Lind reviews lessons from Martin Van Crevald's latest book
Looking at the British Army's success in Northern Ireland,
one of the few cases where the state's armed forces have won.
How did the British do it? ...
First, unlike President Bush in 2001, the British did not declare war, ...
from beginning to end the problem was treated as a criminal one…
Note that, in contrast to what we hear from the Bush administration and the U.S. military, van Creveld sees the removal of restrictions on what troops can do as a disadvantage. He understands that in Fourth Generation war, the counter-intuitive is often correct.
Second, much of the day-to-day work was left to the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary).
Its members, locally recruited and assigned lengthy stays at their posts,
knew the area better than anyone else. ...
were often able to discriminate among the various factions
inside theIRA as well as between terrorists and others…Third, never again ... did British troops fire indiscriminately
into marching or rioting crowdsFourth, and in marked contrast with most other counterinsurgents ...
not once in the entire struggle did the army bring in heavy weapons
such as tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery,
or aircraft to repulse attacks and inflict retaliation…Fifth, never once did the British inflict collective punishment
such as curfews, the cutting off of electricity and water, demolishing houses,
destroying entire neighborhoods. . .
As far as humanly possible, the police and the army posed as
the protectors of the population, not its tormentors.
In this way they were able to prevent the uprising from spreading.Sixth and most important of all, by and large both the RUC and the army
stayed within the framework of the law. . .
From (1972) on, the British refrained from
arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and illegal killings…a British colonel, regiment of paratroopers, who had done several tours of duty in Northern Ireland. What he said can be summed up as follows…
the struggle in Northern Ireland had cost the United Kingdom
three thousand casualties in dead alone. Of the three thousand,
about seventeen hundred were civilians….of the remaining,
a thousand were British soldiers.
No more than three hundred were terrorists,
a ratio of three to one. Speaking very softly, he said:
And that is why we are still there.
When the U.S. armed forces understand and accept this, there will be some hope in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Until then, there is none.
