Table of Contents
6
Preface: Military Urbanisms and the Developing World Ersela Kripa + Stephen Mueller
10
Introduction: Concepts of Urban Insecurity
228
The Proto-City
Ersela Kripa + Stephen Mueller
232
The Camp Stephen Mueller
238
Case Study: Dadaab Ersela Kripa
250
The Zone Stephen Mueller
254
Case Study: Jubaland Ersela Kripa
12 State of States 15 Insecure Cities 22 Morphometrics 30 From Concept to Hyperreality
44
Urban Simulation Survey Stephen Mueller
47 50 56 61 67 81 87 95 98
Stimulating Simulation Commanding Artifice Standardizing Stand-ins Diversifying the Fronts Expanding Terrain A New Standard Targeting the “Third World” Cities as Training Sites Engaging Soft Forms
260
The Logistic City
264
The Dump Stephen Mueller
269
Case Study: Moqattam Ersela Kripa
274
The Graveyard Stephen Mueller
108
The City in Pieces
278
Case Study: City Of The Dead Ersela Kripa
286
The Carceral City
290
The Squat Stephen Mueller
292
Case Study: “Abusive” Rome Ersela Kripa
300
The Jail Stephen Mueller
304
Case Study: Italian Detention Ersela Kripa
Ersela Kripa 110 112 120 122 124
Distributed Training The Realistic Fake An Alternative Building Code Architectural Transference Threatened by Informality
130
Simulated Cities Database AGENCY
136 142 184 188
Training Village Catalog CACTF Catalog Typological Taxonomy Geolocated Typologies
206
Strange Simulations
206
Anomalous Artifacts Stephen Mueller
211
Playas In Play Ersela Kripa
217
Zambraniyah Bliss Ersela Kripa
306
Postscript: Forecasting the Fronts Ersela Kripa
308 309 311 312 316 317
Urbanizing Training Co-opting the City Training Beyond Borders Mission Creep Promiscuous Sites Training Futures
326 Index
3
4
FRONTS
Acknowledgments The research and production collected in this book have benefitted tremendously from the incredible efforts and invaluable insights of numerous supporters, collaborators, critics, colleagues, and co-conspirators, to whom we are deeply indebted. The work would not have been possible without the generous gift of several fellowships, including two residency fellowships at The MacDowell Colony (2009, 2013), and a residency fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (Founders Rome Prize in Architecture, 2010–2011). Significant portions of the work were elaborated—and accelerated—in conversation with security experts and fellow residents during an invited residency at the Berlin Biennale in 2016 (DISCREET, Armen Avanessian and Alexander Martos, organizers). We are indebted to the many curators, gallerists, and host institutions who have invited us to develop and exhibit portions of the work, including at the Radical Urbanism exhibit at UABB Hong Kong-Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, the Work in Progress exhibit at Storefront for Art and Architecture (Eva Franch i Gilabert, former executive director), the Breach exhibit at WUHO (Woodbury University, Hollywood), and the Feral Federation exhibit at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts (Kerry Doyle, director). Funding for the book was provided through the generous support of multiple institutions, including Texas Tech University (TTU) and Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). We would like to personally thank our dean, Jim Williamson (TTU) for his tireless advocacy for the project, Bruce Lindsey and Kathryn Dean (WUSTL) for providing a space for our academic interrogations, and all our colleagues and students who have provided endless inspiration. Thanks to Jesse Vogler for his boundless enthusiasm and expansive questioning, and Mitch McEwen for her surgical strikes. To Luca Ruali for all things feral. To Keller Easterling for teaching us to search below the surface of things. To Francesco Careri for sharing the hidden side of Rome with us. To Sara Dean for helping us scrape. To Jesse LeCavalier for inquisitively listening. To Matt Shaw for believing in voices from the periphery. To Keith Krumwiede for a healthy dose of skepticism. To Heather McGowan for her brilliant sentences. To Patrick Schaefer for his old-school commitment. To Jeanne Gang, Billie Tsien, Sarah Whiting, and Anne Rieselbach for making time to follow and support our long-term project. To Richard Norton for his informed insight into the military’s future in cities. To Ron Rael for his generous friendship and reasonable demands. To the students in our Tactical Urbanisms seminar who helped us shape our arguments and outlook. To the students of ProtoLogics and Securocratic Frontiers who explored in so many ways. To our student research assistants and research collaborators, including Garrett House, Joshua Chan, and Chris Taurasi (WUSTL) and Raquel Bitar (TTU). To Luis Escalera, Irving Cuellar, Sabrina Schrader (TTU), and Maeve Elder (WUSTL) for graphics and project support. To Ryan Thomas for an insider’s perspective. To Budge at the Playas EMRTC for showing us what life is like in a simulation. To the office of former Congressman Beto O’Rourke for helping us access and understand the environments we contribute to, knowingly or not. To our families, whose support has been unflinching. And to Wicket. Ersela Kripa + Stephen Mueller, 2019
Introduction : Concepts of Urban Insecurity UABB 2015 volume 2
98
RADICAL URBANISM
激
41
城市化
Stereotypes Hong Kong / Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, AGENCY, 2015–2016 (Image Credit UABB)
Stereotypes | Securocratic Timeshares STEREOTYPES presents three near-future urban scenarios that extrapolate the contemporary collapse of military and domestic space to imagine new potentials and liabilities. Rapid urbanization has brought about a collapsing “securocratic” territory, in which military training initiatives have increasingly exploited the physical form and architectural typologies of the developing global city. The resulting urban facsimile is often imprecise and oversimplified, effectively criminalizing the real-world informal settlements it represents, perpetuating racially and politically charged tropes of colonialist development and the global military security apparatus. STEREOTYPES is a design investigation into the life and form
of these emerging territories. AGENCY imagines new models of “securocratic timeshares,” in which civilian and military actors are mutually responsible for the design and developmental logic of a shared city. Training scenarios are grafted onto public space and building code, fostering a type of counter-code in which conditions enabling security challenges are incentivized. Evacuation and occupation are ingrained in the complicit urban fabric.
