The future of urban warfare is in safe hands

So another pop quiz: which country will be guiding us through the complex world of technology-powered urban warfare? The right answer is…Jordan – and if it doesn’t look very urban, well, it’s not their fault!  The world’s largest special operations urban warfare training base opened on Monday in Jordan…The facility northeast of the capital Amman ...

So another pop quiz: which country will be guiding us through the complex world of technology-powered urban warfare?

So another pop quiz: which country will be guiding us through the complex world of technology-powered urban warfare?

The right answer is…Jordan – and if it doesn’t look very urban, well, it’s not their fault!

 The world’s largest special operations urban warfare training base opened on Monday in Jordan…The facility northeast of the capital Amman cost about $90 million to build and took three years to complete.

The facility contains a central operations center from where officers can monitor and control all audio, video, special effects and target technology such as networked day/night thermal cameras with 360-degree coverage to capture exercises for reviewing afterwards, the constructors said in a statement.

Jordan Times has more:

According to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff General Khaled Sarayreh, the centre poses as a model of cooperation and partnership between Jordan and the US to combat terrorism in all its forms.

“The root causes of terrorism are a mix of special agendas of many extremist organisations, operating in environments characterised by oppression, despair, frustration, poverty, unemployment, hunger….,” said the general, adding that the best way to fight terrorism is to “develop comprehensive strategies focusing on the employment of political, economic, social, technical and intelligence efforts, information sharing and the large scale-use of technology, besides military efforts”.

One could only imagine how delighted Hollywood’s film-makers must be at this news: finally, a real reason to set their flicks in Jordan. 

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com
Tag: War

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