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Detecting the need for change: How the British Army adapted to warfare on the Western Front and in the Southern Cameroons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2020

Michael A. Hunzeker*
Affiliation:
Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States
Kristen A. Harkness
Affiliation:
School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, Scotland, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

This article addresses a gap in the literature on military adaptation by focusing on the first step in the adaptive process: detecting failure. We argue that institutionalised feedback loops are a critical mechanism for facilitating detection. Feedback loops are most effective when they filter information and distribute lessons learned to senior tactical commanders. In turn, effective filtration depends on incorporating frontline soldiers and specialists into intelligence cells while creating a protected space for dissent. We evaluate our theory against both irregular and conventional wars fought by the British Army: the counterinsurgency campaign in the Southern Cameroons (1960–1) as well as the evolution of British assault tactics on the Western Front of the First World War (1914–18).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the British International Studies Association

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38 TNA WO 208/4385/47A, ‘Report of Raid on Camp of 1st Mobile BN ALNK on Apr. 7’, 16 April 1961; TNA WO 208/4385/67A, ‘Despatch No: Personal 13 from Commissioner SC to Iain Maclood, MP’, 19 July 1961; TNA WO 208/4386/69A, ‘Perintrep 4/61’, 16 July–4 August 1961.

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