Conference Summary
URBAN WARFARE:
OPTIONS, PROBLEMS AND THE FUTURE
by: 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
