Urbanization is one of the most important mega-trends of the 21st century. Consequently, the possibility of U.S. military involvement in a megacity or sub-megacity is an eventuality that cannot be ignored. The authors elucidate the nature of urbanization and develop a typology in terms of smart, fragile, and feral cities characterized by violence and disorder. This publication gives consideration to the kinds of operational contingencies that the U.S. military, especially the Army, needs to think about and prepare for in the event of the need for military force in response to events, trends, and developments in a massive urban environment. Understanding the city as a complex system, or organism, is critical and provides the basis for changes in intelligence, recruitment, training, equipment, operations, and tactics.One of the key takeaways is the need to understand the urban environment and the need to work with (instead of against) the flows and rhythms of a city. Without this approach, the results of military involvement in such a formidable environment would likely be disastrous; with this approach, the prospects for success would at least be enhanced.
Related products:
Alternative Governance Structures in Megacities: Threats or Opportunities? is available for purchase here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01214-8
Harry E. Schwarz and the Development of Water Resources and Environmental Planning: Planning Methods in an Era of Challenge and Change is available for purchase here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-022-00372-0
About the Author
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
WERNER SELLE is a recent graduate of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) at the University of Pittsburgh, with particular interests in international security, strategic studies, and U.S. foreign policy. Before enrolling at the University of Pittsburgh, he worked for 2 years as a psychological operations specialist. Prior to that, he was a non-commissioned officer and infantryman with numerous combat deployments. He holds a masters degree in security and intelligence studies from GSPIA, and a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. Additionally, he served as a security and logistics contractor in both Iraq and in the United States. His research interests include major and emerging powers in marginal areas and the effective use of military forces in broad-spectrum operations. He is currently pursuing research projects in non-traditional operations for military forces, such as combating transnational crime, disaster relief, and humanitarian aid.
PHIL WILLIAMS holds the Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and is the Director of the Universitys Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies. Dr. Williams has published extensively in the field of international security. During the last 22 years, his research has focused primarily on transnational organized crime, which he has written about in Survival, Washington Quarterly, The Bulletin on Narcotics, Scientific American, Crime Law and Social Change, and International Peacekeeping. In addition, Dr. Williams was a founding editor of the journal Transnational Organized Crime and has edited several volumes on combating organized crime, Russian organized crime, and the trafficking of women. He has been a consultant to both the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and U.S. Government agencies and has also given congressional testimony on organized crime. In 2001 and 2002, Dr. Williams spent a sabbatical at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Computer Emergency Response Team, where he worked on intelligence analysis for cyberthreats and financial cybercrime. Dr. Williams has worked more recently on terrorist finances, ungoverned spaces, and drug trafficking throughout West Africa. In the academic years 2007-8 and 2008-9, he was a visiting research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), U.S. Army War Col-lege (USAWC), where he wrote a monograph on The New Dark Age: The Decline of the State and U.S. Strategy. Another one of his monographs, published in August 2009, entitled Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq. Dr. Williams has contributed three chapters to Fighting Back, an edited volume on terrorism published by Stanford University Press; he has also published an article on Mexican drug violence in a special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence and a chapter on Nigerian organized crime in the Oxford Handbook of Organized Crime. He is currently working on the crisis of governance in the northern triangle of Central America.
