Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
There's also the fact that Wilf comes from the British tradition where the civilian side of the FID effort used to be very much in charge and that system worked well for them.
Correct. - not surprisingly! The British "tradition" to countering an insurgency is based on being the existing government or having the explicit support of an existing government - which has the appropriate structures in place or having the resources and support to create them. - again, Sierra Leone is an excellent example.
I think current British practice shows they've lost their civilian edge to an extent -- and that our history shows that our system is not particularly effective -- or desirable. My solution to that problem is develop the civilian structure and get the military out of the lead for such efforts
I think the Basra fiasco was purely down to a lack of resources and political will - and the bad guys knew it. If operational success had been absolutely essential to UK foreign policy, the UK conduct of Iraq would have been very different. You can see the same issues in A'Stan.