64. John Spencer - On Ukraine, Urban Warfare and lessons learnt

Today, I spoke with John Spencer who is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, and internationally recognised expert and advisor on Urban Warfare and other military related topics. John currently serves as the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Madison Policy Forum and was until recently the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies  at the Modern War Institute at West Point. He is also the Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project, and host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast.

John is also the author of the ‘Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender’, which is a short compilation of John’s vast experience and there are currently over 100,000 copies of the manual in Ukraine, where it’s being used daily by the defenders.

Some of the topics we discussed are:

• John’s background in Urban Warfare
• Why Urban Warfare is the hardest
• Explanation of a possible shift in initiative
• The strategic importance of Kherson
• Likelihood of Putin seeking a ‘frozen’ conflict
• The ‘Battle of Kyiv’ and why Ukraine succeeded
• Why understanding the ‘human domain’ is critical
• Information and connectivity as weapons of war
• Birth of ‘The Mini-Manual for the Urban Defender’ and its ongoing usage in Ukraine
• Conditions necessary for success of ‘Total Defence’
• Reminder why Urban Warfare is critical and here to stay
• Why training for the conduct of area defence is essential
• Reminder of why terrain is important
• The ‘rule book’ of a nuclear-armed state
• Importance of a Ukrainian victor to broader geopolitical tensions

During the chat, I made reference to my conversation with Carl Miller about Russian influence operations in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries. You can find that interview here.

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