Tweet
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Oooooooooooops.
(Note to self do not have catchy tunes playing in the background while typing.)
807. The initial period after the arrival of a military force in a peace support or peace enforcement operation has been described as the ‘honeymoon period’. That suggests that there is a period (variously given as 100 days or three months) in which to put things right. The term ‘honeymoon period’ is a misnomer. It is not a honeymoon. It is the most important phase of the campaign. [Emphasis in original.]
… … …
809. Security forces do not ‘win’ insurgency campaigns militarily; at best they can contain or suppress the level of violence and achieve a successful end-state. They can thus reduce a situation to an ‘acceptable level of violence’ – a level at which normal social, political and economic activities can take place without intimidation. ‘Acceptable level of violence’ as a term should be used carefully since violence should have no place in a developed society. What is required is a level which the population can live with, and with which local police forces can cope. Security forces should bring the level of violence down to the point at which dissidents believe they will not win through a primarily violent strategy and at which a political process can proceed without significant intimidation. If possible, the situation should not be allowed to come to that stage.
… … …
811. Addressing the causes of the insurgency will not generally be within the remit of the armed forces. They can achieve a limited but critical security task, but that will not be the solution to the overall problem. In addition, they should avoid making the situation worse. It could be argued that the Army did make the situation worse by, in practice, alienating the catholic community in 1970 and 1971. In this regard, it should be acknowledged that while material improvements can be delivered, in some cases it may be much more difficult to change emotions, perceptions or deep-seated grievances and beliefs.
Source: British Army Internal Report: "Operation Banner – An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland"1
If you’ve been following the debates on the various wars being waged in various parts of the Middle East and South Asia by America and her allies the phrase "the lessons of Northern Ireland" may be familiar to you. It gets bandied around rather a lot by British politicians and British Officers.
There’s a particularly egregious example of it here:
Truce with Taliban a sign of hope :
Mr Alexander told BBC radio from Afghanistan: ‘‘I think people recognise from the experience of places like Northern Ireland that it is necessary to put military pressure on the Taliban while at the same time holding out the prospect that there can be a political process that can follow, whereby those that are willing to renunciate violence can follow a different path.’’ 2
And another example of it here:
House of Commons Hansard Debates for 19 May 2009 (pt 0003): 3
T3. [276091] Paul Rowen (Rochdale) (LD): Is not the lesson from Northern Ireland for the middle east peace process that all parties need to be involved? What steps is the Foreign Secretary taking to ensure that Hamas is involved in the forthcoming peace talks?
David Miliband: One can debate long and hard the lessons of Northern Ireland, but one lesson is that all sides need to renounce violence. That will be the basis for a political settlement in the middle east.
It sounds so wonderfully self-evident as to be almost axiomatic doesn’t it? "All sides need to renounce violence" for progress to be made. There’s just one tiny little problem. That’s not one of the lessons to be learnt from the Northern Ireland Peace Process. It’s a blatant and flagrant lie to say or even to imply that PIRA/Sinn Féin "laid down their weapons" before entering into the talks that became the Northern Ireland Peace Process with the British and Irish governments. Moreover there are plenty of people both in the Midddle East and in South Asia who know that it’s completely false.
The IRA, far from laying down their arms and renouncing violence before entering into talks flat out refused to do so. They refused to even contemplate doing so because they knew that to renounce the Armalite component of the "ballot paper in one hand and the Armalite in the other" strategy at that point would have been to provoke a catastrophic split within their ranks. The IRA Army Council may have admitted within its internal private debates that the war could not be won militarily. But Sinn Féin was doing badly in its struggle with the Nationalist (and non-violent) Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) to represent the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland. The situation as it then obtained is best described by Tom McGurk writing in Ireland’s "Sunday Business Post" :
During the interminable years of the peace process, Adams and McGuinness had been accused of foot-dragging, but what would have been the point of it all if they had rushed ahead and left behind yet another, smaller version of the IRA?
