Ted Smyth, JHU/APL, Ted.Smyth@jhuapl.edu
For the first time in over a
decade the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) has addressed the topic
of Urban Warfare. The Analysis of Urban
Warfare workshop was held on 2 – 4 October at the
In keeping with this year’s
·
Gain an
understanding of the basic characteristics, challenges and decision needs of
current and anticipated joint urban combat operations.
·
Assess the needs
of decision makers.
·
Perform an
assessment of our knowledge, methods and existing data, relevant to joint urban
combat operations.
·
Provide a list of
candidate actions necessary to acquire relevant knowledge and data and to
develop appropriate analytical tools and methodologies in order to more
effectively analyze and assess future warfighting concepts, operations, forces
and systems employed in an urban environment.
Organizationally,
the workshop was divided into both plenary and working group sessions with the
intended purpose that the plenary session on 2 October and luncheon speakers
would accomplish the first two objectives listed above. Working group sessions on 3 and 4 October, led by a distinguished
group of MORSians, focused on specific areas that included: force packaging and
projection; Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance (ISR); Command,
Control and Communications (C3); force protection; application of force;
mobility and maneuver; support and sustainment; and, synthesis/integration.
Mr Ted Smyth, President-Elect of the Society, served as Technical
Chair of the workshop and Mr Greg Keethler served as Technical Co-chair. In his introductory comments Mr Mike Bauman observed that the workshop’s topic was timely and as such appealed to
the participants to identify ways for members of the Operations Research (OR)
community to best contribute their skills and creativity to the formidable
challenges of urban warfare. With this guidance, the stage was then set for the
workshop by arranging what is arguably one of the best plenary sessions at a
workshop in recent memory.
The workshop was most fortunate to have as its
Keynote Speaker Major General John Barry, USAF, the Director of
Strategic Plans on the Air Staff. General Barry opened his remarks with some cogent observations about the September 11
terrorist attacks and their implications not only for the nation as a whole,
but also how they will shape the future defense of the nation. A major element of that defense will center
on urban warfare, which represents a key element of asymmetric warfare that
terrorists and others are likely to wage against the
Dr Williamson Murray of the Institute for Defense Analysis and Dr Russell Glenn of
RAND, a prolific author on the topic
of urban warfare, then presented a very cogent historical context of urban
warfare. Dr Murray discussed urban warfare from ancient times through World War
II with an eye on what has changed over time.
He provided two major observations: political prestige has come to guide
strategy more and more by forcing entanglement of armies and political
leadership through urban warfare; and the realization that cities afford the
inferior combatant with the ability to maximize their potential while
minimizing that of their enemy. Dr
Murray posited that these trends continue today, and that four factors combine
to make cities important: geographic placement, logistical importance,
psychological importance and the association of cities with national
existence. Dr Murray then recounted three case studies, from which he
concluded that, like it or not, US forces will likely be engaged in urban
terrain in peacekeeping missions, low end insurgencies, rapid decisive
operations, and in a major conflict.
Although such operations are impossible to predict as to when, where, or
against whom they will occur, we must prepare to do better.
Dr
Glenn also presented a historical
context and challenged the OR community to both develop competing paradigms and
expand urban operations theory by pursuing research in seven areas:
1. Cultural awareness —
implications for preparing a deploying force;
2. Casualty exchange
relationships and the effects of Rules Of Engagement (ROE);
3. Medical support of urban
operations;
4. Integrating information
operations during urban operations;
5. Logistical support of urban
operations;
6. Synchronizing C4ISR (to
include targeting) in built-up areas; and,
7. Intelligence support to
joint urban operations.
Dr
Glenn then expounded on two issues that
are particularly cogent in any analysis of urban warfare — namely, critical
points and density — and he did so by putting these into the historical context
of
The luncheon speaker on 2 October was Major General Carl Ernst, US Army, (Ret), who
recounted his experiences as Commander, Joint Task Force
The
afternoon featured a Military “Warfighter” Panel whose members related their
first hand experiences in urban operations.
Mr Nick Warr, author of Phase Line Green, related his experiences in
Lieutenant
Colonel Colin Beadon of the British Royal Marines followed with a
presentation of his experiences with British forces in
Lieutenant Colonel Beadon
was followed by
Ambassador
Robert
W. Farrand then
related his experiences as the Supervisor of Brcko and Deputy High Representative in
The final
“Warfighter” Panel speaker was Major Shane Gabriel, Australian Army, who related the experiences of Australian forces
in the recent unrest in
The eight working groups
convened on 3 October and immediately began addressing the workshop objectives
for their respective areas. At lunch, Dr
Darryl Greenwood, from MIT/Lincoln
Labs, a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB),
gave a presentation that had been recently delivered to the Air Force Chief of
Staff. The subject of his briefing was
the SAB’s Summer 2001 Study on “Sensing Difficult
Targets,” one type of which was urban targets.
