LONDON Ñ Britain is drafting a strategic doctrine on how to combat
Islamic insurgency.
Officials said Britain's Ministry of Defence is leading an effort to
draft
a new strategic doctrine that will distinguish counter-insurgency operations
from other military campaigns. They said the new concepts will be introduced
in Britain's forthcoming Strategic Defence Review.
The concept will stress precision weapons and intelligence as well as
command and control. Officials said the tactics used by British and U.S.
troops in Afghanistan will be cited in the strategic review, expected to be
published during the third quarter of this year.
British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the war against Al Qaida and
its allies is not the same as previous military campaigns. Hoon said the
Islamic insurgency network cannot be destroyed by a single military blow.
"The phasing, scale and tempo may all differ from those of operations
against a conventional opponent," Hoon said. "And the success of such
operations will not be measured by the number of enemy dead. It will be
measured more
by our ability to deter terrorists and to disrupt the activities which
support them."
The new concept on counter-insurgency, officials said, includes the use
of military and non-military means. This means the use of police, the
banking system and export controls.
Moreover, the officials said, counter-insurgency campaigns would require
a much smaller military force than conventional campaigns. Such a force,
however, would require more frequent and longer-term use than during a
traditional war.
Hoon said the Afghan war demonstrated the capability of Britain and the
United States to quickly identify and attack enemy targets. He also referred
to
the unsuccessful effort of British and U.S. forces to locate Scud-class
missiles being fired toward Israel in the 1991 Gulf war.
"Compare the frustrations of Gulf war Scud-hunting a decade ago with
recent U.S. successes in Afghanistan in coordinating the product of aerial
reconnaissance in real time so that decisions could be taken in Tampa and
targets attacked with precision munitions in a matter of minutes," Hoon
said, referring to the headquarters of U.S. Central Command.
U.S. officials agreed and said the lessons of the Afghan war could
prompt changes in the deployment of allied forces in any military campaign
against Iraq. They said the number of U.S. soldiers required for the
overthrow of President Saddam Hussein would be far less than the 550,000
troops Washington sent in 1991.
"You know, just a little footnote in history," U.S. Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said. "I believe the record will show that nine-tenths of
everything that was taken over to the Middle East to fight the war of Desert
Storm a decade or so ago was brought back unused. It suggests that it's
hard to know precisely what you think might be necessary, and you want to be
safe, so you have more than you think you're going to need."
