hnological aids put into key locations. This has important implications for training, force structuring, and the timing of offensive operations in the military campaign plan. Counterinsurgency campaigns are often protracted affairs; establishing secure operating bases, developing lines of communication, maintaining public support, and recruiting local militia are carried out to enable the security forces to sustain a long operation. Hence the value of rear operations to any overall campaign plan.
Over and above the integration of deep, close, and rear operations, there is a discrete and undefined balance among reassurance, the application of deterrence, and military action. Applying a firm and clear political and military deterrent to insurgents and their activities helps to reassure public opinion and gain local support for government policies and plans; military action, when properly focused and directed, can remove hard-core activists and reduce the ability of insurgents to act coherently.
Rules of Engagement
Within the application of any military doctrine, it is vital for a commander to know what law applies in a given set of circumstances and what it is that triggers any changes in the law to be applied. The answer to this type of question relates directly to the sort of rules of engagement that would be issued by a government.
In the UK, government ministers provide political direction and guidance to commanders by means of rules of engagement which govern the application of force. It follows that such rules which are approved by ministers may be changed only by ministerial authority. Commanders will in turn wish to issue rules of engagement to their subordinates. These rules of engagement will be cast within the discretion allowed by the rules approved by ministers.
Rules of engagement define the degree and manner in which force may be applied and are designed to ensure that such application of force is carefully controlled; rules of engagement are not intended to be used to assign specific tasks or as a means of issuing tactical instructions. In passing orders to subordinates a commander at any level must always act within the rules of engagement received but is not bound to use the full extent of the permission granted.
Rules of engagement are usually written in the form of prohibitions or permissions. When they are issued as prohibitions, they will be orders to commanders not to take certain designated actions; when they are issued as permissions, they will be guidance to commanders that certain designated actions may be taken if the commanders judge them necessary or desirable in order to carry out their assigned tasks. The rules of engagement are thus issued as a set of parameters to inform commanders of the limits of constraint imposed or of freedom permitted when carrying out their assigned tasks. The conformity of any action with any set of rules of engagement in force does not guarantee its lawfulness, and it remains the commander's responsibility to use only that degree of force which is necessary, reasonable, and lawful in the circumstances.
There is a clear relationship between force applied in war and force applied during a counterinsurgency campaign. The doctrine of maneuver warfare also applies equally to both types of warfare. In both situations force has to be applied selectively and in a controlled and measured fashion. Physical destruction is a means and not an end in a counterinsurgency campaign; the doctrine seeks to contribute to creating the conditions for political success with less force, more quickly, and with reduced costs. The theory of maneuver warfare shares a common ancestry with some of the most successful insurgent strategies. The military planner who is fully educated into this doctrine is more likely to cope with the real and inherent complexities of a counterinsurgency campaign than those who remain unaware of the doctrine.
1. The three main military operations that apply to the civilian environment are placed under the umbrella title "Military Aid to the Civil Authorities" (MAC