Military Maladaptation: Counterinsurgency and the Politics of Failure

Abstract

Tactical learning is critical to battlefield success, especially in a counterinsurgency. This article tests the existing model of military adaption against a ‘most-likely’ case: the British Army’s counterinsurgency in the Southern Cameroons (1960–61). Despite meeting all preconditions thought to enable adaptation – decentralization, leadership turnover, supportive leadership, poor organizational memory, feedback loops, and a clear threat – the British still failed to adapt. Archival evidence suggests politicians subverted bottom-up adaptation, because winning came at too high a price in terms of Britain’s broader strategic imperatives. Our finding identifies an important gap in the extant adaptation literature: it ignores politics.

Key Words:

• Military Adaptation
• Wartime Learning
• Organizational Change
• Counterinsurgency
• Tactics
• British Army
• Post-colonial Africa
• Clausewitz

Notes

¹ C. Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (New York: Everyman’s Library 1976), Book 1, Chapter 1, 87.

² Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010), 567–94.

³ See Adam Grissom, ‘The Future of Military Innovation Studies’, Journal of Strategic Studies 29/5 (Oct. 2006), 905–34.

⁴ Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1984).

⁵ Stephen Peter Rosen, Winning the Next War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1994).

⁶ Kimberly Marten Zisk, Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955–1991 (Princeton UP 1993).

⁷ Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars (Princeton UP 1997).

⁸ Deborah D. Avant, Political Institutions and Military Change: Lessons from Peripheral Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1994).

⁹ Although definitional discord exists, there is broad consensus that innovation involves ‘major changes’, including doctrinal shifts or radical new weapons. In contrast, adaptation involves ‘minor changes’ and incremental modifications to existing practices. Emulation involves copying the ‘best practices’ of others. See Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 569; Emily Goldman, ‘Western Military Models in Ottoman Turkey and Meiji Japan’, in Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff (eds), The Sources of Military Change (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2002), 41–68; Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change (Cambridge: CUP 2011).

¹⁰ Rosen, Winning the Next War, 22–38 and 109–11.

¹¹ Barry Posen and Elizabeth Kier restrict their analysis to interwar Europe. Kimberly Zisk studies the Cold War- era Soviet military. See also Williamson Murray and Allan Millet (eds), Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (Cambridge: CUP 1996).

¹² Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 571–3.

¹³ Sergio Catignani, ‘“Getting COIN” at the Tactical Level in Afghanistan: Reassessing Counter-Insurgency Adaptation in the British Army’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/4 (Aug. 2012), 513–39.

¹⁴ Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 567–94; Downie, ‘Military Doctrine’; Mary Crossan and Marina Apaydin, ‘A Multi‐Dimensional Framework of Organizational Innovation: A Systematic Review of the Literature’, Journal of Management Studies 47/6 (Sept. 2010), 1154–91; Fariborz Damanpour, ‘Organizational Innovation: A Meta-Analysis of Effects of Determinants and Moderators’, The Academy of Management Journal 34/3 (Sept. 1991), 555–90; John E. Ettlie, William P. Bridges, and Robert D. O’Keefe, ‘Organization Strategy and Structural Differences for Radical versus Incremental Innovation’, Management Science 30/6 (June 1984), 682–95; Rowe and Boise, ‘Organizational Innovation’, 284–93.

¹⁵ Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 567–94; James G. March, ‘Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning’, Organization Science 2/1 (Feb. 1991), 71–87; Margarethe F. Wiersema and Karen A. Bantel, ‘Top Management Team Turnover as an Adaptation Mechanism: The Role of the Environment’, Strategic Management Journal 14/7 (Oct. 1993), 485–504.

¹⁶ Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 572; Karen A. Bantel and Susan E. Jackson, ‘Top Management and Innovations in Banking: Does the Composition of the Top Team Make a Difference?’, Strategic Management Journal 10 (Summer 1989), 107–24.

¹⁷ On business adaption, see Crossan and Apaydin, ‘A Multi-Dimensional Framework’, 1154–91; Damanpour, ‘Organizational Innovation’, 555–90; Michael D. Mumford and Brian Licuanan, ‘Leading for Innovation: Conclusions, Issues, and Directions’, The Leadership Quarterly 15/1 (Feb. 2004), 163–71. On military innovation and adaptation, see Rebecca Damm Patterson, ‘The US Army and Nation-Building: Explaining Divergence in Effective Military Innovation’, PhD thesis, George Washington University, 2009; Rosen, Winning the Next War; Zisk, Engaging the Enemy.

¹⁸ Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 572.

¹⁹ Rosen, Winning the Next War, 30–6 and 179–82. Other military innovation scholars echo Rosen’s insight. See Scott Gardner, Strategic Assessment in War (Newhaven, CT: Yale UP 1997), 26-61; Dennis Vetock, Lessons Learned: A History of US Army Lesson Learning (US Army Military History Institute 1988). For a discussion of the importance of feedback to organizational learning and change in the business literature, see Stephen Kline and Nathan Rosenberg, ‘An Overview of Innovation’, in Ralph Landau and Nathan Rosenberg (eds), The Positive Sum Strategy: Harnessing Technology for Economic Growth (Washington, DC: National Academies Press 1986), 275–305; Bengt-Ake Lundvall, ‘National Business Systems and National Systems of Innovation’, International Studies of Management and Organization 29/2 (July 1999), 60–77; Mary Crossan, Henry Lane and Roderick White, ‘An Organizational Learning Framework: From Intuition to Institution’, Academy of Management Review 24/3 (1999), 522-37.