99
Urban Simulation Survey
A New Standard As the national training centers developed extensive training environments for immersive capstone exercises, new urban warfare training standards were materializing in military installations throughout the Department of Defense (DoD) inventory. Freshly codified, predictable and repeatable, simulated urban assemblages would propagate in home stations, specified by exacting range guidelines that controlled their forms, sizes, and building types in calculated detail. Urban environments, as projected theaters of combat, would be distilled into a universalizing collection of buildings and structures, the lowest common denominators of future city combat. The rural biases of past generations’ training “villages” would be outmoded with the advancement of an imagined training “city,” as training exercises would consume more land around these emerging, skeletal urban forms. The fidelity of the training environment to the city it presumes to replicate, and the scale of immersion, would advance in leaps and bounds. While false fronts had once stood to imply the presence of complete buildings, new standards would insist on complete buildings and excerpted urban infrastructures to denote entire neighborhoods, districts, and zones. The Collective Training Facility (CTF) would represent the military training apparatus’ most significant advance yet into the urban planning of simulated environments, one which continues to shape the geography of simulation today, providing the foundational forms and models for continued urbanization of training sites domestically and abroad. The 1980s witnessed a minor revolution in collective training. The US Army had instituted the Army Training and Evaluation Program (ARTEP), with the goal of standardizing and quantifying outcomes for each of its collective exercises. Coordinated with this effort was a standardization of training environments. In 1984, an early edition of the Design Information for Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) Training Complex was issued.303 The manual, considered a “user’s guide to a standard design [MOUT training course]”304 would introduce, on paper, a new type of simulated urban environment dedicated to training units in combined arms and collective training. The newly-minted Collective Training Facility (CTF) was to be built in either of two sizes: smaller installations would host 16 buildings, while larger training sites would sponsor 32 structures. Among the common, required building types are the “hotel / city hall, apartment, school, townhouse, business/ residential, office, warehouse, vehicle service station, retail/bank, and residential [area].” The smaller building types, like residences, townhomes, and offices, would be fielded in pairs or multiples, with about half of each type rendered as “rubbled” or “partly destroyed” versions of their intact counterpart. Roofless buildings, like modern ruins, would maintain the illusion of incompleteness in these staged destructions, simulating a war-torn built-up area.305 Precisely stepped masonry would provide simulated bomb damage306 enshrining a permanent, nameless trauma—an array of partially realized architectural carcasses. Completing the dimensional environment, the schematics would articulate the urban surface and subsurface conditions. A hidden network of subsurface infrastructure is dashed in, suggesting possibilities of concealed movement and surprise attacks. A tunnel system tracks across the streets of the business district, connecting central streetscapes with distant landscape features; manholes and a storm sewer outlet provide intermittent access.307 At grade, the city’s surface is augmented with an array of environmental embellishments, adorned with “streetscape elements” and “landscaping.”308 The dynamics of urban watercourses are included on the sites, introducing a variety of dry channels and artificial water bodies. A “low-water
81
82
FRONTS
Collective Training Facility 16-Building Standard Design 1-Apartment 2-Apartment Rubble 3-Business/Residential 4-Business/Residential Rubble 5-Culvert 6-Drainage Channel 7-Hotel/City Hall 8-Hotel/City Hall Rubble 9-Office 10-Office Rubble 11-Paved Parking Lot 12-School 13-School Rubble 14-Storm Sewer Outlet 15-Townhouse 16-Townhouse Rubble 17-Warehouse Drawing by AGENCY. Adapted from FM 90-1 (1993)
5 14
16
17 17
4 17
13 6
3
7 9
10
15
12 2
16 8 11
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
1
