What were the effects of the post-colonial experience of counterinsurgency on UK forces in southern Iraq? Were the lessons absorbed and implemented?

Description

This thesis examines the British army and its legacy of counterinsurgency from the 20th century.
It analyses the effects of post-colonial counterinsurgency and the army’s ability to learn from
previous counterinsurgency conflicts to create new doctrine from earlier examples that could
have had lessons for the UK forces in southern Iraq.
Doctrine (both official and unofficial) ranges from endorsed army field manuals to
theory written by experts while on defence fellowships. The army’s ability to create
new doctrine from previous campaigns lessons and how it is diffused across the armed
forces is also assessed.
The conflicts used as post-colonial counterinsurgencies scrutinise Oman and Northern
Ireland. These two case studies provide mixed lessons, that should advance and
expand British counterinsurgency theory and models. The previous historical
occurrences of counterinsurgency have created a British approach which has
established a four-pillar framework which encompasses minimum force, civil-military
co-operation, use of intelligence and tactical flexibility. This approach could identify lessons for a modern British army deployed to Iraq.
If lessons and previous outcomes are analysed to create new doctrine, strategy and
tactics that encompass the four pillars framework, what went wrong in southern Iraq?
Could lessons from earlier campaigns have assisted British efforts?

Links & Downloads

1. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/19695

Tags

British army

Counterinsurgency

Post-Colonial

Effects

Lessons

Iraq

Northern Ireland

Oman

Additional Fields

Identifer	oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19695
Date	January 2021
Creators	Bulleyment, Neil D.
Contributors	Harris, David, Pankhurst, Donna T.
Publisher	University of Bradford, Division of Peace Studies and International Development
Source Sets	Bradford Scholars
Language	English
Detected Language	English
Type	Thesis, doctoral, PhD
Rights	<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>.