Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 4, August–September 2010, pp. 131-158
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Public and media attention over the ongoing Iraq Inquiry commissioned by the UK government in summer 2009 has focused primarily on Prime Minister Tony Blair’s determination to involve the UK in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But for Britain’s role in international peace and security, the conduct of operations in Iraq and the circumstances of the British withdrawal in 2009 are likely to have effects as far-reaching as the initial invasion of the country in 2003. The lessons the armed forces draw from this campaign, how they interpret it, will inform both the British military’s future relation to counter-insurgency and the future of British civil–military relations.
The campaign was a re-encounter with counter-insurgency by a military often lauded for its ability in the area. Long-exalted principles and knowhow were put into practice, nowhere more conspicuously than in Basra. The result has left many asking what happened to Britain’s prowess in such missions. Others point to the threadbare civilian support for the military’s efforts and claim that the British Army was left to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
More broadly, British involvement in Saddam Hussein’s overthrow was the culmination of Blair’s ‘doctrine of international community’. Articulated in Chicago during the Kosovo campaign in 1999, the doctrine envisaged a strong international role for the UK, not just in guaranteeing its strategic interests, but in resolving humanitarian crises and combating gross violations of human rights.1 Returning to Chicago ten years later, with his premiership behind him, Blair reflected on whether the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan had dented his doctrine: ‘should we now revert to a more traditional foreign policy, less bold, more cautious; less idealistic, more pragmatic, more willing to tolerate the intolerable because of fear of the unpredictable consequences that intervention can bring?’2 Attempts by the current and future British governments to answer these questions will draw heavily on the experience in Iraq. Much as the campaign provides the military with reasons for reflection and reform, it will also shape wider thinking about Britain’s strategic ambitions.
Two broad lessons stand out: the British military’s prowess with counterinsurgency is neither innate nor sufficient in the absence of a well-conceived and resourced strategy; and the British government’s failure to prepare for and adapt to the challenges encountered in Basra reveal a low understanding of and priority for state-building. Both lessons signal a need to raise the level of competence for these types of missions across government, but also for greater realism about what intervention can realistically achieve. These lessons touch upon the British armed forces’ aptitude for modern wars, the viability of a ‘comprehensive approach’, and Britain’s future as an operational partner to the United States or as a strong European military power in its own right. Indeed, these questions should inform not only Britain’s forthcoming strategic defence review but also broader political thinking about its position in the world.
Setting the stage
When the British military invaded Iraq as part of a US- led coalition in March ...
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David H. Ucko is a Transatlantic Fellow at the RAND Corporation. He is the author of The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009).
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