crossing” at Fort Hood appears in satellite imagery to have been artificially flooded in early training,309 while a small pond fronting the townhomes at Camp Lejeune,310 was described as a “moat” to support “rubber boat operations.”311 Culverts are a common feature of the CTF, appearing in several instances to have been built only to the limit of the notational “break line” in the range design guideline drawings, reflecting the fidelity to which the reality of the built environment subscribes to the limits of its representation. The notional designs soon became reality on a number of sites, reflecting the high degree of organization and focus for proponents of urban combat simulation in the era. In 1985, a high demand for training land and new training ranges was reported,312 while the limitation of available ranges was noted as a significant drag on training.313 By 1988 the military was moving quickly to remedy the perceived deficit, and was “in the process of building more facilities to support its increased urban training requirements.”314 Fort Hood, Fort Pickett, and Fort Ord would each report having fielded a CTF on site, with many more planned throughout the DoD inventory.315 Strange oscillations between the real and the imagined environment would resonate through the CTF and its representations. The drawings of model facilities published in the earlier guidelines would be enacted faithfully on the sites, diagrammatic suggestions manifest in brick and mortar. The example layout for a 16-building CTF matches the installation at Fort Hood’s Hargrove site precisely, while the example 32-building layout was used for its larger Elijah site,316 a short walk away. These full-scale “model cities” would replicate at smaller scales. Training circulars would mandate that, in order to comprehend the dimensional complexity replicated within the CTF, trainers would also require a scale model of the facility, to “disassemble it and view its interior” as a planning and training aid.317 A CTF constructed at Fort Ord is known as “Impossible City.” Built in 1987, the site would train a newly designated division of specialized ground forces, which would later see urban combat in Panama City, contributing to the capture of Manuel Noriega.318, 319 The name of the city, which sits in “Impossible Canyon,” may also reflect the particularity of the urban layout—since all areas are vulnerable to views from adjacent buildings, surviving a training exercise is next to impossible.320 Embellishments to the standard CTF elements include a “gaseous house” and expansive tunnel system.321 Despite most CTFs focusing on simulated weaponry, Impossible City includes several live-fire facilities, including the “Tire House,” built of sand-filled tires to absorb live fire and hand grenade blasts.322 The site was abandoned in 1994, when the 7th Infantry left
Urban Simulation Survey
83
Fort Ord,323 but the remaining simulated urbanism of Impossible City has found new uses, sponsoring the training of combat linguists and a variety of federal agents. The few buildings populating these early installations established rigid and repeating models of simulated building typologies, with identical proportions, footprints, and adornments that would propagate on training sites across the continental US and in bases abroad for decades. Building on Ellefsen’s insights, the building types and their particular spatial challenges are on full display, and used for strategic effect: The buildings have one, two, or three stories. Some have basements, sloped roofs, or flat roofs. These building variations pose different tactical and technical problems, for example: (1) The hotel is a dominating structure typical of a central business district. It has an elevator shaft, fire escapes, and a large firstfloor lobby. (2) The apartment building contains a series of identical rooms. (3) The school has a long, central corridor, large windows, and a single large room. (4) The townhouse has an attic that is common to two segregated parts of the building. Thus, the attic provides an important route from the top of one part to the top of the other. (5) The service station accommodates combat vehicles in its service bay.324 From this kit of parts, different mixtures of the required building types would be selected and scattered on the various sites, subscribing to the spirit, if not the letter, of the range guidelines. Even the smallest of the city types is organized in distinct sectors: retail/commercial (central business district), public/institutional, light industrial, residential, multi-family residential (high density). Certain tropes suggested in the diagram would find common outlets on the various sites. As if subscribing to an unwritten zoning ordinance for simulated urban environments, the types would often—though not always—distribute according to an imagined pairing of sympathetic uses. The “light industrial zone” would often be located toward the edge of town, collecting the expected warehouses, along with the service station and small offices, each with ample parking lots.325 Schools would anchor “public/institutional” zones, often paired in close proximity to a townhouse, apartment building, or cul de sac of single-family residences. City Hall would be located in a central square, a center of gravity attracting a twinned hotel or collection of office buildings. While these rules are evident in these early models, exceptions abound in later copies. Anomalous
