A recent study was conducted by the CDEF DREX on the battles of Grozny in Chechnya (1994-1995 and 1999-2000). The fighting in this 100 km2 city with multi-storey buildings and 490,000 residents in 1994 was particularly violent. For the first time in 1994, a conventional army, which enjoyed an a priori overwhelming balance of power and, moreover, was not bothered by collateral damage, was held in check by an asymmetric, comparatively weakly armed adversary. As predicted by General Krulak of the US Marine Corps, the Chechen conflict thus appears to be the matrix of contemporary engagements, in which the city constitutes for the irregular enemy the most favourable environment for resisting modern armies. The recent setbacks of Tsahal during the attacks on the Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon have reminded us of this.

In view of the success of American troops in Iraq in 2003, the Americans seem to have been able to adapt their doctrine of combat in urban areas. They were able to exploit the lessons learned from the fighting in Grozny in order to train realistically and thus avoid reproducing Russian mistakes. Thus, the success of the offensive that led to the capture of Baghdad, as well as the conquest of Fallujah at the end of 2004, are in a way the dividends of a major investment in the exploitation of the return on experience.

Conversely, on the Russian side, apart from any political considerations, the conflict in Iraq has surprised many observers and has undermined prejudices about the American army. Although no one in Moscow had ever seriously believed that Saddam Hussein could defeat the allied forces in 2003, the speed and effectiveness of the offensive baffled more than one Russian military expert. Indeed, the Russian generals were expecting another protracted, long-distance war, like the one in Kosovo in 1999, like the one in Afghanistan two years later, or like the first Gulf War in 1991, when the 4-day ground offensive was preceded by 39 days of aerial bombardment. The Russians mistakenly believed that the Americans were afraid of short range skirmishes, that they could not tolerate casualties and that ultimately they only knew how to rely on their technological superiority. In particular, two retired generals - Vladislav Achalov (a former urban combat paratrooper) and Igor Maltsev (an air defence specialist) - who had visited Baghdad and helped S. Hussein prepare a war plan to defeat the Americans. Achalov concluded at the time that the defence of Baghdad was well organised, that American tanks would end up burnt if they entered the city and that American infantry would be massacred. According to him, the only way for the Allies to take Baghdad and other Iraqi cities was to raze them to the ground with carpets of bombs.

This reasoning was essentially based on the Russian model of the conquest of Grozny, which they considered to be the indisputable historical reference point. Indeed, the Russians waged a real war in Grozny, intense and deadly, which foreshadowed modern fighting in urban areas. Certainly, after serious setbacks, they achieved their military objectives. But can we really speak of victory? Misjudgements led to heavy losses, both civilian and military. Even though the Russians have always accepted the price of blood in past conflicts, this victory seems very bitter.

Many people in Russia then wondered why their forces had been so ineffective compared to those of the Americans and the British, and why two battles to take Grozny in 1995 and 2000 each took more than a month, with more than 5,000 Russian soldiers killed and tens of thousands wounded in both engagements. Although the aggressiveness and organization of the Chechen rebels may be superior to that of the Iraqi insurgents, the human toll of the battle of Fallujah [1] is out of all proportion to that of Grozny. This is why it is appropriate to return here briefly to the reasons for the disaster of 1995.

The conflict in Chechnya appears to be the prototype of modern asymmetrical warfare: it has served, and still serves, as a reference point for armed insurgent factions throughout the world.

The Russian armed forces, with their massive commitment, had to quickly impose the political will of the federal state. However, the unexpected resistance in urban areas by a fanatical enemy dramatically challenged Russian claims: the "Chechen quagmire" revealed to the world as early as 1995 the seriousness of this "reserved" crisis. Similarly, the first Battle of Grozny in 1994-1995, and to a lesser extent the Battle of Grozny in 1999-2000, showed the dilapidated state in which the Russian army found itself after the collapse of the USSR: a totally unmotivated, poorly paid, untrained, underfunded and under-equipped army. The fundamental errors of the Russian forces are as follows:

• blind political will to take the decision immediately, to the detriment of rigorous operational planning,
• a decaying army that overestimates its own forces and underestimates the quality of the adversary about whom it lacks information (especially about his disposition, morale and fighting spirit),
• practically non-existent training in the field of urban combat, whereas during the Second World War, the expertise acquired by the Red Army was certainly the best in the world,
• problems of command organisation, coordination between units and joint cooperation,
  • Tactical misuse of the tank-infantry couple and a lack of combat engineers, -
  • awkward operational communication.

Faced with an enemy supported by the population, determined, aggressive, and organized to move quickly in urban areas with harassment and deadly anti-tank ambushes, failure is inevitable. Yet at the time the Russian Defence Minister, General Gratchev, had repeatedly stated that "one battalion of paratroopers would be sufficientto settle the issue".

It is better to learn from the experience of others than to repeat their mistakes. The study of conflicts conducted by other armies is therefore important, even if one should bear in mind one's own specificities, particularly in terms of organization and culture, but without falling into the trap of certainties and fear of reforms.

1] 71 American deaths for 1300 rebels killed and 2000 prisoners, as well as very few civilian casualties.