6 Lessons learned
131. In our report on Towards the next Defence
and Security Review: Part One, we drew attention to the need
for an understanding of history to inform future strategy, noting
that important strategic lessons could be learned from both the
Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.[41]
We noted that, since the Second World War, only two campaign histories
had ever been published (on Korea and the Falklands) and that
there had been no official accounts of other military operations
involving UK Armed Forces. We recommended that the MoD, in conjunction
with the Cabinet Office and the National Security Secretariat,
should initiate the preparation of histories of these conflicts,
including those in Afghanistan and Iraq. The writing of such histories
requires, in our estimation, relatively modest resources.
132. In our report on Afghanistan, we made
recommendations for the terms of reference for a future review
of the campaign in that country.[42]
We also called for the commissioning of work to write the narrative
of operations in Afghanistan as the precursor to future work on
the official history. We expect the next SDSR to address the following
questions:
133. What work is being done to prepare official
histories of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan? When will
this work be completed and will it be made public?
41 Seventh Report, Session 2013-14, HC 197 Back
42
Fifteenth Report, Session 2013-14, HC994. Back
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