Since the end of the Cold War, Western military organizations have been facing the challenge of conducting increasingly complex stabilisation missions in more often than not opaque local contexts. This has led some observers to predict that military organizations with colonial experience, such as the British Army would be better prepared for the conduct of contemporary expeditionary warfare. My paper tries to explore such claims: to what extent does the presumed availability of historical experience influence the development and implementation of contemporary military strategy within the context of expeditionary warfare?
The resulting analysis proceeds in three steps. First, the paper provides an overview of formal and informal historical lessons that the British Army has internally discussed with reference to contemporary ISAF operations in Afghanistan. Presenting the results of a qualitative analysis of a variety of sources, including doctrine manuals, training material, research papers compiled by staff officer candidates, as well as personal interviews conducted by the author, this section identifies the primary sources of historical knowledge and resulting normative recommendations and conclusions.
Second, the paper connects this description to the actual conduct of operations by the British Army in Afghanistan. Consequently, by analysing the processes through which historical knowledge has been institutionally diffused among field officers in Afghanistan, this section looks at the ways through which debates based on the analysis of historical experience may or may not have influenced operational decisions on the ground.
Third, the paper reaches a general conclusion with regards to the empirical significance of debates of historical lessons for contemporary decision-making within the British Army in Afghanistan. Based on this conclusion, the paper suggests some generalizable findings and recommendations with regards to the potential utility and limits of relying on lessons gleaned from historical knowledge for the operational use in contemporary environments.
