Too Busy to Learn: Personal Observations on British Campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan

In June 2007, the British Army Review published a short article of mine in which I questioned whether the British Army really understood counter-insurgency (COIN). ¹ I had seen a good deal of the British campaign in Iraq and, contrary to the mood at the time, which often verged on hubris, I challenged the view that the British Army knew what it was doing in such an unglamorous, difficult and highly complex form of conflict. My central argument was that the Army was struggling in Iraq because it had neglected COIN, forgotten its hard-fought lessons and failed to teach it at the Staff College. It was no longer part of the UK’s institutionalised approach. We had to do better and doing better depended on knowing what we were talking about.