conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about History, British, Professor with the genre: New, Used & Rental Textstorys, Humanities?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'British Counterinsurgency'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for the story.. Start with the sentence 'British Counterinsurgency
  The Argylls were not, of course, the only troops involved in such conduct'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: British Counterinsurgency
  The Argylls were not, of course, the only troops involved in such conduct. Inevitably, the Parachute Regiment worked along similar lines. One senior Para officer subsequently complained of the squeamishness of 'those in high places' who did not approve of what he described as 'vigorous interrogation'. 'Word came down', he recalled, 'that if any more prisoners were "shot trying to escape" or "fell downstairs", there would be a full investigation and dire consequences.'
  Meanwhile, the withdrawal from the hinterland had been accomplished. Ostensibly the British handed over to the Federal rulers and the SAA but, in fact, as they withdrew the NLF came out into the open and took control. The Radfan guerrillas finally triumphed, occupying Dhala on 20 June and imprisoning the Amir in his own jail. After Dhala they took Lower Yafai, Audhali, Lahej, Dathina and Fahdli. By the end of August they controlled 12 of the Federal states and in early September they established a revolutionary government in Zinjibar, just 25 miles from Aden. The only serious fighting to accompany this astonishing success was between the NLF and FLOSY, and this was decided when the South Arabian Army finally declared their support for the NLF.
  With fighting between the rival guerrilla forces continuing, the British withdrew into Aden and then began to abandon the colony district by district. On 13 September troops pulled out of Little Aden, and on 24 September Sheikh Othman was abandoned as the British retreated towards Steamer Point. Only on 13 November did the High Commissioner acknowledge the NLF government, finally bringing attacks on British troops to an end. The last British personnel were helicoptered out on 29 November. The struggle to free South Yemen from British rule was over.
  British defeat was complete, a humiliating withdrawal, leaving the country in the hands of self-proclaimed Marxist revolutionaries who promptly proclaimed the People's Republic of South Yemen. The conflict had cost the lives of 92 British soldiers with another 500 wounded. Subsequently most commentators have put the responsibility for the debacle on the Labour government. It has been argued that the security forces could have put down the insurgency without too much difficulty if only they had been freed from political restraints and the government had made clear its determination to support the Federation until victory was complete. What this neglects is the complete absence of any popular support for the Federation either in Aden or in the interior. The Federation was a transparent attempt to make use of the traditional rulers of the hinterland states in order to defeat the forces of Arab nationalism, but unfortunately these men themselves were completely dependent on British support. They were not allies, they were puppets. In these circumstances, the British, using the counterinsurgency methods they had developed in Malaya and Cyprus, might well have been able to contain the insurgency but only for a while. Even this would have involved an open-ended commitment and the certainty that the conflict would intensify over time. The continuing cost and casualties, together with the international political embarrassment of sustaining a puppet regime, was too much. As the Labour Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healy, subsequently observed: 'The cost of trying to stay in Aden... was out of all proportion to the gain.' This, combined with the strategic reassessment forced by Britain's economic problems, made defeat inevitable. From this point of view, claims that the army could have defeated the rebels, kept the sultans in power and saved the Federation are simplistic. Guy Arnold supplies what is the best summing up of the experience:
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: From August 1969 when the Army took over the policing of the Republican areas of Northern Ireland, until November 1972, the people of Republican districts were effectively left to conduct the business of civil government on their own. After much pressing by Brigadier F.E. Kitson, at that time commanding the Army Brigade in Belfast, a single civil servant was appointed in September 1971 as civil representative to the Army in Belfast.
  The Catholics, Evelegh recognised, considered themselves Irish rather than British and it followed from this that 'they would only acquiesce in British rule if they were offered something in return that would reconcile them to a situation which contradicted their natural patriotism'. The reality was that in his battalion area of the Upper Falls with perhaps 70 000 inhabitants 'there was not a single generally available municipal playing area... with nothing else to amuse them, the bored and unemployed youth of the area found their recreation in throwing stones at soldiers'. Contact between the government and the Catholic communities was minimal: as late as January 1975 the points of contact between the government and the 250 000 Catholic inhabitants of West Belfast amounted to six sub-post offices, two Police Stations, four Civil Affairs Advisers (two in an army fort and two in the Springfield Road Police Station), a public cleansing yard in the Whiterock Road, a welfare office in the Iveagh School, and a Housing Executive Repair Yard in Turf Lodge. It is therefore not surprising that the Republican citizens of West Belfast felt out of contact with civil government which, it sensed, had no interest in them, if this was the sum total of its representation in their areas.