²⁰ Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 571.

²¹ In fact, in making the case for ‘fear of defeat’, Farrell cites research based on cases of peacetime change. Ibid, footnote 20.

²² Rosen, Winning the Next War, 9.

²³ Richard Downie, ‘Military Doctrine and the Learning Institution: Case Studies in Low-Intensity Conflict’, PhD dissertation, Univ. of Southern California, 1995; Benjamin Jensen, ‘Military Innovation in the US Army; Anarchy, Bureaucracy, and the Forging of Doctrine, 1975–1995’, PhD dissertation, The American University, 2010; MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050 (Cambridge: CUP 2001).

²⁴ See Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman 1999); Goldman, ‘Western Military Models’, 41–68; Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 567–94; Kier, Imagining War, 21–38; Zisk, Engaging the Enemy, 11–30.

²⁵ See MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050.

²⁶ See John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya to Vietnam (Univ. of Chicago Press 2002).

²⁷ See David French, The British Way in Counterinsurgency, 1945–1967 (Oxford: OUP 2011).

²⁸ Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton UP 1994), 211–12.

²⁹ Harry Eckstein, ‘Case Study and Theory in Political Science’, in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby (eds) Handbook of Political Science (vol. 1): Political Science: Scope and Theory (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley 1975), 127.

³⁰ Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2005), 215.

³¹ Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: CUP 2006), 91–2.

³² See James F. Amos and David H. Petraeus, Counterinsurgency Field Manual FM 3-24 (Univ. of Chicago Press 2007); Anthony James Joes, Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency (Lexington: UP of Kentucky 2004); Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 1986); Austin Long, Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence – The US Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1960–1970 and 2003–2006 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2008); Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.

³³ Martin Atangana, The End of French Rule in Cameroon (Lanham, Maryland: UP of America 2010), 10–24.

³⁴ Kew, United Kingdom, The National Archives, Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO) 141/1619 56, ‘Telegraph No. Personal 90 from Secretary of State for the Colonies to Governor-General, Federation of Nigeria’, 22 April 1960.

³⁵ FCO 141/1619 17–22, ‘Notes on a Visit to the Southern Cameroons by P.J. Harley, Assistant Inspector General’, 2 March 1960.

³⁶ FCO 141/1619 87–89, ‘Letter from the Acting Governor-General of Nigeria, A.G.H. Gardner-Brown to Rt. Hon. Iain Macleod, Secretary of State for the Colonies’, 8 June 1960; FCO 141/1619 176, ‘Letter from Colonel B. Wilson of the War Office to Mr C. G. Eastwood of the Colonial Office’, 20 Jan. 1961.

³⁷ FCO 141/1619 201, ‘Operational Directive for the Commanding Officer, Southern Cameroons’, 6 June 1960.

³⁸ War Office (WO) 208/4385 61A, ‘1 King’s Own General Report’, 10 July 1961.

³⁹ Michael Carver, Britain’s Army in the Twentieth Century (London: Macmillan in association with the Imperial War Museum 1998); Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 567–94; Hew Strachan, Wellington’s Legacy: The Reform of the British Army, 1830–54 (Manchester UP 1984); John Strawson, Gentlemen in Khaki and Camouflage: The British Army, 1890–2008 (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Military 2009).

⁴⁰ WO 208/4385 57A, ‘Annex A to Perintrep 9/61: 1 King’s Own Border Group Intelligence Review: Southern Cameroons’, 16–28 May 1961.

⁴¹ WO 208/4385 59A ‘Annex J to 1 Gren Gds Southern Cameroons Internal Security Instruction’, 29 June 1961.

⁴² WO 208/4386 53A, ‘Perintrep 9/61’, 16–28 May 1961.

⁴³ WO 208/4385 56A, ‘Memorandum on Perintrep (from Lt.-Col. of 1 Gren Gds)’, 8 June 1961.

⁴⁴ WO 208/4385 59A, ‘1 Gren Gds Southern Cameroons Internal Security Instruction’, 29 June 1961.

⁴⁵ Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 583–4.

⁴⁶ Huw Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency (Cambridge: CUP 2013), 43; Farrell, ‘Improving in War’, 583–4; John Kiszely, ‘The British Army and Approaches to Warfare since 1945’, Journal of Strategic Studies 19/4 (Dec. 1996), 179–206; Colin McInnes, Hot War, Cold War: The British Army’s Way in Warfare, 1945–95 (London: Brassey’s 1996), 71.

