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“Who ran that war?”: David A Charters, Whose Mission, Whose Orders? British civil-military command and control in Northern Ireland, 1968–1974

David Charters’ Whose Mission Whose Orders is a welcome review of the nature of civilmilitary relations (CMR) during the first six years of the Northern Ireland “Troubles”. The work is based on extensive research, including analysis of many previously secret documents, and its original contribution to the literature is very much apparent. The main argument of the book, which is convincingly supported with evidence throughout, is that during the period in question (1968–1974) CMR worked as it was intended to and survived intact (7–8; 10–19; 23; 208–209). Charters attests that CMR was as much “bottom up” as it was “top down” (209–10, 220). This is not to say that “active” and “working” CMR is a static or uniform phenomenon. Rather, CMR are fundamentally subject to the idiosyncrasies of the personalities involved (210–220). And, there were certainly disagreements between the civil and military authorities throughout the period. Crucially, however, Charters asserts that there was never a “crisis” in CMR. Nor was there a time when the army refused to carry out orders. Instead, “political considerations predominated, and military concerns and plans were subordinated to them” (209). As such, Charters refutes the assertion that Westminster tended to “remove itself from the execution of the military instrument”, “exercised less political control of the security forces than necessary” or tended to “delegate controversial security decisions” (6). Charters demonstrates the functioning of CMR with evidence of a cooperated approach to review and clarify the structures of reference, control, and responsibility for security matters. New committees and advisory positions were created to improve communication between the military and political spheres (71; 74; 142–143). And, confusions regarding the chain of command were resolved through debate and reclarification (e.g. 73; 83; 87; 146–147). The structures of reference which defined specifically when and how security initiatives would be authorised and implemented, were adhered to almost without exception (except for the continued use of B-Specials – 84–85); when responsibility was divided between Stormont and London (e.g. ACP – 71; Operation Demetrius – 100), and after direct rule was re-imposed in March 1972 (e.g.