http://gizmodo.com/what-happens-when-cities-fall-apart-1440820493
Military strategist David Kilcullen was in New York City earlier this week to talk about the future of urban warfare at the World Policy Institute here in Manhattan. Gizmodo tagged along to learn more about "future conflicts and future cities," as Kilcullen describes it, and to see what really happens when urban environments fail—when cities fall apart or disintegrate into ungovernable canyons of semi-derelict buildings ruled by cartels, terrorist groups, and paramilitary gangs.
Kilcullen's overall thesis is a compelling one: remote desert battlegrounds and impenetrable mountain tribal areas are not, in fact, where we will encounter the violence of tomorrow. For Kilcullen—indeed, for many military theorists writing today—the war in Afghanistan was not the new normal, but a kind of geographic fluke, an anomaly in the otherwise clear trend for conflicts of an increasingly urban nature.
But if cities—particularly in the world's coastal, developing regions—are such a hotbed for future aggression, as Kilcullen and other military theorists suggest, then how can we develop a new understanding of the city that would help us to, in a sense, design away this growing problem? How can both civil infrastructure and urban governance be made more resilient to become defenses against collapse? Kilcullen, a former soldier with the Australian military and a survivor of many an ambush during his time in Afghanistan, said repeatedly that there is no military solution here. If we want to war-proof our cities, so to speak, we need more than guns and ammo.
Military strategist David Kilcullen was in New York City earlier this week to talk about the future of urban warfare at the World Policy Institute here in Manhattan. Gizmodo tagged along to learn more about "future conflicts and future cities," as Kilcullen describes it, and to see what really happens when urban environments fail—when cities fall apart or disintegrate into ungovernable canyons of semi-derelict buildings ruled by cartels, terrorist groups, and paramilitary gangs.
Kilcullen's overall thesis is a compelling one: remote desert battlegrounds and impenetrable mountain tribal areas are not, in fact, where we will encounter the violence of tomorrow. For Kilcullen—indeed, for many military theorists writing today—the war in Afghanistan was not the new normal, but a kind of geographic fluke, an anomaly in the otherwise clear trend for conflicts of an increasingly urban nature.
But if cities—particularly in the world's coastal, developing regions—are such a hotbed for future aggression, as Kilcullen and other military theorists suggest, then how can we develop a new understanding of the city that would help us to, in a sense, design away this growing problem? How can both civil infrastructure and urban governance be made more resilient to become defenses against collapse? Kilcullen, a former soldier with the Australian military and a survivor of many an ambush during his time in Afghanistan, said repeatedly that there is no military solution here. If we want to war-proof our cities, so to speak, we need more than guns and ammo.
