break into the far-east market for crude - Caspian crude, and not Russian. The Russians have been known to use their stream of fossil fuel to enact political gain, while the Azerbaijani and Turkmen and whoever are only pleased to get their higher-quality crude out to the market and gain favour points from the EU and US, as Iran threatens their stability as well.
However, I believe your comments regarding the instability spilling over to Syria is proposturous. Instability in Syria would likely be due to the Alawi minority who rule over a Sunni majority and the American inclusion of Syria in the so-called "Axis of Evil". The Iran-Syria axis really isn't very natural or expected, but comes only due to the west pushing them into a corner (much like the mistaken policy which made Castro align with the USSR). Sunni-majority-Alawi-ruled Syria only supports Hizb'Allah and Iran because nobody else is willing to fuck things up for Israel, and they preceive it as the only way they may ever see the Golan Heights in their hands again (which may very well be true, with current hard-headed neocons at the steering wheel). Remember, Syria was allied with the west in Desert Storm, in exchange for the west forcing Israel to look the other way as Syria swallowed Lebanon whole (much to the dismay of the poor Lebanese, mind you).
Speaking of which, as an Israeli, you've got it all wrong. Israel has no interest in either the destabalization of the Assad regime or expansionistic interests beyond the Golan Heights. If the Assad regime falls it will undoubtedly be to the Muslim Brotherhood, which are by far worse an enemy then the relatively secular and cowardly Alawi regime, and besides the extreme rightwing nutters, most central Israeli strategists have enough of a demographic and political problem in the current occupied territories, no new ones required thankyouverymuch.

[adam]

Telecart,

If you think that the mild support, based on one side selling oil and the other side buying it, is equal to the support that a superpower (the US) sent into Afghanistan including 10 years of on site operation support, provision of then state of the art missiles, provision of training, and billions of dollars of cash then, well....As for the rest of it. Russia and Iran are using their oil for their own advantage, heavens to Betsy!

You think that Syria is likely to collapse? Certainly that is the current spin coming out of the Israelis and their paid supporters, but its still less likely than Eastern Saudi. I'd also note that the Syrians already had the vast majority of Lebanon and didn't need Western permission in 1991, although it took another 9 years for the Lebanese to successfully throw the Israeli invaders out.

As for your views on Israel I have to wonder if your paying any attention to your own nation. Its a bit pitiful that you've been reduced to claiming that Israel has no territorial ambitions beyond the Golan Heights (which are, lets face it, Syrian). You may say that its only the extremist nut cases, but they are the ones in charge in Israel. I note that the current Israeli government now have an out-right genocidal nutcase (Avigdor Lieberman) who is currently demanding good solid ethnic cleansing. He has 11 of the 120 seats in Israelis famously fractious Parliament so he's not alone. Sadly.

With no trace of irony his offical government position is to determine and eliminate strategic threats to the Israeli government. From his history the targets are certain to be:
a) Arabs living in Israel that aren't dead
b) Arab Members of the Israeli Parliament that have contact with any other Arabs that the Israeli government don't like. Or are just Arabs.
c) Anything called Iran

You'll notice that a and b are easily fixed whilst c will require US support.

Returning to your point about no territorial ambitions Lieberman's main plan is to redraw the map of Israeli territory, by force. Its not going to be a smaller Israel, is it? Even those settlements that the Israelis consider to be outright illegal are considered by this guy to be legitimate. There's only one thing he wants: more.

I wonder - do you think that those Arabs unlucky enough to fall on the wrong side of the new border will be given the choice of leaving or will the government not bother and just shoot them? Its been hellishly awkward for the Israelis to have the survivors of 1948 and 1967 hanging around. So probably best not to.

Yet all of these government changes since the defeat over Lebanon have just passed you by.

You may think that the Israeli government is full of reasonable, sane, people. Sadly that is not true and has not been for several years. Not since Herod was put in charge of Mothercare has a government appointment boded so badly.

[Telecart]

I wouldn't underestimate the importance of Irani support of Shia insurgency in Iraq or it's support of Hizb'Allah in Lebanon.

I do not think Syria is likely to collapse any time soon, but the possibility always exists, and I just wanted to clarify that this possibility is considered a threat to Israeli security, not a strategic goal as you seem to have presented it.

It's true that Syrian occupation of Lebanon existed before 1991, but only due to it's Desert Storm deal could it bring it's air force in and take full grip of the political power. Before, Israeli AA would've dropped those migs out of the sky. The 1991 deal was a turning point in internal Lebanese politics; Again it's a very complex sectarian system you can read up on elswhere, but up until around the mid 90's, SLA, who were aligned with Israel were the popular front in the south. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 82, they were greeted with rice and flowers, things change a lot, eh?

I'm glad we're out of Lebanon, make no mistake, but I'm even glader Syria is. Israel never interfered with internal Lebanese politics the way Syria did, and unlike Syria, Israel never had expansionistic goals into Lebanon (despite propaganda stating otherwise). A million Syrian workers travel everyday into Lebanon. Israeli numbers were never even close (in fact, more Lebanese worked in and for Israel than the other wya around). Up until the post-Black September evolution of southern Lebanon into Palestinian Fatahland, the Lebanese border was called "the good fence", and nonofficial friendly relationships existed with our Lebanese neighbours. They were considered to be culturally closest to us, and likely candidates to be the first Arab nation to sign peace with us... Again, much has changed.

