by Concrete Hell- Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq (epub)
The capture of Yacef, the deaths of his bomb-makers, and the death of Ali la Pointe effectively destroyed the last organized elements of the FLN in the city of Algiers and ended the battle for the city. The battle was a clear victory for the French army over the insurgent forces of the FLN. One commentator at the time declared that the French victory was the Dien Bien Phu for the FLN. The French army, and the paras in particular, were the heroes of the Colon community and also of the French population in general. The political influence of the French army increased accordingly. The FLN, in contrast, was at a low point. The leadership had fled the country, the Muslim population was war-weary, and it was apparent that the military arm of the FLN was no match for the French army. However, though a short-term defeat, the battle for Algiers set the conditions for the long-term victory of the FLN. The battle focused French and international attention on the city and on French tactics used to defeat the FLN. As outsiders examined those tactics it became increasingly and alarmingly obvious that a cornerstone of French tactics had been harsh interrogation techniques; techniques many considered torture.
Torture
A major weakness of the French strategy was that it was based on the assumption that the primary ideological focus of the insurgents was Marxist communism. It did not account for an ideological motive based on indigenous nationalism and anti-colonialism. The ideological and spiritual nature of the conflict was internalized by many in the French army and became one justification for torture. They saw the enemy as communist and therefore as inherently evil. The struggle was one of ultimate national and ideological survival. This extremely ideological view of the war justified any tactical technique, regardless of its legality or morality, in order to achieve success. One French officer testified that young officers were told that the end justified any means and that France’s victory depended on torture. Many French army leaders believed that the extremely high stakes of strategic success or failure justified moral compromise at the tactical level.
Another justification for torture was that insurgent warfare was completely different from conventional warfare, and therefore required a different operating approach. In accordance with this view, the laws of conventional land warfare were considered inappropriate and counterproductive in the context of counterinsurgency warfare. The French also understood the primacy of HUMINT to successful counterinsurgency and they believed torture was an effective way to quickly get tactical intelligence information. This combination of perceptions led to the official condoning of torture.
A third justification for torture was that it was a controlled application of violence used for the limited purpose of quickly gaining tactical intelligence. Toward this end some French officers subjected themselves to electric shock to ensure they understood the level of violence they were applying to prisoners. What these officers did not understand was the huge difference between pain inflicted in a limited, controlled manner without psychological stress, and pain inflicted in an adversarial environment where the prisoner is totally under the control of the captor. They also failed to understand that once violence was permitted to be exercised beyond the standards of legitimately recognized moral and legal bounds, it became exponentially more difficult to control. In Algeria, officially condoned torture quickly escalated to prolonged abuse, which resulted in permanent physical and psychological damage, as well as death.
The official sanction of torture by French army leaders had numerous negative effects that were not envisioned because of the army leadership’s intensive focus on tactical success. The negative results of torture included a reduction in France’s ability to affect the conflict’s strategic center of gravity – the Muslim population; internal fragmentation of the French army officer corps; decreased moral authority of the army; the enabling of even greater violations of moral and legal authority; and providing a major information operations opportunity to the insurgency. The irony is that even though some tactical successes can be attributed to the use of torture, the French had numerous other effective HUMINT techniques and were far from reliant on torture for tactical success.
French doctrine and counterinsurgency theorists recognized at the time that the goal of the insurgents and the counterinsurgents, the center of gravity for both, was the support of the population. Despite this knowledge, many French commanders tolerated or encouraged widespread and often random torture. By one estimate, 40 percent of the adult male Muslim population of Algiers (approximately 55,000 individuals) were put through the French interrogation system and either tortured or threatened with torture between 1956 and 1957. This action likely irrevocably alienated the entire 600,000-strong Muslim population of the city from the French cause. The French did not understand the link between their tactical procedures and the strategic center of gravity.
Strategic versus Tactical Success
French military operations in the city of Algiers in 1957 were extremely successful. By the fall of 1957 they had completely demolished the FLN network in the city. The major leaders of the movement were dead or captured, and the ability of the FLN to execute bombings and assassinations in the city no longer existed. This was accomplished through a very effective two-fold process. First, an exceptional intelligence system which systematically identified known and suspected terrorists and their associates and supporters. Second, a very effective response system which was able to act immediately and decisively on intelligence information before the FLN was aware of the compromised information. French tactics were undeniably effective. One French leader, who opposed torture, nonetheless conceded that without the systematic use of torture by the paras the battle could not have been won. That may be true, but the larger point, generally ignored by the French army leadership, was that with the torture, the war could not be won. After success in Algiers, the French expanded many of the tactics of 10th Parachute Division throughout Algeria. The results were similar: effective combat operations against the FLN while at the same time alienating the bulk of the Muslim population because of the widespread use of torture. Thus, winning the battle meant losing the war.
