The Scourge of Urban War

Drone footage of the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol reveals what many other cities across the world know to well, that when modern war comes into urban areas the levels of destruction can be devastating.

From Stalingrad to Warsaw, Seoul to Hue, Mosul to Aleppo; there is a litany of proud achievements to human ingenuity and construction turned into landscapes of rubble and human suffering. When explosive weapons are used in populated areas, 90 per cent of the casualties are civilians. Yet when these weapons are combined with siege tactics, prologued denial of access to humanitarian relief – such as clean water, food and medical supplies – the suffering is further multiplied.

Rapid urbanization means conflicts are often fought in densely populated areas, with an estimated 50 million people currently suffering the effects of urban warfare. The direction of travel is clear; only 30 percent of the world’s population lived in cities in 1950, a figure that rose to 54 percent in 2014 and is projected to rise to 66 percent by 2050. The US military used to have a military doctrine that simply explained that fighting should be avoided in cities wherever possible, yet the strategic and political importance of cities means that choice is rarely a simple one.

The rules of war and the norms of conduct of modern hostilities has fallen behind humanity’s concentration into cities and urgent efforts need to be made, as shown by events in Ukraine, to assert new means of protecting civilians and their critical infrastructure.

Thankfully efforts are ongoing to push back against this tide. Whilst the ebb and flow of carnage in Ukraine was going dominating the front pages of our news, in Geneva the Irish mission was bringing together representatives from countries around the world to agree a new political declaration around the use of explosive weapons in urban areas.

We now know more than ever about the ‘reverberating’ effects that heavy weapons have when used in populated urban areas. It is not just about the numbers of civilians who are killed and injured in the initial strike as terrible as that may be. If water or electricity supplies are damaged, the ability of a civilian population to survive in an area may be drastically reduced. If schools or hospitals are taken out of service, which they frequently are, again the civilian population’s ability to be resilient to urban fighting is further reduced.

The cost of rebuilding urban areas destroyed by fighting is vast. Over fifty days of fighting in Ukraine has cut the country’s GDP by almost 50%. Estimates as to the overall cost to rehabilitate the country have put a top ceiling figure at $540 billion. A ruined economy facing huge bills to recover is a recipe for further displacement and for those who’ve already left the country to be unable or unwilling to return, with further consequences for the host countries their living in.

There remain huge questions as to whether modern weaponry can be used in more precise ways in urban areas that reduce civilian suffering and the long-term damage to the city’s infrastructure. Precision weapons that were introduced to the world in the first Gulf War still could have high payloads that mean if even if a target is hit the effects of the blast will cause significant harm. Drones are increasingly essential in modern combat and often carry small sized warheads that can be used for more direct targeting. The Russian tactics in Ukraine of using heavy artillery from a great distance to seemingly batter Mariupol into submission is the opposite end of this spectrum.

Whilst initiatives to influence weapon use are valuable, there needs to be a rethink about how technology can better assist civilians trapped in cities to survive the fighting. Traditional deconfliction tools have highlighted where civilian infrastructure is – with Ukrainians even taking to writing ‘children’ in large letters outside of buildings. Yet this hasn’t stopped them getting hit. In Syria new tech firms placed sensors in schools in the northwest triggering fire alarms when planes were nearby. Initiatives like these need to be given far more thought and resource in this new era of urban warfare.