'Heavy-handed' US to adopt British softly-softly line
By Sean Rayment in London and Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 26/03/2006)
telegraph.co.uk
(see the next story about the British in Afghanistan though. Suicide bombers might be a challange to the "softly softly" approach.. pb)
British Army tactics against insurgents are to be adopted by America following the "catastrophic" failure of its military to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.
American commanders are planning to alter radically the way they fight future battles after failing to crush the insurgency in Iraq after more than two-and-a-half years of bloody fighting.
Iraqi children follow a British soldier in Basra
The changes have emerged in a 300-page document, entitled United States Counter-Insurgency Doctrine, which is being produced by senior and former members of the United States Army based at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
The findings directly challenge US military thinking in Iraq, where many British officers have long held the view that the Americans' heavy-handed approach has alienated the Iraqi population.
The central premise of the draft doctrine is that deploying overwhelming firepower will not defeat an insurgency if the enemy hides among the civilian population and the consequence is heavy "collateral damage".
The deployment and conduct of British forces in Iraq depends on the perceived threat, according to senior defence sources. If the threat is low, troops will patrol on foot or in Land Rovers, wearing berets rather than helmets.
If the threat of attack is high, however, commanders can deploy troops in armoured personnel carriers and full battle kit for a more "aggressive" style of patrolling. Senior officers say this "graduated response" helps to build trust between the soldiers and the local community.
The tactics, according to British defence sources, are not practised by American troops, who are on high readiness at all times and so cannot adopt a lower profile when the threat decreases. The result is that the local community becomes less trusting of American troops.
The source added: "It is difficult to be friendly towards a US soldier when he is pointing a .50-calibre machine-gun at your head. The knock-on ultimate consequence of that approach is the catastrophe you have in Iraq at the moment."
The doctrine, which is still being drafted, also identifies a series of paradoxes peculiar to counter-insurgency warfare. These include: the more you protect your force, the less secure you are - military forces in compounds lose touch with the people who are the ultimate arbiters of victory; the more force you use, the less effective you are; sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction; and the best weapons for counter-insurgency do not fire bullets.
The observations have been understood and practised by the British Army for years, with some success against post-war insurgencies in the former colonies. The same tactics were also used extensively in Northern Ireland.
Senior American commanders are drawing heavily on lessons learnt by British forces in Malaya, in the 1950s, and in Northern Ireland. The team members have spoken extensively to their British counterparts and studied Britain's military experiences since the Second World War.
The doctrine will criticise US tactics since Vietnam for trying to tackle insurgents by using crushing firepower, and will acknowledge the success of British operations in winning hearts and minds, notably against the Malayan Communists.
Conrad Crane, a retired US colonel and military historian who is heading the drafting team, said: "The British have learnt from their lessons while the Americans ran away from counter-insurgency after Vietnam."
The decision to review the doctrine came as Brig Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British Army officer who served with the American forces in Iraq in 2004, launched a damning critique of US tactics.
In his paper, entitled Changing the Army for Counter-Insurgency Operations, the brigadier wrote of the American army: "It seemed weighed down by bureaucracy, a stiflingly hierarchical outlook, a predisposition to offensive operations and a sense that duty required all issues to be confronted head-on.
"Many personnel seemed to struggle to understand the nuances of Operation Iraqi Freedom phase 4 environment (the post-war reconstruction). Moreover, while they were almost unfailingly courteous and considerate, at times their cultural insensitivity, almost certainly inadvertent, arguably amounted to institutional racism."
The drafting process is due to be completed in early summer and the doctrine is scheduled to be made public by October.
|
