Future wars ‘will not be hi-tech’

FUTURE wars will be more Stalingrad than Star Wars, a US general has said as he warned against a relentless focus on technology.

Gen Stephen Townsend, the head of the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command, told military leaders at the annual Kermit Roosevelt lecture in London that combat in an increasingly urbanised world will result in a “scale of devastation beyond our comprehension”.

Modern armies have no idea how to fight in “hyper populated” areas, he told the audience at the Royal United Services Institute.

The number of megacities – those with populations over 10 million – is expected to jump from 31 today to 60 by 2030. By that time twothirds of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas. Fighting in such areas means “we must prepare for a scale of destruction we have only read about in history books”, Gen Townsend said.

The general, who commanded the coalition effort to defeat Isil from 2016 to March this year, likened the fight to liberate Mosul to Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle of the Second World War.

A coalition force of 90,000 soldiers took nine months to defeat the 5,000 Isil fighters in Mosul. “Battles are won by young soldiers fighting in sand, mud, heat and cold,” he said. Hi-tech weapons are largely useless in such battles, he cautioned.