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Just The News
War in the tunnels: U.S. military prepares for subterranean combat
“An enemy underground site can turn the tide of battle,” Pentagon official said. “We’re making sure it doesn’t happen to us.”
By Susan Katz Keating
Updated: September 18, 2020 - 11:36am
While the U.S. military continues to focus on traditional above-ground combat domains, defense officials have ramped up efforts to address the murky and increasingly threatening realm of subterranean warfare.
“Our adversaries have adapted their capabilities against our weaknesses by expanding their use of underground facilities,” Army officials wrote in a November publication on subterranean operations, noting that more than 10,000 “tactical tunnels” exist around the world.
The underground sites will be encountered more frequently during armed conflict, according to two modern war experts.
“With a trend toward greater urbanization, it will become even more difficult to avoid the subterranean environment,” wrote two retired officers, Maj. John Spencer and Col. Liam Collins, in an essay for the Association of the United States Army. It is “both folly and fantasy,” they wrote, “to believe soldiers will be able to avoid warfare’s reach into the underground.”
h/t X22 Report