S3E41: Does urban ground war advantage the defending, weaker party?

History Behind News Program

From Roman Britain to the streets of Paris, from there to Stalingrad in WWII, the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, and then to Gaza.

In this episode, I ask the following questions from my guest, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Walters:

1. When did this term, urban warfare, enter our lexicon?
2. Does urban warfare give one side a boost, an advantage that they might not have otherwise had in open terrain warfare?
3. Are there special urban warfare military tactics?
4. Does the U.S. military have special units specially trained for urban warfare?
5. You've conquered a city - what next? How do you get out?
6. What are some salient examples of modern warfare?
7. Are there rules of engagement when it comes to urban warfare?
8. How do hostages complicate urban warfare?
9. In history, do we have examples of urban warfare in which the dominant party refrained from bombarding cities?
10. What lessons can we glean from the history of urban warfare for the potential urban war in Gaza?
11. If you wanted our audience to remember just one point about “urban warfare”, what would it be?

Dr. Walters is an Assistant Professor of Military and Security Studies in the Department of International Security at the Air Command and Staff College. She received both her MA and PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Walters is currently working on an oral history project exploring Operation Allies Welcome, the U.S. military support for the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans spanning 2021-2022. Her second book project, Hospitality is the Law of the Mountains: The 1999 Kosovo War, examines how Albanians – motivated by the Albanian concept of hospitality – took strangers into their homes and communities and changed the course of the refugee crisis. Before joining ACSC, Walters was an assistant professor in the History Department at Kansas State University.

You can follow Dr. Walters here: https://twitter.com/mewalters101

Click here for videos & images of this podcast.

Attrition Warfare:

Earlier this year, when Russia's invasion of Ukraine turned into its 2nd year, I questioned whether or not that war was essentially becoming a war of attrition. And if so, then what's the history of attrition warfare? And which party may benefit from it? The weaker defending party? Or the stronger invading party?

Dr. Sebastian Lukasik was my guest for that episode. He is a Professor in the Department of Leadership and Research Development at Air Command and Staff College. Listen here: https://bit.ly/HbN-S3E8s

I hope you enjoy these episodes.

Adel, host & producer

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3. Image description: Residential buildings 150 m from the Palestinian Tower, which were destroyed during the first week of intensive bombing by Israeli aircraft. October 2023. Provided by Al Araby under CC BY-SA 3.0 license in Wikipedia.

Here are links to articles mentioned in this episode:

WSJ, 10/23/23

NYT, 10/25/23

WSJ, 10/26/23