ABSTRACT
Every British Army officer is educated and trained at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The British Army is often viewed as being particularly experienced at counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. The Armys document that provides guidance and instruction to soldiers about COIN is the 2001 Army Field Manual, Counter Insurgency Operations. It will come as little surprise then to discover that there is no chapter in the AFM devoted to the ethical basis of successful COIN operations or to the ethical dilemmas therein. Contemporary liberalism often takes a social determinist position about human behaviour people behave as they do due to the environmental factors that act upon them. In a guarded manner, the Army Field Manual (AFM) follows this same reasoning; The Causes of Counter Insurgency where it suggests that these causes may be especially economic and political ones. Minimum.