⁴⁷ For example, see WO 208/4385 57A, Annexes A & B to ‘Perintrep 9/61: 1 King’s Own Border Group Intelligence Review: Southern Cameroons’, 16–28 May 1961; WO 208/4386 69A ‘Perintrep 4/61’, 16 July-4 Aug. 1961; WO 208/4386 74A, ‘MILO Report No. 17’, 12–26 Aug. 1961.

⁴⁸ For example, see WO 208/4385 58A, ‘Perintrep 1/61’, 28 May-16 June 1961; WO 208/4385 60A, ‘MILO Report No. 13’, June 1961; WO 208/4386 63A, ‘Perintrep 2/61’, 17 June-1 July 1961.

⁴⁹ WO 208/4385 47A, ‘Report of Raid on Camp of 1st Mobile BN ALNK on April 7’, 16 April 1961; WO 208/4385 48A, ‘Perintrep 6/61’, 1–15 April 1961; WO 208/4386 50A, ‘Perintrep 7/61’, 16–30 April 1961; WO 208/4386 67A ‘Despatch No: Personal 13 from Commissioner SC to Iain Macleod, MP’, 19 July 1961.

⁵⁰ WO 208/4385 48A, ‘Perintrep 6/61’, 1–15 April 1961 and ‘MILO Report No. 10’, 14 April 1961.

⁵¹ WO 208/4386 2A, ‘MILO Report No. 2’, 10 Nov. 1960.

⁵² See, for example, WO 208/4386 80A, ‘Notes on Grenadier Guards Stay in the Cameroons’, 16 Oct. 1961; WO 208/4386 70 A, ‘Perintrep 5/61’, 4–18 Aug. 1961.

⁵³ WO 208/4386 69A, ‘Perintrep 4/61’, 16 July-4 Aug. 1961; WO 208/4386 73A, ‘Perintrep 6/61’, 18 Aug.-1 Sept. 1961.

⁵⁴ WO 208/4386 73A, ‘Perintrep 6/61’, 18 Aug.-1 Sept. 1961.

⁵⁵ WO 208/4385 23A, ‘Perintrep 3/61’, 2–16 July 1961 on Operation Direction; WO 208/4386 69A, ‘Perintrep 4/61’, 16 July-4 Aug. 1961 on Sasso Camp; WO 208/4386 75A, ‘MILO Report No. 18’, 27 Aug.-10 Sept. 1961.

⁵⁶ WO 208/4385 67A, ‘Despatch No: Personal 13 from Commissioner SC to Iain Macleod, MP’, 19 July 1961; WO 208/4386 75A, ‘MILO Report No. 18’, 27 Aug.-10 Sept. 1961.

⁵⁷ WO 208/4385 67A, ‘Despatch No: Personal 13 from Commissioner SC to Iain Macleod, MP’, 19 July 1961.

⁵⁸ WO 208/4386 78A, ‘Perintrep 7/61’, 1–23 Sept. 1961.

⁵⁹ Especially illustrative of the accumulation of this type of knowledge are WO 208/4386 63A, ‘Perintrep 2/61’, 17 June-1 July 1961; WO 208/4386 78A, Annex A to ‘Perintrep No. 7/61’, 1–23 Sept. 1961.

⁶⁰ WO 208/4385 47A, ‘Report of Raid on Camp of 1st Mobile BN ALNK on Apr. 7’, 16 April 1961; WO 208/4386 67A ‘Despatch No: Personal 13 from Commissioner Sc to Iain Macleod, MP’, 19 July 1961; WO 208/4386 69A, ‘Perintrep 4/61’, 16 July-4 Aug. 1961.

⁶¹ WO 208/4385 42A, ‘Operation DO No. 7’, 31 March 1961; WO 208/4385 61A, ‘1 King’s Own General Report (Aug. 1, 1960-3 May, 1960)’, 10 July 1961.

⁶² WO 208/4385 9A, ‘MILO Report No. 4’, 20 Jan. 1961.

⁶³ WO 208/4385 57A, ‘Annex A to Perintrep 9/61: 1 King’s Own Border Group Intelligence Review: Southern Cameroons’, 16–28 May 1961; WO 208/4385 61A, ‘1 King’s Own General Report (1 Aug. 1960-3 May 1961)’, 10 July 1961; WO 208/4386 52A, ‘Preintrep 8/61’, 1–15 May 1961; WO 208/4386 53A, ‘Perintrep 9/61’, 16–28 May 1961.

⁶⁴ WO 208/4385 67A, ‘Despatch No. Personal 13 from Commissioner SC to Iain Macleod, MP’, 19 July 1961.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ Ibid.

⁶⁸ See French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 1945–1967, 74–104.

⁶⁹ WO 208/4386 69A, ‘Perintrep 4/61’, 16 July-4 Aug. 1961.

⁷⁰ French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, 133.

⁷¹ Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, 65 and 103.

⁷² Lotta Harbom, Erik Melander and Peter Wallensteen, ‘Dyadic Dimensions of Armed Conflict, 1946–2007’, Journal of Peace Research 45/5 (2008), 697–710.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kristen A. Harkness

Kristen A. Harkness is a Lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Michael Hunzeker

Michael Hunzeker is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Public Affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, USA.