09/09/2014
I'm not entirely sure how much further on
this takes us, but what caught my attention was the sub-head: "Arab tribes have been fighting and allying with each other for centuries. And tribes also tend to unite against an invasion by outsiders".
This points up the fact that the process we're seeing in Iraq and Syria at the moment is nothing particularly news about the way events are shaping up. The conflict is part of the normal tribal dynamics of the region.
With that, we should then welcome
the intervention of General Sir Peter Wall, outgoing CGS, who has declared that Britain "should not enter a conflict with Islamic State fighters as we do not know the full scope of their strengths".
This makes a refreshing change from the
idiot Dannatt, with Wall saying that the government should not rush to intervene in the ongoing brutality being carried out by the "grotesque" militants as it does not yet have a full understanding of the group's "capabilities".
Wall, however, spoils it all by suggesting that the only thing worse than reacting too quickly would be to not react at all. "We have to be very careful that we do not get sucked into an international conflict without having a proper understanding of the situation on the ground", he says, then adding: "we were found wanting in these respects in Iraq and Afghanistan and it took some time to get things right".
Still they have to maintain the fiction that they "got things right" in Iraq and Afghanistan, though, which is why we will have to disagree that any significant reaction by the British Army could be a good thing.
This is an Army which is institutionally incapable of understanding tribal dynamics, and operating effectively with the constraints of modern counterinsurgencies, but has now completed the process of telling itself that its performance in previous theatres was impeccable. With most of its internal critics now left or neutralised, it is ready to embark upon another round of operations.
But, if it cannot or will not understand its past failures, or even admit to them, then it is not in a position to learn any lessons from them and operate more effectively in the future. Its next full scale operations are thus as likely to be as disastrous as all the rest.
Fortunately, as
Complete Bastard points out, there are other constraints as well, which means that the closest any serious number of "boots on the ground" will get to Iraq is Poland or eastern Ukraine, where they can play with their toys in relative safety, unencumbered by the responsibility of having to fight a real war.
It is rather odd though having an Army that we can no longer trust to fight. One wonders why we still bother with the expense of keeping one.
FORUM THREAD
