British and American counter-insurgency strategies are very different. Paul Dixon explains why
General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, recently announced the American military’s conversion to a more British-inspired “hearts and minds” approach to counter-insurgency. This aims to concentrate on winning over the Afghan population by, for example, avoiding civilian casualties and promoting reconciliation rather than concentrate on engaging directly with the Taliban.
This change of tack implies the failure of the Americans’ more conventional and violent approach to counter-insurgency, which has caused tension with Britain and other allies in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US military was inclined to regard Iraq and Afghanistan as existential threats and this reinforced a tendency to the excessive deployment of force with disastrous results. The US assault on Fallujah in April 2004 went ahead in spite of opposition from leading British politicians and soldiers.
One senior British Army officer criticised the US military’s rules of engagement for allowing the use of excessive violence and US soldiers for viewing Iraqis as “untermenschen” – a term used by the Nazis to refer to
“under-people”.
In 2004, General Sir Mike Jackson, stated: “We must be able to fight with the Americans. That does not mean we must be able to fight as the Americans.” This view was endorsed by his successor as head of the British Army (2006-2009), General Sir Richard Dannatt, who in 2006 argued that the British should get themselves out of Iraq “sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems”.
The British Army has drawn a distinction between its more hearts and minds approach and the conventional tactics deployed by the US military. This implied the use of minimum force and a more political approach to managing the insurgency. The British concern in 2004 was that the aggression of US operations in the north of Iraq would hinder British attempts to manage the south in a more consensual way.
In recent years, both the US government and military have been highly critical of the British hearts and minds approach to counter-insurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2007 the Daily Telegraph described “a minor crisis in Anglo-American military relations’, In Iraq, the British were criticised by the US for their withdrawal from the south, leaving Basra in the hands of the militias.
In 2008, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary under George W Bush, criticised British, Canadian and Dutch troops for their lack of progress in the south of Afghanistan when compared with US success in the east. There have been other criticisms that the British are becoming “Europeanised” – favouring peacekeeping rather than making war, with its operations subjected to the “tyranny of the lawyers”.
The Americans were unprepared for a counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq. The experience of Vietnam had left the US military highly reluctant to undertake a counter-insurgency campaign or even to prepare for one. The British military, drawing on its counter-insurgency experience in the retreat from the British Empire and Northern Ireland, attempted to influence its US counterpart to adopt a less coercive, conventional approach to counter-insurgency.
General David Petraeus, the instigator of the “surge” in Iraq in 2007, was a driving force behind the adoption of the US Army and Marine Corps’ new Counter-insurgency Field Manual (2006), which was influenced by the British approach. In 2008, Petraeus was appointed commander of all Middle East forces, which included responsibility for operations in Afghanistan. He recently replaced the more ‘conventionally minded’ General David D McKiernan with General McChrystal, who is signed up to the new hearts and minds strategy.
While the British approach implies a less coercive and violent approach to counter-insurgency, the phrase is so widely defined that it conceals very different interpretations about how much force is legitimate and in what circumstances.
General Sir Gerald Templer coined the term to describe Britain’s apparently successful counterinsurgency campaign in Malaya (1948-60). He stated: “The answer [to the uprising] lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people.”
“Classic” British counter-insurgency doctrine states that a successful campaign is predominantly a political rather than military battle to win over the people. The government must demonstrate “political will” to succeed and thereby undermine the opposition and win over the local population. Good governance, the use of “minimum force” and propaganda are all deployed to help to persuade the local people to support the side of the government. Local security forces are used because they have local knowledge and are more sensitive to the indigenous population. Finally, all strands of the counterinsurgency effort should be co-ordinated to bring the full force of the state to bear against the insurgents.
The phrase “hearts and minds” does not accurately describe Britain’s highly coercive campaign in Malaya, which – particularly in the early years – was not fought within the law and led to abuses of human rights. The British resorted to high levels of coercion. The Briggs Plan forcibly resettled 500,000 people – about 25 per cent of Malaya’s Chinese population. There were mass arrests, executions, detention without trial, deportations, movement restrictions, control of food, arson against insurgent sympathisers, censorship, collective punishments and the indiscriminate shooting of rural Chinese squatters fleeing army patrols. The most notorious massacre was by Scots Guards at Batang Kali in December 1948. Twenty-four unarmed civilians were shot “while attempting to escape”. Recently, the British Government refused to hold an inquiry into the massacre.
There is considerable ambiguity over what a “hearts and mindsß” approach means. The British preference implies a less conventional and violent approach to counter-insurgency than that practiced by the US military. Other Nato members criticise the British for being too coercive and “macho” in their approach. But different interpretations over what levels of force are acceptable also exist within these various militaries.
A more focused debate on whether force is legitimate and in what circumstances it is legitimate should go beyond the generalities and ambiguities of “hearts and minds”. This means discussion of the “just war” tradition, government policies, the legitimacy of various tactics, the rules of engagement and the accountability of soldiers, as well as their rights.
Paul Dixon is reader in politics and international studies at Kingston University, London. He edited the special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies on “Hearts and Minds”: British Counter-Insurgency from Malaya to Iraq
