‘invariably joint’, were subsumed by the ‘manoeuvrist approach’, a term coined in
1994 and adopted byBritish Defence Doctrinein 1996. The latter was ‘attractive to
a numerically inferior side, or to a stronger side which wishes to minimise the
resources committed’; it was a synonym for flexibility, for the use of surprise, for
the exercise of initiative, and stressed tempo and the need to get inside the
enemy’s decision-making cycle. 105 Such ideas were similar to Fuller’s ‘moral
epoch’ and Liddell Hart’s ‘indirect approach’, the latter a phrase whichBritish
Defence Doctrinespecifically employed. As many critics of the ‘indirect approach’
have argued, catchy labels are unhelpful if their use removes the need for genuine
thought or for the exposure of genuine differences; glibness can become an
obstacle to reflection. Moreover, in the joint environment, and even more
in an allied context, words that pretend to have precision but do not can create
an impression of mutual understanding that is false. The ‘manoeuvrist approach’
itself raised questions, and was designed to do so: it had become the overarching
framework within which all types of military activity from peacekeeping to
stabilization could nestle, and its purpose was to instil an attitude of mind, a
way of thinking, a readiness to recognize and exploit the enemy’s weaknesses.
Manoeuvre itself, the way of operating, was being lost sight of, not least because
of the ambiguity created by the use of terms which were derivatives of manoeuvre
but which carried very different meanings.
Even before the creation of the Joint Services Command and Staff College, the
army had separated the development of doctrine from the Higher Command and
Staff Course. In 1994, it established a directorate for doctrine and concepts. At
one level, this was a positive and beneficial step, no more than a reflection of the
subject’s importance. Its more malign side effects would not become evident until
1999, when the Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre was created alongside, but
independent of, the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Two conse-
quences followed. First, because the development and delivery of education and
doctrine were now under the chief of the defence staff, they were separated from
the services that used them. Second, because the two institutions were separate—
even if co-located—commands, the link between the development of ideas from
bottom up and the dissemination of doctrine from top down was broken. As the
operational experience of comparatively junior officers, gained in Iraq and
Afghanistan, grew from 2003 onwards, the effects of the division became more
evident. No mechanism existed for capturing their experience or for putting
those experiences against the broader context derived from wider study. More-
over, the very tempo of operations became an excuse for not allowing time to
reflect on and learn from what was taught. The opportunities for wider study, free
from the imperatives of career progression, such as the Defence Fellowships
enjoyed by Kitson and Bagnall, became less frequent, and rarely taken up by
officers on an upwardly mobile trajectory. By the beginning of 2009, six years on
from the original invasion of Iraq, the British armed forces had yet to write their
account of subsequent events or of their lessons. Even more seriously, the army
had not revised its counter-insurgency doctrine since 2000, and the efforts of
the Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (as the Joint Doctrine and
126 The Evolution of Operational Art