Misapplying lessons learned? Analysing the utility of British counterinsurgency strategy in Northern Ireland, 1971–76

Abstract This article examines the British Army's deployment in support of the civil power in Northern Ireland. It argues that the core guiding principles of the British approach to counterinsurgency (COIN) – employing the minimum use of force, firm and timely action, and unity of control in civil–military relations – were misapplied by the Army in its haste to combat Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorism between 1971 and 1976. Moreover, it suggests that the Army's COIN strategy was unsuccessful in the 1970s because commanders adhered too closely to the customs, doctrine, and drill applied under very different circumstances in Aden between 1963 and 1967, generally regarded as a failure in Britain's post-war internal security operations. The article concludes with a discussion of the British government's decision to scale back the Army's role in favour of giving the Royal Ulster Constabulary primacy in counter-terrorist operations, a decision which led ultimately to success in combating IRA violence. Keywords: Northern IrelandBritish Armycounterinsurgencylessons learned Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the organisers of An Irish Model for Peace? Interdisciplinary Debate, International Lessons conference, which was held at Trinity College Dublin on 22–23 May 2009, and Dr Kevin Bean, Dr Paul Dixon, Dr Conor Galvin, Dr Thomas Hennessey, Dr Cillian McGrattan, and Dr Niall O'Dochartaigh for their helpful questions and remarks on this occasion. My colleagues at Sandhurst also afforded me the opportunity to present my findings to the prestigious War Studies Discussion Group (WARDIG) on 6 October 2009 and helped to clarify my thinking on a number of issues. Thanks also to the editor Dr Paul Rich, Dr Andrew Sanders, Alan Ward, and the two anonymous referees for their comments on the article. I remain solely responsible for any errors. I also wish to acknowledge the Staff and Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London, for granting me access to archival material. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the Ministry of Defence, or any other UK government agency. Notes 1. National Archives Kew, DEFE (MoD) 25/257, Secret: Use of the Military in Aid of the Civil Power in Northern Ireland, 4 December 1968. 2. Liddell-Hart Centre for Military Archives (hereafter LHCMA), CitationMoD, Land Operations: Volume III – Counter Revolutionary Operations, Part 2 – Internal Security, 1. 3. CitationKitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping, 131. 4. CitationNewsinger, 'From Counter-insurgency to Internal Security: Northern Ireland, 1969–1992', 88–111. 5. According to its doctrine in 1969, the British Army defined 'internal security' as '[a]ny military role which involves primarily the maintenance and restoration of law and order and essential services in the face of civil disturbances and disobedience, using minimum force. It covers action dealing with minor civil disorders with no political undertones as well as riots savouring of revolt and even the early stages of rebellion'. 'Insurgency' was regarded as the next phase in the much broader process of what was termed 'revolutionary warfare' and meant that the '"dissident faction" had the support or acquiescence of a substantial part of the population'. LHCMA, CitationMoD, Land Operations, Volume III – Counter Revolutionary Operations: Part 1 – Principles and General Aspects, 4. 6. CitationMokaitis, British Counterinsurgency in the Post-Imperial Era, 135. 'Small wars' have been defined by another key theorist in the British school of COIN, Colonel (later Major-General) Charles Callwell, as 'campaigns under-taken to suppress rebellions and guerrilla warfare in all parts of the world where organized armies are struggling against opponents who will not meet them in an open field'. In reality there is 'no particular connection with the scale on which any campaign may be carried out; it is simply used to denote, in default of a better, operations of regular armies against irregular, or comparatively speaking irregular, forces'. CitationCallwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, 21. 7. CitationNagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, 192. 