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Rear Admiral Chris Parry headed the Ministry of Defence's tri-service Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre at the time of the UK deployment to Helmand province between 2006 and

2008, with a remit to deliver "blue skies thinking" about current and future operations. But he said the contextual analysis and innovative ideas of his 120-strong team from all

three services were rejected by his superiors in the Ministry of Defence, who preferred an approach based on Army memories from previous counter-insurgency operations in Borneo and Malaya in

the 1950s and 1960s, as well as from Northern Ireland. It has only been in the past year that things have changed and his team's original ideas about countering irregular force and

insurgents - which included the widely adopted "comprehensive approach" - have been accepted as conventional wisdom and put into effect in Helmand, he said. Admiral Parry said:

"We realised from our research that traditional doctrine for countering insurgencies remained mostly valid, but not sufficient for the complexities of Iraq and Afghanistan. We developed

more progressive thinking, based on our assessments of the contexts in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with some radically new approaches. They seemed to work really well when we modelled

them and discussed them with people who had served in theatre." But Admiral Parry said there was a culture of "not rocking the boat" above him, characterised by considerable

senior resistance to ditching obsolete thinking from the past and implementing new ideas. "Because of certain senior personalities, the old doctrine, the thinking about how we used to

conduct that sort of campaign, still prevailed", he said. He declined to name those he held responsible, but said it was "somewhat ironic" that those who had rejected the new

ideas in the past were now vigorously championing them. Admiral Parry's team argued that development, rule of law and other institution-building activities needed to take place

alongside military action to maintain security, but that it was essential to ensure that the population and its protection became the most important elements from the military point of view.

It also required a joined-up approach between all civilian agencies, government departments and the military to ensure coherent action, the centre said. "Today these ideas are accepted

best practice for these types of operation - it is a shame that we could not have had them implemented earlier," he said. Asked about the current situation, Rear Admiral Parry said:

"I think the new Government has the right approach, but we need to go further. Historically, just securing Kabul has never delivered control of Afghanistan as a whole. The overwhelming

challenge is to encourage and empower local communities and leaders in Afghanistan to take responsibility for their own security. Our military capability should remain available on short

notice - but at a discreet distance - to deal with those situations and concentrations of insurgent forces that the locals cannot."