really good article from the Army Times on the future operations of the US Army... good read here.... wonder what they know that we dont.....
Full article via the link:You are not allowed to view links.
Register or LoginWASHINGTON — When the Army looks to the future, it sees cities. Dense, sprawling, congested cities where criminal and extremist groups flourish almost undetected by authorities, but who can influence the lives of the population while undermining the authority of the state.
And the service is convinced that these “megacities” of 20 million or more people will be the battleground of the future.
The problem from a military strategists’ point of view, however, is that no army has ever fought it out in a city of this size. So in thinking through the issue of what to do about the coming age of the megacity, the Army’s Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC) got together with US Army Special Operations Command, the chief of staff’s Strategic Studies Group and the UK’s Ministry of Defence in February to explore these types of urban operations.
“There is no historical precedent” for these kinds of operations, Brig. Gen. Christopher McPadden, ARCIC’s director of concept development and learning directorate, said on Aug. 28. “We really have to figure out the scope and scale of the kind of operations we’ll have to participate in.”
But “it’s not about pouring brigade after brigade into a megacity; they’ll just get eaten up,” said Col. Kevin Felix, chief of the Future Warfare Division at ARCIC. While there will be many more than the current 24 megacities in the coming years, “there will be some that we care about and some that we don’t” depending on economic impact, distance and a range of local factors.