How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology:

The sources of military doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the world wars

Preface Introduction Setting the Stage How Armies Learn The Hard Lesson of Insurgency The British and American Armies: Separated by a Common Language Malaya The Malayan Emergency, 1948-1951 The Empire Strikes Back, 1952-1957 Vietnam The Advisory Years, 1950-1964 The Fighting Years, 1965-1972 Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam Comparing British and American Counterinsurgency Learning Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife Bibliography Index

Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife/Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency (Book)

War disciplines militaries: it forces them to refine, and sometimes revise, their tactics, techniques and technologies, or risk defeat in battle. Yet there is no theory of how militaries improve in war. This article develops a theory of military adaptation, which it applies to an analysis of the British campaign in Helmand from 2006 to 2009. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources (military plans, post operation reports and interviews), it shows how British brigades adapted different ways of using combat power to try and defeat the Taliban from 2006–07, and how from late 2007, British brigades have adapted a new population-centric approach that has focused more on influence operations and non-kinetic activities.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01402390.2010.489712

Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009

............................................................................................2 TABLE OF CONTENTS..............................................................................3 Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................5 The Puzzle....................................................................................5 Evolving International Environment......................................................11 The Literature................................................................................19 Research Question and Analytical Framework........................................32 Methodology and Research Sources......................................................39 Expected Contribution.....................................................................41 Chapter 2: Setting the Stage.........................................................................43 The Genesis of NATO.....................................................................44 New Strategic Security Environment....................................................54 NATO’s Response to Transitioning Post-Communist Countries....................61 NATO’s Response to War in the Balkans................................................67 Chapter 3: September 2001-July 2003: NATO Absence........................................79 A Shattered State and Terrorist Sanctuary...............................................81 New Strategic Environment: the West Goes to War...................................85 NATO Starts to Adapt and Gets Involved in Afghanistan...........................105 Chapter 4: August 2003-September 2008: NATO Gets into the Game......................123 NATO Deploys and Expands.............................................................125 OEF Evolves and Expands...............................................................135 Fighting Heats Ups.........................................................................143 Chapter 5: October 2008-December 2014: NATO Surges.....................................173 The Conflict Escalates and NATO Changes Direction...............................174 ISAF’s Other Warfare......................................................................204 The Transition...............................................................................221 Chapter 6: Conclusion...............................................................................240 4 APPENDIX 1: ACRONYMS......................................................................252 APPENDIX 2: COMMAND STRUCTURES (OEF AND ISAF)............................256 APPENDIX 3: ISAF ROTATIONS AND COMMANDERS.................................267 APPENDIX 4: COALITION FORCE LEVELS.................................................268 APPENDIX 5: PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS..............................269 BIBLIOGRAPHY...................................................................................271

NATO and coalition warfare in Afghanistan, 2001-2014

This article assesses the state of the art in military innovation research. It begins with a description of the field's four major schools of thought, summarizing their central tenets, key points of similarity and differentiation, and major empirical cases. It then addresses priorities for future research, observing that while much has been learned about innovation originating among senior officers and civilian policy-makers, far less is known about innovation originating in field formations. Recent empirical studies hint at the importance of such bottom-up innovation but little progress has been made in achieving a conceptual understanding of the phenomenon. Therein lies the next major challenge, and opportunity, for the field.

Adam Grissom

Papers

The future of military innovation studies