Burned and Blasted

Burned and Blasted examines a central dilemma of modern war: how states that claim liberal aims reconcile those ideals with the extreme violence of urban warfare. Cities have always functioned as critical political, economic, social and cultural hubs which have been shaped by war. Identifying four key processes of urban battlespaces: networked complexity, symbolic potency, internal fragmentation, and revolutionary potential, Jonathan Burden articulates how strategy must perform in urban warfare and compare how liberal and non-liberal forces confront the challenge of fighting in cities. Case studies examine the strategic success of conflicts fought by liberal or democratic forces, from the Italian resistance in World War II, the French in Algeria (1954–62), the British operations in Basra (2003–09) to the US-backed liberation of Raqqa in 2017. These are contrasted with examples of how illiberal powers have undertaken urban conflict: the German invasion and occupation of Warsaw (1939–45), Russian urban warfare since World War II, the conquest of Mosul by ISIS, and the leverage of violence in cities by non-state groups like militias and drug cartels. Blending international relations theory with military insight, Burned and Blasted convincingly argues that success in future urban warfare will depend on understanding the political realities of cities, and restraining violence in the pursuit of policy goals, lest tactical victories be transformed into strategic defeats.