I reaffirm my statement that Israel has no territorial claims into Syria beyond the Golan Heights. You clearly are not as well versed in Israeli politics and strategic thought as I am (which is understandable). Israel's greatest strategic threat as a democratic and Zionist state is neither terrorism nor our unfriendly neighbours but rather a demographic threat. Israel cannot under any circumstances become an apartheid state, with the Jewish population becoming a minority. This is why the notion of Palestinian independance has become accepted even in moderate rightwing circles.

I'd be the first to agree that the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria in exchange for peace and full normalization. However, the rightwing ideologist which would rather keep the Golan are not merely imperialist messianic manics. After all, the Golan Hights have been under Israeli jurisdiction/annexation/occupation/whatever for longer than they were under Syrian rule. It's not like borders being defined through war and geography is an unheard of notion in history, and it was the Arab nations who did not accept the UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181) which would have established a (rather large) Palestinian state alongside a smallish Jewish state in 1948, and instead chose to go to war. They lost that war, and other wars that came after that too. No use crying over international law now, says the rightwinger. Another, more pragmatic position merely fears signing a deal with Syria, where Israel gives concrete goods, and all Syria is required is to play nice. All it takes is a Muslim Brotherhood uprising, and any peace deal jsut becomes a piece of paper, and then Israel lost an important strategic asset for nothing. With that in mind, a compromise (which the Syrian position has never even accepted as possible) seems like a rather reasonable position, and not particularly extreme (though, again, it is not a position I myself hold).

Avigdor Liberman scares the shit out me, make no mistake. He's only now getting into the government (he's not in it yet!), and while I'm still hoping that will somehow fall, his party still has less than 10% of the vote. The rise in Liberman's party does not mean that his opinions reflect a rise in the "street level" extreme right. It has more to do with record low voting and the massive blow the traditional conservative/moderate rightwing Likud party took due to the fracture with Arik Sharon's newly founded Kadima party. I fully expect Likud to rise again in the next elections at the expense of Liberman's Israel Beytenu and Ulmert's Kadima.

I feel like I've been talking too long, and this is getting off topic to the extreme, so I'll just end with a note that genocide is not considered a viable solution to anything, and is not even seriously spoken of by any of the political parties, Liberman included. Israel is not only a liberal democracy, but has a "People's Army". Hell, I was a conscript myself, an order to kill indescriminatly will simply not pass in the IDF. There's been a lot of criticism of the supposed dubious morality of the IDF, but as someone who was there, I'd rather be a Palestinian under Israeli occupation than an Algiri under French occupation, or an African under Belgian occupation, or an Afghan under Russian occupation, or a Tibetian under Chinese occupation, or an Indonesian under Dutch occupation, or a Kurd under Turk/Syrian/Saddam/Irani occupation. Or a Sudanese living in Darfour. Or a citizen of any of our neighbouring states. You know why? Because odds are I might be miserable, but I'm not dead.

[tim302]

Telecart,

Genocide isn't considered an option? I have spoken with several Israelis (while in the US) who considered genocide the best option. Enough that I wonder if a significant element of the Israeli public feels the same way.

[Telecart]

I don't know how many people you spoke with, but I'm fairly sure it wasn't any figure you could make any statistically significant claims with.

I won't lie, if I could snap my fingers and suddenly have all the people who would rather see me and mine dead magically disappear, I'd snap my fingers. I don't think that makes me a bad person. Having said that, I don't know a single person (and I gather I know at least a few more Israelis than you) that consider genocide a serious and even remotely realistic goal.

[adam]

Telecart,

I think you're a little confused. First you say that Israel has no territorial ambitions, then you say that Israel has every right to keep currently occupied areas, on the grounds that you've been there a while. On the other hand you are a citizen of a nation founded on the idea that people living somewhere have no rights compared to other people who want their stuff. Seems a little contradictory.

As for whether few Israelis think that its a serious or realistic goal... well I'm reminded of a quote from AJP Taylor: " "

[Telecart]

Adam - I suggest you actually read my comment next time before replying as you seem to believe I hold a position I clearly state I do not hold. Also, before you start pointing fingers, I'd note that the majority of modern nations were founded on the idea that indigenous peoples have no rights, this is hardly a uniquely Israeli proposition, and unlike, say, Kurds in Turkey , Syria, Iran or Saddam-age Iraq, the 1948 Israeli Arabs are equal citizens, living in a liberal democracy. They have parliament members, and a right to express their culture. Hell, Arabic is even an official language in Israel. In Syria for example, you'd be jailed for naming your child a Kurdish name, so, please, enough snark.

[enigma_foundry]

Well, I started to post a comment, but it ended up being a whole article on my blog, here is the link:

Cities are from Mars, Neighborhoods are from Venus

http://enigmafoundry.wordpress.com/2006/10/28/cities-are-from-mars-neighborhoods-are-from-venus/

(Sorry--I could not figure out the 'track back' method, other wise I would have used it.)