www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Ireland: full unification possible under the Lisbon Treaty

When the British military returned to the North of Ireland in 1969, there presence was initially welcomed by many in the Catholic community, who regarded them as protectors against the mobs of radical unionists who were burning, pillaging and plundering. Irish Catholic women were photographed bringing tea to British soldiers on the street. It didn't take too long though for the British Army to wear out there welcome with the Catholic community, and by the time of Bloody Sunday in Derry, they were every bit the terrorists that OIRA and the PIRA were.

"What poppycock!"

A papered history can be folded to support many conclusions.

Most were Norse, apparently, though also some Swedes in the mix.

That is why a distinction must be made between British tactics in Northern Ireland before and after 1972. What you say is entirely true up through Bloody Sunday, after which, as I indicated, the British completely revamped their approach to counterinsurgency. And won.

I could say something about revising the tone of your postings, but that might be considered "uncharitable". Let's just say you haven't read the book, you haven't reviewed the evidence, and you give no indication of having any expertise in military history, so on what do you base your dismissive attitude?

With regard to heavy weapons, in fact the British were using armored cars (real ones, not Humber "Pigs"), and in fact used automatic weapons in crowd situations, leading to heavy civilian casualties. The use of tanks was not out of the question--they have frequently been used in counter-insurgency warfare, not the least by the United States. The British indeed used heavy weapons in Ireland, both in 1916 and from 1919-1922. In the countryside not only could heavy weapons be employed fairly indiscriminately, but air strikes would not have been out of the question.

After Bloody Sunday, the British military faced a choice of how to proceed in its counterinsurgency. It could have escalated the level of violence, and undoubtedly would have inflicted very heavy casualties on the IRA; but in the process it would have inflicted many civilians casualties, which would have had the dual effect of making the IRA seem more sympathetic to the people of Northern Ireland, and caused a revulsion of public opinion at home. Insurgents usually win because they demoralize their opposition.

This occurs even when (as usual) the insurgents suffer much higher casualties than the counterinsurgents. In fact, it occurs because of it--the fight seems so unfair as to cause the counterinsurgent side to lose heart. Over time, either the military, or the political leaders, or the populace decides that the game is not worth the candle, and the war ends. Game, set, match to the insurgents.

Counterinsurgents only win when they take away the insurgents' time advantage. There are two ways they can do this, and van Creveld deals with both in two case studies. One way to circumvent time is to end the insurgency so quickly that demoralization has no chance to take hold. This can only be done if overwhelming and indiscriminate force is ruthlessly applied until the insurgents are destroyed and all their potential supporters are cowed.

This is the Hama option, as applied by Assad against the revolt in Hama in 1982. I did not describe this in detail, but it now seems that I should. In 1982, a Muslim faction rebelled against the Ba'athist regime of Hafez al Assad. The center of the revolt was Hama, a city of about 350,000 people. News of the revolt caused unrest in other cities, and Assad realized he had only a limited time in which to suppress it before the fire spread, leading to the collapse of the regime and a state of anarchy similar to that in Lebanon at that time.

Assad began by imposing a blockade of Hama, allowing nobody in or out. He then began to bombard the city, not with aircraft but with artillery, systematically leveling it block by block. After a week or so, he sent in troops to root out any survivors, which they did by tossing explosives into basements and shooting flamethrowers into sewers. When they ran into resistance, the troops fell back and the artillery bombardment began again. Finally, the troops were able to sweep all the way across of the pile of rubble that had been Hama. More than 40,000 people were killed, most from inside the Old City, from which there were only a few hundred survivors. Assad did not hide what he did; he did not apologize. Instead, he appeared on Syrian national television and made a broadcast statement showing what he had done. The incipient revolts elsewhere in the country collapsed overnight, and the name of Hama still sends a shiver of horror through the people of Syria.

That is one way to win a counterinsurgency, but as you might imagine, it is not possible for this to be used by any democratic country--the moral outrage would be too great.

