Secret Victory

The Intelligence War That Beat the IRA

By: Dr William Matchett

Narrated by: Nick Cracknell

Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

Terrorist leaders are not benevolent men inclined to make peace but vicious bullies. The IRA was the Islamic State of its day. Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Afghanistan are similar wars. In these, an insurgency like the IRA/Sinn Féin mix is the main problem.

A proven solution is the rule of law, where police intelligence dominates because investigative practices fail. The approach - widely misrepresented and commonly misunderstood - devastated the IRA. Some terrorists were killed, most were in prison, many were on the run, and the rest feared the same fate. The IRA was forced into a ceasefire.

Had this been disclosed in promoting the peace, nations would have benefited and lives saved. But the political endgame was botched. Unrepentant insurgents in government tainted security to sanitise their past. IRA leaders became peacemakers. Others contemplating conflict watched. Al-Qaeda was encouraged. New York's twin towers stood tall. Peace had a price.

©2016 William Matchett (P)2017 William Matchett

Critic reviews

"William Matchett's Secret Victory provides a vital case study in counterterrorism at a time the West needs every lesson it can get. It may deal with Ireland, but it provides vital insights into both the value of human intelligence and the limits of force." (Anthony H. Cordesman, Burke Chair in Strategy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington D.C.)

Instructive.

This was fascinating. Enlightening & informative. The writing & narration style made for easy listening & learning. An absolute must for those interested in Irregular warfare.

10 sides to every story

the other best book of the troubles would be Killing Rage. Secret Victory is a side that longed to be told.
that being said I don't remember the Glennane and group being mentioned.

Very one sided with lots of false claims

At first I found this book interesting. As an American and someone who studies The Troubles and the Peace Process I thought this started out in an interesting way and so I thought this would make for an interesting listen. As the title indicates, this is a book written from the security forces point of view. It gives a fairly balanced account at the start of The Troubles and how the Northern Ireland government mishandled the unrest of the late 1960s. But at some point this just turns into a completely one sided and false narrative about how the RUC were professional police doing a fair job, which is total nonsense. The author makes many false claims - many of which even the British government has admitted were their fault, the army's fault and the fault of the RUC.

Northern Ireland was an apartheid state, not quite as bad as South Africa but still an apartheid state, and the RUC was the chief tool of the NI government (before it fell) and the British State of maintaining the apartheid they'd created. His blathering on about how professional the security forces were in NI is refuted by facts and history. So his take on things really falls into the category of misinformation at best, his delusion at worst.

I will grant that there has been a lot of propaganda throughout the years of The Troubles and the peace process from all sides. This is just propaganda from someone with an agenda to defend the security forces. If you listen to this with that in mind, it is still an interesting listen from the point of view of the security forces, but just be ready to wade through a lot of washing over and absolution of the very bad conduct of the security forces in what was a period of time where most of the sides involved acted with very bad conduct.