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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2020
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).
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32 TNA WO 208/4385/61A, ‘1 King's Own General Report (1 August 1960–3 May 1960)’, 10 July 1961; TNA WO 208/4385/41A, ‘Memorandum from Director of Military Intelligence to Lt. Col. W. A. Robinson’, 17 April 1961.
33 The first British Special Branch units were formed in the late nineteenth century in response to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They evolved to play a major role in colonial policing across the British Empire.
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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.
39 TNA WO 208/4385/47A, ‘Report of Raid on Camp of 1st Mobile BN ALNK on April 7’, 16 April 1961; TNA WO 208/4385/67A, ‘Despatch No: Personal 13 from Commissioner SC to Iain Maclood, MP’, 19 July 1961.
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44 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; TNA WO 208/4386/75A, ‘MILO Report No. 18’, 27 August–10 September 1961.
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