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The debate over whether there exists a British counter-insurgency tradition of minimum force is one that has been thoroughly discussed. Is there anything left to say? This study suggests there is further insight to be attained if one explicitly evaluates the concept of minimum force in relation to the conduct of the security forces in the years of the Northern Ireland conflict. Through an examination of three key periods in the conflict, it will be shown that while there was invariably an awareness of the need to act with restraint among senior officers at the strategic level, this was often difficult to apply at the tactical level in the heat of confrontation. The argument demonstrates that the British Army, and other instruments of the state, rarely acted in a manner that could be described as ‘minimal’. Instead, it was the broader liberal values of the British state that explains largely the degrees of restraint exhibited by the government and security forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite an increasing number of attacks by violent anti-Good Friday Agreement (GFA) Republicans from 2009 there is still relatively little understanding of the nature of these organizations or the likely longevity of their campaign(s). This analysis argues that the current upsurge of violence is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, due to a combination of factors that entrench republican ideology. The fractured nature of anti-GFA groups and the declining stature of the Provisional movement are key factors that energize anti-agreement sentiment. In particular, this study identifies the Internet as one of the most significant emerging drivers in that it has the potential to sustain social networks that create and reinforce a traditional minded Irish Republican constituency implacably committed to using violence in pursuit of its goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Operation Motorman – the ending of the ‘no-go’ areas in Belfast and Londonderry – was one the biggest deployments of British forces since 1945, yet few analysts have grasped its enduring significance. This article argues that Motorman helped break the vicious circle of violence and atrocity that characterised the most violent years of the early troubles. In hindsight we can see that the aftermath of the operation irrevocably altered the strategic setting in Northern Ireland that, in time, enabled constitutional unionism and nationalism to slowly become more tractable towards each other. While Motorman can in no sense be regarded as the proximate cause of the current Northern Ireland peace process, it can be argued that in removing the most important factor that made the IRA a potent threat, Motorman shattered the IRA's military bargaining strategy, the long-term effect of which was eventually to propel the republican movement down a path that would ultimately lead it to question the value of its armed struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the book "The Fight for Peace: The Inside Story of the Irish Peace Process," 2nd ed., by Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick. The authors of The Fight for Peace dig deep into the complex workings of the current so-called peace process in Northern Ireland and examine the events lead- ing up to the declaration of the IRA and loyalist paramilitary cease-fires in 1994. Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick evaluate the peace process as "an initiative which emerged from within Irish nationalism and republicanism" and focus on the changing perceptions of the republican movement toward its traditional strategy of obtaining the goal of a united Ireland through physical force. The book's predisposition has a ready empathy with the modem Irish political tradition, which has periodically away nationalist elements from violence and enfolded them in constitutional politics. Yet there is no corresponding appreciation that this is a concept largely alien to the British political experience and therefore always likely to inform British wariness of engaging with, as they see it, representatives of an armed grouping that has waged twenty-five years of unrelenting violent subversion.