Urban warfare in the twenty-first century / Anthony King.

Gomorrah -- Numbers -- The Urban Guerrilla -- Metropolis -- Walls -- Air -- Fire -- Swarms -- Partners -- Rumour -- Armageddon.

War is urbanizing. 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, including 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 urban battlescape. Whilst many tactics used in urban warfare are not new, he shows how operations in cities today have coalesced into localized 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 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 illustrating 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 -- Provided by publisher.