The influence of MOUT on the current RMA?

[Shek]

I'm interested in finding out others' opinions on the influence of Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) on the current Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Someone posed the question to me and while I'm quite familiar with the evolution of the importance of MOUT to the US Army in the 1990s as well as thoughts on the RMA over the past two decades, I had never really thought of the influence of both on one another.

If you've got thoughts or articles on the subject, please post them. Thanks.

[lemontree]

Shek,
There is a lot one would like to discuss, but I prefer to keep those points out of the open domain.

[S2]

Thoughts on MOUT

For myself, the rebirth of MOUT operations goes back to the late seventies and early eighties. Concepts of MOUT operations began to find their way back into military literature as the lessons of W.W.II were reapplied as components of the overall NATO/U.S. defensive scheme for central Europe-AIRLAND battle came to the fore.

The rapid urbanization of central and western Europe through the sixties and seventies, coupled with the German emphasis on "forward defense" created a virtue of necessity. This, coupled with an increasing demand to find viable missions in a "high-intensity" environ for newly-created light-infantry divisions and airborne/air-assault forces focused attention on the use of cities and urbanized strips to degrade the momentum of any notional Soviet assault, particularly associated with restraining the dislocative effects expected from the Soviet employment of OMGs (Operational Manuever Groups). Suddenly, MOUT operations became an intregal component of NATO's defensive mosaic.

That said, Shek, my suspicion is that "my" MOUT and "your" MOUT may be two different things. My MOUT concepts find their origin in places like St. Lo, Aachen, Manila, Hue, Seoul, and Stalingrad. I don't think that you've that in mind at present. New operational realities seem to be emerging as MOUT is integrated into our "kinder, gentler, thousand points-of-light" combat perspective.

Oddly, Fallujah seems a clear departure to the days of yore. Clearly that's a function of the battlefield preparation leading up to the engagement. With virtually all civilians cleared from the A.O., largely unrestricted manuever/engagement caveats were lifted. More interesting would be the earlier battle at Najaf that August of 2004. There, our forces were heavily engaged with the Mahdis (IIRC) in an A.O which was highly restrictive. Both civilians and sensitive locations/NFAs were present. Too, my suspicion is that your own brigade was intensively involved in MOUT operations up in Mosul, albeit with heavy modifications, restrictive ROEs, and discrete targets.

Finally, in this age of asymmetric responses to conventional forces, no army (as I know you're aware) has more MOUT experience/expertise currently than the IDF. Here you'll find more of the relevant lessons, both good and bad, of the modern character of MOUT.

Oh, then there's Chechnya, though I'm certain that's NOT what you had in mind!;)

[Shek]

Oh, then there's Chechnya, though I'm certain that's NOT what you had in mind!;)

Chechnya 1 was a clear motivation for rediscovering MOUT, and so I wouldn't underestimate it as a catalyst, even if we in the West didn't adopt the Russian solution that we saw in Chechnya 2.

[S2]

Grozny

"Chechnya 1 was a clear motivation for rediscovering MOUT, and so I wouldn't underestimate it as a catalyst, even if we in the West didn't adopt the Russian solution that we saw in Chechnya 2."

PARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Summer 1999

To that end, I offer the above article as a summary of those battles. Still, the RMA connection to MOUT would seemingly look to new variants of TTPs to accomodate a more complex urban A.O., a nuanced opponent eager to avoid open engagement, and the attuned sensibilities of the local population, media, and home audience.

[cato]

Shek,
Greetings to you and all the Krbalchi people. We come in peace:-). I run into difficulty with the concept of RMA effecting MOUT operations. From this decidedly civillian armchair, it seems that the close-urban fight simply cannot be "revolutionized" the way air combat, naval warfare, or standoff ground combat can. RMA (WTF that means anymore) can provide force multipliers, and as S-2 mentioned, better TTPs. No technological soltion, however, can be found to the immutable fog of war that exists when two sides are trying to destroy each other in a city. Less so when one side is prepared to hide behind (often times willing and friendly to them) civillians, and the other side abhorrs their death. Israel's difficulty in the Southern Lebanese village-fortresses seems to point to this. The Russians have found a workable solution to this, the West has not. It remains to be seen, IMHO wheather RMA can allow the US to succeed in an era of constrictive ROEs, and pervasive media exposure.

There are two articles which I have found interesting, both a little dated,but useful. The first is Ralph Peter's Our Soldier's, their CitiesPARAMETERS, US Army War College Quarterly - Spring 1996, and the second is Les Grau, and Ali Jalali's Foreign Military Studies Office Publications - Night Stalkers and Mean Streets: Afghan Urban Guerrillas. Auntie Em, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

[S2]

Cato Reply

Both were interesting reads. Thanks.

"...At the broadest level, there is a profound spatial difference. "Conventional" warfare has been horizontal, with an increasing vertical dimension. In fully urbanized terrain, however, warfare becomes profoundly vertical, reaching up into towers of steel and cement, and downward into sewers, subway lines, road tunnels, communications tunnels, and the like. Even with the "emptying" of the modern battlefield, organizational behavior in the field strives for lateral contiguity and organizational integrity. But the broken spatial qualities of urban terrain fragments units and compartmentalizes encounters, engagements, and even battles. The leader's span of control can easily collapse, and it is very, very hard to gain and maintain an accurate picture of the multidimensional "battlefield."