Source: McGuinness’s words are a milestone in republicanism | Sunday Business Post | Irish Business News
PIRA/Sinn Féin fought on. It fought on until its continued use of violence enabled it to reach its political goal of becoming the voice of Northern Ireland nationalism. Once it had done this it it was in a position of strength. The success of the peace process as evidenced by the lack of political violence, the presence of Sinn Féin ministers in the Northern Ireland cabinet, and reports such as:
"Now that that campaign is well and truly over, the army council by deliberate choice is no longer operational or functional.
"This situation has been brought about by a conscious decision to let it fall into disuse rather than through any other mechanism."
in the Nineteenth Report of the Independent Monitoring Commission:
Came about a considerable number of years into the peace process because the PIRA/Sinn Féin started their negotiation from a hard-won position of strength not despite it. British politicians (and soldiers) can try to rewrite history as much as they like, their efforts don’t affect the lesson learnt from the Irish Peace Process in those parts of the Middle East and South Asia in which America and her allies including the British are waging war.
Both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have shared their experience of the Northern Ireland Peace Process as part of their continuing peace promotion efforts in both Irak and Palestine and both have replied honestly and bluntly to questions from participants at various fora and peace process training sessions. As Gerry Adams’ once pithily expressed it,
"The reality is that there would be no peace process if it were not for the IRA".
The lesson that has been learnt amongst many in the Middle East who have studied "the lessons of Northern Ireland" is that it is folly to lay down your arms until you have secured both your continued survival and many of your objectives. The lesson learnt is that violence works.
markfromireland
Notes:
1 The operational name for the British armed forces’ operations in Northern Ireland between August 1969 and July 2007 was "Operation Banner". For the British Army’s "Lessons Learnt" see their 98 page internal report "Operation Banner – An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland" cited above. The report was released by the British Army following a Freedom of Information Act inquiry, from the Pat Finucane Centre the Wikileaks page for the report is at this link and has several download links if wikileaks’ server is overloaded the report can be got from this alternative link.
2 For a lenghtier report see UK Daily Mail Newspaper report: Britain calls for Northern Ireland-style peace deal in Afghanistan as two more soldiers are killed in explosions .
3Hansard is an edited verbatim report of British parliamentary proceedings. It is the official record of debates, parliamentary questions, votes, etc.
29 Comments
Well he might be “a man of wealth and taste” whose been “around for a long, long year” but he’s also the “father of lies” … … …
This particular lie is being spread about more and more and has been repeated to me several times recently by American Officials and Officers. It’s a particularly stupid and counterproductive lie as the fact that the IRA did not lay down its weapons until very late in the game is very well known.
Telling blatant and stupid falsehoods isn’t generally considered to be a good way of demonstrating good faith while issuing invitations to armed groups of your opponents such as … oh let’s say the Taliban, Hamas, Hizbullah, the Mahdi Army, or the 1920s brigades.
There is a lot of interest in, and knowledge about, the Irish peace process in the Middle East, this is partly because the IRA developed a lot of links in the region over the decades (for example with various Palestinian groups) and partly because (despite what some people would have you believe) the leadership of successful armed groups such as Hamas or Hizbullah tend to be very pragmatic about what works and what doesn’t.
Conferences, seminars, and training courses at which people like Martin McGuinness give the benefit of their experience are well attended. There is at present a fair amount of toing and froing between Irak and Northern Ireland as political factions there engage in follow-up trips to see how what they’ve been told about the process works in practice stories such as this:
Northern Ireland News – Iraqi Delegation Meets NI Policing Board:
Are by no means uncommon.
On a personal note the fact that it is known that I was a go-between between various armed groups in Ireland during the peace process negotiations has made my working relations with various Iraki groups much much easier.
markfromireland
Sounds like self rationalization and an attempt to preserve Bush’s Foreign Policy Legacy. There have been a lot of attempts to create Bush a legacy recently Karl Rove is behind it.
I should add that “the lesson of Northern Ireland” is that for any peace process to work all parties to the negotiations have to accept that maximalist goals cannot ever be achieved. “Maximalist goals” goals are goals that take no account of the concerns and the historical narrative of your opponents. For as long as any of the parties to a conflict retain maximalist goals the cycle of bloodshed will continue. It may be punctuated by quite long periods of relative calm but the cycle itself will continue.
