The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945-1967 (Hardback)

David French (author)

£135.00

Hardback 304 Pages
Published: 29/09/2011

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Synopsis

The claim by the Ministry of Defence in 2001 that 'the experience of numerous small wars has provided the British Army with a unique insight into this demanding form of conflict' unravelled spectacularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. One important reason for that, David French suggests, was because contemporary British counter-insurgency doctrine was based upon a serious misreading of the past.

Until now, many observers believed that during the wars of decolonisation in the two decades after 1945, the British had discovered how western liberal notions of right and wrong could be made compatible with the imperatives of waging war amongst the people, that force could be used effectively but with care, and that a more just and prosperous society could emerge from these struggles. By using only the minimum necessary force, and doing so with the utmost discrimination, the British were able to win by securing the 'hearts and minds' of the people. But this was a serious distortion of actual British practice on the ground. David French's main contention is that the British hid their use of naked force behind a carefully constructed veneer of legality. In reality, they commonly used wholesale coercion, including cordon and search operations, mass detention without trial, forcible population resettlement, and the creation of free-fire zones to intimidate and lock-down the civilian population. The British waged their counter-insurgency campaigns by being nasty, not nice, to the people.

The British Way in Counter-Insurgency is a seminal reassessment of the historical foundation of British counter doctrine and practice.

Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199587964
Number of pages: 304
Weight: 1 g
Dimensions: 236 x 156 x 30 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

David French's authoritative...exemplarily fair-minded study...should be compulsory reading for modern British officers - Max Hastings, Sunday Times

Brilliant...French explodes the myth that a uniquely British quest to recruit "hearts and minds" made the British end of Empire easy. - Ben Macintyre, The Times

a sobering and timely book ... Professor French marshals an impressive volume of archival research ... fluent and always engrossing - Kenneth Payne, Times Literary Supplement

a brilliant book that sheds light on a misunderstood and misquoted era ... masterly - Patrick Mercer, Military History

a careful, often riveting book that has been constructed on the basis of rigorous archival research. French takes on a major task, insisting on a sweep of place and time that must have demanded he tackle an intimidating quantity of archival material, and the results are frequently a testament to modern historical scholarship. - Musab Younis, The Oxonian Review

French's book represents the first comprehensive reassessment of the violence used by the British across the entire range of these insurgencies - Royal United Services Institute

Based on unparalleled research into official documents on nine campaigns it is likely to be the authoritative work on the subject for years to come ... Indeed, Professor French has set the bar very high, and that can only be a good thing for the rest of us who yet labour in these contested trenches. - David Charters, Canadian Military History

His counter-insurgency volume is ... likely to become the standard work on the subject. Thankfully, he avoid the temptation to adapt the book to the contemporary concerns of the academic-military-industrial complex. - John Newsinger, Race & Class