Tanks in Modern Battlefield; Is the King Dead?

Amidst the changing nature of warfare, many new concepts have been introduced in the modern military doctrines and simultaneously, many concepts have also become obsolete, rather irrelevant. In this context, many military weapons and war machines have undergone a process of evolution and change. Tanks, the king of battlefield, have been under the grunt of military strategists ever since the emergence of counterinsurgency operations and unconventional warfare. Being subjected to different interpretations, the role of tanks, particularly MBTs, in the modern battlefield has become questionable. This ambiguous nature of their relevance is evident from the fact that on one hand US Marines are getting rid of their active duty tanks and on the other hand Ukraine had been demanding more tanks from allied nations to counter Russia in the current Russian-Ukrainian war. Considering this paradox, in this paper we will explore the contemporary trends in the role of tanks by using different case studies over the last 60 years of counter-insurgency unconventional operations.