In 1962, as a result of very complex political factors, many of which can be related to the questionable tactics employed by the French army, Algeria gained its independence through popular vote sanctioned by the government of France. The European population quickly quit the country and mostly migrated to France. Thus, in 1962, as Algeria became independent, much of the FLN’s political success could be attributed to the French victory in the city of Algiers. As intended by the FLN, the battle focused the world’s attention on the war in Algeria and highlighted the position of the FLN to communities beyond Algeria’s borders. It also forced the FLN political leadership to abandon Algeria as unsafe. This move ultimately enabled them to wage their political campaign free from the threat of arrest or attack. Likewise, the battle of Algiers convinced the leadership of the FLN that a military solution in Algeria could not be won and this caused them to refocus and reprioritize their political efforts which were ultimately effective. Thus, though a decisive tactical defeat for the FLN, by winning the battle of Algiers, the French army set the conditions for the ultimate political victory of the FLN and the independence of Algeria from France.
CHAPTER 7
THE LONG URBAN WAR
Operation Banner, 1969–2007
The experience of the French in Algeria and the French and Americans in Vietnam indicated that following World War II a shift had occurred in warfare. Nuclear weapons made global war unthinkable. Instead two limited forms of warfare replaced the total war that typified global conflict. One was limited regional conventional war. This is the type of war fought by United Nations forces in Korea and on numerous occasions between various Arab nations and Israel. The other type of limited wars were wars of national liberation or revolution. This was the type of war that the French experienced in Algeria, and was also a component of the conflict in Vietnam. The French experience in Algeria, fighting the Algerian nationalist movement, th
e FLN, was very close to a pure Maoist revolutionary war. Beginning in 1969, the British Army, who had significant experience dealing with nationalist movements in the decades of imperial contraction after World War II, was faced with the challenge of a very unique urban enemy who was in many ways similar to the urban insurgents of Algeria. From 1969 to 2007 the British Army and other security forces were committed to a war with a variety of Irish paramilitary groups opposing British policy in Northern Ireland. The war was primarily fought in Northern Ireland, but occasionally spilled into England, and British military bases in Europe. The primary enemy was the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the PIRA, and affiliated or like-minded groups, operating with the goal of forcing the British Army out of Northern Ireland, and unifying Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.
Ulster is the traditional northern province of Ireland. In 1922 six of Ulster’s nine counties were separated from the Irish Free State and formed into Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. This shift was to protect the minority Irish Protestant community from Irish Catholic dominance. The majority of the population within the six northern counties were Protestants who emigrated to Ireland at the invitation of British government in the 17th century. The geography of Northern Ireland is classic green rolling countryside of farms interspersed with small villages and stands of forest. Several moderate-size cities are the focus of economic and political activity: the two largest being Londonderry, also known as Derry, and Belfast. The Atlantic Ocean marks the northern boundary while the Irish Sea does the same for the northeast and east. To the south and west, Northern Ireland shares a 220-mile border with the Republic of Ireland. To the west this border runs along the edge of County Londonderry and County Tyrone; to the south the border touches from west to east County Fermanagh, County Tyrone, and County Armagh.
The opponents of British policy used terrorist and guerrilla tactics and operated primarily in and amongst the civilian population of Northern Ireland. In 1969, when “The Troubles” began, that population was 1.5 million. At that time approximately 35 percent of the population was Roman Catholic while the balance was Protestant, primarily of the Presbyterian and Church of England denominations. By the end of the conflict the Roman Catholic population had increased to slightly over 40 percent of the total. The conflict was not about religion, but the religious affiliations of the population generally defined the opposing political views of the population, which were the source of conflict.
The Roman Catholic population was politically defined by two primary issues. The most important issue to the Catholic population was equal civil rights and opportunity. A secondary but also important issue was the unification of Northern Ireland’s six counties with the predominantly Catholic Irish Republic, which bordered Northern Ireland to the south and west. However, republicanism, supporting the political unification of Ireland, did not automatically equate to unqualified support to violent paramilitary groups. The dominant political characteristic of the Protestant population of Northern Ireland was the desire to remain an independent country within the United Kingdom (UK). In this relationship, Northern Ireland’s parliament was responsible for the internal affairs of Northern Ireland, while the national government in London was responsible for the international policy of the UK. Thus the major political issue separating the two parts of the population was unification with the Republic, advocated by “Republicans,” and loyalty to the United Kingdom, advocated by “Loyalists.”
