Quinlivan demonstrated that two parameters determine force requirements to hold a city: population size and contention level. Comparing peaceful and conflict areas around the world, he shows that—depending on the level of contention—force requirements per thousand of population range from two lightly armed police officers in a patrol car to twenty heavily equipped and adequately supported members of the armed forces. In megacities, this rule completely changes the character of urban warfare. That force requirements for urban combat are proportionate to population size rather than enemy fighter strength puts the urban individual in the center of strategy development.
If an enemy army is holding the city, the population attitude will be irrelevant to our Army for the purpose of taking the city. And the population attitude will be a problem for the defending army, no? They will have the problems of defending against our Army and controlling the population.
And if no enemy army holds the city or in the situation following the defeat of the enemy army holding the city, what is new about the Quinlivan demonstration? How is controlling a city's population different than controlling a population generally based on size and resistance? The "rule" of 0.2% lower end security forces for a friendly population to 2% soldiers for a hostile population in a city is simply COIN 101.
And interesting enough, the author says--rightly I think--that high enemy kinetic resistance is a self-correcting problem as the violence pushes civilians to flee the city, making the city easier to control.
The author's description of the battles for Grozny in 1996 and 2000 demonstrate the difference between attacking a city with people and a city without them. Without them, Russian firepower could kill the defenders more easily and the enemy in the sealed off and mostly depopulated city could not replace losses from the population.
Of course, that simply shifts the COIN population control problem from the particular city to the rural areas, other cities, or displaced persons camps, doesn't it?
But the result is that you do control the city.
And for a conventional war where the campaign continues against the enemy army in the field, "controlling" a captured enemy city in the short run only requires controlling the militarily significant features of a city rather than pacifying the entire city.
Yes, a city makes it easier for insurgents to mobilize resources from the concentrated people in a city.
But if the occupying power fighting to control the city has their finger on the food, energy, and transportation switches which the author says sways people more than other factors, doesn't the concentration of people who need those services just provide advantages to the occupying power, too? Is the balance between these really such that mega-cities provide a unique and new advantage for insurgents?
But more importantly, why would you waste effort pacifying a city when the enemy army in the field still fights and limited "military" control is sufficient to carry on that central campaign?
And if the enemy limits their insurgency efforts inside the city to avoid driving the people out, that simply makes it easier for the occupying army to control the militarily significant portions to continue the campaign, doesn't it?
Further, if insurgents fighting in a city too much can depopulate a city to the advantage of the attacker, the attacking army can do the same either through bombardment (see also Syria where Assad and his allies have done this on a massive scale) or by forcing or allowing evacuation of the city's civilians to clear the way for a more firepower intensive effort to to kill the enemy fighters holding the now-isolated city (see the fall 2004 Fallujah, Iraq campaign where we allowed people to flee the city before assaulting it).
In the end, whether you have a major problem fighting in a city depends on whether you need to control the key territory of the city or the people who live in the city.
Rather than seeing mega-cities as a trend to follow, I'm just not a fan of willingly entering the meat grinder of mega-city warfare except when absolutely necessary.
As an aside, I don't think the digression into Russia's Crimea campaign is relevant to the article's point of urban warfare and population mobilization. Seriously, how important was the AstroTurf "popular rebellion" when Ukraine "effectively had no military," except to fool gullible Westerners (or Westerners who wanted an excuse not to oppose Russia) that Russia hadn't just conquered Crimea?
