Andrew Mackay (British Army officer)

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Andrew Mackay
BornElgin, Scotland
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchBritish Army
Years of service1982–2009
RankMajor General
Service number513345
UnitKing's Own Scottish Borderers
Commands held2nd Division
Task Force Helmand
52nd Infantry Brigade
Civilian Police Assistance Training Team
1st Battalion, King's Own Scottish Borderers
Battles/warsThe Troubles
Bosnian War
Lebanon Conflict 1996
Kosovo War
Iraq War
War in Afghanistan
AwardsCommander of the Order of the British Empire[1]
Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service[2]
Legion of Merit (United States)[3]

Major General Andrew Douglas Mackay, CBE is a former British Army officer who commanded British forces in Helmand, Afghanistan. This was the principal opium-growing region and Britain was responsible in the NATO International Security Assistance Force for the suppression of opium.

Military career[edit]

Mackay served in the Royal Hong Kong Police for three years before he was commissioned into the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1982.[4] He served in Northern Ireland as a company commander and worked on the strategic and operational planning in the Balkans during the Bosnian War and Kosovo War.[4] He was made commanding officer of 1st King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1998.[4]

On promotion to brigadier Mackay served for a year in Baghdad, Iraq. In that capacity he was tasked with setting up and commanding the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT). CPATT was responsible for mentoring, training, equipping and organising the Iraqi Police and the Ministry of Interior. During this period Mackay served alongside General David Petraeus and they are said to be close friends.[5] He became commander of the 52nd Infantry Brigade in 2004 and commanded Task Force Helmand in Afghanistan from October 2007, leading the successful assault on Musa Qala in the north of Helmand in December 2007. This action was later described as the "best operation to come out of Afghanistan in years" by the Pentagon.[4] The author Stephen Grey subsequently wrote a best selling book of the battle for Musa Qaleh called Operation Snakebite within which Mackay and his style of leadership featured.[6] The brigade's tour of Helmand was controversial and led to considerable debate within military circles on the emphasis that Mackay placed on the role of influence and non-kinetic operations.[7][8] Mackay's approach to COIN was also featured in Mark Urban's three part BBC series Afghanistan: War without End.[9][10] Patrick Rose wrote that "52 Brigade was the first to utilise Influence centric approach; laying the foundations of structures used now".[11]

Mackay was appointed General Officer Commanding 2nd Division and Governor of Edinburgh Castle in May 2009 but resigned only a few months later in September, citing "personal reasons".[12][13] However, other sources attributed his resignation to frustration over the War in Afghanistan.[13] He subsequently expressed the opinion, in a paper co-authored with Commander Steve Tatham and delivered to the Defence Academy, that the Ministry of Defence was "institutionally incapable of keeping pace with rapid change and the associated willingness to adapt".[13] In 2011 he co-authored with Tatham a book entitled Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motivations Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict.[14]

The BBC has twice covered Mackay's recapturing of Musa Qala in specialist programming. In November 2014 he wrote and narrated a BBC Radio 4 documentary about his experiences of Afghanistan. Entitled 'The Lessons of War' he interviewed soldiers, senior US and British generals including David Patraeus, politicians and civil servants to understand if there was ever a high level strategy for the campaign. Mackay told the BBC that "I think whoever you are when you go to an extreme environment such as Helmand, you are never the same person when you come back. I was interested in considering the role that I played as the commander of British forces in Helmand and the journey that it had taken me on."[15]

In September 2015 BBC News ran a specialist feature, entitled 'The Art of Influence', featuring Mackay, on its News Journal website.[16]

Mackay now runs a strategic advisory company – Complexas Ltd[17] – which provides specialist services to the international extractive industries, specifically in Africa. Mackay and Tatham also collaborated with Professor Jim Derleth to write a new paper on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Africa.[18]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "No. 58776". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 July 2008. p. 11241.
  2. ^ "No. 54028". The London Gazette (Supplement). 5 May 1995. p. 6611.
  3. ^ "No. 58183". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 December 2006. p. 17361.
  4. ^ a b c d "Major-General Andrew Mackay: profile". The Telegraph. 25 September 2009.
  5. ^ "Petraeus: it's the human terrain that wins the war". The Scotsman. 22 August 2009.
  6. ^ "Afghanistan general quits over disillusionment with government strategy". The Telegraph. 25 September 2009.
  7. ^ Farrell, Theo (2010). "Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009". Journal of Strategic Studies. 33 (4): 567–594. doi:10.1080/01402390.2010.489712. S2CID 154939715.
  8. ^ COIN Machine: The British Military in Afghanistan
  9. ^ The Battle for Helmund
  10. ^ Afghanistan (BBC)
  11. ^ ROSE, P. Dr., "Delivering Strategic Communications and Influence in Afghanistan: A UK Perspective", Defence Policy Analysis Group, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, 24/10/2010
  12. ^ Army Commands Archived 5 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ a b c "MoD 'institutionally incapable' of succeeding in Afghanistan". The Telegraph.
  14. ^ Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motives Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict Military Studies Press, ISBN 978-1780394688
  15. ^ "Afghanistan: The Lessons of War". BBC. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
  16. ^ "The Art of Influence". BBC. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
  17. ^ Complexas Ltd
  18. ^ Instability, Profitability, and Behavioural Change in Complex Environments
Military offices
Preceded by General Officer Commanding 2nd Division
May–September 2009 		Succeeded by
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