 Welcome to the Naval War College, the Navy's home of thought. We are excited to present a new series titled NWC Talks, where we showcase our world-class experts in discussing national security matters. We hope you enjoy the conversation. In the year 2000, I was in South Africa. In the city of Durban, my hotel concierge assured me and my wife that while the city was mostly safe in the daytime, if we wanted to go out for Indian food, which is spectacular on the east coast of South Africa, then he insisted we at least let him call an armored car for us with an escort. And this would be for our own safety. I was somewhat surprised by this, but much more so when I was in Johannesburg about a week later. And in the central business district of Joberg, there was an unusually large amount of empty buildings, big, tall skyscraper high-rises. There was also a plethora of car jackings. They were rampant. And the government was considering and eventually did move their national stock exchange from Johannesburg to Santon. This is the equivalent of moving the New York City Stock Exchange from Wall Street to Rye, New York. And they did this because it was becoming extraordinarily difficult to provide security to stockbrokers, white stockbrokers, black stockbrokers. It didn't matter. At that point, for the first time, I really began to consider what would happen or could it happen if a state were to lose control of one of its cities, or more of one than one of its cities. And let me be clear, the Mbeki government was not taking this lightly. They were engaged in a desperate fight to hold onto their cities, to secure them, to make them safe for their people and their economy. Police departments, I was told, were losing on an average of one officer a day. And although my initial experience was with South Africa, it quickly became apparent that this problem was not unique to them. There were cities all over the world that were experiencing this kind of issue. And so began the saga of Faro cities. I'm Rick Norton, assigned to the National Security Affairs Department of the United States Naval War College, and welcome to NWC Talks. Okay, since humans have been on this planet, we've been mostly agrarian. We're farmers and ranchers and herders. Most of us traditionally historically lived in rural areas, but no more. We are now urban creatures. The majority of the world's human population live in cities. And the percentages of those of us who are city dwellers rise with the size of many of those cities. So now we have mega cities, which provide unique challenges across the board, including security, economy, et cetera. But you don't have to have a mega city to have a feral city. So this growth of cities, most of it, far too much of it, has been not planned well or not controlled. And as cities grow, they require more and more energy and resources of the state. Power, water, security, et cetera. This not only, in many cases, this not only is insufficient for the needs of the city, but it takes further resources away from rural populations. New demographic moves are challenging governments around the globe. In places, this challenge has become so severe, as to call into question the ability of the government to exercise control over its urban terrain. In short, some cities today are in danger of becoming feral. This is one of the great challenges of the emerging century. And for those of you who are national security professionals, it will be a challenge you are increasingly going to have to deal with. All right, so as these cities grow, we see non-state organizations beginning to rest control of urban landscapes away from the sovereign state. These are new forms of governance. What I experienced in Durban where the day was safe but the night was not could be called the diurnal form of government. In other cities where criminal cartels, militias, et cetera, control parts of the city and the government controls others, there's a patchwork form of governance emerging. In other times, state authorities may actually negotiate with some of these other organizations and reach a compromise, a sharing of sovereignty and power. In other cases, such as Hezbollah, groups that were at one point not affiliated with the state are now integrating within the state's apparatus itself and may become legitimate in their own right. So this question of who owns the streets is significant. As the owning state of a city begins to lose control of that city, the city becomes or is in danger of becoming feral. And look, feral cities is a great term. It's a good hook. It looks great in print. And it was one of my better ideas, I think. But anytime you come up with a term, you eventually have to define it. So my attempt at defining feral city would be a metropolis in the state where the government has lost the ability to consistently maintain the rule of law within all the city boundaries. Yet the city remains a functioning actor in the greater international political system. All right, so if we're going to take a test, that might be a question. But one way to maybe deal with this is feel free to think of a feral city as an island of alternate governance and a sea of sovereign power. But this island is connected to the rest of the globe. In some ways, these connections are conventional. The road, rail, if the island, if the city is a port, maritime connectivity. All these things are kind of easy to think about and have been around for a long time. But these cities are also now connected through electronic, cyber, and media. When a city begins to become feral or starts on the road to ferrality, we can become a haven for crime and criminal organizations, for terrorist groups, for local actors such as militia or criminal