Revising the British Army's Counter-Insurgency Doctrine

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes * The team consists of Brigadier Gavin Bulloch, the Army's pre-eminent doctrine writer, Dr Daniel Marston, who leads the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst's COIN team, and Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Good, who has several years' experience in the development of doctrine. 1. Army Code 71749 Army Field Manual, Vol. 1 Combined Arms Operations, Part 10-Counter-Insurgency Operations [Strategic and Operational Guidelines] (London: Prepared under the direction of the Chief of the General Staff, July 2001). The Volume 1 Part 10 is unusual in that it alone in the Field Manual series concentrates on the strategic and operational aspects of a campaign; the rest of the series covers tactical doctrine. The Army Field Manual is published in two volumes. Volume 1 provides guidance on combined arms operations at divisional, brigade and battlegroup level in conventional warfighting, counter-insurgency and stability operations. Volume 2 provides guidance on specific operational environments, including urban, jungle and mountainous terrain. 2. Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five (London: Faberand Faber, 1977), p. 283. 3. The heated debate which followed the publication of Brigadier Alwyn-Foster's article on the US approach to counterinsurgency strikes to the heart of this perception and was matched by comments following the publication of Brigadier Sharpe's views on the US Army in Iraq. One US Army officer remarked to the author, 'What is it about the British Army that makes it so fascinating to tweak the US Army's nose? I agree our Coalition partners and British Army leaders should be a moderating influence. However, the real question is why should the British Army believe there is a need for such an influence? Self- righteous lectures are ineffective in the US-why would they suddenly become effective elsewhere?' See Brigadier Nigel Alwyn-Foster, 'Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations', Military Review, November- December 2005, pp. 2-16; Col K. C. M. Benson, 'Turning the Other Cheek: A Rebuttal to Brigadier Nigel Alwyn-Foster,' British Army Review (No. 140, Autumn 2006), pp. 17-23; and Thomas Harding, 'British Brigadier Attacks America's John Wayne Generals,' Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2006. 4. Markus Mder, In Pursuit of Conceptual Excellence: The Evolution of British Military- Strategic Doctrine in the Post-Cold War Era, 1989-2002 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2004). 5. Major General J. F C. Fuller encapsulated the absolute requirements of doctrine in 1926 and what he wrote then remains central to the British view of doctrine today: 'Doctrine, which to be sound must be based on the principles of war, and to be effective must be elastic enough to admit to mutation in accordance with change in circumstance. In its ultimate relationship to the human understanding this central idea or doctrine is nothing else than common sense-that is, action adapted to circumstance.' In J. F. C. Fuller, The Foundations of the Science of War (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1926), p. 254. 6. Colonel C. E. Callwell, 'Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice' (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1906, Third Edition, republished by Bison Books, 1996), p. 270, referring to the successful use of the square as a tactic in small wars even though modern firepower had rendered it useless in conventional warfare. 7. Interview with the author with the then Director Land Warfare, Brig (Retd) Charles Grant, 8 February 2007. 8. Note not managed or adjusted to. Countering insurgency is a protracted affair and whilst the reality is that counterinsurgent forces have time to adapt in the field, major adjustments do have to be made to standard headquarters structures, and their intelligence, information fusion, information operations and equipment development and procurement procedures, in order to counter agile and adaptive adversaries. 9. Callwell, op. cit.; Charles Gwynn, Imperial Policing (London: Macmillan, 1934); Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping (London: Faber, 1971), and Kitson, Bunch of Five, op cit; Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam (NewYork: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966). 10. Army Code 71749 Army Field Manual, Vol. 1 Combined Arms Operations, Part 10-Counter- Insurgency Operations [Strategic and Operational Guidelines]. (London: Prepared under the direction of the Chief of the General Staff, July 2001), p. B-2-1. 11. Army Code 71749 Army Field Manual, Vol. 1 Combined Arms Operations, Part 10-Counter- Insurgency Operations [Strategic and Operational Guidelines]. (London: Prepared under the direction of the Chief of the General Staff, July 2001), p. B-3-1. 12. 'The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgement that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking, neither mistaking it, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive. 'Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 88-89. 13. Low Kitson, Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping, op cit., p. 13. 14. Interview with the then Director Land Warfare, Brig (Retd) Charles Grant, 8 February 2007. 15. Interview with a brigade commander who served in Iraq in 2004, MoD, 26 January 2007. 16. The UK maintained the line for a long time that its forces were not facing an insurgency in the south at all until Moqtada al Sadr and Jaish al Mehdi emerged. The insurgency in MND (SE) is not the same as the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad and central Iraq, nor that fuelled by al Qaeda. To be accurate but yet infuriatingly imprecise, it is Shia factions using insurgent tactics to gain political and economic power. They do not want to replace us; they simply want us to go and the way that they operate and organize allows us to use our counterinsurgency techniques to support emerging provincial Iraqi control. 17. A number of commanders make the point that minimum force does not mean not using force. If a bomb is required, use a bomb. 18. David Galula, 'Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice' (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1966, reprinted 2006), p. 8. 19. David Galula, 'Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice' (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1966, reprinted 2006), p. 86. 20. The concept of Transition was developed by Maj Gen J. P. Riley, CG MND (SE) from November 2004 to June 2005. 21. Thompson, op cit., pp 111-115. 22. Galula, op cit., Chapter 7, The Operations, pp. 75-94. Galula describes eight steps in the process from clearing and securing an area to winning over or suppressing the remaining insurgents. 23. This is also one of the approaches laid out in the US Army's Counterinsurgency Doctrine. 24. Author's interview with Lt. Gen. Sir John Kiszely, Director of The Defence Academy of the United Kingdom and former DCG MNF-I Baghdad, at Shrivenham, 15 February 2007. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAlexander AldersonColonel Alderson runs the Land Warfare Centre's Warfare Development Group and leads the team which is currently updating the British Army's counter-insurgency doctrine. *He is an infantry officer, with operational experience in the Middle East, Northern Ireland and the Balkans. He has written and presented on command and control and British counter-insurgency doctrine. He is currently researching a MoD-sponsored PhD into the impact of Iraq on the British Army's approach to counter-insurgency