Learning under fire: military adaptation

Abstract

Launched in the wake of 9/11, the US-led interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq forced painful transformations in Western militaries. As successful regime-change operations gave way to prolonged insurgencies, these forces confronted wars whose character rapidly developed in unanticipated directions. The US and its allies repeatedly failed to align national ends, ways and means to achieve stabilisation, reconstruction and political progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, before rediscovering counter-insurgency principles established in previous conflicts. The lessons of the wars are likely to continue shaping Western states’ approach to intervention and warfare for years to come.

This Adelphi book examines the military evolution of the conflicts, and their implications for the future character of war. It shows why combat remains the core military capability, and explains successful and unsuccessful adaptation by armed forces, especially the essential roles of leadership, culture and organisational agility in promoting ‘learning under fire’. Written by the author of the British Army’s report on post-conflict stabilisation in Iraq, the book is a valuable guide for policymakers, government officials, military officers and scholars seeking to understand the military legacy of a contentious and unpopular chapter in Western strategy.

Notes

1 Williamson Murray, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), chapter 1.

2 Analysis based on various sources, including Antonio Giustozzi, ‘Military Adaptation by the Taliban, 2002–2011’, in Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga and James A. Russell (eds), Military Adaptation in Afghanistan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), pp. 242–62.

3 JamesRussell,Innovation,Transformation and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005–2007 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).

4 Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), p. 116.

5 Ibid., p. 148. The chapter ‘Waging War on the Pentagon’ is an interesting study of leadership of adaptation.

6 Identified in British Army analysis of stabilisation operations in Iraq. See Ben Barry, ‘The Bitter War to Stabilise Southern Iraq – British Army Report Declassified’, IISS, 10 October 2016, https://www.iiss.org/iiss%20voices/blogsections/iiss-voices-2016-9143/october-d6b6/the-bitter-war-tostabilise-southern-iraq---british-armyreport-declassified-953d.

7 Author’s observations from visits of UK battalions in Helmand, June 2009.

8 Public statement by John Chilcot, chairman of the UK Iraq Inquiry, 6 July 2016, http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-inquiry/sir-john-chilcots-public-statement/.

9 Iraq Inquiry Report, section 14.2, pp. 229–34.

10 UK Ministry of Defence, ‘Iraq Study Team Observations’, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/16787/operation_telic_lessons_compendium.pdf.

11 Author’s interviews, 2009–10.

12 Author’s assessment based on his work on the lessons of Iraq for the British Army, 2009–10.

13 David Richards, Taking Command (London: Headline, 2014), p. 78.

14 Author’s interview, 2009.