Abstract
The Provisional IRA has often been characterized as a hierarchical terrorist group, particularly by proponents of the ‘new’ terrorist concept’. However, this does not adequately describe the reality of decision-making within the Provisional IRA. From the very beginning, important operational choices were made by PIRA volunteers at local level, without significant input from the senior leaders of the group. Despite a series of organizational reforms that were designed to reign in local volunteers, the leadership of the Provisional IRA was often unable to exercise effective command and control over rank-and-file members of the group.
Highlights
The Provisional IRA has often been characterized as a hierarchical terrorist group, by proponents of the ‘new’ terrorist concept’
While the Provisional IRA displayed many of the hallmarks of a hierarchical terrorist group, we need to be careful not to oversimplify its organizational behavior and conflate its formal structure with how it functioned
Centralized command and control was frequently undermined by independent operational decision making and internal bargaining between different factions
Summary
The first time-period under analysis covers the formation and early years of the Provisional IRA (1969-1975) during which its initial organizational structure was laid down. Between 1971 and 1974, thousands of PIRA suspects were arrested or subjected to internment, including many senior figures from the Army Council and General Headquarters Staff.[37] These detentions disrupted internal lines of communication within the Provisional IRA and eroded the chain of command.[38] According to a PIRA member who as active at the time: This was a chaotic period, with arrests, in the Belfast area, running at a furious rate, and the command structure of brigade, battalion and company staffs was under enormous pressure, with key positions continually having to be filled, in some cases by people who were patently not up to the job.[39]. It was a highly-fragmented organization, with intermittent lines of communication, and competing centers of power
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