organizations who execute and have authority over these cities, or at least parts of these cities. So the other thing is as government oversight begins to break down, essential services become eroded. And these cities can become potential greeting grounds for pandemic and other forms of health issues. They can be environmental catastrophes. There are no controls on waste disposal, fuel consumption, types of fuel. If it's a coastal city, the amount of pollution that can be pumped into estuaries and oceans is frightening. But how can we tell if a city is at risk of becoming feral? The answer is data collection, which leads to and enables trend analysis. The simple table I put together has pretty much unchanged since 2004, with one exception. The fifth category, civil society, was added about 2009. And it was added because civil society is a critical factor in explaining why some societies hold together. And some cities, although fragile, do not go all the way into ferrality. Now a single analysis of a city at one particular point in its history gives you one data point. In itself, it may be interesting in some marginal utility, but it is not useful in determining if a city is becoming feral. It's the trend that counts. So real quickly, let's talk about some of these categories. Governance. How well is the city governed? Does the state provide legitimate, ethical, respected government in all parts of the city? Or does the state only provide that level of government to some parts of the city? And if that happens, it is not unusual to see other actors exert governance in those parts of the cities. Again, criminal organizations, terrorists, militias, local jurisdictions that kind of come up on their own, people's courts, these have all been seen. And sometimes the city will allow others to take over some of the functions. Not usually of governance. We'll talk about that in a little bit. It's a bit of service. All right. Economy. Healthy cities boast of robust economies. Investment is high. These cities are economic engines. Hubs of commerce, finance, manufacturing, international investment and trade. Billions of dollars flow throughout this kind of city. Think of the great financial capitals of the world. Paris, Moscow, London, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, New York. Now, as the city becomes feral, the risk to that trade increases. And eventually, those who participate in that trade will begin to back out. And while some legitimate businesses may continue to be present, illicit and criminal activity becomes rampant. Think of Mogadishu. At the height of its feral moments, selling of cotton, ammunition was the number one and two economic engines of that. However, I was surprised to find out that life goes on. Mogadishu University was open. Half a million people lived in Mogadishu and they tried to send their kids to school and they tried to earn their living. International businesses invested in telecommunications in Mogadishu. Fewer restrictions, a small footprint. So I may have overestimated how much legitimate business goes on in a feral city. Security. This should be particularly of interest to this crowd. People want their security services. We all do. To be reliable, professional and ethical. We want to trust the police, not fear them. And yes, we realize that since policemen are human, there will be the occasional instance of corruption or criminal behavior on their part. But when that happens, we expect the cops to identify it and the state to deal with it. When a city goes feral or moves toward ferrality, security services crumble. They begin to erode and a vacuum is created. Sometimes criminal gangs step into that vacuum. Other times the police become seen as just another gang. So police departments that are famous for shakedowns, for bribery, for paying for services would fall into this category. And it's not just a number of cops, so that can be a factor. For example, in Mexico City, there are more policemen than there are soldiers in the Canadian Army. Then there's civil society. This is my last addition. Civil society, how we get along with each other, our customs, traditions, the way we treat each other, can be the glue that holds communities together even when sovereign authority has diminished. Or in some cases cease to exist. This is a powerful force. But it's a force that can be harnessed by criminal elements just as well as those who are not. Criminal societies can and do exist. At times they can even provide security and services. If you live next to Don Corleone, you don't worry about your car being stolen. It would be bad for business and the mafia would never allow it. One of the more difficult challenges of a feral city involves the owning state, for lack of a better term. Sometimes states are so sensitive that they'll deny there's a problem. And they will forbid any external attempts to get involved and help with that problem. Leaders with a lot of national pride and hypersensitivity may consider those issues more important than protecting their own people. We have seen countries deny the provision of humanitarian relief supplies, for example. We have seen countries get extraordinarily offended at the idea that a neutral organization such as Ichio, the air traffic controllers organization of the UN, might send a team to help with air traffic control problems. This can be problematic if their city is causing issues in the region or perhaps even in the globe. How does the US get involved in feral cities? Well, I can think of several ways. Peace operations, under the blue and white banner of the UN, we could easily see US forces assigned to a feral city or a country with feral cities in an attempt to stabilize situations and make