Modern Counter-Insurgency

Ian Beckett, Ian Beckett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351917025
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Militär- & Seefahrtsgeschichte

Insurgency has been the most prevalent form of conflict in the modern world since the end of the Second World War. Accordingly, it has posed a major challenge to conventional armed forces, all of whom have had to evolve counter-insurgency methods in response. The volume brings together classic articles on the counter-insurgency experience since 1945.

Part I
The British Experience

[1]
British Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign, 1945–47

DAVID A. CHARTERS

… the Palestine Police had within its C.I.D. the finest intelligence system in the Middle East.¹

You never have enough intelligence, but we had virtually none.²

These two quotations offer an intriguing historical conundrum. They both refer to the same subject, in the same place, at the same time. The authors of the quotes speak with the authority of first-hand experience; they were there. Yet clearly they cannot both be right. It is the search for an explanation of this obvious dichotomy that informs the purpose of this study: to illuminate the operations of the British intelligence services in Palestine, 1945–47, and to determine the extent to which those operations contributed to the outcome of the British counter-insurgency campaign. That campaign ended in defeat, with the British withdrawal in 1948.

The aphorism that ‘defeat is an orphan’ aptly describes the historio¬graphy of the Palestine campaign. Although the political and diplomatic aspects have been studied at length,³ the counter-insurgency campaign has been all but ignored by military historians and strategic analysts.⁴ When the intelligence dimensions of the campaign are examined, the paucity of the literature becomes even more pronounced.⁵

THE INSURGENCY AND THE BRITISH RESPONSE

Three insurgent groups mounted the violent challenge to British rule in Palestine after 1945. The Palmach, a rural-based guerrilla army of some 1,500–3,000 members, carried out most of the actions attributed to its parent organization the Haganah, the military arm of the Jewish Agency. The other two groups, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Lochmei Heruth Israel (often referred to by the British as the ‘Stern Gang’), were smaller, organized respectively as a partisan resistance army and a cell-structured secret society, and based predominantly in the major cities. Their indi¬vidual strategies differed considerably. Collectively, however, their attacks on the government structure, the security forces, and the economy (particularly the railways and the oil industry), and their propaganda confronted the British with a ‘two-front’ war: a strategic political and psychological battle for legitimacy – the right to rule, and a tactical paramilitary battle for control – the ability to rule.⁶ By August 1947, Britain had lost both battles, and shortly thereafter decided to withdraw from Palestine.

The British had tried to contain the insurgent challenge on both ‘fronts’. At the strategic level, the British directed their diplomatic efforts, in conjunction with the United States, toward bringing the Jews and Arabs to a peaceful resolution of the Palestine dispute, in a manner that would also further Britain’s long-term interests in the region (access to oil, bases, and the Suez Canal). When diplomacy failed to resolve Britain’s conflicting objectives, Britain turned the problem over to the United Nations. But Britain rejected the UN’s solution (partition) which was recommended in a special committee report at the end of August 1947. Plagued by rising violence in Palestine and an economic crisis at home, the government opted to abandon the Palestine Mandate. This fruitless search for a solution meant that, during the 1945–47 period, the British government effectively had no policy by which to guide the administration of Palestine.

This being the case, the British fought on the second front – the tactical battle for control – without benefit of a strategy. Upon taking up his appointment in November 1945 the High Commissioner was told that his mission was ‘to keep the peace in Palestine’.⁷ That was hardly a mandate to defeat the insurgents; indeed, it meant just ‘holding the ring’ until the government produced a policy or a solution. Consequently, the security forces operated largely in a ‘reactive’ mode, leaving the initiative in the hands of the insurgents.

Viewing the period in its entirety it is possible to discern four distinct operational phases, which reflected changes in the tactical situation on the ground and in operational policy. To the extent that they also reflected shifts in the political/strategic debate in London, the changes fell short of presenting a strategically integrated campaign. In fact, by March 1947, security force operations were completely out of step with the British government’s diplomatic initiatives. More important, British operations, which included hundreds of large- and small-scale searches, raids and patrols, as well as covert special operations and the imposition of martial law, were unable to break up the insurgent organizations, and thus could not prevent the escalation of violence and the erosion of public security. By August 1947 the security forces had lost the tactical battle for control of Palestine.⁸

