{"product_id":"2940148872894","title":"SHARP CORNERS: URBAN OPERATIONS AT CENTURY'S END","description":"This study was directed by the Commanding General, US Army\u003cbr\u003eTraining and Doctrine Command, in the summer of 1999. NATO\u003cbr\u003eoperations against Yugoslavia had just begun. Notwithstanding official\u003cbr\u003eannouncements that ground forces would not be needed for the time\u003cbr\u003ebeing, expectations ran high that ground troops would ultimately have\u003cbr\u003eto be employed. The precise nature of the operations they would be\u003cbr\u003ecalled on to perform could not be foreseen, and consequently neither\u003cbr\u003ethe size nor the precise character of the forces to be committed could be\u003cbr\u003edecided at the time. The range of possibilities was enough to give any\u003cbr\u003ecommander or operational planner headaches: American ground forces\u003cbr\u003ecould be engaged in direct combat within or beyond the province of\u003cbr\u003eKosovo, then the focal point of NATO operations, against conventional\u003cbr\u003eforces or their surrogates. US troops could also be employed as an\u003cbr\u003eelement of a peacekeeping operation confined to the province itself, or\u003cbr\u003eperhaps beyond, or any gradation of commitment between these\u003cbr\u003eextremes. No one with official responsibility could envision a scenario\u003cbr\u003ewithout ground troops of any sort.\u003cbr\u003eOnly one assumption could be made with any sort of confidence:\u003cbr\u003eonce ground forces were introduced, a significant part of their duties\u003cbr\u003ewould be performed not in the open countryside but in areas that could\u003cbr\u003eto some degree be characterized as urban. Some such areas might be\u003cbr\u003every small, no more than a village perhaps, with a population\u003cbr\u003enumbering in the tens. Some might be towns with only a few thousand\u003cbr\u003einhabitants. Others might be much larger municipalities, with\u003cbr\u003epopulations running to the tens of thousands. The question naturally\u003cbr\u003earose: to what degree was the US Army prepared for this mission,\u003cbr\u003eill-defined as it was at that particular time","brand":"ReadCycle","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47067893661936,"sku":"2940148872894","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940148872894_p0.jpg?v=1763710035","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940148872894","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}