8. CitationGwynn, Imperial Policing, 13–14. 9. CitationGwynn, Imperial Policing, 14. 10. CitationYoung, The Story of the Staff College, 1858–1958, 10. 11. CitationBeckett and Pimlott 'Introduction', 5. 12. Thomas Mokaitis suggests that 'one can only speculate on the degree to which such works were read and their ideas disseminated, although both works convey a strong sense of being compendiums of the folk wisdom of the British Army'. Mokaitis, British Counterinsurgency in the Post-Imperial Era, 134. Interestingly, in the British Army's doctrine on COIN, from Keeping the Peace: Parts 1 and 2 (1963), through Land Operations Volume III: Counter Revolutionary Operations (1969) and onto Countering Insurgency (October 2009) Gwynn's legacy is still discernable. At a recent COIN study day held at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in December 2009 one senior officer (responsible for drafting the latest British Army COIN Field Manual) detailed the intellectual evolution of COIN theory throughout the Twentieth Century, in which Gwynn featured prominently. For more on the intellectual genealogy of the British Army's COIN doctrine see CitationAlderson, 'Revising the British Army's Counter-Insurgency Doctrine', 6–11. 13. CitationThornton, 'The British Army and the Origins of its Minimum Force Philosophy', 83–106. 14. A secret government minute drawn up on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence entitled 'Military Assistance to the Northern Ireland Government', dated 20 November 1968, suggested that 'The situation was based upon two principles of the Common Law, namely that military men (like everybody else) are under an obligation to assist the civil authorities in maintaining law and order, and secondly that in doing so they have to decide on their own responsibility how much force is necessary to achieve the object, and they must use no more than the minimum'. This remained the guiding policy throughout Operation Banner. DEFE 25/257. 15. The importance of maintaining a minimum use of force policy when providing security for the divided population of Palestine is much in evidence in the operational correspondence housed in the LHCMA. See particularly Stockwell Papers 6/8, 'Lieutenant-General G.H.A. MacMillan to Major-General Stockwell, 13 February 1948'. 16. In fact not only did the 1957 [revised in 1963] doctrine stress the limited nature of the use of force but suggested that the principles ought to inform the following activities in order of importance: 'safeguarding of civilians, maintenance of public confidence, use of publicity and propaganda, integration of intelligence, the selection and maintenance of the aim, co-operation, security, the maintenance of morale, offensive action, surprise, concentration of force, economy of effort, flexibility and administration'. By the end of the 1960s doctrine was stressing the guiding principles of joint control (including 'subordinating purely military aims to other considerations so that political ends can be achieved'), Hearts and Minds, Intelligence, Security of Bases, Planned Pattern of Operations (the so-called 'ink spot theory pioneered in Malaya), Seizing and Holding the Initiative, Speed, Mobility and Flexibility, and Surprise and Security. 17. The relevant section reads: '335. Civil Authority. The military will always be in support of the civil authority except in extreme cases of urban anti-terrorist operations. 336. Minimum Force. The principle of the use of minimum force must be applied. This must not be confused with the number of troops deployed on the ground. A large concentration of troops deployed at a critical time may actually enable a commander either to use less force than he otherwise would have done or avoid having to use it altogether. 337. Co-operation. The military must co-operate at every level, in every sphere and at every step with the civil authorities. The police and military must work together as a single team'. LHCMA, MoD, Land Operations, Volume III – Counter Revolutionary Operations: Part 1 – Principles and General Aspects, 85–6. 18. DEFE 25/257, Northern Ireland Political and General – IRA Activity, Secret: Notes by DMO on a Visit to Northern Ireland – 11/12 Dec. 68, 16 December 1968. 19. DEFE 25/257, Northern Ireland Political and General – IRA Activity, Top Secret: Note of a Meeting held at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 28th January 1969 at the Home Office on Northern Ireland. 