Frank Kitson

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Sir Frank Edward Kitson , GBE KCB (born December 15, 1926 ) is an author and retired general of the British Army , who is considered an important military theorist due to his publications on counterinsurgency .

Career

Little is known about origin and education. Kitson joined the Rifle Brigade in 1946 and served in the Kenyan Emergency in what was then the British colony of Kenya from 1952 . Here he became leader of the so-called pseudo forces or counter-gangs ( counter gangs ).

In the late 1950s he served in the counterinsurgency during the Malayan Emergency and in Oman . From 1962 to 1964 he was deployed to Cyprus as part of a UN mission.

1969/70 he studied at the University of Oxford , then he served in the Northern Ireland conflict in the 39th Infantry Brigade and apparently had connections to the Military Reaction Force . From 1972 to 1974 Kitson was commander of the School of Infantry , from 1978 to 1980 of Staff College Camberley .

On December 31, 1979, he was elevated to the rank of personal nobility as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and has since had the addition of "Sir" to his name. From 1982 to 1985 he was Commander-in-Chief UK Land (CINCLAND) Commander-in-Chief of the British Land Forces, temporarily Aide-de-Camp General of Queen Elizabeth II. On the occasion of his retirement in the spring of 1985, he was named Knight Grand on December 31, 1984 Cross included in the Order of the British Empire (GBE).

Publications and theses on counterinsurgency

In his first work, Gangs and Counter-gangs (1960), he processed his experiences from Kenya. In Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (London 1971), which was also published in German in 1974 ( In the run-up to the war. Defense against subversion and rebellion ), Kitson put forward the thesis that since the end of World War II in 1945, Great Britain had only was involved in five conventional conflicts , but 34 small wars that the army was not prepared to wage.

He therefore demanded adequate training for officers in the "fight against subversion and rebellion" and peacekeeping operations, although it was clear to him that traditional deviations from the idea of ​​conventional warfare would not be popular. Conventional qualities such as courage, openness and aggressiveness are not required, but cunning, patience and determination:

Those unable to develop these new properties now tend to retreat into their military "shell". They don't even try to notice what's going on around them ... They long for the day when they can return to what they believe to be the real job of the soldier. What they mean by that is that they are preparing for the next - or last - war rather than taking on the fight in the current war. Kitson, Before the War , p. 270.

Apparently, based on his experiences in Northern Ireland, Kitson called for a serious change in the relationship between the army and the police , which traditionally is primarily involved in intelligence- gathering. This shift from leading the counterinsurgency from civilian authorities to the military aroused strong criticism in some cases, including the presumably unjustified accusation that Kitson was in fact preparing a military dictatorship. Independently of this, Kitson's theses based on Ian W. Beckett apparently caused the British Army to grapple with counterinsurgency theories since the 1970s.

See also

Works

  • Gangs and Counter-gangs (1960)
  • Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (1971)
  • Bunch of Five (1977)
  • Directing Operations (1989)
  • Prince Rupert: Admiral and General-at-sea (1998)
  • Old Ironsides: The Military Biography of Oliver Cromwell (2004)

literature

  • Entry: Kitson, Gen. Sir Frank Edward (1926-) , in: Ian FW Beckett: Encyclopedia of Guerilla Warfare , New York 2001, pp. 125f. ISBN 0-8160-4601-8
  • Peter Taylor: Brits: The War Against the IRA , London 2001.
  • Frank Kitson: In the run-up to the war. Defense against subversion and riot , Stuttgart (Seewald Verlag) 1974. ISBN 3512 00328 1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Knights and Dames: KIN-LYV at Leigh Rayment's Peerage
  2. ^ Günter Platzdasch: Civil war is planned. In: Medium. March 25, 2019, accessed March 25, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Kitson, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kitson, Sir Frank Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British general and author
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1926