Was violence a lot more acceptable in the past, or is it just me

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I do not agree fully Jawgap as much of your argument is not pertinent to the point I made: perhaps I did not express myself clearly enough. I agree that there are audiences but in my view ‘audience’ and ‘customer’ are quite different. It is a bit more than semantics, although there also is some crossover.
In my view the ‘audience’ is those who are willingly/unwillingly involved in what is happening. They are informed, because as spectators they witness the events. The ‘customer’ is at least at one remove, and can be manipulated both by selection of images and choice of language. (e.g. ' a crowd gathered' versus 'a mob gathered'. Each side in a conflict has its customers – be they the taxpayers who fund a conflict or ‘the hearts & minds’ who have to be swayed to support a cause. Armies have both customers and audiences, the message is always massaged to suit an end.


.......

I understood your point, but I don't think 'customer' is an appropriate concept in the absence of a transactional environment.

I was simply pointing out that in counter-insurgency thinking today, 'audience' is a more valid concept. I only brought up counter insurgency because it seems, at least for the moment, high-intensity, bi-polar interstate war is at least in a state of suspension.

David Kilcullen, Gen Petraeus' counter-insurgency advisor during the surge in Iraq, bangs on about the audience concept, but he freely admits building on ideas originally developed by Mao and Lawrence.

As things stand it seems conflict (and violence) is and will be multi-polar, low intensity and involve state and non-state actors for the foreseeable future. In this type of environment the insurgent / counter-insurgent are both fighting for perception and influence, and as a result their respective narratives are critical to 'winning.'

Commanders, both insurgent and counter-insurgent, can undertake different operations and have different tools available to them to influence audiences and sell their narratives - what they do, what violence they choose to prosecute and the outcomes will determine if they are successful or not, and whether their actions, including the violent ones, are acceptable or not.

The Brits are about the best of the liberal powers at counter-insurgency and if you are suffering from insomnia JDP 3-40 "Security and stabilisation, the military contribution" provides both a cure for it, and an interesting discussion on combat, force and counter-insurgency. Page 44 has the bit about commander's influence.

Jawgap wrote: »

........... if you are suffering from insomnia JDP 3-40 "Security and stabilisation, the military contribution" provides both a cure for it, and an interesting discussion on combat, force and counter-insurgency. Page 44 has the bit about commander's influence.

Thanks jawgap, looked at the diagram & will read later - work project going on at the mom, manning the pumps.
P

Jawgap wrote: »

I didn't say their record was 100%

Plus the nature of counter-insurgency means that the "failures are known, the successes are not" - simply because an insurgency snuffed out in the earliest stages doesn't have books written about it and doesn't get reported on. Only the ones that develop and mature get people's attention.

Hi Jawgap,
First off I'm not trying to have a go at you personally as I normally find your posts interesting.

Throughout the course of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the British have consistently claimed that they are experts at counter-insurrgency operations while failing in the field. In the past they have managed to avoid the type of massive failure that the French had in vietnam and Algeria, The US in Vietnam and the USSR in Afghanistan. They were smart enough to get out of India while the going was good and elsewhere they have limited success, albeit with the use of morally questionable tactics.

Some of the more successful counter-insurgencies run by the UK were in Iraq (1920s), Greece, Brunei and Borneo, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Palestine, Aden, and Oman.

Many of these conflicts were of very limited scale against opponents who llacked access to modern weaponary. Many also involved the use of tactics that would be considered war crimes today. For the most part they are not the unqualified success that they are often claimed to be.

Iraq - Aerial bombardment and strafing of Kurdish villages, the possible use of poison gas (never fully proven).

Cyprus - EOKA fought for independence from 1955-59, independence granted in 1960. Widespread use of torture with at least fourteen EOKA members murderd in custody. Britain retains a number of bases only because of US need for SigInt stations to monitor the Middle East.

Greece - Britain played a very limited role in the Greek Civil War. Disarming communist partisan groups then standing back and letting their allies execute 1000+ civilians with communist sympathies.

Aden - ,Punitive aerial bombing of civilian targets, local forces mutinying and killing British soldiers. After the British withdrew in late 1967 South Yemen became the only Communist country in the Middle East. Hardly the desired outcome.

Kenya - A rebellion inspired by openly racist policies toward the native population carried out by a group lacking any modern weaponary. Mass detention and torture of civilian population, mass deportation and enforced resettlement of civilians. Frequent execution of unarmed prisoners. Result - rebellion ends in 1960, Brits withdraw in 1963 and unlike Rhodesia or South Africa majority rule by Black Africans is possible.

Oman - The British role in the suppressing the Dhofar rebellion was pretty much limited to traing and the provision of specialist troops and the sale of modern weaponary to Oman. The major factor in changing the course of the conflict was the coup by Qobas bin Said against his father who was by all accounts a loon who thought he was living in the middle ages.

Malaysia - A qualified success. The insurgent force was primarily drawn from the ethnic Chinese community and had little support from the bulk of the poulation. Tactics used included the forced relocation of 500,000 people to secure camps. Noted incidents included the Batang Kali massacre of 24 civilians by the Scots Guards. Not something that could be done today.

Northern Ireland (1969 onwards) I'd judge as a drawn out, classified success, but Northern Ireland late 50s / early 60s was a success

I'd call the Troubles a stalemate. The British army lost the support of the Nationalist population early in the conflict by their aggression and the use of tactics that were supposedly successful in other conflicts eg internment and collusion with counter revolutionary paramilitary groups. I would contend that the failure of the British to defeat the IRA is even more striking due to the fact that the conflict took place in the UK and had additional resources other than the army available such as MI5, GCHQ, and various police forces.

The IRA's border campaign (1956-62) was a bloody farce from start to finish, not unlike the current activities of CIRA, RIRA or whatever their calling themselves this week.

and if you class the Boer War as an 'insurrection' then you could add that to the list of successes.

The use of a scorched earth policy and the building of concentration camps in which 25,000 women and children died (the males were sent overseas) would nowadays be considered war crimes, and rightly so.

....and before anyone gets too excited when I'm talking about success and 'successfulness,' I'm not talking about the nebulous concepts of 'defeat' and 'victory' - I'm saying that in the context of the political objectives set for the various counter-insurgency operations, these were successful.

Thats a fair point. I think that in a lot of the above cases the conflicts have ended with an agreement which had more to do with saving face than a classic miltary victory. The military analysis of these conflicts often appears to very narrow, being seen as seperate from the subsequent political outcomes. I would contend that this led to a huge degree of arrogance in relation to COIN opeartions in the upper reaches of both the British Army and the British government which led directly to their failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.