Rhodesian COIN (consolidated thread, inc original RLI)

[davidbfpo]

Bloggers use each other's material, so hat tip to this other site for assembling a set of video links to Rhodesian footage, in particular an American who served as an officer with the RAR (3yrs 1976-1979):http://www.smallwars.com/forum/analy...esian-bush-war

There's also, a so far unread MA dissertation by a Kings War Studies student, 'An Embarrassment of Riches? - Britain's Lost Lessons from the Thodesian Counterinsurgency War', 71 pgs:http://www.smallwars.com/articles/91...-adam-robinson


The Abstract:

The counterinsurgency war fought in Rhodesia has a particular resonance for Britain. The Rhodesian Forces fought a protracted war using largely British equipment and British tactics, learnt from a shared experience of counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaya, Kenya and Aden. When Rhodesia declared independence in 1965, the two countries went their separate ways and subsequent lessons from Rhodesia have generally gone unheeded by Britain. This paper will address the lessons that were presented by this war that could have been learnt and adopted by Britain during its subsequent counterinsurgencies of Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan. The paper will go on to analyse why some of those lessons were not addressed or, if they were, whether it was from the experiences in Rhodesia or from the UK’s own experiences. The fundamental questions of how Britain learns its counterinsurgency lessons and whether there was a conscious decision, because of Rhodesian secession, to ignore any experiences from Rhodesia will be answered. By using academic sources, direct contact with those involved in the Rhodesian counterinsurgency and by reference to contemporary and current doctrine, this paper will conclude that there are several lessons from Rhodesia that the UK could have learnt, and even some that are still to be heeded. It will conclude that the UK has had, until recently, a poor history of studying and codifying counterinsurgencies, that it has always been introspective when examining counterinsurgency lessons, and that it was because of this, and no other reason, that Rhodesia is not taught as a counterinsurgency case-study.