The rise of megacities supposedly means America must get ready to fight in them and for them. I prefer to avoid such cities as much as possible. But having the capabilities to fight in urban areas is important if we must fight for them. By the way, name a megacity the Army might have to fight for?
As the world urbanizes, very large cities--called megacities because just calling them very large cities has no cache'--are increasing in number. As a rule, let's assume the definition is urban areas of at least 10 million people. And I'll use the UN numbers from this list. But I'm going to include Seoul because it's close to the minimum, because it seems odd to leave it off, and because I'm blogging so no editor can stop me.
Let's take a look, shall we?
Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil; Peking, Chongquing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Tianjin, China; Bogota, Colombia; Kinshasha, Congo (Zaire); Cairo, Egypt; Paris, France; Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Tehran, Iran; Osaka and Tokyo, Japan; Mexico City, Mexico; Lagos, Nigeria; Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan; Lima, Peru; Metro Manila, Philippines; Moscow, Russia; Seoul, South Korea; Bangkok, Thailand; Istanbul, Turkey; and Los Angeles and New York City, America.
Let's start editing the list to identify what megacity it is so important that the Army must focus serious resources on fighting in that allegedly unavoidable terrain.
I can't see America having an interest in fighting for any city in Latin America or Africa. If you disagree, explain why AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM have so few forces assigned. So cross those cities off the list.
Obviously, fighting for New York or LA falls into my major exception of urban areas we must fight for. But so I can sleep at night, let's rule them out rather than ponder the circumstances required to put them on the line.
How about Europe? We do have troops there to fight to defend our interests. Well, we have NATO allies there, so rule out France and
Istanbul as places we'd have to attack megacities. At worse, we'd help allies who have the incentive to fight for them, as we helped Iraq take Mosul from ISIL. But even that is hard to imagine happening.
Sure, Russia is our enemy. But Russia has to have at least some long-range nukes that still work. So even if we developed an interest in invading Russia, we simply aren't going to fight for Moscow.
How about the Middle East? We've shown a willingness to fight there. But Egypt is our ally so at most we'd support their troops fighting for the city. And despite Iran being our enemy, unless nukes are hidden inside Tehran, I can't see America sending an army all the way there. Any war would be at sea and in the air, with ground fighting mostly limited to Persian Gulf islands. So again, no. We have the Mosul template, obviously.
How about South Asia? I'm not seeing the chance of that happening at all. And also, the Mosul example.
China is our pacing threat, what about it? We're not about to invade China. The Army really isn't talked about much in Asia scenarios. Even I didn't think about doing more than helping our allies around China's periphery when I wrote about using large Army forces in ground combat. Although I've since seen signs of that discussion. Anyway, I'll rule out Chinese megacities.
Given that China threatens its neighbors, how about the rest of Asia? If we have to help Indonesia, Japan, or the Philippines, our Navy has been defeated decisively and the question is moot. And also, the Mosul example. Even if our Navy is hammered, we might still be able to help Thailand. But China would have to commit a lot of their army to that operation and I just don't see it. And also, the Mosul example.
And then we have Seoul. I grant we'd fight for it. We have done so already (as we did in Manila, for that matter). It has a quarter of South Korea's population. And it sits on the DMZ close to a very hostile North Korea. I'm not going to cross it off the list because we would commit troops to fight there. But ...
I think our direct combat role would be limited given that South Korea has a large, well-equipped army. But we'd have to know how to defend a megacity and how to liberate anything captured to effectively help South Korea. So this is only a limited case of fighting for a megacity.
And really, if there is war I suspect North Korea won't even get a chance to send their army into Seoul. So the need and willingness to fight for Seoul may be moot for America.
So where are we now with the list?
Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil; Peking, Chongquing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Tianjin, China; Bogota, Colombia; Kinshasha, Congo (Zaire); Cairo, Egypt; Paris, France; Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; Tehran, Iran; Osaka and Tokyo, Japan; Mexico City, Mexico; Lagos, Nigeria; Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan; Lima, Peru; Metro Manila, Philippines; Moscow, Russia; Seoul, South Korea; Bangkok, Thailand; Istanbul, Turkey; and Los Angeles and New York City, America.
I just don't see where in the foreseeable future the Army would need to fight for an actual, by-the-definition megacity with multiple divisions of ground troops.
Large cities, maybe. Medium cities, likely. Small cities and towns/villages? Absolutely. So the Army should of course know how to fight in urban terrain. Even if urban terrain is qualitatively no harder to fight in than any other terrain a military might defend, the scale has a quantity of its own, no?
Certainly, any country with a megacity should be able to fight to defend them. Megacities are obviously a reality. As is urbanization. But practically speaking, how big of an issue is this for America?
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