14
13 18
5
10 13
16
21
8 22
17
4
6 4
2
15 13
11 7 18
3
19 13 3
23
12
8 1
9 2
19
20
14
14
14
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Collective Training Facility 32-Building Standard Design 1-Apartment 2-Apartment Rubble 3-Business/Residential 4-Business/Residential Rubble 5-Culvert 6-Hotel/City Hall 7-Hotel/City Hall Rubble 8-Office 9-Office Rubble 10-Paved Parking Lot 11-Retail/Bank 12-Retail/Bank Rubble 13-Residential 14-Residential Rubble 15-School 16-School Rubble 17-Storm Sewer Outlet 18-Townhouse 19-Townhouse Rubble 20-Vehicle Service Station 21-Vehicle Service Station Rubble 22-Warehouse 23-Warehouse Rubble Drawing by AGENCY. Adapted from FM 90-1 (1993)
132
FRONTS
LOBAL MILITARY INSTALLATIONS LOBAL MILITARY INSTALLATIONS GLOBAL MILITARY INSTALLATIONS Global Urban Operations Sites Simulated Cities Database, AGENCY
(USAFRICOM) (USAFRICOM)
(USAFRICOM)
1 3 1 3
1 3
(NATO CENTRAL COMMAND) (NATO CENTRAL COMMAND)
(NATO CENTRAL COMMA
(USCENTCOM) (USCENTCOM)
(USCENTCOM)
(USEUCOM)
(USNORTHCO (USEUCOM)
(USEUCOM)
(USNORTHCO
(USPACOM) (USPACOM)
LEGEND US MILITARY INSTALLATIONS LEGEND OTHER MILITARY INSTALLATIONS US MILITARY INSTALLATIONS US ANDMILITARY OTHER MILITARY INSTALLATIONS OTHER INSTALLATIONS NATO COMMAND CENTER INSTALLATIONS US AND OTHER MILITARY NATO COMMAND CENTER
US COMMAND HEADQUARTERS USCOMMAND AFRICA COMMAND (USAFRICOM) LEGEND US HEADQUARTERS
1
KELLEY BARRACKS, STUTTGART, GERMANY
1 2
US USAFRICA MILITARY COMMAND INSTALLATIONS (USAFRICOM) US CENTRAL COMMAND (USCENTCOM) KELLEY BARRACKS, STUTTGART, GERMANY
CONFLICT TYPOLOGIES AERIAL BOMBING CIVIL WAR US COMMAND HEADQUARTERS CONFLICT TYPOLOGIES 1
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA
DRESDEN TOKYO HIROSHIMA KELLEY BARRACKS, STUTTGART, DRESDEN GERMANY NAHASAKI TOKYO BELGRADE US CENTRAL COMMAND HIROSHIMA (USCENTCOM) LONDON MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE,NAHASAKI FLORIDA BAGHDAD (2003) BELGRADE LONDON US EUROPEAN COMMAND (USEUCOM) BAGHDAD (2003) PATCH BARRACKS, STUTTGART, GERMANY
US AFRICA COMMAND (USAFRICOM) AERIAL BOMBING
2 3
OTHER MILITARY INSTALLATIONS US CENTRAL COMMAND (USCENTCOM) US EUROPEAN COMMAND (USEUCOM) MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, FLORIDA US AND OTHER MILITARY INSTALLATIONS PATCH BARRACKS, STUTTGART, GERMANY
3 4
US EUROPEAN COMMAND NATO COMMAND CENTER(USEUCOM) US NORTHERN COMMAND (USNORTHCOM) PATCH BARRACKS, STUTTGART, GERMANY
3
4 5
US NORTHERN COMMAND (USNORTHCOM) US PACIFICAIR COMMAND (USPACOM) PETERSON FORCE BASE, COLORADO
4
US NORTHERN COMMAND (USNORTHCOM)
5 6
US PACIFIC COMMAND (USPACOM) US SOUTHERN COMMAND CAMP H. M. SMITH, HAWAII (USSOUTHCOM)
5
US PACIFIC COMMAND (USPACOM)
6
US SOUTHERN COMMAND (USSOUTHCOM)
6
US SOUTHERN COMMAND (USSOUTHCOM)
2
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, COLORADO CAMP H. M. SMITH, HAWAII DORAL, FLORIDA DORAL, FLORIDA
(USPACOM)
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, COLORADO CAMP H. M. SMITH, HAWAII DORAL, FLORIDA
MONROVIA BEIRUT (1982) CIVIL WAR DAMASCUS MONROVIA ALEPPO BEIRUT (1982) KOBANI DAMASCUS BENGHAZI ALEPPO TRIPOLI KOBANI MADRID (1936) BENGHAZI TRIPOLI MADRID (1936)
GROUND COMBAT CONFLICT TYPOLOGIES
MONTERREY MX (1846) MANILA (1898) PETROGRAD (1919) MONTERREY MONROVIA MX (1846) STALINGRAD (1942) MANILA (1898) BEIRUT (1982 BUDAPEST (1944) PETROGRAD DAMASCUS (1919) BERLIN (1945) STALINGRAD ALEPPO (1942) SEOUL (1953) BUDAPESTKOBANI (1944) HUE (1968) BERLIN (1945) BENGHAZI SAIGON (1975) SEOUL (1953) TRIPOLI SARAJEVO (1992) HUE (1968)MADRID (193 GROZNY (1994) SAIGON (1975) NABLUS (2002) SARAJEVO (1992) JENIN (2002) GROZNY (1994) FALLUJAH (2004) NABLUS (2002)
AERIAL BOMBING GROUND COMBAT CIVIL WAR DRESDEN TOKYO HIROSHIMA NAHASAKI BELGRADE LONDON BAGHDAD (2003)
JENIN (2002) FALLUJAH (2004)
Simulated Cities Database
AND) (USSOUTHCOM)
AND) (USSOUTHCOM)
2 6 2
(USNORTHCOM) 4
4
4
5
5
82)
) KANO, MAIDUGURI (2010) 2) NAIROBI (2013) PANAMA CITY (1989) VUKOVAR (1991)
36)
6 2
(USNORTHCOM)
OM)
936)
(USSOUTHCOM)
6
5
URBANIZATION GROUND COMBAT
PEACE ENFORCEMENT
