Abstract
In discussing military operations in urbanized terrain (MOUT), the objective of this paper is two-fold. First, I distinguish various types of armed conflicts which currently take place in urban areas.
Arguing that 'traditional' kind of war waged between two opposing Armed Forces has largely diminished, I focus on asymmetrical conflicts in cities. These range from internationalized counter-insurgency battles and internal civil wars all the way to civic conflicts, such as large scale disturbances and riots.
All these types of political violence have a distinctive common feature, which is that they are urban. I refer to a number of current conflicts in order to illustrate these urban warfare situations in various parts of the world.
Due to increasing urbanization and the nature of contemporary threats, the use of military-type tools and practices in cities seems to be inevitable. At the same time, urban operations entail a set of tactical, operational and strategic challenges.
This is especially true regarding the issue of non-combatants. Thus, the second key objective of this paper is to analyze the civilian component of MOUT.
I focus on the Operational directives of the US, France and Spain to explain the non-combatant factor in understanding, shaping, engaging, sustaining and consolidating cities in conflict situations.