20. DEFE 25/257, Secret: Chiefs of Staff Committee, Northern Ireland – Internal Security Higher Chain of Command – Draft Note by the Defence Operations Staff, 15 January 1969. 21. CitationHamill, Pig in the Middle: The Army in Northern Ireland, 1969–1984, 21. 22. See CitationDeakin, 'Security Policy and the Use of the Military – Military Aid to the Civil Power, Northern Ireland 1969', 211–27. 23. CitationEdwards, A History of the Northern Ireland Labour Party: Democratic Socialism and Sectarianism, 168. 24. CitationStrachan, The Politics of the British Army, 181–2. 25. CitationTuck, 'Northern Ireland and the British Approach to Counter-insurgency', 165–83. 26. See the comments by former Chief of the General Staff, CitationSir Richard Dannatt, in a 'Speech to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, 21 September 2007'. These comments must be tempered in light of the sizable volumes of doctrine on internal security operations, which were consulted for the purposes of the present article. 27. CitationDCDC, British Defence Doctrine, JDP: 0-01, iii. The definition of doctrine is taken from CitationCarl von Clausewitz On War blended with the standardized NATO definition. In other words, doctrine is 'the how to think, not the what to think'. See Alderson, 'Revising the British Army's Counter-Insurgency Doctrine'. 28. See note 2. 29. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency in the Post-Imperial Era, 134. See also CitationSmith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World. 30. CitationKitson, Bunch of Five, 287. 31. CitationKirk-Smith and Dingley, 'Countering Terrorism in Northern Ireland: The Role of Intelligence', 553. 32. Callwell, Small Wars, 143. 33. Callwell, Small Wars, 144. 34. DEFE 11/789, Secret – Perimeter – UK Eyes Only – CGS meeting with GOC (NI), 20 April 1972; DEFE 11/789, Northern Ireland Policy Group, Record of a Meeting held in the Secretary of State for Defence's room on Monday 1 May 1972 at 10.15. Indeed, another crucial stumbling block was with regard to the Army's arrest procedures, which afforded troops the opportunity to arrest or detain Provisional IRA officers and those volunteers who posed a serious security threat but said nothing about Protestants, who were also engaged in terrorism. DEFE 24/824, MoD – Arrest Policy for Protestants, dated 8 December 1972. For more on the intent and capabilities of Protestant paramilitaries see CitationEdwards, 'Abandoning Armed Resistance? The Ulster Volunteer Force as a Case-study of Strategic Terrorism in Northern Ireland', 146–66. 35. DEFE 11/789, Secret – Perimeter – UK Eyes Only – CGS meeting with GOC (NI), 20 April 1972. 36. DEFE 24/1226, Northern Ireland: General Legal Matters – Briefing Papers, Debates, Minutes, Etc. Intelligence briefs often outwardly complained about this lack of tactical level intelligence. Many briefs were totally inadequate in relation to Protestant paramilitaries, with the usual disclaimer added that Loyalists were 'confused and indecisive'. The truth was that the Security Forces knew little about Protestant paramilitaries because the most active – such as the Ulster Volunteer Force – was also the most secretive. 37. Interview with Brendan Mackin, 10 January 2006. Mackin had been a former chairman of the Falls Labour Party in 1969–70 and, following his resignation, became the Adjutant of the Official IRA's Belfast Brigade. 38. In a rather honest digest of the Army's operations in Northern Ireland it was admitted that 'Both the reintroduction of internment and the use of deep interrogation techniques had a major impact on popular opinion across Ireland, in Europe and the US. Put simply, on balance and with the benefit of hindsight, it was a major mistake'. CitationMoD, Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland, para 220. 39. DEFE 70/214, R.J. Andrew to Graham Angel, 'Secret: Northern Ireland, 4 August 1971'; 'Draft Message to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from the Home Secretary'. 40. CitationIron, 'Britain's Longest War: Northern Ireland, 1967–2007', 168. 