The bulk of Northern Ireland’s population was located in the two major urban areas of Northern Ireland. Londonderry, the second largest city, had a population of about 60,000 in 1969, which had increased to about 85,000 by 2008, and was about 75 percent Catholic. Belfast, the largest city in Northern Ireland, had a population of 295,000 in 1969 and had decreased in population to 268,000 by 2008. The decrease in population was primarily due to flight of the middle class from the inner city to new suburban developments, and was not related directly to the violence. These two large urban areas represented about 20 percent of the country’s population, but were the scene of the largest proportion of the violence and military operations.
A Complex Situation
Operations by the British Army and allied security forces in Northern Ireland were greatly complicated by the multiple groups opposing British policy. The obvious and the primary enemy of the British was the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). However, at various times other Irish republican groups were also active but not associated with the PIRA. These included the original Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), and the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA). The PIRA was formed in 1970 when it broke away as an organization from the IRA. The split was due to strategy differences within the IRA. The original IRA wanted to pursue the goal of a united Ireland primarily through socialist political action. The IRA members who formed the PIRA favored a strategy based on violent action to drive the British government out of Northern Ireland and force the Protestant population to submit to reunification as the price of peace. The INLA was much smaller and less capable than the PIRA and were focused on a radical Marxist political agenda as well as violence. The RIRA broke from the PIRA over the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which ultimately led to the end of British military operations in Northern Ireland. The small band of die-hard fighters in the RIRA continued to prosecute violence with diminishing capability after the Good Friday agreement into the 21st century.
Map 7.1 British Army Deployment and Major Events, Northern Ireland, 1969–2007
In addition to the PIRA and similar republican groups seeking reunification with Ireland, there were also paramilitary groups who used violence to preserve the status quo. These groups included the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). The political objective of these groups was to preserve Protestant political dominance in Northern Ireland. They opposed any concessions or compromise with the Catholic community and the PIRA in particular, as a step toward ending Protestant political control and ultimately toward unification. In that their violence was not state-sanctioned and in many cases sought to thwart British policy, they were an enemy of the British security forces. However, because they did not generally target the army or security forces, and they were overall somewhat less violent than the PIRA, they were never the primary objective of military operations.
The British Army was the largest organization among several that the British government employed in its war with the PIRA. At its height in the 1970s the on-the-ground strength of the British military in Northern Ireland was approximately 28,000 troops. The army sustained a troop strength greater than 11,000 for most of the 38 years of the conflict. In the mid-1980s the army was organized into three brigades: the 8th Brigade was responsible for the western part of the country including the city of Londonderry; the 3rd Brigade was responsible for the rural area on the southern border in Armagh County; and the 39th Brigade was responsible for the northeast part of the country including the city of Belfast. The three brigades were commanded by Headquarters British Army Northern Ireland, located in the city of Lisburn, just outside of Belfast.
All units of the British Army were subject to operations in Northern Ireland, including heavy armored units and field artillery. The non-infantry units reorganized and retrained as infantry for duty in the country. Units that operated in Northern Ireland were deployed in the country in one of three statuses: roulement units which did short four-to six-month rotations into the country; deployed units which were stationed in the country for two year-long tours; and garrison units which were permanently stationed in the country. Roulement was the British Army term for short four- to six-month tours that allowed the army to quickly adjust the number of battalions in the country according to conditions. Units deployed in the country deployed with their entire compliment of soldiers as well as the soldiers’ families. There were also battalions on alert who could reinforce the forces already in the country within hours if an emergency developed
. An important unique army establishment was the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). This force consisted of regular army infantry battalions, commanded by regular British Army officers, but manned by part-time local Irish army reservists. The eight battalions of the UDR were distributed throughout the country and operated as battalions under the command of the regular British Army brigades.
In addition to the army, the other major security force in the country was the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the country’s police force. When the conflict started, the force consisted of 7,000 personnel, which was a relatively small police force for the size of the population. Only about 3,000 members made up the full-time RUC, the rest being reservists. At the beginning of the conflict the RUC had three major components. The regular uniformed RUC did the bulk of the general policing and were the first responders to any type of riot, disturbance, or attack. The RUC Special Branch was the non-uniformed part of the force, responsible for investigations and police intelligence. Finally, in the early years of the conflict there existed a police reserve force known as the “B Specials.” This force was on call to augment the uniformed RUC in emergency situations. The B Specials were disbanded early in the conflict because of their lack of discipline. By the mid-1980s the RUC’s full-time strength was over 8,000 and it had another 2,000 officers in a reserve force.
