British COIN (merged thread)

[Alex Alderson]

The reference is slightly off the mark but it matters not. You are looking for Army Field Manual Vol. 1 Part 10, published in July 2001. Written by Brig (Retd) Gavin Bulloch, the British Army's pre-eminent doctrine writer, it served its purpose and held out until a full review was put in place nearly a year ago. That review is nearly complete and has hit the mark with the internal market, taking on the problems of interventionist COIN, raising the issues of sovereignty and legitimacy, reassessing principles and establishing a new view of the Thompson approach of Engage-Secure-Develop. There are one or two final hurdles to clear and no doubt the challenging views of the Small Wars cogniscenti will hit on things we'd wished we had included but... One of the most obvious and important points I have made is to pick up on Steve Metz's view, again obvious, that insurgency is a strategy. Why important? If you are to counter it, you also need a strategy, not just a presence: being there is not a strategy. And military prowess is, as many contributors have made clear, not enough. If you have access to the Royal United Services Institute website or its August 2007 journal, you can read more about what my team has been up to.

[davidbfpo]

Post Ten refers to the 2001 edition being updated and in May 2012 a link was found on the BBC News website to the 2009 edition, but has now disappeared.

This was the link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/h...rmy_manual.pdf

I did note the document has no official markers and was found on a BBC website, so I assumed it is for public use. Today May 12th 2012 a SWC member has drawn attention to the copyright notice, which also proclaims it was an official document and not for public use. Maybe someone noticed thirty months later it was in the public domain?

Moderator's Note

I found five separate threads in this arena and have merged them after a review. (Ends)

[davidbfpo]

Not to overlook the impact on British COIN of the Malayan experience, well explained IMO in this SWJ article:http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...arts-and-minds

With a comment added today that refers to an AFJ March 2011 'Slow learners: How Iraq and Afghanistan forced Britain to rethink COIN', which I don't think has been caught on SWC before and is very good:http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2011/11/6292362

It ends with:

The British military’s experience in contemporary COIN operations elicited an unfortunate smugness and complacency in an organization that thought that it “got it.” Successful experiences in the past gave it a false sense of security in its approaches to Iraq and Afghanistan, and it suffered the consequences. Officers within the organization identified these shortcomings, but also began to point out failures in adaptation, while the U.S. seemed to embrace change. Though the early misperceptions may have delayed the response, the British military — especially the Army — eventually experienced very similar dynamics as its U.S. counterpart in its approaches to counterinsurgency.

With older threads Managing COIN: Lessons from Malaya:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2900

[davidbfpo]

Actually the Sandhurst Library bibliography, alas dated August 2010; includes general matters, UK and others campaign histories; a mixture of books and articles:http://www.army.mod.uk/documents/gen..._BIB_AKX_3.pdf

It has no official markers nor a copyright notice.

[JMA]

Further to previous discussions on the Brit SAS there is a book out now which shines a light on to workings of the SAS:

Special Force: The Untold Story of 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) : by Alastair MacKenzie

amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

I will quote two passages:

"Now, as I say, the soldiers [in the SAS] are the best you will ever meet. Nonetheless, within your troops too you have got men who will lie in their teeth, who will deliberately falsify accounts in order to make money for themselves, who will seduce their comrades' wives while they are overseas, whi will steal and who will even carry out armed robbery, and in case you think I am exaggerating all those things have been done by soldiers of this regiment in the last two years. Nor should you be surprised. You don't train tigers and expect them to sing like canaries and those men are highly individual and highly active." - Briefing to Troop Commanders by the Commanding Officer on 11 November 1975

and

As the myth of the SAS regiment has grown, it has become an increasingly introspective organisation, beset by the contradictions between its past and present values and by bad feelings within its ranks. Regimental officers have seen their authority undermined by the potent working-class ethos of their soldiers.

...

This book identifies that the utilisation of the special troops has not been at an appropriate political or military level. The strategic use of this exceedingly small, elite group of specialists has been based more upon the personal drive of relatively low-level officers than upon national necessity.

Note: my comments above were made before obtaining a copy of this book.

[davidbfpo]

A WoTR review by Mark Stout onEmpire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empireby Calder Walton:

It views the process of decolonization during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s through the lens of British intelligence operations. Walton’s main message is that “one of the most important ways in which British governments prepared for, and smoothed, the end of colonial rule was with intelligence.”

(Slight snag) The repeated use of, and problems with, pseudo-gangs highlight another important point that Walton brings out: the British intelligence services, unlike the British military, had no mechanism for recording and promulgating lessons learned in the various wars of the period. Instead, MI5 and the Special Branches had to make it all up from scratch in each conflict with the inevitable inefficiencies, failures, and mistakes that happen in the steep part of the learning curve.

Link:http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/int...#comment-14224

One for the buy one day list.