Life was rather quiet for the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (Unficyp) in early 1974. The high levels of intercommunal violence that defined its establishment a decade earlier had largely receded to a relatively peaceful coexistence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Part of Unficyp’s civilian police component since 1964, the Australian civilian police – known as Austcivpol – with its headquarters in Limassol, smaller substations at Ktima and Polis, and men attached to Unficyp headquarters in Nicosia, had settled into a daily routine of village patrols and liaising with local police in the Limassol Zone, their south-western portion of the island.

No Australian peacekeeping operation has aroused more public opposition than the contribution of helicopters to the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) from 1982 to 1986. The deployment was in effect simply a continuation of Australia’s participation in the second UN Emergency Force (Unef II), described in chapter 20. The deployment of the MFO followed a peace treaty signed by the two parties, Egypt and Israel, in 1979, and was never likely to involve significant danger to Australian personnel. It followed soon after a far more dangerous deployment to Southern Rhodesia (see chapters 24–27), which aroused little criticism.

In the days after Congo crossed the threshold to independence from Belgian colonial rule, a crisis erupted that quickly consumed the world’s attention. On Thursday 30 June 1960, demonstrations in the capital Leopoldville marred the celebrations of the country’s newfound statehood. These initial disturbances were controlled by the Force Publique – an at times baleful security organisation that had held sway over the local population since its creation in the late nineteenth century by the despotic Belgian King Leopold II. The following Monday, the situation deteriorated. Disgruntled Congolese troops in the Force Publique mutinied against their remaining Belgian officers and dragged the entire country into a state of chaos.

On Christmas Eve, 1979, five young Australians shaved in the sea on a beach in Mauritius, in the calm dawn after a cyclone had trashed the island. They were members of the 150-strong Australian contingent on its way to Southern Rhodesia as part of the Commonwealth Monitoring Force (CMF). In Rhodesia they were to monitor a ceasefire at the end of a long and often brutal civil war, in preparation for elections that would lead to genuine majority rule for the first time in the country’s history. Nobody knew what awaited them in Rhodesia. They arrived at Mauritius, their last stopover en route, to find much of the area devastated and hotels rendered uninhabitable. Resourcefully they found other accommodation, washed in creeks and shaved in the ocean before flying on. It was all an adventure, but it could have seemed like an ill-omened prelude to a mission full of uncertainty.

It is critical to understand how to use military force to achieve the political aim sought. This requires conducting a rational assessment of the situation, developing a strategy or plan for getting there, and determining the means required for fulfilling the plan and achieving the political aim. Critically, one of the worst failures of previous limited war is thinking that the forces must be “limited” because the political objective is. This is a fallacy. One can use overwhelming force in a war fought for a limited political aim. One should – at the least –

The replacement for the destroyers of the County-class, were much more compact and austere than their fore bearers. The primary role of the Type 42s was to provide area air defence for the ships they had to escort. With their long-range sensor fit they also could act as radar pickets, sailing ahead of a Task Group to act as its eyes and ears.

The loss of HMS Sheffield and Coventry demonstrated, this latter role denied the ships supporting fire from accompanying warships and highlighted their vulnerability.

DEVELOPMENT

In the 1960s the Royal Navy was still one of the premier carrier fleets in the world, second only to the US Navy which was in the process of building 80,000 tons aircraft carriers of the Kitty Hawk-class. The increasing weight and size of modern jet fighters meant that a larger deck area was required for take offs and landings. Although the Royal Navy had come up with increasingly innovative ways to allow ever larger aircraft to operate from the small flight decks of their carriers and to maintain air groups of a size large enough. It was decided that it would be necessary to commission a new class of large fleet carriers; the CVA-01.

On 14 February 1966, after a day long meeting, the Cabinet decided to cancel the plans for the construction of the new carrier. The Labour government calculated that maintaining a carrier air group East of Suez would be 60% more expensive than as a land based airforce. Along with the cancellation went the proposed Type 82 destroyers designed to escort them. This led to new Staff Requirements for a smaller fleet escort capable of providing area defence. The result was the much more compact Type 42 guided missile destroyer (DDG), which achieved significant savings on cost and displacement by dropping the Ikara long-range ASW missile and Limbo mortar and adopting an all-gas turbine (COGOG) propulsion system, using Rolls-Royce Olympus turbines for main drive and Tynes for cruising.

Although lacking Ikara, the ASW capability was greatly improved over previous ships by providing a hangared Lynx light helicopter (armed with torpedoes and missiles). Unlike Bristol the forecastle deck extends right aft to form the helicopter flight deck, leaving a small covered quarterdeck below for handling mooring wires.

The first thing we have to do is fix how we think about limited war. To do this we have to repair how we think about all wars. The basis of our approach is to start with the political aim. This is established by the policymakers. The political and military leaders should then develop a grand strategy for fighting the war, meaning using all of the elements of national power in pursuit of the objective. Military strategy is an important part of this and is supported by operations, which then dictate battles and tactical responses. We must also be careful to avoid jargon and unclear terms such as “total war” because these are based upon undefinable concepts, such as the means used. Existing ideas on limited war are also of little use and must be replaced because they are built upon a Cold War situation that no longer exists, based upon poor and inconsistent definitions, and take as their archetypal case study the Korean War, which is misunderstood by those who write about it. The most prominent limited war writers also assume a form of rationality on the part of opponents that logically cannot be expected.

It is critical to understand the political objective or aim for which the war is being fought. These aims can be offensive, such as seizing a piece of a neighbor’s territory, or defensive, meaning holding what one has. This gives us a firm analytical foundation and the why of the war. One must understand the value each combatant places on the objectives because this helps determine the nature of the war, how long it will be fought, where, and at what cost. But we must remember that the objectives can change. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes this is bad. Leaders must understand when this happens and the effects, because changing the objective means you have embarked upon a different or even a new war and thus changed its nature. For example, the US changed from a limited to an unlimited objective during the Korean War when it decided to destroy the North Korean regime and unify the peninsula. In Iraq in 2003, the US fought the war to overthrow Saddam’s rule – an unlimited aim – but was soon fighting to prop up the new government it had established – a limited, defensive aim. The political aim determines everything.

Learning how to think about limited war is a critical skill for American political and military leaders. Currently, the US is failing to win its war in Afghanistan, a war now being fought to preserve the Afghan government. The US has been fighting for seventeen years, and there is no indication that victory is at hand. One of the biggest rèasons for this is the Taliban’s possession of sanctuary in Pakistan. As long the Taliban has this, and is willing to keep fighting, the US cannot guarantee the survival of Afghanistan’s government. Additionally, the most likely type of war in the immediate future – and the most likely one that the US will face – is a war fought for limited aims. India and Pakistan have bitter, unresolved border issues, and China is a revisionist regional power determined to become a global one. The US cannot afford to continue making the same mistakes in regard to so-called limited wars that it has made for the last seventy years.