Reaching a sustainable peace agreement is tricky because to reach it all sides must first accept that nobody can achieve all of their goals but everybody needs to feel, and be able to convince their followers, that some of their goals have been achieved. That “this is a deal we can live with”. The Irish experience is an example of one such “deal we can live with” leading to sustainable peace agreement, the South African one is another.
This point has yet to be reached in a lot of the conflicts in Irak, thus the breakdown of the Sadrist sponsored peace talks in Mosul while disappointing is by no means surprising.
This point has also to be reached in other conflicts such as Palestine and to a far lesser extent in Lebanon.
As for disarmament – disarmament in Northern Ireland (the process was called “decommissioning”) took place quite late in the process i.e. it took place long after:
1) The basic deal had been reached.
2) Various “confidence building measures” had been put in place and had been shown to work.
markfromireland
Maintaining the “armalite” until there was an effective political parity of esteem was what appeared to happen in NI. To insist on disarming as a precondition will get real negotiations nowhere, decommissioning is the goal of negotiations and will follow if the negotiations are successful. To demand the precondition of disarmament is to insure a failure in negotiations, such is the way of armed conflicts. No group driven to armed extreme is foolish enough to surrender their power before their security is assured, it is juvenile to expect otherwise.
Do not expect a certain country of 300+ millions of people to have either the knowledge or experience of an otherwise adult population, particularly one that eschews facts for the comfort of belief and myth and cannot be incommoded to perceive political treason and mendacity and effectively oppose. Such a nation cannot think their way out of a wet paper bag, they are the problem, not the source for solution. Whatever policy may be followed driven by Washington, no attainable solutions will ensue without being inclusive or having parity of esteem for all parties. No solutions are available for ME (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel), Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, or Pakistan from that quarter, expect decades of failures for the immediate future, intellectually Washington hasn’t two sense(sic) to rub together.
For instance, an example of Washington consensus failure can be had in the Spanish government’s breaking of negotiation talks with the Basque separatists and the full scale resumption of bombing despite large inroads in capturing Basque terrorist command structures. It was not politically possible for the Spanish government to continue negotiations and the result has been even more bombings. Not an effective way to divert violence into political negotiations.
markfromireland – thank you once again for sharing your expertise with us. This is an important contribution to our understanding.
the lesson of northern ireland however demonstrative was and is self evident
you can’t “win” an occupation all you can do is;
1) lose and leave
2) keep losing and stay
3) negotiate a peace and leave
4) negotiate a peace and then be invited to stay
5) anialate the populace
I’m sure there are a few ther choices but “winning” isn’t among them, if you aren’t their guest then you can never win short of anialation
You do not commit troops unless you are committed to victory even if Victory means pushing the enemy population across the line. Winning is always the best choice.
Please define: “pushing the enemy population across the line”
In this case, I’d have pushed the Catholics into the Republic out of the six counties.
This is interesting
“Pushed” how?
How? Vague phrases such as:
Don’t cut it. Please tell us precisely which measures you would have used.
You might also like to try getting your target population right.
Would it surprise you to learn that there are such creatures as loyalist catholics? – I suggest you read about this chap:
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley
Who is a very well known example of an loyalist politician, who had strong links loyalist paramilitarys and was a fundamentalist protestant minister with links both to Bob Jones University and Gerry Falwell to boot. His constituency has a substantial catholic population and the size of his majorities in elections were such that even if massive electoral fraud were committed he could still only get those numbers if the vast majority of his catholic constituents voted for him en bloc. Which they did.
There are also such creatures as republican protestants.
Catholic vs. protestant is a handy rule of thumb nothing more. If you’re going to be accurate you need to think in terms of loyalists (who think they’re British and thus give their loyalty to the government in London) vs. nationalists (who consider themselves to be Irish and thus give their loyalty to the government in Dublin).
One supports your friends (Loyalists) and punish your enemies (Republicans–separatists). You have to do that if you wish to keep your country intact.
Apart from the fact that it is very debatable which country the six counties are a part of — the British did indeed carry out a policy of supporting their friends (Loyalists) and punishing their enemies (Republicans–separatists).
