Urban Warfare Project

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Dr. Anthony King, a professor of war studies at the University of Warwick and the author of a new book, Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century. He talks about his book, including an important conclusion: because of discernible trends in urbanization, weapons development, and the size of modern military forces, Western militaries will be unable to avoid fighting in cities in the future.

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Ze’ev Orenstein, director of international affairs at the City of David Foundation. He explains the history of ancient Jerusalem and the discovery of the City of David—the lost and original city of Jerusalem and a place of importance to billions of people today. Over its four-thousand-year history, the city has been deeply shaped by a variety of forces, including urban planning, warfare, and underground operations—the conversation even includes the story of one of the earliest recorded episodes of offensive underground warfare. As you'll hear, the lessons gathered from the history of this ancient city have a range of modern urban operations implications.

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by retired Colonel Kevin Felix. He served 30 years in the US Army, with his last assignment as chief of Army Capabilities and Integration Center's Future Warfare Division. He describes the Army’s different approaches for thinking about and studying the future of warfare, including major efforts beginning in 2014 to focus on global urbanization, including by incorporating it into wargames like Unified Quest. The discussion highlights the complex challenge of predicting the future, developing warfighting concepts informed by those predictions, and ultimately making decisions about what the future of warfare will require of the US Army.

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Staff Sgt. Nicholas Garner, an instructor for the Urban Mobility Breacher Course, which is a part of the US Army Engineer School. As a tactical task, breaching can be challenging. That becomes especially true in the unique conditions of dense urban terrain. Staff Sgt. Garner explains how the course trains soldiers to understand and overcome those challenges, and the importance of having urban breaching capabilities in units.

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Colorado Springs Police Chief Vince Niski to discuss urban policing. In the conversation, Chief Niski explains the basics of urban policing, how the size of the police force and frequency of patrols in dense urban areas is determined, technologies that can be used to assist in urban policing, and recommendations for the military about advising police forces.

A few episodes ago, John Spencer spoke to retired Colonel Leonard DeFrancisci about his Marine Corps civil affairs detachment's role during the Second Battle of Fallujah. He joins the Urban Warfare Project Podcast once again to continue the conversation, this time describing the massive coalition effort to rebuild the city after intense fighting and major destruction of the urban battle.

During the recent outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, many of the Israeli strikes targeted Hamas tunnels. That raises a range of important questions. What advantages do subterranean environments lend to combatants? What military challenges do tunnels pose? More broadly, why is underground warfare occurring increasingly frequently? Dr. Daphne Richemond-Barak—author of the book Underground Warfare and creator of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare—joins this episode to discuss these and other questions about the subterranean dimension of urban warfare.

In this episode, Canadian Army Major Jayson Geroux joins to discuss the 1943 Battle of Ortona. Sometimes called the “Italian Stalingrad,” the battle took place in the town of Ortona, on Italy's Adriatic coast, during World War II. Maj. Geroux walks listeners through the battle, which pitted a Canadian infantry brigade against German paratroopers, and highlights lessons from the fighting that should inform the way we think about urban warfare and the potential for peer conflict in dense urban terrain today.

In this episode, John Spencer speaks to retired Colonel Leonard DeFrancisci. In 2004, he was a civil affairs detachment commander for the Marine Corps' Regimental Combat Team 1 during the Second Battle of Fallujah, Iraq. He describes the role of civil affairs in the lead-up to that battle and the activities undertaken by civil affairs forces during the fighting. His story highlights the special capabilities civil affairs soldiers and Marines can bring to even a high-intensity urban battle.

In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Major General Ross Coffman, director of Army Futures Command's Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross-Functional Team. He describes the team's objectives and the projects it has underway as it works toward a replacement for the M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle—actually a family of manned and unmanned robotics that will shape the future battlefield. He also discusses the different environments in which future combat vehicle capabilities are tested—from open areas to the most complex urban terrain. Thanks to Cadet Ben Phocas for post-production editing.