Dr Greenwood highlighted
the uniqueness and some of the special challenges presented by the urban
environment, ranging from some of the detection challenges (e.g., restricted
line-of-sight, the mixing of friendlies, unfriendlies and the actively hostile,
etc) to the need for high-confidence solutions to accommodate the US aversion
to collateral damage, to the need for timely and precise target identification
and location, and to the necessity of Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) and rapid
retargeting. He then noted that the Air
Force’s current capabilities against most of the urban target set is deficient,
and related a series of vignettes which led to the studies recommendations: 1)
develop tailored COncepts of OPerationS (CONOPS) and technologies to support
urban operations; 2) evolve a persistent overhead sensing architecture for
three dimensional urban IPB/PBA and an approach to multi-source data fusion
that provides full, timely, situational awareness; and, 3) develop targeting,
BDA, and Command and Control (C2) technologies to enable precision weapon
delivery to achieve surgical effects and deny adversary use of urban
infrastructure.
Just prior to adjournment on
3 October, Dr Alfred Brandstein, Marine
Corps Combat Development Command, gave a presentation to
all participants entitled “Analysis for the Brave New World.” Consistent with
the theme of the Marine Corps’ Project ALBERT effort, Dr Brandstein challenged the adequacy and utility of many of
today’s analytical capabilities to include: equation based approaches;
simulations; and, non-reproducible seminar war games. Dr Brandstein then suggested that the OR community support new and
innovative analytical approaches that include: the “capture (of) non linearity,
intangibles and co-evolution; data farming and operational synthesis; and work
to develop models with the following characteristics: transparent, accredible,
transportable, ‘Gaussable,’ applicable and adaptable.”
Working group deliberations
continued until just prior to lunch on 4 October, during which LTC(P)
Anderson, US Army, a member
of the faculty at the Naval War College, gave a presentation
entitled: “Urban Operations: Combat Versus MOOTW — What’s the Difference and
How Can We Do It Better?” During the
briefing Colonel Anderson
compared and contrasted his experiences in the
The remainder of 4 October
was reserved for reports from the eight focused working groups. Mr Gene Visco, FS, graciously
substituted as the chair of the Force Packaging and Projection group, ably
assisted by Lieutenant Colonel James O’Sullivan,
Ms Corinne Wallshein chaired the working group focused on ISR. She led the members of her group in addressing the problem in the context of the Mission/Enemy/Terrain/Troops/Time/Civilians (METT-TC) framework. They discovered eleven complexities/issues that compound ISR in urban warfare, ranging from information feedback time to real-time media reporting to managing density (both the number of players and information content of the environment). The group then identified the key decisions that need to be made, which include go/no go mission decisions, resource allocation decisions, defining criteria for success, and how low the authority to make certain types of operational decisions should be delegated. They then assessed what the OR community can contribute to these decisions, and identified the following: 1) MORSS social sciences working group (WG 32) should address the psychology of Joint Urban Operations (JUO) in terms of economics, political science, group behavior, etc.; 2) analyze Lessons Learned (recorded in Joint Universal Lessons Learned System and Center of Army’s Lessons Learned); 3) take advantage of Computer Science technologies to bring together different physical and OR models of the environment to simulate JUO actions and responses (for various missions) for re-use; 4) Survey available data and tools being developed to ensure a good interface to analyze projected rapidly changing events; and, 5) conduct experiments with ISR (configurations, support to JUO missions, resources). The group then identified the OR tools and techniques that could be applied to contribute in these areas, including influence diagrams
, Bayesian belief networks
, complex adaptive systems, discrete event simulation, and application of
optimization techniques to sensors (for planning and execution: types,
allocation and location). They also identified the following shortfalls in the
OR community’s ability to contribute to effective ISR: inadequate OR problem
definition and ISR requirements definition; lack of decision support tools for
IPB, PBA and targeting; fusing data — need to gather more data to help;
defining metrics, such as public perception, casualties (enemy, friendly,
non-combatant), casualty ratios, collateral damage, mission success, and degree
of understanding (situational awareness; actionable information); and the need
to conduct humans-in-the-loop experiments to define JUO mission requirements
and MOEs. This led the group to make the
following recommendations to the JUO analyst community: 1) undertake an
integrated effort to solve the problem; 2) establish definitions and descriptions
needed (define ISR Requirements and Tasks; conduct experiments in JUO; and set
up presentations from JUO participants on exercises, experiments, past
operations, current operations and planned operations); and, 3) develop tools
such as models and other techniques to analyze ISR in JUO. The desired end state of these efforts is
seen as the attainment of OR capabilities for decision makers that will enable
the ability to answer ISR questions with all the necessary supporting data,
tools, MOEs, and training.
