British in Northern Ireland The British Empire had been one of the greatest in the history of humankind but the years following the Second World War saw a period of decolonization and the rise of regional conflicts as a result. In some former colonies, such as Malaya, the British intervened military to maintain the government put in place and successfully defeated the insurgency. Other places, for example Northern Ireland, saw a major British military intervention in the period from 1969 through 1998 without a subsequent victory. An examination of the conflict can conclude that the British entered the conflict in Northern Ireland reluctantly and without a clear goal, seemed to stumble through without a strategy for victory, and flooded the region with troops until a some sort of settlement could be reach.

The British intervention in Northern Ireland came as a result of a series of violent clashes between Catholics and Protestants in the summer of 1969. Northern Ireland was populated with a majority of British Protestants and conflict erupted between them and the native Irish Catholics. Catholics felt they were being treated as second class citizens and protested peacefully in the streets. In response the British Protestants attacked Catholics who were forced to flee "in fear from their...

As in other former colonies where outbreaks of violence had occurred, the British intervened militarily and attempted to do the same in Northern Ireland. However, British politicians lacked enthusiasm for the enterprise because, unlike other former colonies, the British Protestants in Northern Ireland seemed to have instigated the violence. On the other hand the native Catholic Irish, represented by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), viewed the conflict as the next stage of a much longer conflict involving the decolonization of the island of Ireland.
The British strategy in Northern Ireland can be divided into three periods with their military response altering in light of changing circumstances. Firstly the escalation period from 1969-1972 when the British government believed that military escalation could maintain the existing political structure. Secondly came the years of containment from 1972 through 1992 when the British attempted to manage the conflict through massive numbers of troops on the streets. British success containing the violence "led the IRA to follow a course of terrorism, rather than waging guerrilla warfare."…