Terror and collusion? Colonial counterinsurgency and the British secret state in Northern Ireland, 1980 – 1994.

The study of the conflict in Northern Ireland has been a growing academic field for some time. With the release of new archival material, inquiry reports, and research findings alongside a growing volume of personal memoirs, researchers are finding ever more fertile ground for analysing the Troubles. Significantly, following the War on Terror there has been an increased interest in how the West conducts counterinsurgency. This has led to an interesting, novel period of research, combining analysis of both counterinsurgency and the British response to the spiral of violence in Northern Ireland.

However, much of the historiography has focused on the military effectiveness of British security force’s tactics and strategies for combating the Provisional IRA (PIRA). The aim of this thesis is to tread away from thiswell-traversed path of academic study and, instead, analyses the counterinsurgency in Northern Ireland from a moral standpoint. This thesis argues that the conflict was not a paternalistic “Hearts and Minds” counterinsurgency but instead represents an abuse of state power.

Essentially, this thesis asks two questions: can the State go too far when it defends itself? Whilst conducting a counterinsurgency against its own citizensbe described as ‘Terrorist’?

To answer these questions, this thesis will trace the British style in counterinsurgency, the much vaunted ‘hearts and minds’ approach, from its colonial roots at the turn of the 20th century up to 1980. Using the work of two of Britain’s most significant theorists, Brigadier Frank Kitson and Major-General C.E. Callwell, this thesis will draw out the similarities and differences in several British colonial small wars. Alongside this, the creation and function of state power will be delineated in concert with the genesis of the rule of law and the effect of humanitarian law on how states fight war. This will form an interpretive prism through which the questions this thesis poses will be answered.

The main analytical focus will be on the period 1980 – 1994 in Northern Ireland. This is not an arbitrary date; in this period, the changes made to the intelligence apparatus were realigned by the Walker Report. This coincided as the process of Ulsterisation, the move to police primacy in the province, had been implemented. This moved the indigenous Northern Irish security forces in the centre of a now police-led counterinsurgency strategy. The Walker Report further entrenched police primacy in Northern Ireland by centralising the intelligence network in the RUC’s Special Branch (RUCSB).

Britain’s counterinsurgency methodology is intelligence-led, heavily reliant on human intelligence sources (HUMINT). In Northern Ireland the security forces proliferated agents and informers on both sides of the sectarian divide. Though MI5, the British Army and the RUC all had their own HUMINT, RUCSB had knowledge of each agent and informer and were privy to their intelligence. As will be examined in this thesis, it appears that these agents enjoyed a level of immunity from prosecution by the RUC as well as benefiting from material assistance from the British security forces.

There are clear moral dilemmas when state forces employ agents and informers in the ordinary criminal arena. This dilemma is deepened when HUMINT assets are active terrorists. This thesis will argue that this moral dilemma was never fully considered by any of the state forces, instead there was a reliance on not getting caught. This created a culture of impunity among both the agents and informers as well as the security forces that handled them. This culture of impunity created systematic collusive practices which buttressed a level of state enabled terror against civilians and Republican paramilitaries alike.