That leaves the other way, which is the way used by the British in Northern Ireland after 1972. As I recounted, that way de-escalated the violence, turned over most of the day-to-day operations to the police, and treated the IRA as a criminal organization. As much as possible, the British tried to work within the structures of civil criminal law (there were exceptions, as Creveld noted), and the military were used mainly as a backstop to the police, and to provide muscle in a very limited range of situations. The British military imposed themselves between the civilians and the terrorists on both sides, and, as Creveld also noted, refused to be provoked into indiscriminate violence. And, as he says, these tactics worked: the country was largely pacified, the IRA were isolated and unable to attract recruits, and its ability to continue the struggle eliminated. This set the preconditions for a political settlement.

Now, not every military force can do what the British did. The U.S. military is currently doing this in Iraq, and is beginning to do it in Afghanistan. It requires an incredible degree of professionalism and discipline which most other armies (particularly conscript armies) lack. Since most countries are not morally or politically capable of emulating Assad's methods in Hama, and most militaries are not able to emulate the tactics of the British in Northern Ireland, they settle for a set of half measures, by turn either too lenient or too harsh, which do not win over the people, do not neutralize the insurgents, and ultimately confuse the troops (just what is our mission, anyway?) and demoralize the leadership--which is why the insurgents win so often.

This is just historical fact. Think what you want about it, but it isn't poppycock.

I'm just not seeing much of an argument for Creveld's claims. Many of the most violent incidents connected to the Troubles occured after 1972, and support for the Provos remained strong within the Catholic ghettos well into the 90's. The end of internment was a positive step, but it was too little too late, the Catholic community already viewed the British military as an army of occupation.

It is true that terrorist attacks continued after 1972, but Irish civilian casualties declined (and because of effective British tactics, the IRA moved many of its operations and attack into the UK). British military casualties increased, but the ability of the IRA to conduct large scale operations inside Northern Ireland declined. At the same time, increasing cooperation among the civilian population allowed the Brits to roll up more and more IRA networks. At the end, the IRA was reduced to a handful of cells, which were extremely dangerous, and because of their small size, almost impossible to penetrate. But, from a strategic perspective, they were unable to influence events politically. The IRA lost most of its ideological context, and by the end was almost exclusively a criminal enterprise. Its operations, like that of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan, alienated more people than those of the counterinsurgents. The Irish Catholics may not have love the Brits, but they pretty much hated the IRA by the end. That's what established preconditions for a cease fire and a political settlement.

Stuart

Support for the IRA in the Nationalist community has always fluctuated, from the days in 69 when IRA-I Ran Away was scralled on walls along the Falls Road and other locations, throughout the 70's, 80's and 90's when many a Catholic was harmed or threatened because they had a simple disagreement with someone who happened to be connected to the IRA. Alot of people on both sides of the divide woke up to the fact that the paramilitaries operated like gangsters who benefited from maintaining the status quo. Still, for many Catholics prior to the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA was the only game in town.

Shlomo Stuart,

From what I can see of your posts you have fallen for the these two sides have always opposed/hated each other syndrom (a perfect example of which is the false notion that the Palestinians and Israelis have been in conflict for centuries)

Any good book on Irish history will show you that not only did the Protestants of Ireland support independence from Great Britain; but that they were leaders of many of the rebellions.

Irish Protestants were the leaders of the 1798, 1803 and 1848 rebellions. Irish Protestants were very active in the Easter Rebellion as you noted.

The reason that the six counties were separted from the Irish Free State had nothing to do with the wishes of the Irish Protestants, but everything to do with the British Government seeking ways to continue to control Ireland.

I would recommend that you read what William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, Sean O'Casey, Edmund John Millington Synge, William Wilde, William Carleton and Samuel Ferguson wrote on this issue (all Protestant Irish Nationalists). It will give you better insight.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

I understand. Wolfe Tone, Parnell, and many other Irish revolutionaries since the 18th century were indeed Protestants--and many were members of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy. But they lived throughout the Island, and were mostly residents of the old English "Plantation" around Dublin. The Scots-Irish of Northern Ireland were recent transplants, and their militant Calvinism put them at odds not only with the Catholics but with the Anglicans as well. Their obstinate opposition to "popery" in all its forms, and their refusal to be ruled by a predominately Catholic government accounted for their resistance to union with the rest of Ireland.