ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the establishment of the institutional architecture of British Army LL. It proceeds by exploring the growth of the Army’s potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) during Operation Herrick: its knowledge acquisition, management and dissemination capabilities. The chapter finds that, at the tactical level, these capabilities dovetail with many aspects of LL best practice. However, the development of PACAP at the higher-tactical and operational levels has been deeply problematic. The chapter uncovers PACAP at these levels of Army activity which has suffered from the failure to establish basic principles of best practice, including a misalignment of responsibility for higher-tactical and operational lessons with the expertise necessary to tackle them.
The chapter argues that neoclassical realism emerges as the most fertile explanatory framework for understanding the sources of tactical level PACAP. It posits that the establishment of the institutional architecture of tactical level LL was driven by a combination of the threat of defeat and the entrepreneurship of junior and mid-ranking officers with recent combat experience. When limited improvements in PACAP emerged at the higher-tactical and operational levels, they were the result of bottom-up innovation and emulation from entrepreneurial mid-ranking officers, but did not receive sustained support from the military hierarchy.
