Counterinsurgency as a Whole of Government Approach

Counterinsurgency as a Whole of Government Approach: Notes on the British Army Field Manual Weltanschauung

An Interview with Colonel Alexander Alderson

by Octavian Manea

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Can you point out the purpose of the military and of the use of military force in countering an insurgency? After all, the classic counterinsurgency (COIN) arithmetic suggested by David Galula is now the conventional wisdom: 80% political action and only 20% military.

The principal role of the military is to provide security but it is often from ideal to use soldiers to provide civil security. In many countries, this is the role of the police force. Unfortunately, in many cases when an insurgency emerges, it often does so at a point beyond which the police force can contain the situation. If it could, presumably the problem would not have developed in the way it did. But let’s say that the government has not been able to stop the insurgency from developing and the insurgency goes on to challenge law and order and governance. Let’s say that the insurgents have got to the stage where they control an area where they actively challenge the rule of law if not overturn it. In such a case the government needs to act. At this point extraordinary measures are needed and this includes using soldiers to support the police to re-establish the rule of law, to protect the population, and to confront the insurgent.

Of course, this is not ideal. A soldiers’ principal role is to defend the state from external threats so their equipment, training and skills tend to be optimized for general war. That said, good professional armies should be able to rise to the complex challenges of a ‘war among the people’ by a process of adaptation and adjustment. Specialist training and some adjustment to organizations, equipment and tactics are generally required. The faster an army can do this, the more effective it can be. The initial advantage the insurgent has is that armies tend to be large and often conservative organizations. They can take too long to respond the general environmental challenges of COIN and the specifics of insurgent tactics and equipment. So unless the institutional mindset is attuned to adaptation, the insurgent will have the advantage. It is not for nothing that both US and British COIN doctrine emphasizes the need for adaptation, in fact ‘Learn and Adapt’ was made one of the British principles to highlight the importance of not getting stuck in one’s ways.

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Colonel Alexander Alderson set up the British Army Land Forces Stability Operations and Counterinsurgency Center in 2009 and is now its director. He was the lead author for the British Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine (November 2009) and his operational experience includes Iraq, Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the 1991 Gulf War. He holds a Ph.D. in Modern History and is a senior visiting research fellow with the University of Oxford and at King’s College London.