MONTERREY MX (1846) KANO, MAIDUGURI (2010) LOS ANGELES NAIROBI (2013) MANILA (1898) RIO DE JANEIRO GROUNDPEACE COMBAT ENFORCEMENT PEACE ENFORCEMENT PANAMA CITY (1989) NONCOMBATANT PETROGRAD (1919) BEIRUT (1982) MAIDUGURI (2010) MONTERREY LOS ANGELES MX (1846) KANO, EVACUATION LOS ANGELES VUKOVAR (1991) STALINGRAD (1942) SARAJEVO (1992) MANILA (1898) RIO DE JANEIRO NAIROBI (2013) RIO DE JANEIRO TIRANA BUDAPEST (1944) PETROGRAD BEIRUT (1919) (1982) PANAMA CITY (1989) KINSHASA BEIRUT (1982) BERLIN (1945) VUKOVAR (1991) STALINGRAD SARAJEVO (1942) (1992) SARAJEVO (1992) FREETOWN URBAN GUERRILLA SEOUL (1953) BUDAPEST (1944) DUBLIN (1921) HUE (1968) BERLIN (1945) KABUL SAIGON (1975) URBAN GUERRILLA HUMANITARIANURBAN GUERRILLA SEOUL (1953) KANDAHAR (1988) SARAJEVO (1992) DUBLIN (1921) HUE (1968) ASSISTANCE DUBLIN (1921) JERUSALEM GROZNY (1994) KABUL KABUL SAIGON (1975) MOGADISHU (1993) HERAT NABLUS (2002) KANDAHAR KANDAHAR (1988) SARAJEVO (1992) (1988) HAITI (2010) SAIGON JENIN (2002) JERUSALEM GROZNY JERUSALEM (1994) ALGIERS (1956) FALLUJAH (2004) HERAT HERAT NABLUS (2002) GROZNY 1994 SAIGON SAIGON JENIN (2002) REVOLUTION ALGIERS ALGIERS (1956) FALLUJAH (2004) (1956) MANAGUA GROZNY 1994 GROZNY 1994 BUDAPEST HERAT
URBANIZATION NONCOMBATANT (estimated population, 2050) EVACUATION
TIRANA NONCOMBATANT KINSHASA 19.1M-36.4M EVACUATION FREETOWN TIRANA 11.8M-19.1M KINSHASA FREETOWN 7.6M-11.7M HUMANITARIAN
ASSISTANCE
5.0M-7.5M MOGADISHU (1993) HUMANITARIAN HAITI (2010) ASSISTANCE 3.6M-4.9M MOGADISHU (1993) HAITI (2010)2.5M-3.5M
REVOLUTION
MANAGUA BUDAPEST 1.6M-2.4M REVOLUTION HERAT MANAGUA .7M-2.3M BUDAPEST HERAT
(estimated population, 2050)
URBANIZATION 19.1M-36.4M (estimated population, 2050)
11.8M-19.1M 19.1M-36.4M 7.6M-11.7M 11.8M-19.1M 5.0M-7.5M 7.6M-11.7M 3.6M-4.9M 5.0M-7.5M 2.5M-3.5M 3.6M-4.9M 1.6M-2.4M 2.5M-3.5M .7M-2.3M 1.6M-2.4M .7M-2.3M
133
Simulated Cities Database
300 m
© 2018 Google © 2018 Google
Fort Benning Selby CACTF
Fort Benning has been described as the “home of the infantry,” and its CACTF53 is among the most complete. The installation was built in a clearing on the range land that had been in place at least as early as 1993, north of the McKenna MOUT site.54 In 2005, “a modified standard design Collective Training Facility (CACTF) consisting of structures and mock utilities to simulate an urban setting”55 was proposed. Construction for main CACTF was visible in July, 2007, and apparently complete by September, 2009.56 Widely available aerial photos of the site from 2011 show a colorful assortment of buildings,57 suggesting typologies were color-coded. Several apparent “business” types were shown in different colors, perhaps signaling different uses. One of these has embellished its parapet with a small pediment. Each unit within the townhouse was painted a different color.58 Tunnels are present on site. A rather unembellished two-story block holds a prominent position in a central roundabout at the south—where other sites would locate a feature building like a City Hall, this building appears to replicate the generic two-story business type.59 In 2007, Phase II was proposed, including an “underground trainer and camera towers” along with an “operations/storage building.”60 An assortment of satellite sites lining the road to the McKenna site appear at this time.61 A budget for FY2010 included 9M USD for improvements on site.62 A collection of smaller satellite sites to the immediate northwest of the main site was upgraded into a military compound by 2011. A new, residential area with an apparent school was built farther north.63 The site was used for the Best Ranger Competition in 2011,64 and by Georgia Tech to test pilotless helicopters in 2014.65
151
ld
ofie
Sch
r Bar
F
CT
CA
F
mp
ylin
Gra
Ca
3
201
ley-
C
7
200
tB as eL ew For tW ainw is Mc righ Ch Ko t CA or re CTdF(J a BL Tr M) ai ni CA Jo ng CT int F F Ba ac se ili t Ley w/ iRs oM drcC ig h Ko ueord re z (J a Ra BL Tr ai ng M) ni C e ng / Y ACT Fa on F cil gp ity yo /R ng od CA rig CT ue F z Ra ng e /Y on gp yo ng CA CT F
Jo in
For tW ainw righ t CA Fort Cam pbell Ca CTF ssidy Ur ban
4
200
F
T 100 CAC
Rip amp
cks
ld
ofie
Sch
7
C
7
F
Fort Benning Selby CACT
F
Fort Benning Selby CACT
AC
CTC) C
t Traini ng O rc haCrdenCter (O ombaCtTC) Cng Traini ACTF Center (O
ba
rd Com
Orcha
Grafenwoehr Training Area (GTA) CACTF
F
Fort Benning Selby CACT
Fort Indian
Grafenwoehr Training Area (GTA) CACTF
20
town Ga
20
Fort Pick
town Ga
ett - Blac
Fort Pick
ett - Blac
t For
20
town Ga
08
Dix
ite
TF
Dix
-S
ite
Sa
n
An
ni
rt D Fo
o
tB
as
-S
ite
e
Sa
n
An
to
BS
rum
-C
F
CT
CA
am
1-C
p CACTF
CA
CTF
AC
(J
A)
Dix
TF
in
p
ni
o
(J
BS
A)
Bu
llis
TF
-C
am
p
CA
CT
F
Bu
llis
CA
CT
F
TF AC rt C
wa
F
CACTF
TF
kstone
12
C
am
p
G
Gre
ely
ely
C mp TA) (D
Ca
Sh
elb
2She
20
Gre
yC
lby
p aCmTF CCA
ru
kstone
G
CACTF
CACTF
t For
AC
AC
AC
TF
A) C (DT
TF
ru
TF
be
rC
be
AC
rC
AC
TF
F
TF CACTF
TFACT C
TF
T ACTF
F
e
Ste
CT
s CAC
CA
ood Fort TH F
llis
Fort McCoy CAC
Bu
Fo rt
1-C
Jo to
F t CTFor
p
t sCCAC ortaBrlis Fw
am
CACTF Fort Hood
-C
100 M USD
lis Fort B
A)
M u sca atu Fort McCoy tCAC TF ckr (M U TC) CAC Fo TF rt C Mu ars s c ataot n C uckAC r (M TFU T C ) CA CTF
C
on TF CA C
art
tew
CT F
s CAC
Fort Hood
TF
Fort McCoy CAC
lis Fort B
M
Ar rt S Feoa CA
BS
100 M USD
CA
(J
as
rum
o
tB
tD
ni
CA Fort P CTF ol k
08 AC
