Far from me to question one of the soil of Erin. I would like to say that I lived in London from 82-88, so I was introduced at a ripe young age - nine to be exact - to a very loud and reverberating sound one summer in 82...when the IRA bombed Hyde Park and Regents Park...Hyde Park was about two miles from my house. I realized at that very moment that my life was going to be very different than it had been living in suburban Philadelphia up to that point.
But I will say this - the IRA was soundly beaten by the time of the City and Manchester bombings. But only from a purely military perspective, one that is very narrowly defined as war is a contest of will across multiple dimensions.
I will give massive credit to the IRA for shifting the focus of the bombings onto purely economic targets. Whoever was the mastermind behind that decision won the campaign for the IRA, despite their losses fighting against the British. The two bombings caused so much economic harm to the British that they were forced to the negotiating table, and were forced to give up significant concessions to the Republicans. It was an absolutely brilliant maneuver and to me, is a prime example of how military power can act as a significant lever against countries of vastly more strength.
And as you so rightly pointed out, it was such a successfully maneuver that it created a major fissure in the British political apparatus. And through this fissure came the reinforced effort for Irish independence, the rapidly strengthening Scottish independence movement, and the awakening Welsh independence movement (they can have it and that unpronounceable mess they speak, GWLLYDDN and what not).
It was another example - and the US rules the seas in this aspect - of winning the tactical fights (the consistent military/police nexus of patrolling and intel work in NI) but losing the operational fight (the IRA has the capability to strike within two of the UKs most significant economic districts) and really losing the strategic war (the political concessions to the IRA allowed for the Scots and Welsh to also push for autonomy).
The British weak spot, in retrospect, was their economy. Two bombings forced the British government to their knees. My dad still lives in London, we talk weekly and the economy is so bad there that they just had to hire a Canadian to run the Bank of England. Rule Britannia? Not any more.
All of that said, I think the initial excitement with the independence movements are going to wane rapidly once the stark realities of everyday life rear up. I can't really imagine the Scottish or Welsh economic engines managing to meet the expectations of their citizenry.
Really fascinating stuff, thanks for the insight. Your perception - to me - is 100% correct. And the second, third and fourth order effects are being felt in massive ways today throughout the UK.
Wizlah wrote:Luzinski's Gut wrote:Martin Van Creveld, an Israeli military historian, has a very interesting story about how the British won in Northern Ireland against the IRA. He was talking with a British Army Colonel who had served multiple tours in NI, and said there were three major reasons why the British won that counter-insurgency. One, the British viewed Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and were not going to give it up because they were willing to fight and die for that ground. Two, the British Army and political leadership was willing to accept more casualties than the IRA because of the commitment to NI. Three, with rare exception, they always tried to de-escalate the situation instead of escalating the situation with the introduction of additional firepower.
LG, I'm curious as to how the British Army was viewed to have won a victory in Northern Ireland - is this from a fairly strictly defined militry point of view? I know you're better read on these things, and more to the point, you'll have had the time to review stuff which has been written more recently about the North, but as I understand it, the IRA remained very capable from an operational point of view up to and beyond the Good Friday Agreement. The most significant operation which comes to mind was the bombing of the City of London in 1996, which cost the UK economy a fair whack of cash, and has been frequently associated with the UK government reconvening all party ceasefire talks whilst the IRA were still armed. That was followed later in the year by the Manchester bombing, and there seemed to be several fairly extensive bombing campaigns run in the UK throughout 1996 and 1997.
It's hard to view the end result of the peace process as anything other than a win for republicans. The principles of the Good Friday Agreement clearly acknowledge that although the majority of the population wished to stay within the UK, those who wished a United Ireland were well within their rights to do so. They repealed the govt of Ireland 1920 act, and the mechanisms and principle of self-determination put in place by the Good Friday Agreement ultimately mean that if enough folk in the 6 counties want Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic, they can do so. (As an aside, given all the hoopla I've been reading about the referendum here in Scotland in 2014, I'm somewhat amazed that more of the yes campaign haven't pointed out that another part of the UK is legally within it's rights to do #$!&@ off to another nation if it so wishes. Not quite the same as an independent scotland, but the key there is the principle of self-determination).
A republican now looking at the UK would have a hearty chuckle. If they win the argument with their fellow countrymen, they get a united ireland. Plus, the process of talks and negotiation led to the referenda on the devolution of powers to scottish and welsh parliaments in 1997. Had the British Government truly been committed to Northern Ireland, there' s no way they would have given an inch to further talks with the IRA, because what has resulted is the antithesis of that committment: a union threatened by fragmentation, relying solely on political process to hold it together.
I'm 15 years gone from Ireland this week. I never imagined in those 15 years I'd be voting on the independence of Scotland. Seems to me that the IRA gets the last laugh.
