Thanks for setting this up! This is a cool concept.

I think considering precedents can be a very useful tool, especially for establishing why breaks with that precedent are significant. For instance, we could say, "During events w, x, and y, people did this, or acted this way. Suddenly during event z they acted differently or didn't do what they did before." I think this sets up a really cool opportunity to investigate why precedent was or wasn't followed. I do a lot of military history, so certain glaring examples ("You never get involved in a land war in Asia!" and "You never invade Russia in the Winter!") come to mind.

I'd encourage cautious, or maybe "educated" use of precedents. I always try to remember that while precedents can help explain things, the conditions are never exactly the same. Therefore, if we use precedent to make predictions, we need to hold those predictions loosely.

I’ve always been happy to see historians wade in on current affairs, as I believe they provide much needed nuance to what the public often sees as a Yes/No problem. However, I am also a firm believer that while historians can try to predict the future, history itself can not. The use of historical precedent can often lead to the misguided belief we can draw firm lessons from history, as illustrated in the case of counterinsurgency.

In 2007, General Petraeus presided over “The Surge,” a new influx of American and coalition troops to once and for all defeat the festering Iraqi insurgency. Along with it came a new “doctrine” of “hearts and minds,” encapsulated in US Army Field Manual 3–24, Counterinsurgency. The authors claimed an enemy-centric approach to counterinsurgency (COIN), that focused on the elimination of hostile insurgents, was not working. Instead, the new population-centric approach emphasised the need of COIN forces to win the “hearts and minds” of the native population, through providing security and economic aid. In the manual, Patraeus and other authors mention specifically the influence of the French theorist, David Galula, who adopted a population-centric approach during his service as a company commander at the height of the Algerian War of Independence. Similarly, the British Army Field Manual Volume 1 Part 10: Countering Insurgency, claimed that the British army had a long tradition of “minimum force,” as seen in the Malayan Emergency and the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya. These historical precedents, the authors stated, pointed to a new, successful way forward in COIN.

Initially, the response was positive - “The Surge” seemed to be succeeding, and the Iraqi population looked like it was finally turning against the insurgents in the form of the Sunni Awakening. However, by 2010, it was widely perceived that the Iraqi government only had a precarious hold on authority and that “hearts and minds” was no more successful than the previous enemy-centric approach.

At the same time, academics became increasingly aware that the historical precedents cited by the COIN thinkers had little relation with “hearts and minds.” John Nagl’s 2002 book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam was singled out for particular criticism. Nagl argued the British way of “minimum force” of providing aid and isolating the population from the insurgents led to eventual victory in Malaya. However, British historians have shown there was nothing “minimum force” about “minimum force.” In The British Way in Counter-Insurgency, published in 2011, David French points out the forcible resettlement of civilians in concentration camps was a major factor in British success in Malaya. Nagl and other COIN thinkers were also critical of Westmoreland’s perceived enemy-centric approach in the Vietnam War and argued it was a lesson not learned. Once again, historians pushed back against this perception - Dale Andrade’s 2008 article “Westmoreland was Right” argued Westmoreland was facing both an insurgency and a conventional war at the same time, forcing him to develop a more nuanced doctrine that took elements of both enemy-centric and population-centric approaches (u/Bernardito do correct me if I'm wrong!). Another point of critique was that COIN thinkers often confused population-centric with population-friendly. Gregory Mathias and Douglas Porch have both argued Galula’s focus on infrastructure improvements and democratic state-building have been over-emphasised. Indeed, Galula did advocate for coercive methods such as interrogation and withholding aid to pressure the population to turn over hidden insurgents. Mathias even goes further to state Galula’s own attempts at creating a local political organisation in his sector in Algeria was an unmitigated failure. A deeper analysis has shown that the historical precedents cited by COIN thinkers have little to do with historical reality.