in
r Fo
to
2010 rt Ste Fo
g
rum
tD
Tra ini n
2010
80
An
11
2010
n
Jo
80
20
Sa
11
e
1-C
Pol k
20
60
-S
AC
Ka hu ku T ra F inin o rt gTAFre CC a CA ars CA
r Ka Fo hu ku
as
Fo rt
60
09
tB
CTF
20
in
CA
20
09 20
Jo
08
09 20
m1p C 2a0
Fo rt
For t
20
40
Pol k
p CACTF Fort Indian
p CACTF
40
For t
ACTF
ley-C
Rip amp
200
50
Fort Indian
F
CT
CA
TF
pR Cam
200
100
ra Bar
-CAC ipley
50
80
100 M USD
06 B 20ofield
Sch
150
3
60
20
200
F
T AC yC ile tr R ACTF Fo ks C c arra
150
201
F
CT
CA
ling
ray
mp G
40
rt R Fo
06
TF
AC
yC
ile
250 200
s ack
183
Training Complex CACTF
Training Complex CACTF y Urban ell Cassid Fort Cam pb
300 acres
250
50
20
Fort Bragg CACTF
2003 200 4
2003
x Jno t K oint
Zu
r Fo
300 acres
C CA
Fo
6
0 20
CT
gC A
100
Fort Bragg CACTF WTC) Hill A (A Fort AP
ing Ba ain se t Tr Le oin J w e g is ding M lla TF Vi Blan cCh AC Ko ord )C an mp re JTC (JB sm Ca a B s Tr 4Zu LM r (C te 1axi e) nCA 2t K0no ning F CT gC r inin CACTF F ac a r Fo ilit t Toberts in y Jmop R /R g a inC nodd Bla rigu mp ez Ca Ra ng 14 ) e 20 A (AWTC / F Hill rtYoA CTP Fo s CAngp bert o y R o p ng Cam CA CT F
F CT CA
For t W age all Vi inwrigh t CA an CTF m s s
4 h
tC
Fo r
Hill Fort AP
Fort Cam pb
200
C
af fe
150
ey
il rt R
Ca
Fort Bragg CACTF
ell Cassid
y Urban
) JTC (CB ter n Ce
fee
af
2003
TF
AC
eC
F
200
AC T
250
TF
Ch
300 acres
Fo rt
) A (AWTC
Training Complex CACTF
Simulated Cities Database
CACTF SIMULATED URBAN CORE SIZE (ACRES) BY YEAR COMPLETED CACTF SIMULATED URBAN CORE SIZE (ACRES) BY YEAR COMPLETED CACTF REPORTED COST (M USD) BY YEAR COMPLETED
SIMULATED URBAN CORE SIZE (ACRES) BY YEAR COMPLETED CACTF REPORTED CACTF COST (M USD) BY YEAR COMPLETED CACTF REPORTED COST (M USD) BY YEAR COMPLETED
CACTF Cost and Size by Year Simulated Cities Database, AGENCY
194
FRONTS
Simulated Zones: Embassies Simulated Cities Database, AGENCY
Camp Blanding (Likely)
Fort Campbell (Likely)
Fort Polk (Possible) FORT POLK (POSSIBLE)
Image Source: Google Earth
Camp Shelby CAMP SHELBY (LIKELY)
CAMP GRAYLING
Camp Grayling
Fort Carson (Likely)
Fort Greely DTA
Fort Riley (Possible)
Fort Stewart (Possible)
254
FRONTS
Case Study: Jubaland Ersela Kripa In 2011, after two decades of almost continuous refugee influx from Somalia, and the proliferation of al-Shabaab militant crime within the Dadaab refugee camps, the Kenyan government orchestrated a military intervention inside Somalia as a way to push terrorism and immigration away from its eastern border. Part of the military offensive was the taking of southwestern Somali land from al-Shabaab and shoring up efforts to create an independent region as a land buffer between the two nations. For the Kenyan government this plan would help contain refugees in Somalia by creating alternative refugee camp locations outside Kenyan borders. The Somali governance was distributed into a federation and was unable to govern all its extant regions. Some provinces declared autonomy and organized local governance in attempts to stabilize life in their own terms. One of such regions is Jubaland, a small strip of land of 60–80 kilometers wide on the border between Kenya and Somalia. When leaders of the Lower Jubba, Middle Jubba, and Gedo Jubaland decided to create the state of Jubaland in 2013, against the Somali government’s wishes, the Kenyan government offered support at the national level. Kenya’s interest in Jubaland1 was fueled in part by the deteriorating conditions in the Dadaab camp, its expansion into local villages, and the inability of the weakened Somali government to stop the refugee exodus. The small region of Jubaland would be controlled by an organized militia group mainly of Somali refugees recruited from the Dadaab camp, and trained by the Kenyan military, among others. The militarization of Jubaland would be part of the larger military mission organized by the governments of Kenya and Ethiopia against al-Shabaab advances in Somalia and would ensure Somali refugees would stay in Somalia. According to a member of the Kenyan Garissa County parliament: “The best solution is to build [refugee] camps in Jubaland. Kenya and Ethiopia can play a role in protecting them.”2 The declaration of autonomy for Jubaland sparked months of intense armed conflict between the Federal Government of Somalia, which did not approve of its creation, and the joint military forces of Jubaland’s Kismayo district, Kenya and Ethiopia.3 After a period of tense negotiations between the Federal Government of Somalia, Kenya Defense Forces, and the Ethiopian government, the Jubaland state was recognized partially as the Interim Jubba Administration with potential to later become a federally recognized state.4 Although African Union military forces have been taking territory back from alShabaab and weakening its hold within Somalia, the Kenyan government is resolute in closing the Dadaab