Noncombatants, without the least hostile intent, can overwhelm the force, and there are multiple players beyond the purely military, from criminal gangs to the media, vigilante and paramilitary factions within militaries, and factions within those factions. The enemy knows the terrain better than the visiting army, and it can be debilitatingly difficult to tell friend from foe from the disinterested. Local combat situations can change with bewildering speed. Atrocity is close-up and commonplace, whether intentional or incidental. The stresses on the soldier are incalculable. The urban combat environment is, above all, disintegrative..."

Peters has probably summarized the modern urban setting. His first paragraph offers the same challenges to which most are accustomed when considering MOUT. These challenges bear reminding, however, as they continually revalidate their importance. The second paragraph defines the contemporary cultural/social environ, whether Sarajevo, Mogadishu, or Baghdad/Basra, where urban combat seemingly co-exists with the daily commerce.

Reading Peter's article in detail reveals the war-fighting considerations and skills that he believes we need to operate successfully in a MOUT environ. His suggestions entail a radical reorganization for combat of our current army, specifically with a de-emphasis of artillery fires (boo-hiss!) coupled with an enhanced pioneer/engineer force. We've seen as much in Iraq where artillery battalions may be spending more time on the streets than behind their tubes. He further, however, implies that these skills are so fully demanding and all-encompassing that we'd need to allocate three divisions of troops for a dedicated MOUT force, componets coming from both the active army and national guard.

RMA? Our armed forces and governments face two very real threats that simultaneously challenge our current institutional approach- state-to-state conflict, and assymetrical warfare by non-state actors. America would like to dominate both ends of this warfare spectrum. Can we? Is it realistic to assume that we can institutionally prepare our forces to fight across the full spectrum of conflict with equal efficacy?

Should we? Is there a continuing threat of state-to-state conventional high-intensity combat that threatens OUR interests? How wedded are Americans to dominating an end of the conflict spectrum that may be rendered largely null by emerging political realities and technological possibilites? If assymetrical warfare in an urban environ will define the nature of future conflict, then America is utterly unprepared to meet such an outcome. Today's article by Lt. Col. Yingling posted by Shek elsewhere indicates as much.

[Shek]

Our armed forces and governments face two very real threats that simultaneously challenge our current institutional approach- state-to-state conflict, and assymetrical warfare by non-state actors. America would like to dominate both ends of this warfare spectrum. Can we? Is it realistic to assume that we can institutionally prepare our forces to fight across the full spectrum of conflict with equal efficacy?

The problem is that we saw the RMA as a tool that could be used to make the lower end of the spectrum a lesser included case. Bosnia and Kosovo didn't reveal the cracks in that theory, but Iraq has.

[astralis]

shek,

my thanks for the thread.

what sparked the original question was simply that the current RMA seems to focus on precision, intelligence, mobility, and technology to hone lethality into as efficient a package as possible. this package is then used against a centralized enemy, disrupting his 'decision cycle', paralyzing operations, and finally finishing him off.

however, against a decentralized enemy in an environment where precision, intelligence, mobility, and technology is dulled- and where efficiency is not the most valued of virtues- then it would seem that the ideas, technologies, and mindset of the "RMA-ized" military is not as important.

S-2 made a good point regarding the two distinct natures of war that america needs to be prepared for. what i would like to ask is: can the RMA that the DoD is trying to develop create an army which can deal well with both situations?

what balances can be made (for example, an RMA army that is doubled in size from the current force), what type of influence does MOUT have on RMA and RMA have on MOUT?

the british had this same problem 100 years ago. the army that fought the boer war was not suitable for the battlefields of WWI. would the US army of say, 2015 be any more flexible as to this regard?

[WECIV]

It is not so much the army that was at fault in the UK in WWI. It was the leadership. It sucked. If the German leadership had been in charge of the Allies they would not have done nearly as bad. The Germans had a much smaller population and GDP, yet their adaptable leaders, self discipline, communication, self-criticism, initiative, and ability for small units to think alone (and train and modify tactics as they saw fit) made the difference. An institution that criticizes itself and learns from its mistakes is what is needed. The Americans nor the British at the time had it. Adaptable leadership at every level and the ability for units to think for themselves and adapt as they see fit is key. Horizontal communication is also a problem and something we do not possess. Without these things we will lose in 2015 or 2008 for that manner. Tis not the structure or the technology that wins wars it is the leadership at all levels and what is in their mind. Had the British Army possessed a less hierarchical leadership that operated as laid out above, they could have come up with Storm Trooper tactics or something else and won WWI without as much lost life.

W

[Blademaster]

Media is the biggest enemy-killer of MOUT just because it hinders many certain types of operation that would satisfy the "military expedient" requirement due to the fact the media would easily whip up anti sentiments. For example, in western militaries, long sieges are not politically acceptable because of the broadcasts of showing suffering of people that directly emanate from such operations. Not only that, it is hard to know who is the enemy and who is not.