41. One example of how individual soldiers meted out harsh treatment included modifying an armoured 'pig' vehicle's 'framework or pushing bar' to allow soldiers to administer shocks to individuals. The electrification of vehicles was originally intended for crowd dispersal. The instructions on the 'electrification of wheeled "A" Vehicles' warned that 'The current must be limited to a safe value so that it will not cause serious or permanent injury or prove fatal'. An explanation and wiring diagram can be found in CitationWO, Keeping the Peace: Part 2: Tactics and Training, 120–1. The Belfast-based journalist Malachi O'Doherty revealed in an interview with the author that a soldier administered a low grade shock to him in reprisal for drunken and abusive behaviour. Such practices, however, were not systematic as Republican propaganda claimed. Interview with Malachi O'Doherty, 17 November 2009. 42. CAB 190/24, JIC, Cabinet Joint Intelligence Committee: Joint Directive on Military Interrogation in Internal security Operations Overseas, 17 February 1965. The relevant directive was known as JIC (65) 15. 43. LHCMA, Dunbar Papers, 2/4, Military problems of Counter Insurgency (n.d. 1967?). 44. CAB 190/24, JIC, Top Secret – Perimeter: UK Eyes Only: 'Prisoner Handling in Interrogation Centres Northern Ireland: A Draft Report by the Intelligence Co-ordinator, 2 November 1971'. 45. CitationEuropean Commission on Human Rights, Ireland Against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Report of the Commission, 490. 46. Sir Robert Andrew, quoted in CitationTaylor, Brits: The War against the IRA, 73. 47. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency in the Post-Imperial Era, 144. 48. The controversial comments made by the Commanding Officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Lieutenant Colonel Colin 'Mad Mitch' Mitchell on Aden are a case in point. Mitchell wrote about the constraints on the use of force, when, in June 1967, he was observing 'the culminating disgrace of British policy in Aden, the horrifying point when political expediency has so influenced military judgment'. Sunday Express, 13 October 1968. 49. DEFE, 13/838, Interrogation by the RUC in Northern Ireland, CGS to Secretary of State, 14 May 1974. 50. CitationDixon, 'Hearts and Minds? British Counter-insurgency in Northern Ireland', 472. 51. DEFE, 13/838, Interrogation by the RUC in Northern Ireland, CGS to Secretary of State, 14 May 1974. 52. DEFE 13/838, Lieutenant-General Sir Frank King to Merlyn Rees MP, 16 April 1974. 53. DEFE 13/838, Draft minute from Defence to Northern Ireland (n.d.). 54. DEFE 24/824 'Lieutenant-General Sir Frank King to Merlyn Rees MP, 28 March 1974. 55. DEFE 24/824 'Lieutenant-General Sir Frank King to Merlyn Rees MP, 28 March 1974 56. CitationBenest, 'Aden to Northern Ireland, 1966–76', 115–44. 57. CitationDixon, 'Hearts and Minds? British Counter-insurgency from Malaya to Iraq', 355. 58. Keeping the Peace was less concerned with passive, defensive, and impartial tactics and more with the swift and often aggressive tactics needed to suppress an insurgency of the type encountered in Malaya (1948–60) and later Cyprus (1955–58). It stated categorically that in Internal Security drills, 'Depending upon the circumstances, the minimum force necessary to restore law and order can vary from the mere appearance of troops to the use of all force at the commander's disposal'. CitationWO, Keeping the Peace: Part 1: Doctrine, 7. Such language was significantly toned down in the 1969 doctrine. 59. CitationTaylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein, 57. This might well have been an apocryphal tale, but the relevant extract from the doctrine reads 'Warn the crowd by all available means that effective fire will be opened unless it disperses at once. This can be done by a call on a bugle followed by the display of banners showing the necessary warning in the vernacular and an announcement over a loudhailer or megaphone'. See Keeping the Peace: Part 2, 9. The same instructions are produced word-for-word in the 1969 doctrine. Interestingly, in the 1969 doctrine, direct comparison is made to the tactics of the Royal Hong Kong Police, which apparently preferred to use shotguns for crowd control, a much more indiscriminate weapon system! In Northern Ireland trained marksmen, firing aimed shots from rifles, were only to be used because of the risk to innocent civilians in more urbanised environments. MoD, Land Operations: Volume III – Counter-Revolutionary Operations, Part 2 – Internal Security, 79. 