Transfers of colonial (dis)order: guerrilla warfare and the British military thought after the Great War

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article analyses the gaps and ties betweenthe doctrine and theory, in contrast with the practice, of countering subversive movements in the British Empire during the Interbellum. Contradictions between security services led to the articulation and promotion of different models of counterinsurgency. The research contains an analysis of the guerrilla warfare concept’ evolution within the military thought, through the second Boer war, Irish warof Independence and the second Arab rising in Palestine, reflecting different thoughts on interrelated problems of the ‘revolutionary movements’ and ‘sub-war’ after the Great War. Particular attentionis paid to military and political incentives and constrains of the counterinsurgency doctrine, reflecting the bureaucratic logic that stood behind the implementation of the guerrilla warfare concept at the levels of doctrine and theory in the context of the systemic crisis of empire and the growth of external pressure over the questions of the imperial defense and self-determination. Conflicting coexistence of internal security models tested within the British Empire during the Interbellum is observed in the conclusion,as well as perspectives of transfers of colonial (dis)order in front of the ‘sub-war’, as it was understood among the military circles through the prism of the guerrilla warfare concept.