  The most important development was the use of foot patrols to gather 'contact-information', to build up a detailed, comprehensive profile of their area of operations and its inhabitants. This was achieved by the regular stopping and questioning of the population, vehicle checks and house searches. The mass of information gathered was collated by the army's own intelligence officers in an attempt to uncover the Provisional IRA's organisation, membership and operations. The scale of the effort is shown by the number of house searches carried out which increased from 17 000 in 1971 to 36 000 in 1972 and 75 000 in 1973 and 1974. Between 1971 and 1976 some 250 000 house searches were carried out. On any given day up to 5000 vehicles would be stopped, the driver questioned and the vehicle searched. According to one account between 1 April 1973 and 1 April 1974 an astonishing four million vehicles were stopped and searched.
  Whatever intelligence was gathered, whatever arms and explosives were found, however many arrests were made, has to be balanced against the conflict and antagonism that such methods generated. Street questioning and house searches had a guaranteed capacity to produce confrontation to which the troops were trained to respond aggressively, sometimes brutally. Gerry Adams described the impact British troops had on Ballymurphy:
  No one could look on and passively accept having their doors kicked in, their houses wrecked, their family members beaten up. As military intervention in the neighbourhood increased in frequency and intensity so the local people, out of their own feelings of self-respect, outrage and resistance, organised more and more their own response to the military presence. The attitude and presence of British troops was also a reminder that we were Irish, and there was an instant resurgence of national consciousness and an almost immediate politicisation of the local populace.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The British handed over Helmand to the Americans. At last, it had been recognised that the task was beyond anything the British Army could accomplish. By the spring of 2010 there were 20 000 US troops in Helmand. What difference did the US 'Surge' make? Clearly, it has been a holding operation, similar to the Iraqi 'Surge', but less successful because there has been no Afghan 'Awakening' to accompany it. With the announcement by President Barack Obama that the US commitment would come to an end in 2014, followed by a similar British announcement, the war has been, in effect, abandoned, with the Taliban undefeated. This was always the most likely outcome. Rory Stewart brutally summed up the situation in 2009 when he wrote that:
  It is unlikely that we will be able to defeat the Taliban. The ingredients of successful counter-insurgency campaigns in places like Malaya - control of the borders, large numbers of troops in relation to the population, strong support from the majority ethnic groups, a long-term commitment and a credible local government - are lacking in Afghanistan.
  But what did the British achieve? Frank Ledwidge argues that after all the expenditure of blood and treasure,
  Britain's efforts have resulted in the 'stabilization' (ie. The temporary pacification) of three of the 14 districts that make up the province of Helmand - just one of the 34 provinces in a country with a population that is half that of the UK. In terms of overall political significance, this might be the equivalent of three large market towns in rural Lincolnshire... After three years of British presence, the province was the most savage combat zone in the world. With British forces and their commanders out of their depth, it was only the intervention of a powerful US force of marines that brought some level of control to the situation.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: With British forces and their commanders out of their depth, it was only the intervention of a powerful US force of marines that brought some level of control to the situation. At last, it had been recognised that the task was beyond anything the British Army could accomplish. By the spring of 2010 there were 20 000 US troops in Helmand. What difference did the US 'Surge' make? Clearly, it has been a holding operation, similar to the Iraqi 'Surge', but less successful because there has been no Afghan 'Awakening' to accompany it. With the announcement by President Barack Obama that the US commitment would come to an end in 2014, followed by a similar British announcement, the war has been, in effect, abandoned, with the Taliban undefeated. This was always the most likely outcome. Rory Stewart brutally summed up the situation in 2009 when he wrote that:
  It is unlikely that we will be able to defeat the Taliban. The ingredients of successful counter-insurgency campaigns in places like Malaya - control of the borders, large numbers of troops in relation to the population, strong support from the majority ethnic groups, a long-term commitment and a credible local government - are lacking in Afghanistan.
  But what did the British achieve? Frank Ledwidge argues that after all the expenditure of blood and treasure,
  Britain's efforts have resulted in the 'stabilization' (ie. The temporary pacification) of three of the 14 districts that make up the province of Helmand - just one of the 34 provinces in a country with a population that is half that of the UK. In terms of overall political significance, this might be the equivalent of three large market towns in rural Lincolnshire... After three years of British presence, the province was the most savage combat zone in the world.The British handed over Helmand to the Americans.