Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong> <strong>and</strong> Counter-insurgency: Back to <strong>the</strong> Basics
senior leader in counter-insurgency. Templer may not have been a great diplomat, but he
did develop a solid underst<strong>and</strong>ing of Malayan politics <strong>and</strong> offered <strong>the</strong> ethnic Chinese an
alternative to insurgency. 499
A prime example of poor situational awareness in counter-insurgency is a contemporary
of Templer’s, Field Marshal Sir John Harding. Like Templer, Harding had a brilliant record
as a conventional soldier. He had served as a division <strong>and</strong> corps comm<strong>and</strong>er in World War
II <strong>and</strong> was serving as Chief of <strong>the</strong> Imperial General Staff in 1955 when <strong>the</strong> insurgency in
Cyprus broke out. Since he was getting ready to retire, he accepted Anthony Eden’s plea
to take over as comm<strong>and</strong>er <strong>and</strong> governor general of Cyprus. However, unlike Templer,
Harding had talent at all for underst<strong>and</strong>ing <strong>the</strong> political context of <strong>the</strong> insurgency.
The motivation of <strong>the</strong> insurgency was simple. Eighty percent of <strong>the</strong> Cypriots were ethnic
Greek <strong>and</strong> wanted an end to colonial status <strong>and</strong> union with mainl<strong>and</strong> Greece. British
policy was that Cyprus would remain a colony. Harding saw his job as a simple one; crush
<strong>the</strong> insurgency with overwhelming force. In implementing his strategy he made a series of
bad decisions based on a terrifically bad underst<strong>and</strong>ing of Cypriot politics <strong>and</strong> conditions.
Each bad decision, made <strong>the</strong> insurgency <strong>and</strong> violence on <strong>the</strong> isl<strong>and</strong> worse. First, Harding
was convinced that <strong>the</strong> Cypriots really did not want independence or enosis, but had
been pushed to violence by Archbishop Makarios, <strong>the</strong> political <strong>and</strong> spiritual leader of <strong>the</strong>
Greek Cypriots. If <strong>the</strong> radical Makarios were removed, <strong>the</strong>n he could sit down <strong>and</strong> discuss
some form of minimal home rule with <strong>the</strong> moderate Cypriots, who he believed were in
<strong>the</strong> majority. So he had Makarios arrested <strong>and</strong> sent to exile in <strong>the</strong> Seychelles Isl<strong>and</strong>s. 500
Harding’s assessment was incredibly wrong. Makarios, in fact, was one of <strong>the</strong> more
moderate Greeks, <strong>and</strong> had been working to see that <strong>the</strong> insurgent military force limited
its attacks on n <strong>the</strong> British. With Makarios gone, <strong>the</strong> more radical leaders were left in
charge <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> violence escalated dramatically. Harding’s next step was to arm a large
force of ethnic Turkish Turks who, with minimal training <strong>and</strong> little in <strong>the</strong> way of leadership,
would be unleashed on <strong>the</strong> Greek community. Harding did this against <strong>the</strong> advice of
Britain’s Cyprus experts. What <strong>the</strong>y had feared, open communal warfare, came to pass.
Harding’s strong arm counter-insurgency policies also caused a wave of blatant human
rights violations that were documented in front of <strong>the</strong> international press, which was in
force in Cyprus. Harding publicly denounced all allegations against his troops as Greek
propag<strong>and</strong>a, even as journalists reported collective indiscipline of British troops.
If <strong>the</strong>re had been any Greek moderates on Cyprus before Harding, his actions pushed
<strong>the</strong>m into supporting <strong>the</strong> insurgents simply as an act of self defence. With 40,000 troops
<strong>and</strong> police to control 400,000 total Greek Cypriots – <strong>the</strong> greatest troop to population ratio
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<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror”