Publication

This paper presents the results of two years of work and consideration of the problems confronting the British military in contemporary and future conflict. It takes the deployment of 52 Brigade to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as its principal case study and examines the thought processes that lay behind the commander’s decisions to mount an influence-led deployment, one that specifically sought to reduce hard kinetic engagement and place the consent of the population at the center of the operational design. The authors argue that success in battle will demand as much understanding of social psychology, culture and economics as it does military art and science.