This case study of counterinsurgency thinking shows the problems of using precedents. There is always a problem of cherry-picking in citing historical precedents. As shown above, it is far too easy to only look at what conforms to theory and ignore what does not. A further problem is that no two cases are the same. There are too many different factors in history. To compare France’s Algerian insurgency and America’s Iraqi insurgency, one has to consider differences in politics, economy, social structure, cultures, even factors as mundane as literacy rates and geography. Many who use historical precedents believe the current situation can be compared with a historical case study in the form of a scientific experiment, by changing one variable only. History shows that there are too many variables to count. I am not saying we - historians or not - should never use historical precedents. Historical precedents are useful to show nuance, to provide context, to help us understand how our forebears confronted similar problems. However, to take a precedent out of historical context, and argue it should be straightforwardly applied to current affairs, is a lesson wrongly learned.

I always liked Yuval Noah Harari’s understanding of historical practice as outlined in his book Sapiens - I haven’t got the book to hand so this may be slightly skewed by my own understanding of it but he outlines two types of “chaos” to help understand the nature of using models and precedences to help understand or predict the unpredictable future:

First order chaos: example he uses is weather prediction. The weather is incredibly complex and unpredictable on a day-to-day basis, but Meteorologists can use measurable data and models to predict with a degree of certainty what the weather is going to be. This of course becomes less accurate relative to how far in the future they are predicting, but in a sense meteorologists are able to predict “the future” using known models based on historical data of the weather. The crucial point though is that even if meteorologists suddenly develop a machine that could predict with 100% certainty the future weather, this would have no actual effect on the weather itself. If we predict a hurricane in two weeks time the hurricane will still come even if we predict it or not, all we can do is react to it. First order chaos does not respond to predictive models and so can be predicted more easily.

Second order chaos: the examples he uses are economics or history. The key difference with these disciplines is that, if we were able to predict with accuracy the future based on past models, we could change the future in a sense, but that this would then make it less predictable. He uses economics to explain this clearer - say for example economists were able to see that certain markets were going to collapse due to unforeseen circumstances (how very apt at the moment!) and then they all sold their stock in those markets, that in turn would cause more people to sell their stocks and in a sense it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Therefore second order chaos is infinitely less predictable by the inherent nature that it does respond to prediction.

He then gives a theoretical example of using history in a same way: say for example a government managed to predict, using historical models, that there was going to be a revolution next year because of their governance. Naturally they would take political, social, economic steps to rectify this problem - but then the issue would be that the model would then be considered “wrong” - it predicted a revolution and it did not occur - does that mean the model is wrong or does that mean that we have more agency over the our own future than we imagine?

It’s an interesting mental exercise that I’ve thought very useful for understanding the practical “purpose” of history. Of course Harrari’s discussion is only hypothetical, we could never 100% predict the future using history. However by studying historical precedences we are able to broaden our horizons about the potential possibilities of the future, almost like a horse removing its blinders in order to be able to see everything around it, or (rather more philosophically) like the people in Plato’s cave unchaining themselves to see objects for what they really are rather than continuing to look at the phantoms on the wall. We can see the problems of our own day with far more clarity by looking at how precedences and situations were resolved (or not!) in the past. And of course as Harari suggests we therefore have a potential to rectify these problems or avoid pitfalls that people of the past fell in to. Not with 100% accuracy but with greater wisdom than we may otherwise lack.

I’ve thought that perhaps makes me a bit too sentimentally attached to history and perhaps I am giving history more credit than it deserves. But I cannot see why History and historical precedences should not be considered a tool to help leaders, scientists, whoever, broaden their understanding of the potential outcomes of decisions and trends within contemporary issues. From an Ancient History perspective for example the “Thucydides’ Trap” is incredibly useful for understanding contemporary international relations of the U.S and China, or the fall of the Roman Republic to help understand the potential context of how states can transform from (relatively) representative democracies/republics into autocracies or tyrannies. Will the circumstances be the exact same? Of course not. Should we exercise caution in using the past to “predict” the future? Definitely. But will there be lessons still applicable in a modern context? Absolutely.