Urban Warfare Project

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it has been apparent that Moscow's strategic goal is to remove the current government and replace it with a Russian-friendly regime. Because cities are the economic and political centers of power for nations, it is no surprise that the capital city of Kyiv has been the decisive objective from the very start. The fight for Kyiv is the only battle that matters in this war. In this special episode, John Spencer discusses what the battle will look like. He breaks down the key steps Russia or any other military force would have to take to achieve its objectives in this city attack and the tactics and approaches Ukrainian defenders are likely to adopt to stop the attackers from succeeding. He also provides important historical context—how past large-scale combat operations in cities might help predict the future of the battle for Kyiv.

From October 30 to November 8, 2020, a large-scale battle took place as both sides in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War fought for control of the city of Shusha. A year later, John Spencer traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh to study the war and the details of the battle—from the unique qualities of the urban and surrounding terrain to the tactics of both the defenders and attackers. In this episode, he shares a short lecture he delivered based on his research during that visit.

On November 26, 2008, ten Pakistan-based terrorists simultaneously attacked and sieged multiple sites across the megacity of Mumbai, India. The world watched in horror as the attacks terrified the city for almost three days. Often referred to as India’s 9/11, the attacks were planned and orchestrated seemingly with the precision of a military special forces unit. In this episode, host John Spencer presents a short lecture on the attacks, describing some of the features of the megacity of Mumbai and detail the planning and execution of the attacks, before highlighting the urban warfare lessons that can be extracted from the event. The lecture was recorded during a presentation to the NATO Science and Technology Office's "Basics of Complex Modern Urban Functions and Characteristics" course.

What do urban warfare experts have on their Christmas lists? In this episode, Colonel (CA) John Spencer is joined by Major Jayson Geroux and Mr. Stuart Lyle for a holiday-themed conversation about the tools and capabilities they really hope Santa brings. Maj. Geroux is a member of the directing staff of the Tactics School at the Canadian Army’s Combat Training Centre and Mr. Lyle is researcher at the UK-based Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.

On the morning of March 7, 1988, three members of the Palestine Liberation Organization hijacked a bus full of Israeli women traveling to work near the town of Dimona, Israel, in what has become known as the “Mothers’ Bus attack.” Maj. Gen. Avshalom Peled was at the time a platoon commander in the Yamam, an elite Israeli counterterrorist organization that specializes in close-quarters battle, and took part in the rescue operation. He joins this episode and describes his role in the now famous hostage rescue. He also shares some of the many lessons Israeli police learned from the operation.

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Dr. Richard Norton, aprofessor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College and a retired US Navy commander. Dr. Norton discusses his research on what he calls "feral cities"—those in which the state has lost the ability to maintain the rule of law yet remain a functioning actor in the greater international system.

Observers watched the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War closely, searching for indicators of the character of warfare on tomorrow's battlefields. The lessons extracted have covered advanced technology and unmanned platforms, proxy dynamics, the ongoing relevance of armor, and more. But some of the most important lessons have received much less attention. They center around the increasingly unavoidable importance of combat in cities and are drawn principally from the battle for the city of Shusha—a fight that arguably decided the outcome of the war. Listen as John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at MWI, explains why.

In this episode of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project Podcast, John Spencer is joined by Brig. Gen. Robert Wooldridge. He is the Deputy Commanding General for Support of the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard—which just held the Army’s first urban warfare planners course. Listen as he explains the gaps that drove the division's leaders to create the course, the challenges in designing the course, the lessons they learned executing the course, and what comes next as the team works toward institutionalizing standard operating procedures for urban operations planning.

In this episode, the second in a two-part series, John Spencer continues his conversation with retired Brig. Gen. Yom Tov Tamir. In the previous episode, he reflected on his long career as an armor officer in the Israel Defense Forces, in which he held positions from tank commander to division commander. Part two picks up with a description of his experiences during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, including the last battle of the war, the Battle of Suez, which ended disastrously. Based on his experiences, he shares his his thoughts on the role of armor in urban warfare and complex layered defenses. The conversation ends with an explanation of two popular IDF Armored Corps mottos: “The tank is iron but the man is steel,” and “The man in the tank wins.”

In this episode, the first in a two-part series, John Spencer is joined by retired Maj. Gen. Yom Tov Tamir. He served a long career in the Israel Defense Forces as an armor officer holding positions from tank commander to division commander. In 1973, he was an armor battalion commander during the Yom Kippur War. In part one of the conversation, he reflects on his career as an armor officer—from a secret trip to Germany in 1964 to learn about American tanks, through his service in the 1967 Six-Day War, to Yom Kippur War. The discussion lays the foundation for part two, which covers the role of tanks in urban warfare, including drawing lessons from the 1973 Battle of Suez City.