60. DEFE 11/789, HQNI Operational Summary for the week ending 0700 hours Friday 21 April 1972. 61. DEFE 24/210, Future Military Policy for Londonderry: An Appreciation of the Situation by CLF (Major-General Ford), 14 December 1971. 62. DEFE 24/210, Future Military Policy for Londonderry: An Appreciation of the Situation by CLF (Major-General Ford), 14 December 1971 63. See CitationO'Dochartaigh, 'Bloody Sunday: Error or Design?', 89–108. O'Dochartaigh's interpretation advances the view that the Army drove policy at the operational level and that this led ultimately to a strategic blunder. He apportions most blame to General Ford, a highly questionable position given that the army's own doctrine and experience emphasised political primacy. A more nuanced version of security policy emerges if one carefully consults the official MoD papers housed in the National Archives. See also CitationThomas Hennessey's expert analysis of 'Bloody Sunday' in his The Evolution of the Troubles, 1970–72. 64. Hamill, Pig in the Middle, 85. 65. Northern Ireland House of Commons Debates, (1 February 1972), 84, Col. 17–18. 66. CitationSmith and Neumann 'Motorman's Long Journey: Changing the Strategic Setting in Northern Ireland', 422. 67. CitationDewar, The British Army in Northern Ireland: Revised Edition, 70. 68. CitationO'Dochartaigh, From Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles, 158. 69. CitationPaget, Counter-insurgency The Army's doctrine suggested that the not be on it be applied to on the population the and which their It was that are the will and be taken LHCMA, MoD, Land Operations, Volume III – Counter Revolutionary Operations, Part 2 – Internal Security, 57. It was not that the Army's doctrine had been to how an and their by their is to the innocent and particularly if the is cause the of of their It is that there be that a is to be and the which it is to it has known that a has been the innocent who had to up with it may be to that their was CitationMoD, Land Operations, Volume III – Counter-Revolutionary Operations, Part 2 – and 70. that it would only the situation the Army the will of on August 1971. there were that the Army was to its the policy and that it even IRA volunteers as a means of the of the that the of the DEFE 70/214, to the 'The Future of dated 16 February 1972. By the time the was the General Sir was a in the of the RUC about the of he in a meeting with the Secretary of State for Defence, as the of internment was as part of a political he would not any from the Army in of of DEFE 70/214, Northern Ireland: 16 February 1972. In the language of British COIN doctrine adhered to at the time must the political purely military aims to political CitationMoD, Land Operations, Volume III – Counter-Revolutionary Operations, Part – Counter Insurgency, 2. The Irish 39. Counter-insurgency 73. Counter-insurgency CitationMoD, Army Field Part Countering and See the about the of COIN by the Kevin in his The Politics of Sinn of the this section is drawn from the of Graham in his For more on this point see in a Democratic 79. By October 1972 individual police was to have its own civil in A from Malaya and For more on the between the IRA and the see The Politics of in a Belfast 85. 85. See The Politics of Sinn The British Army's own doctrine was on this point. operations must be political and military in can be no purely military CitationMoD, Land Operations, Volume III – Counter Revolutionary Operations: Part 1 – Principles and General Aspects, 20. and other preferred to British political and military policy in because it their From Civil Rights to 'From Counter-insurgency to Internal the on 50. DEFE, Party on and in Northern Ireland: Draft on Future Policy – for on June the on 47. had in Aden and The British Army in Northern Ireland, DEFE Secret: Directive for the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland as of Military Operations, June 'From Counter-insurgency to Internal DEFE Secret: The Future Role and of the September and 'The Military For a critical treatment of in the see Northern Ireland, The Politics of DEFE 25/257, Lieutenant-General Sir GOC to Lieutenant-General Sir of the General Staff, 20 November 1968. MoD, Operation para It is the of the present article to the which is with and its that Operation was – on balance – a the of an campaign is and in Counterinsurgency in Modern