Huw Bennett

The Other Side of the COIN: Minimum and Exemplary Force in British Army Counterinsurgency in Kenya

This article argues that the British governments deliberate exclusion of international law from colonial counterinsurgencies allowed the army to suppress opponents with little restraint. The oft-assumed national inhibitor, the principle of ‘minimum force’, was actually widely permissive. As a result exemplary force was employed to coerce the Kikuyu civilian population in Kenya into supporting the government rather than the insurgents. Apparently random acts were thus strategic, and emerged in three forms: beatings and torture, murders, and forced population movement. The article argues that such harsh measures were seen as necessary and effective; they were a form of indirect policy and did not arise from a disciplinary breakdown.

'A very salutary effect': The Counter-Terror Strategy in the Early Malayan Emergency, June 1948 to December 1949

Abstract The counter-insurgency lessons commonly drawn from the Malayan Emergency ignore strategy in the opening phase or dismiss it as characterised by mistakes committed in a policy vacuum. This article argues that the British army pursued a deliberately formulated counter-terror strategy until circa December 1949, aiming to intimidate the civilian Chinese community into supporting the government. Mass arrests, property destruction, and forced population movement, combined with loose controls on lethal force, created a coercive effect. The consequences of these policies were mounting civilian casualties, which the government allowed to continue because its intelligence assessments suggested they were militarily effective.

Minimum force in British counterinsurgency

With strategic success in Iraq and Afghanistan far from certain, comforting beliefs about Britains superiority at counterinsurgency have come under increasingly sceptical scrutiny. This article contributes to the debate with particular reference to the supposedly pivotal principle of minimum force. After discussing the recent literature on the subject, the article critiques the methodology employed by advocates of the traditionalist view on British COIN, arguing for a more rigorous historical approach based on primary sources. Following these historical matters, it is argued that conceptually, minimum force should be analysed dialectically in relation to practices of exemplary force, and above all, on the evidence of what happens in a conflict. Arguably the value ascribed to doctrine in strategic analysis has become unduly inflated, and we must look beyond it to understand war and political violence.

From Direct Rule to Motorman: Adjusting British Military Strategy for Northern Ireland in 1972

The British campaign in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s is often portrayed as consistent in its repressive character and its failure to successfully relate military means to political ends. This article argues that British military strategy was adaptable, alternating between defensive and offensive means depending on the changing political context. The low profile policy allowed the army to consolidate a firm basis for later offensive operations against the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). This proved successful because it contrasted with Republican violence and was contextualized within the governments willingness to negotiate and compromise when necessary.

Soldiers in the Court Room: The British Army's Part in the Kenya Emergency under the Legal Spotlight

In April 2011, civil proceedings were launched in the High Court in London concerning alleged torture during the Mau Mau Emergency in Kenya, from 1952 to 1960. In this on-going case, the claimants allege that torture was widespread in Kenya, and that it was condoned by the British state. This article explains the background to the case and describes the expert evidence given by the author on the British Armys role in the Emergency. The historical evidence on five issues is summarised: the command and control arrangements for the security forces, the nature of the intelligence system, the relationships between British and local security forces, the armys knowledge of human rights abuses and whether efforts were made to stop them, and army participation in screening and interrogation. In each case, it is shown how the British Army was deeply implicated in a system of mass repression of the civilian Kikuyu, Embu and Meru populations. Finally, the article examines the discovery of a vast cache of documents at Hanslope Park, which covers 37 territories during the decolonisation period. The discovery of some 8,800 files is likely to have a significant impact on the understanding of post-war decolonisation.

Baha Mousa and the British Army in Iraq

Baha Mousa, a receptionist at Basra’s Haitham Hotel, died in the custody of 1st Queen’s Lancashire Regiment on a Monday evening, 15 September 2003. Since the invasion in March of that year, approximately 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq (Iraq Body Count 23/1/11). What does one person’s death mean amidst such suffering? This single death tells us more than might be expected about contemporary war, about the army, and about British democracy.

Enmeshed in insurgency: Britain's protracted retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan

Ten years of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced little in Britains national interest. This article examines the political objectives set in these wars and the reasons why they have proved elusive. The core foreign policy aim was to sustain Britains position as a great power by assuming responsibility for global order. Alliances with the United States and NATO would be the diplomatic tool for pursuing this aim. These alliances brought obligations, in the shape of agreed common threats. Rogue regimes with weapons of mass destruction and international terrorists harboured in failed states were deemed the primary threats to British security. Military means were therefore used in Iraq and Afghanistan to attack them. Whether Tony Blairs vision of global order ever made sense is debatable, and it attracted scepticism from the outset. The article argues experience in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that a strategy to eliminate terrorism (the WMD threat turned out never to have existed) by expeditionary counterinsurgency could only fail. Therefore the attention lavished on operational-level performance by most studies is misplaced, because no amount of warfighting excellence could make up for strategic incoherence. Finally, the article proposes the more important question arising from the last ten years is why the UK pursued a futile strategy for so long. The difficulties associated with interpreting events, a malfunctioning strategic apparatus, weak political oversight, and bureaucratic self-interest are posited as the most significant explanations.

The Reluctant Counter-insurgents: Britain's Absent Surge in Southern Iraq

Britain’s participation in the Iraq war was beset by controversy before the invasion even began. Many observers expected disaster, and seemed vindicated as the country fell into a sprawling insurgency.1 Mistakes made early in the occupation appeared to have sparked an unstoppable descent into vast destruction. Then a radical decision by President Bush, in January 2007, altered this trajectory.2 By August 2006, civilian fatalities in Iraq averaged over 1,500 per month, alongside almost 100 American military dead. Yet by June 2008, civilian fatalities per month were down to around 200, and American military killed under a dozen.3 The surge of 30,000 soldiers, matched by changed tactics, doctrine, and Sunni politics, showed defeat was not inevitable. One of Britain’s main objectives in entering the war had been to cement Anglo-American relations. Poor military performance in Iraq is widely perceived to have damaged these relations.4 This chapter asks why the British army failed to emulate its American allies in conducting a successful counter-insurgency (COIN) in Iraq.

'Detainees are always one's Achilles heel': The struggle over the scrutiny of detention and interrogation in Aden, 1963-1967

Colonial officials often complained about outside meddling in their campaign to defeat the insurgency in the South Arabian Federation from 1963 to 1967. This article focuses on relations between the High Commission in Aden, Whitehall departments, Amnesty International, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, asking how far these two external organizations managed to uncover detention and interrogation practices, and how officials in Aden responded to the scrutiny. Four main arguments are proposed. Firstly, detention and interrogation in Aden are contextualized within British counter-insurgency as a whole. Secondly, the push for outside interference in detention and interrogation immediately generated animosity between Whitehall and the High Commission. Thirdly, once ICRC visits were forced on Aden, officials learned to live with them. Inspections consistently found abuse centred around the interrogation facility. Finally, external pressures imposed procedural reforms on the detention and interrogation regime, but failed to stop abuses.

Policing in Kenya during the Mau Mau Emergency, 1952-60

Bennett, H. C., Mumford, A. (2014). Policing in Kenya during the Mau Mau Emergency, 1952-60. In Fair, C. C., & Ganguly, S. (Eds.), Policing Insurgencies. (pp. 83-106). New York: Oxford University Press.