Mr Steve
Upton and Mr Scott Bamonte led a
group of ten MORsians and functional experts in an exploration of the Command,
Control and Communications (C3) aspects of urban warfare. They addressed the uniqueness of urban
operations and assessed that OR could contribute in the context of C3 in the
following ways: 1) assist in evaluating various future force organizations; 2)
analyze C2/C4 systems effectiveness (current/new); 3) assess effectiveness of
policies/ROE; 4) help develop Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) in
terms of current/future doctrine/operations, general/specific urban settings;
and, 5) analyze/assess force packaging (all levels, theater down). The group then assessed that the OR
community’s current capabilities to do these tasks is deficient, particularly
with regard to modeling, understanding and influencing the behavior of
individuals, groups, organizations and bureaucracies (the group recognized this
to be the most difficult and demanding task associated with C2 and urban
operations); 3-D modeling of the urban environment to account for multiple
surfaces, composition of objects, internal and external features, etc; and the
lack of good/appropriate measures of effectiveness. The group provided four recommendations to
the JUO analysts community to address these deficiencies: 1) study/evaluate
current/near-term tools for assessing/modeling urban operations; 2) identify
new MOEs (military and nonmilitary); 3) identify data and modeling shortfalls;
and, 4) conduct OR analyses/models of past urban operations.
Mr Dale
Malabarba addressed the issue of the force protection aspects of urban
warfare and with the assistance of co-chair Mr Hank Kinnison and
seventeen members of the group tackled what is indisputably one of the most
important issues in joint urban operations.
The group represented a cross-section of developers, testers, members of
the intelligence community, medical/survivability specialists and analysts. The
group received six presentations on various aspects of force protection, and
concluded that the uniqueness of force protection in the urban environment is
driven by a highly variable and complex mix of threats; greater density of
populations, troops and structures; exaggerated complex terrain and
environment; increased difficulty in combat casualty care and evacuation; and
increased logistical burdens. To address
these issues, the group suggests that the OR community contribute in the areas
of information acquisition and usage, distribution and linkages;
integration of relationships among warfighting capabilities; answering “So
What” and “What If” questions; identifying data sources and serving as
information brokers, and enhancing extant M&S tools for all domains. They then assessed the areas of lethality,
survivability, mobility, command and control and sustainability to determine
how well the OR community can address these areas in the context of force
protection. Capabilities were
categorized as either a current capability, a
near-term achievable capability, or a significant challenge. Based on this analysis, the group identified
three key shortfalls: 1) knowledge of the phenomenology of the urban battle; 2)
data availability and sufficiency; and, 3) tools and measures. This led to the following recommended actions
for JUO analysts: 1) create a characterization of urban environments; 2)
develop a behavioral basis for intelligent agent software; 3) develop a
brokering network for information (e.g., DoD Trauma Registry for Operational
and Medical Casualty Research); 4) explore decision making for a knowledge
based force in urban combat; 5) strengthen the link between test and OR
communities to assure data availability for analysis; and, 6) develop new and
improved methodologies.
The Application of Force
working group was chaired by Mr Mike
Carothers, ably assisted by co-chairs, Mr Vic Middleton and Mr John Galloway. They
led a group of over twenty MORSians and functional experts in examining this
important aspect of joint urban operations.
Their approach was to identify six decision areas: 1) research,
development and acquisition; 2) force structure; 3) training; 4) policy 5)
doctrine; and, 6) operations (which was further broken
down into Planning and Execution). For
each area, they identified the appropriate decision makers, the decisions they
need to make, the OR capabilities available to assist them in making those
decisions, the deficiencies in those capabilities, and what needs to be done to
correct those deficiencies. The working
group generated seventeen specific recommendations, which can be grouped into
three basic categories: 1) testing, leading to additional and improved data; 2)
support for development of new methodologies and improvements to existing ones;
and, 3) improved knowledge of the phenomenology of battle. Among their recommended actions was a future
Mobility and Maneuver was the
topic of Working Group 6, headed by the team of Dr Niki Deliman and CPT Scott Crino, US Army. After establishing a
definition for mobility and maneuver in an urban environment, the seventeen
members of this group proceeded to identify some unique considerations about
that environment with an effect on movement.
