The British Army has excelled in small-unit, antiguerrilla warfare as they did in other aspects of counterinsurgency. History had given them an army that was relatively small and decentralized and, therefore, ideally suited to such warfare. Since Britain is an island nation, the navy and not the army has been its first line of defense. Distrusted and underfunded, the junior service was thus relatively unaffected by the revolution in size and organization experienced by continental armies during the nineteenth century. -Thomas R. Mockaitis

http://www.army.mil/professionalwrit...5/11_05_2.html

Please read the rest of this linked article before commenting in an attempt to have a more informed debate. I am seriously interested in the thoughts of some of you as to the proposed thesis of this paper that there is a salient military culture that not only influences the behaviour of an army but acts as a collective intellect guiding its actions.

Brits have got years of anti-insurgency war against IRA in N.Ireland and I am not so surprised.

The British Army has been fighting this sort of warfare for hundreds of years. Kipling called it the great game in his books about India when the British Army fought all sorts that came down through the Khyber Pass to ferment trouble. Since the end of WW2 Britain has fought in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Palestine, French Indo Chine [Vietnam] Korea, British Honduras, Borneo, Aden , Radfan and in Egypt in fact the only year since the end of WW2 that a British soldier has not been killed in COMBAT is 1967, now nearly all this work has been counter insurgency so this is one of the reasons they look good is the constance practise they have at it.

Le enfield...

You forgot Dhofar, Oman, where Iranian and British troops fought against Soviet & Yemeni backed insurgents in early 1970s

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/printer_202.shtml

http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/oscar/oman1964.htm

We also fought in Greece and many other places

Northern Ireland too

The US 2nd Ranger Bn was trained in mountain climbing tactics by British Commandos before the Pointe du Hoc assault. The Commandos were experts at this type of warfare for many years of covert actions.

Yes, this is wonderful guys but it in no way addresses the question I posed. Is there a collective conscience or intellect that guides an army as suggested in the article linked in the opening post or is it simply a matter of experienced handed down from one generation of NCO's and Officers to the next or is that process the actual conscience and intellect of an Army?

No one is arguing the historical facts of the British Army's extensive experience in the field of counter-insurgency THAT would be an exercise in self-congratulatory grab arse that would be of little or no benefit. The point is what is the benefit gained in a broad sense from those experiences and how does it guide the current actions in tactics, strategy AND policy?? And further to the point of the original article was how can other armies learn from this experience?

Originally Posted by bulldogg

Yes, this is wonderful guys but it in no way addresses the question I posed. Is there a collective conscience or intellect that guides an army as suggested in the article linked in the opening post or is it simply a matter of experienced handed down from one generation of NCO's and Officers to the next or is that process the actual conscience and intellect of an Army?

No one is arguing the historical facts of the British Army's extensive experience in the field of counter-insurgency THAT would be an exercise in self-congratulatory grab arse that would be of little or no benefit. The point is what is the benefit gained in a broad sense from those experiences and how does it guide the current actions in tactics, strategy AND policy?? And further to the point of the original article was how can other armies learn from this experience?

I believe that it is a collective intellect that guides the army. In the napoleonic wars we had to fight against a much larger army, and this required new techniques of fighting as we could not match the french armies for size. It is then the previous operations in india, africa etc. that again needed the same tactics to be used - smaller, decentralized units. that again showed that this style of fighting suits what the requirements of the British army are.
The intellect guiding the army would not have been sucessful though without the experience of the NCOs and officers being passed down, like they only could with a fully professional army, that is why armies using draftees does not have the same knowledge as the soldiers are not there long enough for the experience to be passed down or built up.
If the culture had not been there of fighting with small decentralized groups then i doubt we would of succeeded in malaya or northern ireland as the culture without the intellect guiding it would be like we are seeing from the US in iraq 'shock and awe' etc. that does not win the hearts and minds of the local population and makes them seem very arrogant.
Hope you can see what im trying to say.

And Indonesia to chase those Malayans (along with the Aussie SAS).

Whoops, that's right... WE NEVER WENT THERE!
(wink wink, nudge nudge)