In my opinion, the biggest force mutliplier is HUMINT at the street level, city block by city block. The way I would do it is create a HUMINT system on a grid system and assign an intelligence gathering person or informant working undercover to each grid square and basically have him responsible for gathering on who's who and what's who doing and how. Once you have done that, you need to set down parameters on what kind of infomation he gives you and the importance of certain parameters, i.e., who got the political, social or economic support, who got men and material, political leanings. It will be very Gestapo or East German Stasi type like info gathering.

The problem with that is it is time-consuming and man-intensive.

Of course it goes without saying that in order for a successful MOUT, you need to surround the city and cut it off completely from any avenue of LOC for enemies. Failure of the Wermacht to cut Stalingrad from all avenues of LOC comes to mind. Because of that failure, the Soviets were able to disrupt the Germans' MOUT and bog the Wermacht machine down. You need to take control of water supply (very important as people cannot survive and hold out for long without a steady supply of water), telecommunication systems (VERY IMPORTANT as the enemy will not be able to coordinate), power subsystems, transit routes. Most important of all, keep the damn ****ing journalists out. Suspend the right of speech for journalists, including your own. Jam the hell out of every ince of the area except for your own frequency.

[Shek]

Media is the biggest enemy-killer of MOUT just because it hinders many certain types of operation that would satisfy the "military expedient" requirement due to the fact the media would easily whip up anti sentiments. For example, in western militaries, long sieges are not politically acceptable because of the broadcasts of showing suffering of people that directly emanate from such operations. Not only that, it is hard to know who is the enemy and who is not.

In my opinion, the biggest force mutliplier is HUMINT at the street level, city block by city block. The way I would do it is create a HUMINT system on a grid system and assign an intelligence gathering person or informant working undercover to each grid square and basically have him responsible for gathering on who's who and what's who doing and how. Once you have done that, you need to set down parameters on what kind of infomation he gives you and the importance of certain parameters, i.e., who got the political, social or economic support, who got men and material, political leanings. It will be very Gestapo or East German Stasi type like info gathering.

The problem with that is it is time-consuming and man-intensive.

Of course it goes without saying that in order for a successful MOUT, you need to surround the city and cut it off completely from any avenue of LOC for enemies. Failure of the Wermacht to cut Stalingrad from all avenues of LOC comes to mind. Because of that failure, the Soviets were able to disrupt the Germans' MOUT and bog the Wermacht machine down. You need to take control of water supply (very important as people cannot survive and hold out for long without a steady supply of water), telecommunication systems (VERY IMPORTANT as the enemy will not be able to coordinate), power subsystems, transit routes. Most important of all, keep the damn ****ing journalists out. Suspend the right of speech for journalists, including your own. Jam the hell out of every ince of the area except for your own frequency.

Blademaster,

1. You seem to be conflating MOUT with COIN, as the two are not synonymous. HUMINT is important in each, but infiltrating intel folks for HUMINT in a high intensity MOUT operation isn't happening.

2. You misinterpret the the source of an information operation's impact. It is not simply because the media shows up, but because only one side puts out a story. Fallujah I, how many embedded reporters? Jenin, how many embedded reporters? What was the importance of US and Israeli information operations? Not so much, which is why they lost the information war in both cases. If you allow a vacuum of information, then the enemy will fill it to their advantage. Fill the space!

3. Next, look at Fallujah II, and you'll find a battle worthy of comparison to Hue or WWII MOUT battles where it was a knock 'em down and take names type of contest. Why? Because we took the media with us and seized the enemy's propaganda site on day 0. We filled the space and the enemy didn't! Media impact on the operation? Zero.

[Blademaster]

Yes Falluja II was a textbook operation in managing information warfare but sadly it is too late too little because they did not apply those lessons in the first place as US forces is no longer able to keep Shiite and Sunni forces in check. Iraq is spiraling towards civil war.

[Blademaster]

By the way, over at Tanknet, people are saying that the Powell Doctrine is no longer valid in today's world because enemies are moving away from conventional warfare and forces and moving toward insurgencies as a way to defeat the Powell Doctrine.

The Powell Doctrine calls for a quick entrance, fast-moving overwhelming force and a quick exit. It seems that the Powell Doctrine demands that US forces only enter into places that can satisfy the 3 prerequisites. The problem with that is the world doesn't bend over to meet those prerequisites

[Shek]

By the way, over at Tanknet, people are saying that the Powell Doctrine is no longer valid in today's world because enemies are moving away from conventional warfare and forces and moving toward insurgencies as a way to defeat the Powell Doctrine.

The Powell Doctrine calls for a quick entrance, fast-moving overwhelming force and a quick exit. It seems that the Powell Doctrine demands that US forces only enter into places that can satisfy the 3 prerequisites. The problem with that is the world doesn't bend over to meet those prerequisites

This reality has been stated for a decade or more and is nothing new. It is the core of the 4GW argument. It's taken OIF for many to be converted, and even then, they are many in the US Army who don't see COIN and small wars as part of our professional jurisdiction.