This policy directly led to the situation which now obtains in the province i.e. a situation in which their enemies (Republicans–separatists) became militarily and politically so strong that the UK government, the loyalists, and the government of the Republic had to sit down with the Republicans–separatists and negotiate an agreement with them. The upshot of which agreement is:
1) The IRA commander in chief and the IRA chief of staff and their political party entered into a power sharing agreement in the province’s government. Senior IRA commanders are now senior ministers in the government of Ulster.
2) Far more importantly the British Government was required to sign a binding commitment to vacate the province once a majority of the Ulster electorate vote for the province to join the Republic.
Given that the Nationalist community or the (Republicans–separatists) as you dub them will be a majority of the population and thus of the electorate within a lot less than a generation the policy you suggested of:
to keep the “country intact” as you put it has been a spectacular failure.
The direct result of the miserable abject failure of your policy prescription is that within a lot less than a generation from now the British will be ejected and the reunification of Ireland under the republican government in Dublin will take place.
What I most recall of the NI process was that it was based upon negotiations without pre-conditions, the opening to conduct talks between NI parties. The importance of talks was never lost sight of or derailed by demands for preconditions. Taoiseachs CJ Haughey and John Bruton both encouraged quiet negotiations with Jerry Adams, who at the time was not even allowed his own voice on the news (an actor would read Adams’ statements). SDLP John Hume was the first NI leader to engage Jerry Adams in negotiations. The important need for negotiations was never lost sight of and survived multiple attempts to derail through insistence by some upon preconditions of disarming the IRA; something even the British Army was incapable of doing the result of the armed stalemate between. Once the British government was on board the opening to negotiate, all parties became involved. The success of the negotiations resulting in the Good Friday Agreement was due to talking and nothing else. The insistence for disarming was incompatible with reaching the agreement but rather was the result of the guaranteed agreement. Had it been otherwise, conflict would still be raging in NI. Force never was effective in changing minds, a lesson lost on Washington altogether.
while philosphically true as a simple mission statement with regards your armed forces if you happen to be adept, it is simply incorrect as the practical application when it comes to bush and cheney who are the antithesis of adept
neither Cheney nor bush were committed to victory they were committed to middle east unrest, we know this as a fact, cheney demonstrated this when he worked under ford undermining nixon’s treaty of detante with the lies he told then too
that’s the first thing, now as far as the philosophy of your statement I totally agree, however you can never win an occupation and it is not sane committing your troops to one
once you win the war you need to leave so you do not lose overall
while you’re correct, you do not commit troops unless you commit to victory, then claiming you want to win an occupation is the same thing as saying you do not commit your troops unless you commit to time travel
you cannot achieve to time travel and you cannot achieve “winning an occupation”
war is different then occupation, war requires your military, anything after that war requires politicians, NOT military and asking them to “win an occupation” is the same thing as asking them to fly to Venus
Sometimes the best move is not to play.
How about a nice game of Chess? ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHWjlCaIrQo
To be fair to them (and I speak as somebody whose personal politics are very hard-line Irish republican) the British were in a lose lose lose situation. They had sovereignty without political power – by the time they abolished the Stormont government and parliament it was too late.
My heart bleeds for them as you can see :-)
excellent analysis, Mark. Thank you.
on point
An Empire’s Pride is its Folly
We can’t leave Iraq they are a threat! The Terrorist will follow us home. We will lose Cred in the region!
Self Rationalization will always provide a ruler the reasons he needs to save his Pride.
Its like trying to win a game of Chess without sacrificing a Pawn, or in this case ton’s of Pawns get sacrificed for Bush (the King’s) pride
When the best move would be to sacrifice Bush’s pride and keep the troops safe.
Ummm…in case anyone hasn’t noticed, the terrorists are trying to follow us home (e.g., North Carolina, Minnesota, New Jersey, etc.). It’s why even Obama is not weakening the Terrorist Protection acts of the Bush Administration.
I think its only the Neocons sprouting that lie granted they are in the news allot. But our side does not believe it and the NRA GOPers never believe you should lay down your guns.
(And also @ 17)
This is a POS spouted first by British politicians and then by Britsh Officers (who should know better). Self rationalisation? Certainly.
