Word: britishism
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...Something Rotten Another key to learning is a readiness to confront past mistakes. In January, a British public inquiry into the Iraq conflict heard evidence from former Prime Minister Tony Blair. "In the end, [the war] was divisive, and I'm sorry about that," said Blair. But he continued: "If I'm asked if we're safer and more secure, I believe indeed that we are." (See pictures of the Bush-Blair friendship...
...there's something to be said for the American way. In 2008, after thinly spread British forces had effectively lost control of Basra to Shi'ite militias, the Iraqi army turned to the U.S. for support to drive out the insurgents. The British, though nominally heading up the coalition forces in the region, played a subsidiary role and, according to some reports, only found out about the operation once it was under...
...British soldiers can certainly be overconfident. But John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, believes the real roots of British humiliations in Iraq lie in London. "If the politicians back home are not completely committed to this thing, if they have not leveled with the people on the likely costs of the war, then you're putting an unsupportable burden on the army in the field in a counterinsurgency campaign," says Nagl. "And so as you look at explanations as to why the British army performed better in Malaya than Iraq, one of the questions...
...Nagl, a former U.S. Army officer, credits Britons with providing valuable expertise to their American colleagues in Iraq. "Much of what the American Army ended up doing in Iraq under General Petraeus was as a result of lessons learned largely from the British," says Nagl, who helped Petraeus revise the U.S. counterinsurgency manual. "My own evaluation of how the British army adapted to the demands of counter-insurgency in Malaya had some role in influencing how we thought about the importance of building an adaptive learning organization." (Read a TIME cover story on Petraeus...
...Indeed, once British forces acknowledged the flaws in their Iraqi strategy they successfully recalibrated their approach and made substantial strides in the stabilization of Basra before their final withdrawal last year. General Salmon, who took command of coalition forces in 2008, says he reinterpreted his role to be a "catalyst and a convening authority" for Basrawis and the different agencies working in the area, most of them outside his command. "As a military commander, not owning quite a lot of the other organizations and lines of development on the social, economic, political and development front, how do you then start...