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Fighting Insurgents in the Information Age: UK and US doctrine in Iraq
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Fighting Insurgents in the Information Age
UK and US Counter-Insurgency Doctrine in Iraq
Bruno Cardoso Reis
Ph.D. candidate, Department of War Studies, King’s College (London)
FCT Fellowship, (Portuguese Ministry of Science)
Presented at
46
th
Annual Convention of the International Studies Association
1-5 March 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Abstract
Since April 2003, in Iraq, the UK and the US are fighting for first time in decades a majorcounter-insurgency campaign. They are doing it together but differently. This provides animportant test case for assessing the current significance of the often discusseddifferences in the American and British armed forces approaches to counter-insurgency.Namely in terms of the potential impact that changes in organization and equipment ofthe military – often referred to as the Revolution in Military Affairs – may have had inthe evolution of American and British conduct of counter-guerrilla operations since thetime of Vietnam and the last colonial wars of the 1960s and 1970s. We will argue thatrecent changes in equipment had only a minor impact. However, more abundant andprecise information or more targeted firepower may still make it easier and easier toobtain better intelligence or be more effective in a graduated use of force. This, however,is not a guarantee that this will be done. And it is not clear that they will fundamentallyaffected some central characteristics of counter-insurgency: the great difficulty in findingirregulars, who avoid open battle and deliberately blend-in with civilians, and above all inthe essential political component of counter-insurgency which is to build a stable polityas a credible alternative to the insurgent challenge.
Comments and permission to quote – bruno.## email not listed ##
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Fighting Insurgents in the Information Age
UK and US Counter-Insurgency Doctrine in Iraq
Bruno Cardoso Reis
Ph.D. candidate, Department of War Studies, King’s College (London)
FCT Fellowship, (Portuguese Ministry of Science)
Presented at
46
th
Annual Convention of the International Studies Association
1-5 March 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Abstract
Since April 2003, in Iraq, the UK and the US are fighting for first time in decades a major
counter-insurgency campaign. They are doing it together but differently. This provides an
important test case for assessing the current significance of the often discussed
differences in the American and British armed forces approaches to counter-insurgency.
Namely in terms of the potential impact that changes in organization and equipment of
the military – often referred to as the Revolution in Military Affairs – may have had in
the evolution of American and British conduct of counter-guerrilla operations since the
time of Vietnam and the last colonial wars of the 1960s and 1970s. We will argue that
recent changes in equipment had only a minor impact. However, more abundant and
precise information or more targeted firepower may still make it easier and easier to
obtain better intelligence or be more effective in a graduated use of force. This, however,
is not a guarantee that this will be done. And it is not clear that they will fundamentally
affected some central characteristics of counter-insurgency: the great difficulty in finding
irregulars, who avoid open battle and deliberately blend-in with civilians, and above all in
the essential political component of counter-insurgency which is to build a stable polity
as a credible alternative to the insurgent challenge.
Comments and permission to quote – bruno.## email not listed ##
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