But what’s interesting is that it’s spreading from Britain to the States. I would say that this has nothing to do with Bush or his legacy. The events I’m talking pre-date Bush (and in any case the British establishment couldn’t give a hoot about him).
All solutions to conflicts have their own twists and turns depending on local history the issues involved etc but there are enough commonalities for lessons to be learnt as well.
As a species we don’t seem to be very good at doing that.
Thanks Mark
Wish I had more time to read and comment (maybe tomorrow if the comments stay open)
Please follow up on this
You’re welcome. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Not entirely true. Once the IRA demonstrated that they had acquired the ability to shoot down British Army helicopters the British government suddenly got a lot more serious about negtotiations.
Re: … ability to shoot down British Army helicopters …. Wasn’t aware of that from ROI press at the time; good to know. Perceptive analysis of motivating factors behind British participation in the NI negotiations but would classify that as part of the absolute stalemate between the armed groups; not particularly necessary a distinct force over the British but rather confirming the stalemate of forces. I do recall there being several reports of helicopter crashes but no followup reports (at the time no connection was on offer).
Clarifying “Force never was …”, holding a gun to another’s head is not actually a good way to negotiate, you get agreement only as long as the gun stays in place. The juvenile approach Washington/Tel Aviv have presented on the Palestine issue are sterling examples of pre-conditions to holding negotiations that are completely unacceptable to the opposite party. This approach worked eventually with Arafat after he and his position were broken by Zionist intransigence after reaching agreed accommodations to negotiate (West Bank settlements are prime example) which ultimately reflected Arafat’s Palestinian Authority’s bankruptcy in representing the Palestinian people. Treating Hamas as the same as the broken PA cannot end well, the two are not the same. The Washington/ Tel Aviv axis of evil have made conditions impossible for any Palestinian agreement and the land grab continues until there is nothing left to negotiate. That will not end well for any of the participants as there can be no guaranteed negotiated settlement of the issue. The missing ingredients for success; inclusiveness of all parties, the parity of esteem between parties and the sovereign condition of actual continuing negotiation.
The same juvenile approach is being made by the US and US instigated EU demands on Iran. That too will fail, however the price of that failure can be measured by the appearance of a nuclear armed Iran, just what the jejune kids want to avoid, bless their hearts.
I hope this clarifies somewhat on earlier comments. I always enjoy your postings, they are as a breath of fresh air to the stifling conformity usually on offer. I have not intended to trample your offering and have said more than I should as it is. All the best ………
Edited P.S.
The Spanish government went out on a political limb after the Madrid train bombings with ETA by attempting to negotiate a settlement of those issues. This attempt was scuttled by apparently internal ETA intransigence that bombed the Barcelona airport parking. The public reaction made it impossible for Zapatero’s government to continue negotiations with ETA. The void in negotiations and exclusion of ETA from ability to negotiate have resulted in numerous other bombings, some having fatal consequences. Had negotiations been continued, however quietly, it is probable that many of the subsequent bombings and loss of life probably would not have occurred; a heavy price for failure to talk.
It’s what tipped them over to negotiation. You can discuss and argue ’til the cows come with the various protagonists over the military situation — and I have. I’ve come to the conclusion from discussions with the Brits is that that was what got the British Army well and truly behind negotiations. (As long-term it meant that the balance of advantage moved to PIRA.) It’s rarely realised (I think) how utterly dependendent the British had become on helicopters. They used them to not so musch estabblish control for themselves as to deny PIRA control of what for shorthand purposes I’ll call the “debatable lands”.
No argument from me about how maximalism is a recipe for failure of negotiations. I’ve been saying for a very long time that it’s a no-no. Very early on during my (mercifully short) solo blogging career I wrote about the Hamas election victory A Wake Up Call For Whom? you’re entirely correct that Hamas aren’t at all like the broken and corrupt Fatah. They’re a very different kettle of fish.
I never thought that Obama would bring change and he hasn’t, he and his administration are as maximalist in their own way as every preceding administration. Bless their hearts indeed.
Thx for your kind comments on what I write, I always enjoy a reasoned discussion. :-)
mfi