Urban Warfare Project

In what has become a holiday tradition, the Urban Warfare Project Podcast turns its attention to an important question: What items should be on a military force's urban warfare holiday wish list? To do so, John Spencer is joined once again this year by two urban warfare scholars to discuss the unique capabilities, ideas, and initiatives they would like Santa to deliver. Major Jayson Geroux is a Canadian Army officer and urban warfare historian assigned to the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre. And Mr. Stuart Lyle is the urban operations research lead for the UK-based Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. From new scholarship to cheap tactical drones, they discuss the items that would help militaries be best prepared for urban warfare.

Cities' complex man-made terrain, the presence of civilian populations and infrastructure to support those populations, a complicated information environment, and a range of political and other factors make planning for brigade and division urban operations extremely difficult. Too often, militaries rely on a limited set of options—such as the deliberate assault or an effort to bypass cities completely. But history yields lessons on how to overcome the unique challenges of urban warfare. Chief among these lessons is that developing operational approaches to major urban areas requires planners to account for unique, environment-specific considerations. In this episode, Dr. Jacob Stoil—the chair of applied history at the Modern War Institute, an associate professor of military history at the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and a senior fellow at the 40th Infantry Division Urban Warfare Center—explores these considerations and details several operational approaches for brigades or divisions in the offense, drawing on historical case studies to illustrate their value.

A strongpoint is a heavily fortified battle position tied to a natural or reinforcing obstacle. It is used to create an anchor for the defense or to deny the enemy decisive or key terrain. Throughout the history of urban warfare, buildings turned into strongpoints have played an outsized role. Multiweek battles have even been fought over single buildings used by the defender as strongpoints. In this episode, John Spencer is joined by Major Jayson Geroux, an urban warfare historian assigned to the Canadian Army Doctrine and Training Centre, and Mr. Stuart Lyle, the urban operations research lead for the UK-based Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, to discuss strongpoints on the urban battlefield.

John Spencer is joined on this episode by retired General David Petraeus. He served thirty-seven years in the US Army, culminating his career with six consecutive commands as a general officer, including five in combat. He served as the commander of coalition forces in Iraq during the troop surge there, commander of US Central Command, and commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following his retirement from the Army, he served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He earned a PhD from Princeton University and is the coauthor of the recent book Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine. He brings both scholarship and deep, firsthand experience fighting enemy forces in urban ares to this conversation.

Many will be familiar with the major facts about the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel. Over 1,200 people were killed and another 240 kidnapped and brought to Gaza as hostages. But what do we know about the specific sites—more than twenty in total—that the attackers selected as targets? What about the specific tactics they employed? And since many of the sites targeted were in built-up, inhabited areas, what lessons on urban warfare can be extracted from the attacks? John Spencer explores those questions and more, based on firsthand research, in this episode.

During the 2022 Battle of Mariupol, approximately three thousand Ukrainian defenders, vastly outnumbered by Russian forces, were quickly surrounded in a steel plant with their backs to the Sea of Azov and little hope of anyone coming to their rescue. Running out of ammunition, short of medicine, and with casualties mounting, they were in desperate need of resupply. A bold plan was conceived, which would involve risky helicopter flights to the besieged defenders. In this episode, John Spencer is joined by retired Colonel Liam Collins. Together, they discuss their research in Ukraine and what they learned about these resupply operations during the battle.