things better. We could also respond to humanitarian crises. We're here to help in the aftermath of a natural disaster or civil war and war always causes ferrality. We've had our experiences of this in Afghanistan and Iraq. For example, the Battle of Fallujah, we took back a city. We gained control, but we broke about 85% of the infrastructure in the process. And if our involvement involves conflict and direct warfare, things get very complicated. I could talk for hours on urban warfare in itself, but just a quick refresher. Defenders in urban terrain have an advantage. Even if they're poorly trained and the more they understand their city and its terrain, the better they'll be. Casualty rates among our forces, friendly forces, particularly infantry, tend to be extraordinarily high, both physical casualties and psychological casualties. It's not a friendly environment for aircraft. It will be that rotor or fixed wing. Yes, you can stand off in Poundah City, but that has its own complications. So in urban combat, at least until fairly recently, we'll talk about it in a second, the traditional asymmetric advantages US forces have tend to be dissipated. General sales of the United States Army call this fighting in the last mile, where it's a much more even match, and it's the reflexes of the soldier, the knowledge of the terrain, et cetera, that tend to dominate. The same time, there's a tendency sometimes among military personnel to say, well, if this becomes a war, if this is Stalingrad or Manila, then we know how to do that. It's brutal, it's violent, it's killing. However, I would argue you're going to have to avoid the needless killing of noncombatants more so than ever. It will be a paramount concern. If for no other reason, and there are a lot of reasons, then the negative impact of social media and immediate press coverage may be more than we wish to bear. Our setbacks, our mistakes will be magnified. The conduct of kinetic operations at the same time we're doing occupational duties is going to be difficult. Marines, the three-block war concept, the idea of the strategic corporal, never more present than in these operations, where decision-making by necessity will be pushed down to very junior leaders, and the consequences of decisions may reach far above the level of the tactical. Luckily, and I mean this very seriously, Marine and Army leaders are adjusting to this new urban reality. No Marine, no soldier wants to fight in cities. But I think the realization has occurred that we're going to have to fight in cities as long as war remains a human activity where people are. So what do we see? An explosion in urban training facilities. A significant growth in research and development aimed at developing new tools, drones, new sensors, armor that will be required in a city. This is ongoing, and our understanding of urban combat grows, which we will need in the future. Okay, in the year 2000, the question of could a city become feral was an academic exercise. By 2009, I would argue that there was evidence to say, yes, not only could this happening, but it's starting to happen. Today, I think there is no doubt. Many countries' grip on their cities is weakening. Other forces are rising within those cities to provide governments, services, security to the populations therein. Dealing with the threat of feral cities is going to require all elements of national power. There's an economic component, certainly a military component. There's a diplomatic piece and an information piece. We need to more aggressively work to coordinate these elements of power. And we need to do it on a recurring basis. In fact, I would argue constantly. So let me leave you with a cautionary tale. There is a perhaps understandable tendency in the United States and in much of the western world to say, if this is a problem, it's a problem for the developing world. It can't happen here. Yes, we have violent cities. Yes, there are bad parts of almost every city, but that's a question of political will. A mayor has enough police power to usually control any part of the city if there's will to do so and a willingness to bear the cost. If for some reason the local cops can't do it, the governor can provide state forces, including the National Guard. And in a bizarre case where that wasn't enough, the federal government certainly has enough power to do so. In other cities around the world, that may not be true. The Mexicans are conducting a heroic fight against drug cartels, and they've reached a level where that fight is being conducted by their national military. But let's go back to that idea of it can't happen here. To tell you a little bit about myself, I'm half Cajun. I went to school in Tulane University from undergrad. My family lives in New Orleans. It's one of the great cities of the world, my favorite city. For five days in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was feral. The United States could not extend the rule of law into that city. Now, it was because of a natural disaster. It was because of such issues of the fact that the city had gone to rechargeable cell phones or walkie-talkies for their police force because it was cheaper than batteries, and the charging stations were underwater. It became an issue of logistics and terrain more than will. But for five days, New Orleans was feral. Given some of the anticipated consequences of some of the great changes we anticipate in the upcoming century, some relating to climate, for example, and the loss of coastline, we're going to see moral feral cities as people are set in motion because of these natural developments. So, somber note perhaps, but thanks for spending a few minutes with me. I'm Rick Norton, and this has been NWC Talks.