A government fortification protects against military attack.

A city fortification protects against basic lawlessness in the absence of a government protective order. It’s a sign of personal level violence

For a long time, basically since WW2, the assumption was that fortifications are at best a delaying measure, and worst case, the attacker can go around them (mobile warfare, blitzkrieg and all that).

In the past decade, however, the changes in battlefield tech resulted in a situation where fortifications can be genuinely impregnable.

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