Military Geography - Urbanistics

Urbanistics

Due to the highly complex problems that urban development have given the military geographer, a term has been coined by Russian Colonel N.S. Olesik that can be applied to any military’s geography unit responsible for analyzing the urban environment: “military geo-urbanistics.” Fighting in the open country is much simpler; all that there is to deal with is the terrain, weather, and the enemy. However, urban combat involves much more than the weather, enemy, and terrain. The terrain is even more complex within urban areas, filled with many structures and transformations of the land by the inhabitants. Also, within urban areas the geographer must work with or work around the people. No matter the situation, there are always people that will cooperate. Likewise there are always those that will oppose, and there are also those that are caught between the two factions.

The difficulties for any military conducting operations within urban areas begin with the man-made structures that are what make an area urban. The different buildings themselves bring forth their own difficulties; obviously, this is due to the different types of structures that make up an urban area. The most dangerous aspect of urban warfare for U.S. troops, are the roadside bomb, has become a deadly reality because of the narrow streets that convoys must use to get from one point to another within the confines of urban areas. Ambushes are more likely to be set up in or around heavily populated areas rather than the larger “industrial” locales that urban areas are set up around. In today’s wars this is common practice for guerrilla warriors often due to a western nation's unwillingness to bomb a neighborhood or hospital. In an urban area, especially cities, the dominance of air power is limited by the buildings’ ability to restrict visibility from the air and because of the possible collateral damage.

During an urban operation it is almost impossible for there not to be any collateral damage; the people are just too close to the action. Also, with the theater of urban combat, there are some people that will oppose the invading force, and sometimes that opposition will be armed opposition. The armed opposition, of course, makes it very difficult to identify enemy combatants from civilians. This is the case in the ongoing Iraq war. In many cases occupying troops fight residents of the cities they are occupying. Insurgents often conceal themselves in the rest of the population and may employ vehicle bombs and suicide bombing.