Big battles in the open are a thing of the past. World War 3 will be fought for city blocks,…?

…not even whole streets(?)
http://mondediplo.com/2009/04/11streetfighters

A briefing paper by the Strategic Research Foundation (2) notes: “During World War Two whole cities like London and Dresden were bombed; in Vietnam it was city neighbourhoods; today in Iraq or the Palestinian territories attacks focus on a single building, even a window on a certain floor of that building” (3).

In contrast to large theatres of war fought across national frontiers or whole regions, urban space is a multi-dimensional labyrinth: underground cellars, shafts, sewers, car parks, metros, subterranean tracks; streets, squares, dead-ends; and buildings of all shapes and sizes (historic centres, business complexes, skyscrapers). Such confusion, particularly when – as often these days – there is some support from residents, hands the advantage to adversaries technically less strong but able to use cities as a protective cloak.

Although there will no doubt also be hybrid wars–combining conventional and asymmetric warfare.

This has been going on for some time with the rise of insurgencies and terrorist movements. It is a clever way for lower tech and poorer nations or entities to fight successfully against world powers. One need only look at present day Iraq and Afghanistan or to the wars between Israel and the terrorist entities, Hizballah and Hamas.

I sincerely hope that our military leaders are employing their best minds to develop new technologies and strategies/tactics to enable our next generation of military officers to win asymmetric wars–as opposed to letting them evolve into painful wars of attrition, often lost in the media rather than on any sort of urban or rural battlefield.

Unfortunately, insurgents and terrorists seem to employ different moral codes in fighting asymmetric wars. Civilians are important pawns in this game. The goal is to strike, hide amongst civilians, incite a military response resulting in the deaths of civilians, and then to strike again. The hope would be that the public uproar at the civilian deaths would cause the world arena to rule against the military power–despite the fact that it is the insurgency that bears ultimate responsibility for the deaths of the civilians.