These ranged from street patterns to close spacing of buildings to the
presence of civilians to the multi-dimensional aspects of the terrain. The group then identified five areas where OR
could assist decision makers faced with these difficulties: 1) help define new measures of outcome,
effectiveness and performance for the urban environment; 2) develop knowledge,
algorithms and data to support models and simulations; 3) identify and develop
methods to build effects-based models from physics-based models; 4) define the
features and attributes that make up the urban environment and support M&S
of that environment; and, 5) help establish an environment to define the operational
requirements for future combat and combat support systems. The group identified 25 shortfalls in the
community’s ability to make these contributions — some selected examples of
which include models of group cognitive behaviors, models for congestion
effects on mobility, models for rubbling and its effect on mobility, and
methods for generating geo-typical and geo-specific building interiors with
appropriate structural characteristics.
The groups recommendations to improve analysis of JUO mobility and
maneuver include: 1) establish a process for better coordination among
stakeholders; 2) raise the priority for joint urban operations resourcing (e.g.
establishing joint professional military education on the subject of urban
warfare for leaders at all levels); 3) adequately resource urban model and
database improvements for both physics-based and effects-based models; 4) test,
train and experiment in real and realistic urban environments; 5) build
sufficient facilities for Joint Task Force maneuvering.
Support and Sustainment was
the topic addressed by Mr Greg
Keethler, who stood in as chair of the working group when
events following the September 11 attack prevented both the chair and co-chair
from attending. The group of nine placed
a heavy emphasis on medical support and sustainment issues by virtue of its
membership. The group identified areas
of support and sustainment that are particularly affected in urban
warfare: consumption of expendables
(food, water, ammunition, etc) is typically higher, and shortages are less
tolerable; the supply lines of communication are restricted and cumbersome;
there is a need to replace equipment rather than repairing it in place;
protection of casualties and prisoners of war is more difficult; medical evacuation
is tougher and usually consumes combat power; historically, the casualty rates
are higher, the wounded are more dispersed and more difficult for medics to
access; sanitation is frequently problematical, there is a high probability of
exposure to hazardous substances, and exposure to disease can be quite high;
the dispersed nature of fighting makes real-time logistics needs assessment
difficult; normal transportation modes are highly vulnerable in urban terrain;
and there are frequently multiple non-governmental agencies, international
governmental agencies, and private volunteer organizations trying to run their
own logistics operations at the same time.
Decisions made by planners are based on assumptions about all of these
factors (casualty rates, consumption rates, etc) as well as fundamental aspects
of support and sustainment such as establishing supply routes, distribution
points, casualty evacuation protocols, surgical unit locations, host nation
support, and other logistic obligations (treatment of civilian casualties,
supplies for NGO’s, IGO’s, PVO’s, and coalition forces, etc). The group assessed that the OR community can
take the following actions toward addressing these issues: ensure models and simulations consider the
implications of support and sustainment when applied to urban warfare; help
ensure support and sustainment assumptions and algorithms are verified and
validated with regard to urban modeling and simulation; conduct a systematic
study of historical data in the context of changed conditions we face today;
conduct a systematic review (i.e., meta-analysis) of existing studies to
perhaps reveal new insights; for future analysis, help ensure appropriate data
collection during actual urban operations, training exercises, ACTD’s, experiments,
tests, etc.; and help decision makers develop and identify key MOE’s with
regard to support and sustainment in urban warfare. Overall, the group assessed that the OR
community’s capabilities to accomplish these actions is quite good, but support
and sustainment issues have not been a particular focus heretofore in the
examination of joint urban operations. What is needed is an integration of
existing or within-reach capabilities to focus on JUO support and sustainment;
because in ways different than in other environments, support and sustainment
can be the limiting factor for mission success in urban warfare.
The Synthesis Working Group,
co-chaired by Mr Bob McIntyre and Dr
Bob Sheldon, past MORS
President, assigned members to observe all the other groups with
an eye toward identifying the larger, cross-cutting observations and
findings. They discovered many common
issues, such as defining terms, ROEs and the “playground;” identifying the
issues in a global set; and parochial views and agendas. Unique to the area of urban warfare were the
political interest sparked by recent events, and considerations associated with
a non-traditional combat terrain. In
answer to the question, “How well can we do an Urban Warfare study,” the group
found that the existing data are suspect, existing models and simulations have
limited applicability and communication in the OR community on this topic is
lacking. The analysis community can
help by building a strong analysis capacity that not only enhances the applicability
of models and simulations, but also stresses the application of other analysis
tools as well.
With 141 participants,
attendance at the workshop was significantly above average for a