The British defeat in Palestine can be attributed to a variety of factors; I have argued in my book (see note 4) that Britain’s economic crisis and its changing imperial/strategic position provide the essential backdrop to the decision-making about Palestine. It is in this context that Britain’s inability to control events in Palestine emerges as an important factor. That loss of control, too, can be traced to more than one cause, the undoubted skill of the insurgents and the absence of an appropriate counter-insurgency doctrine being two of the more important. But students of counter-insurgency have long since come to emphasize the importance of intelligence in defeating the insurgents and winning the battle for control.⁹

INTELLIGENCE PRODUCERS

The Palestine Police Force was the principal intelligence producer, although the task involved only a fraction of force’s 20,000 regular and auxiliary personnel. The Political Branch of the Criminal Investi¬gation Department (CID), the branch responsible for counter-insurgency intelligence, consisted in 1946 of only 80 policemen and clerical staff out of a total CID establishment of 627. It consisted of three operational ‘desks’ (Jewish, Arab and European Affairs) and a records branch. The Jewish Affairs section, headed by Assistant Superintendent Richard Catling (and from 1946 John Briance), was itself divided into three sub-sections: political intelligence, terrorism and illegal immigration. Most of the branch was concentrated at CID headquarters in Jerusalem, but there were detachments with the CID in each of the force’s six districts.¹⁰

Of comparable importance was the Defence Security Office (DSO), the local ‘station’ of the British Security Service (MI5). Charged with ‘Defence of the Realm’ against espionage, subversion and sabotage, both in Britain and in its territories overseas, MI5 had developed the Defence Security Offices through the 1930s into an effective system of local security intelligence collection and assessment in those territories. After the Second World War, demarcation agreements with the Secret Intelli¬gence Service (MI6) allowed the Security Service to operate without restriction in British or former British territories.¹¹ There, in 1945–46, the Defence Security Officer Sir Gyles Isham directed a staff of eight to ten intelligence officers at headquarters in Jerusalem, with four to six Area Security Officers stationed in the major urban areas: Jerusalem, Jaffa (including Tel Aviv), Haifa, Gaza and Nablus. The DSO’s task was counter-intelligence; in this regard it was responsible for the security of British personnel, installations and information. It was also to maintain a close liaison with both police and army intelligence. It reported to the E2 (Overseas) Division of MI5 in London.¹²

The British Army had its own intelligence staffs in Palestine, but they were not normally involved in collecting intelligence independently; instead, the army relied on the Palestine Police to provide tactical intelli¬gence on the insurgents. The head of GSI, the army headquarters intelligence branch, was Lieutenant-Colonel The Hon. Martin Charteris.¹³ Army formations and units, from division to battalion level, maintained their own small intelligence staffs. The Army’s Field Security Sections, part of the Intelligence Corps, played a more active, visible security intelligence role. Their responsibilities included: controlling civilian access to military formations and installations, security of materials and information, vetting and dismissal of civilian labour, civil-military relations and monitoring of rumours and anti-British propaganda, and gathering useful background information or intelligence for the local brigade or divisional headquarters. Field Security often conducted operational or special intelligence tasks. Field Security personnel were also supposed to serve as liaison between commanders and staffs in formations and GSI, Defence Security Office, civil and military police. A section normally consisted of a captain and at least 13 other ranks and was virtually self-contained formation. In Palestine, five sections were operating at any one time. Three had permanent geographical mandates correspond¬ing approximately to the military sectors, while the other two were integral to the army divisions and moved with them.¹⁴ The Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police, though not an intelligence organiza¬tion, bears mentioning since within the context of investigating criminal offences within Army installations and units the branch conducted some intelligence work related to internal security, such as investigation of weapons thefts.¹⁵

Of the myriad of ‘theatre-level’ intelligence organizations which developed in the Middle East during the war, only one, the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) appears to have been directly involved in the counter-insurgency campaign in Palestine. Based at Fayid in the Canal Zone, the CSDIC had been established in 1940 for in-depth interrogation of prisoners and spies captured in the theatre. In February 1946 Army headquarters in Palestine gave permission for GSI and the CID to use the centre jointly for interrogation of captured insurgents. It was a small unit, at least in the post-war period: in August 1947, its establishment was only three officers, and ten other ranks. In 1946, its commander was Major W.B. Sedgwick.¹⁶

On paper, the British intelligence community in Palestine might appear to have comprised an impressive array of forces. In practice, it was beset by many problems which impeded its efficiency. Before dealing with those, however, let us briefly examine the intelligence process itself.

INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTION

While no ‘model’ ever fits reality perfectly, it is widely accepted that the ‘intelligence cycl...