Sifting the Ashes
Retaining the Hard-Won Lessons of Britain's Afghan War
1st Edition
Published on 22. October 2025
114 pages
978-1-040-37975-2 (ISBN)
Description
The British military spent 20 years fighting in Afghanistan. Considering the UK's achievements against its objectives, defeat seems the most accurate description of the campaign's outcome. How institutions respond to and learn from failure is a good measure of their effectiveness. But Britain's war in Afganistan also saw considerable tactical and operational learning to solve complex problems. Not only are some of the solutions valuable, but the processes by which they were derived bear study. The question is whether these lessons will be retained. This Whitehall Paper delves into some of the many valuable and hard-won lessons that can be derived from a study of British operations in Afganistan, beginning a conversation as to their relevance for future British miliatry undertakings.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
File size
13,38 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-040-37975-2 (9781040379752)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2025
1st Edition
Routledge
€62.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Jack Watling is Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at RUSI. Jack works closely with the British military on the development concepts of operations and assessments of the future operating environment and conducts operational analysis of contemporary conflicts. Jack's PhD examined the evolution of Britain's policy responses to civil war in the early 20th century. He has worked extensively on Ukraine, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, Rwanda and further afield. He is a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.
Content
Introduction I. Leveraging Intelligence Assessment to Inform Strategy II. Civil-Military Cooperation: Lessons Repeated Until Learned III. Sustaining Dispersed Forces IV. Overcoming the IED Threat in Afghanistan V. Afghanistan as the Laboratory for Multi-Domain Integration VI. Kicking the Close Air Support Addiction Conclusions
