Peacekeeping

As part of my Officer training I get to do a great deal of simulated exercises of platoon attacks. One of these exercises involved a scenario where I was ordered to take a trench held by rebels. We were there to provide peacekeeping. The rebels were basically poorly armed and quite demoralised civilians with shotguns and no other supplies.

My plan to tackle this led me to want to first negotiate with the rebels. Make them understand that for them it will be much better if they lay their arms down and go home. They will not be killed, which they would for sure if I assaulted their position (since I had access to artillery, anti-tank weapons and machine guns). If they gave up peacefully it would also mean that I did not put my men and equipment at risk. To paraphrase Sun Tzu, the highest form of military excellence is winning a conflict while leaving everything intact and everyone alive.

I got more or less laughed at by the instructors. It seemed quite strange that they would do that. Surely winning the hearts and minds through showing mercy and fairness is the key in a peacekeeping operation or the kind of conflicts the British Army is involved in now.

An illustrative example of this is the Second World War. During the later stages the Germans army personal were desperately trying to fight their way to the Western front. This is because on the Eastern front the Red Army showed no mercy. Their goal was total destruction of all Nazi equipment and men. The Americans and the British were not like that though, so they found it much easier to take German position because the Germans knew that they were save as POWs.

British Army instructors need to rethink their understanding of modern warfare.