Getting it Wrong: The Crucial Mistakes Made in the Early Stages of the British Army's Deployment to Northern Ireland (August 1969 to March 1972)

This article considers the way in which a military force committed to a ‘stabilization’ operation can, through its own mistakes, actually make that mission much more difficult than it need be. The British Army was committed to a peace support task in Northern Ireland in 1969 but the errors made by those within its ranks went a long way in moving that task away from one of peace support to one of countering a fully fledged insurgency. Through an examination of the clumsiness displayed by the British Army in Northern Ireland in its initial period of deployment (August 1969 – March 1972) several parallels can be drawn with events recently in Iraq. What is more, fundamental lessons can be learnt from the British experience. These lessons still have relevance today as the West continues to commit forces to interventionary operations; forces which are making the same mistakes the British Army did nearly 40 years ago.