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LessonsLearned from British Intelligence andthe FightAgainst the IrishRepublican Army (IRA)
Marangione-WorkingDraft
Counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare is a tactic that has a long history. There are many historic
examples of insurgents armed with various weaponry who sustained long and short conflicts
against state actors. The United States Revolutionary War was a war of counterinsurgency. Many
of the battles were fought by colonial patriots with little to no military experience. They defeated
British(U.K) forces partly by retreating into the countryside whenever unable to hold ground,
and by harassing British forces and complicating their efforts.
Most counter insurgents utilize elusive tactics, harassment techniques, camouflaging of
combatants among civilian populations and within complex terrain, and a strategy of patience
rather than pursuit of classic battlefield victory. The Battle of King’s Mountain was fought and
won by a group of “mountain men”. The Overmountain Men of 1780 gathered from the hills and
valleys of western North Carolina, including today’s northeast Tennessee, and from the Holston
Valley of southwest Virginia to surprise an invading British Army. This collection of Southern,
backcountry militiamen crossed the Appalachian mountain barrier and tracked down a
detachment of the British Army under the command of General Lord Charles Cornwallis. After
an all-night ride through a cold, rainy October darkness, these Patriot militiamen surrounded the
British Army atop a small rise near the North Carolina-South Carolina line. In the battle that
followed, this determined host of volunteer militiaman won a decisive victory that changed the
course of the Revolutionary War.

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For the 21st century military environment, the ability to wage COIN warfare is paramount for
national security. Successful COIN campaigning will often require a significant shift in
perspective to grasp the challenges, shift perspective and select the right tools for neutralization.
The approach to intelligence also requires a shift for mission success. The British experience in
Northern Ireland is useful in intelligence approaches to counterinsurgency warfare. While the
British had some experience in COIN warfare, experts felt that in Northern Ireland poor
intelligence operations hampered British success. While there were other insurgent groups
operating in Northern Ireland, it was the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) that was
considered the most lethal. They had been characterized as sophisticated and intelligence-lead
because of PIRA’s capabilities and operational precision. PIRA set itself up as a defacto
authority that challenged and defied British rule in Northern Ireland, the mainland and later UK
interests in Europe. One of PIRA’s most lethal attacks became known as Bloody Friday when
they detonated 40 bombs in the span of 45 minutes.
Initially, the early challenges to combating COIN in Northern Ireland were a lack of timely
intelligence and the absence of a central organization to direct and coordinate intelligence
collection. Analyses of the Northern Ireland conflict highlight the inability of intelligence to
deliver strategic and tactical insight and the inability to provide context for the PIRA’s actions.
Challenges also included:
 Misunderstandings by policy makers to understand the root cause of the violence
 Unrealistic expectations on the length of time needed to resolve conflicts
 Tactical intelligence shortfalls that resulted in actions that were beneficial to the PIRA
rather than undermining them
 Failure to appreciate how covert offensive actions would play out on the world stage

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 PIRA members were growing at a faster rate than the intelligence network
 Intelligence agencies gathered information independently
 Security forces, to include police, did not have support from the local population
The British adapted their techniques by studying the effects of their actions, and creating lessons
learned. Importantly, they realized that success would not come from battles won. These tactics
paid off in increasingly effective linkage of security activities, which eventually resulted in the
IRA’s effectiveness.
Multiple organizations were involved in Northern Ireland to include intelligence units, British
military, law enforcement and national agencies. Unfortunately, no focus attempt was made to
interconnect the units into a coordinated intelligence effort which had operational costs. Poor
integration meant specialized teams were not always used well. Failure to share information
meant security forces were respond to incidents without all the necessary information. For
instance, not sharing new intelligence about IRA bomb designs with explosive ordinance
disposal (EOD experts almost resulted in more EOD casualties.
There were also parallel intelligence efforts in separate organizations. For example, army officers
developed their own intelligence sources rather than rely on the police who were permanent
residents because the police had lost credibility with their service populations.. Additionally, the
classifying and need to know security system further complicated sharing and coordination of
information. This parallel stream also resulted in sources providing or selling the same piece of
information to many intelligence gatherers so that when agencies did share data multiple reports
could be interpreted as independent confirmations rather than multiple agencies with the same
source.

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“Amateurish Intelligence Gathering”
Even in the 1970’s, British Intelligence realized that special intelligence gathering apparatus’s
would be ineffective in COIN operations because the bulk of COIN information can be gathered
through overt open sources. Street by street and family by family analysis made it possible to
build up a knowledge base and context of terrorist activities. The Four Square Laundry
Operation provided laundry services at a reasonable price and was a cover for gathering
information. While a female agent collected the laundry, another agent drove the van and
observed the neighborhood. As reported by Bradley Bramford in his report The Role and
Effectiveness of intelligence in Northern Ireland,
….if two men’s shirts of two different sizes came from a household where there was only
supposed to be a young family, intelligence officers concluded that somebody besides the
husband was staying there. …The scientific tests would show traces of lead, powder or
explosives on clothing or a spot of gun oil on bed linen, an indicator that a weapon had been
under a pillow at a certain address.
These covers, while eventually ousted, did provide useful information.Additional cover
operations were massage parlors.
Agents and Informers
Throughout the conflict, intelligence forces were successful in recruiting and placing young
Catholic males in the PIRA but because this was a dangerous and potentially lethal job, security
forces had to contend with legal and moral acceptability. One of the advantages is the
psychological impact it has on non-state actors who must then turn their attention and energies
inwards at collective introspections.

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Agency rivalries between the RUC, the military and M15, resulted in coordination problems,lack
of centralized direction and stovepipes. One of the first improvements was the collecting of
intelligence into one central location where the army and police determined how to use it.
Changes that were made
 Centralization of command and control of security activates
 Developedtask forces that brought together tactical information from a variety of
intelligence forces
 Collecting Low grade intelligence- Every Soldier is a collector
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Bamford, Bradley W.C. "The Role and Effectiveness of Intelligence in Northern Ireland."
Intelligence and National Security 20 (2005): 581-607. Web. 19 July 2016.
Jackson, Brian A. “Counterinsurgency Intelligence in a Long War; The British Experience in
Northern Ireland.” Military Review 74–85. Web. 11 July 2016.