refugee camp and returning all Somali refugees to Jubaland continuing to cite terrorist activity from within the camp as a national security threat. The United Nations (UN), Kenyan and Somalian governments signed a repatriation treaty, however, the realities of accommodating refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) back in Somalia has proven difficult. The repatriation process to Jubaland would include “schools, hospitals, and facilities to cater for relocated refugees”—creating a veritable institutionalized front as an urban no-mans-land in the borderland.5 Contrary to the presumed treaty conditions, Jubaland does not have adequate infrastructure in place to facilitate the return of thousands of refugees, and in some cases existing residents have flocked to the temporary housing provided for the returning refugees. The fact that order would be kept by an empowered militia jeopardizes the residents’ chances at reconstructing a “normal” life and attenuates the zone’s relationship to either neighboring nation. This newly-created region, carved out by military force from an existing country to be used as a buffer zone, continues
THE PROTO-CITY
to build on a legacy of military occupations of border zones, where questionable international “diplomacy” is shored by an active military force. Predictably, the new border-zone-as-militarized-camp dangerously erases all distinctions between humanitarian, national, and military interests in a toxic mixture where individual life is perpetually vulnerable.
Ethiopia Somalia
Indian Ocean
Kenya Mogadishu Jubaland
Jubaland, Territory Between Kenya and Somalia Map by AGENCY
Tactic: Formation In the town of Dadaab, often, the activities necessary for the survival of the camp and its inhabitants are seen as an affront to local rights. As the camp becomes a viable social and economic hub, tensions arise between its inhabitants and the host locality, which finds its land availability at risk with the palpable advance of the camp’s borders. Dadaab town is increasingly outsized by the Dadaab camps—a condition that presents a host of unforeseen entanglements of governance, rights, and land ownership not well-outlined in the initial formation of the camp. In the early 2000s tensions arose between the camps and local communities, and UNHCR—unsure of how to alleviate the problem—were reluctant to continue their expansion for fear of making matters worse with the local government and community leaders.6 Compounded by general
255
THE CARCERAL CITY
Multilingual Sign Posted at Entrance to Mock Detention Facility during Operation Guardian Justice, Fort McCoy, 2017 US Army Reserve Photo by Sgt. Audrey Hayes (Public Domain)
“Super Rec” Recreational Yard, Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp 6 Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kilho Park (Public Domain)
303
POSTSCRIPT: FORECASTING THE FRONTS
The largest international training exercise Angel Thunder, in Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, involves entities from eleven nations, which train in rescue missions annually in the Southwest desert. The event coordinates personnel recovery scenarios within a complex interagency training environment of civilian, non-governmental, humanitarian, security and military forces, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Civil Air Patrol, Peace Corps, and US Marshals Service, comprising about 3,000 participants. The large scale of the site allows for participants of diverse backgrounds and missions to train together simultaneously. The Chilean Special Forces, for instance, train in humanitarian rescue missions as their natural disasters pose a more prominent threat than foreign military aggression. The logistics of this complex scenario take a year to plan, including coordination of various types of machinery and equipment, where German Sikorsky helicopters have to be dismantled into parts to be transported to the site. The extensive scale of the exercise requires other military operations area (MOA) locations outside of Arizona, in California and New Mexico.53 In Europe, the German Army will complete the construction of one of the world’s largest installations by 2020, a training town called Schnoggersburg, and will include “an industrial area, and old town and a new town, slums, high-rise buildings, an airport, a railway and underground station, as well as an artificial river and bridges.”54 Plans include entire districts for industry and agriculture, and even a ring of suburbs. The 250 smaller slum buildings are grouped with “destroyed infrastructure,”55 seemingly confirming Graham’s observations that infrastructure will increasingly be targeted as part of urban warfare. The “slums,” tellingly, account for nearly half of the estimated 500 buildings to be constructed on site.
