Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century - 2nd Edition by Anthony King

Book Synopsis

War is urbanising. From Mosul to Mumbai, Aleppo to Marawi, the largest and most intense battles of the twenty-first century have taken place in densely populated urban areas. In the Ukraine War, Russian and Ukrainian troops have converged on urban areas, Kyiv, Mariupol, and Bakhmut, to fight brutal attritional sieges. Meanwhile the Battle of Gaza rages.

Through a close analysis of recent urban conflicts and their historical antecedents, sociologist Anthony King explores the changing typography of the urban battlescape. Whilst many tactics used in urban warfare are not new, he shows how operations in cities today have coalesced into localised micro-sieges, which extend from street level - and below - to the airspace high above the city, as combatants fight for individual buildings, streets and districts. At the same time, digitalized social media and information networks communicate these battles to global audiences across an urban archipelago, with these spectators often becoming active participants in the fight.

Fully revised and updated to include detailed examples from Ukraine and Gaza to illustrate the anatomy of twenty-first century urban warfare, the second edition of this popular text is a timely reminder of the costs and the horror of war and violence in cities. As such, it offers an invaluable interdisciplinary introduction to urban warfare in the new millennium for students of international security, urban studies and military science, as well as military professionals.

Review Quotes

"By far the best work to date on continuities and changes in urban combat in the past thirty years. Now updated to include insights from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, it explores what has remained consistent and what has changed in urban warfare in the twenty-first century - and what the future might hold for military forces faced with this difficult challenge."
Peter Mansoor, The Ohio State University

"The second edition of Anthony King's seminal book on urban warfare in the twenty-first century includes key lessons from the ongoing Russo-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars that rage around cityscapes. This timely, updated, and expanded work confirms the accuracy of many of the presumptions made in the author's prescient analysis of the urbanisation of land warfare first published in 2021. This second edition is insightful, comprehensive in scope and multi-layered in its research findings. It is a work that deserves the widest readership among policymakers, military practitioners and defence scholars concerned with strategic studies and the future of armed conflict."
Michael Evans, Emeritus Professor of Military Studies, Deakin University, Australia and former Head of the Australian Army's Land Warfare Studies Centre at the Royal Military College of Australia, Duntroon

"In the first edition of this ground-breaking work, Anthong King provided an original conceptual framework with which to explore the combined impact of changes in both the urban environment and military practice. Subsequent wars demonstrated the value of his approach, which makes this second edition which includes analysis of the Russo-Ukraine War, Gaza and Sudan especially welcome."
Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King's College

"Anthony King has updated Urban Warfare, using the war in Ukraine to develop his arguments to excellent effect. As armies become smaller and towns become bigger, the challenges multiply."
Sir Hew Strachan, Oxford University

"Urban Warfare in the 21st Century is by far the best work to date on continuities and changes in urban combat in the past thirty years. While acknowledging the evolution of combat in cities as a continuum of historical experience, Anthony King explores new and unique aspects due to geographical, sociological, doctrinal, and technological changes. Now updated to include insights from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Urban Warfare explores what has remained consistent and what has changed in urban warfare in the 21st century - and what the future might hold for military forces faced with this difficult challenge."
Peter Mansoor, The Ohio State University

About the Author

Anthony King is Professor of War Studies at the University of Exeter. He has published widely on war and the armed forces, including a trilogy on military transformation in the twenty-first century: The Transformation of Europe's Armed Forces (2011), The Combat Soldier (2013) and Command (2019). His latest book Urban Warfare in the Twenty-First Century (second edition forthcoming) offers a ground-breaking exploration of the combat operations in the city in recent history. In addition to his research, he has advised British, European and American armed forces and NATO.