Square Peg, Round Hole: Maneuver Warfare and the Urban Battlefield
John Spencer | 03.11.21
In a recent article, author Paul Barnes argued against assertions made by Professor Anthony King of the University of Warwick a few months ago in an episode of the Royal United Services Institute’s Western Way of War podcast. During the conversation, Dr. King stated that the future of warfare would be increasingly urban, an environment ill-suited for maneuver. Because of this, he argued, boldly, that “maneuver warfare is dead.†Barnes disagrees, claiming in his article that recent history not only shows that maneuver warfare is alive and well, but that what he calls “maneuverist†principles have proven successful in multiple contemporary urban battles.
At the heart of the disagreement, though, is the fact that there isn’t based on a single, clear, shared definition of maneuver warfare. Is it some grand theory describing the application of state power—an application that uses an indirect approach to avoid an adversary’s strengths and then strike with enough surprise and capability to put the enemy at such physical disadvantage or in such psychological disarray that they lose their will to fight? Is it an ancient form of war, thousands of years old and rooted in Chinese theories about defeating an enemy without even fighting? Or is it a more specific warfighting philosophy that is only a hundred years old and put forth by J.F.C Fuller, B.H. Liddell Hart, and others—a philosophy that requires operational speed, mobility, and decisive strikes against less mobile enemies using formations of tanks and aircraft to destroy an enemy’s ability to exercise command and control or organize counterstrikes? Or is the term more literal, a reference simply to the combination of maneuver (movement to secure an advantage) and warfare (military operations between enemies)? Is there a difference between strategic, operational, and tactical maneuver warfare? Are there differences in the theory if applied in the different war fighting domains?
https://mwi.usma.edu/square-peg-round-hole-maneuver-warfare-and-the-urban-battlefield/