Advances in Urban Operations Technologies Urban Operations use both material and technological enhancements. While the material fabric provides realistic resistance and feel, the accompanying technology amplifies its usefulness by precisely networking trainees and space for a complete understanding of the environment. The Army’s future focus is shifting toward full integration of physical and digital systems in order to keep up with evolving technologies.56 As technological advances streamline global dissemination of information, they affect the speed with which conflict is broadcast and amplify its reach. As witnessed from current conflicts, the pervasive reach of social media affords an international forum for anyone with an Internet connection to exclaim harmless or warmongering ideology. Non-state actors and sanctioned military are able to augment their operations with digital dissemination of campaigns and propaganda. In addition, the emergence of inter-city economic trade outside of national regulations has pushed war fighting deeper into urban environments, where entangled distribution networks gain an edge by using the latest technology. Now more than ever, the context of conflict is highly complex, unending, and entrenched in cities, where the physical and digital nodes of exchange are slippery and elusive. The physical footprint of dense urban environments is slow and thick, blocking wireless transmission, global positioning systems (GPS) tracking, and requiring robust power infrastructures. The targeted ad-hoc urbanisms are self-built and rely on social connectivity as much as on digital broadcasting. In this milieu, the military’s goals of organizing and controlling urban space are problematized. US military GPS systems consistently encounter blind spots in urban fabrics, disconnecting soldiers from central command, and forcing them to rely on each other without remote input or aerial mapping. Urban warfare training doctrine highlights the importance of brick-and-
319
320
FRONTS
Homeland Security, FEMA, and National Guard joint earthquake response training at rubbled building site in Helena, MT during Operation Vigilant Guard, 2009. Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Eric Peterson (Public Domain)
mortar urban simulation, where technological instrumentation is used to chart, map, and collect information during training for After Action Review (AAR). Simulation technology is meant to augment the experience of the physical environment through the use of simulated weaponry, where so-called “building effect generators” can simulate the effects of enemy fire and human voices in the built simulation.57 SAAB’s Room Association Device (RAD), used in urban operations training, apparently echoes the challenges of urban operation through the lens of monitors. Sensing devices track trainee transitions from outside to an interior of a building, where GPS signal is blocked and connection to central command is lost, which poses the same difficulties as the real-world operation.58 As training continues to evolve in scenario precision and scope, its pairing with virtual simulation tools renders it more nuanced, flexible, and economical. In 2010, the US House of Representatives reported that virtual Modeling and Simulation (M&S) is of the utmost value to the DoD, labeling it a “national critical technology”—a designation typically reserved for physical infrastructure and assets of high national security value. Additionally, augmented reality is changing the depth of urban environments, with video games like Pokémon Go grafting layers of virtual imagery onto physical space. However, current law is not designed to handle this mixing. For the Army, synthetic or augmented urban training offers a way to overcome legal restrictions. For instance, the presence of children creates emotionally and morally complex situations in training and combat. The law does not allow child role-players, but they can easily be simulated digitally. The video game industry offers robust virtual simulations for military training, such as the Full Spectrum Command platform. The platform allows army captains to monitor in first-person-play the consequences to a battle plan in urban terrain, controlling hundreds of simulated troops, with the computer playing the role of “asymmetric threat.”59 Military doctrine suggests the future of war will continue to develop on two fronts: in physical space and in the digital realm. Ultimately, the securing of physical space will be augmented by cyber offensives and protection, not only against human enemies, but also against machines. The US military is investing heavily on digital infrastructures in addition to weaponry. Currently, the United States Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) works in conjunction with the National Security Agency (NSA), sharing digital infrastructures in a two-way system of intelligence gathering and attack
POSTSCRIPT: FORECASTING THE FRONTS
distribution. CYBERCOM is responsible for protecting the DoD’s information network and for enacting “military cyberspace operations”—in other words, cyber attacks.60 A 2018 budget proposal from the US Air Force requests $82M USD to “establish and evolve the Military Cyberspace Operations Platform (MCOP) to enable combined arms, offensive and defensive operations [and]ultimately support full-spectrum cyberspace operations for the Cyber Mission Forces.”61 Outside of the military’s own research, the finance industry is developing its own projections in the quest for profit gains. Financial reports predict consistent growth through 2025 in military simulation and virtual training technologies, where the US is expected to continue to be the largest spender in the world, followed by the Asia-Pacific and European markets. The industry will reach an estimated $15.8B USD market by 2025. New research will reportedly “include greater focus on advanced LVC [Live, Virtual, and Constructive] capabilities,” help to develop a “transportable, reconfigurable, integrated, crew trainer (TRICT) simulator,” and advanced optical “collimated displays” to improve warfighters’ field of views, a “submarine periscope simulator system,” and “Cobra Curved Display Flight Simulator, the world’s first panadome spherical projection simulator.” COTS [commercial, off-the-shelf] technology is preferred “to result in substantial cost savings for the manufacturers.”62
Replica Urbanisms While most urban operations training environments are built to exact layout and performance specifications, a few stand out as truly remarkable in fulfilling the requirements while precisely replicating existing environments in the theater of war. The Camp Gruber Joint Training Facility in Oklahoma, for example, has built an “exact replica” of an existing Afghan village. The village accurately recreates the built fabric and materials of a site thousands of miles away, where families live within large walled compounds that edge the streets.63 Recognizing that this condition creates a different relationship of buildings to streets than the standard western city, the facility was built to replicate this particular difference. Whereas, in the western city, transparent glass façades offer interior visibility and sidewalks create buffer zones, in the Arabic village, compound walls enclose the street into an opaque maze that creates blindspots for military personnel. Simulations or digital replicas cannot realistically train troops for the intensity of combat in this tightly built context. The base decided that the only way to train for what lies behind the walls is to build them. Also, Fort AP Hill in Fredericksburg, Virginia, boasts a similar installation, with a replica of a small Afghan village that can host a tactical training scenario to search and secure an entire village. Presentation graphics for the Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Military Affairs Council compare it to an aerial photograph of the original village as proof of likeness.64 After completion of training in simulated environments, military troops are deployed to the conflict zone. The geography of simulation travels with them. Even while in active duty, troops must engage in continued training, which sponsors construction of simulations within military bases in the theater of war. Absurdly, inside the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, a replica village stands in for the original outside its walls. The military hired local men to plaster the standard shipping containers with local mud in order to precisely mimic the textures of local homes.65 This sets up a strange condition of layered simulation where Afghan citizens replicate the materiality of their own homes in an “authentic” mirroring of real and fake.
321