Christopher Bellamy: Go in, do the business and get out - the lessons of the Afghan wars

The airborne troops' ''hit-and-run'' attacks, which began on Friday night, are the right course of action, if all the lessons of past Afghan wars are remembered.

These raids are likely to continue but should not lead to large-scale operations or occupation of the country ­ until and unless a political solution is reached and troops are committed, mainly unopposed, to maintain it. That is absolutely the right way to do it.

Knowingly or unknowingly, the planners have followed the lessons learnt by the British and Russians in Afghanistan. Get in, do the business and get out again.

Afghan forces are less formidable than myth would suggest in a straight fight, but attempts to build Afghan governments are fraught with difficulty.

Tactically, too, there have been surprises. Friday saw only the second operational drop of paratroops on any scale since Kolwezi in Congo in 1978, reaffirming their unique ability to gain access to terrains where there are no airstrips for fixed-wing planes and where helicopters cannot land.

The only other comparable drop may have been by US special forces during the Panama invasion in 1989. This reappearance of paratroops is unlikely to be the last.

The British learnt these lessons in their two invasions of Afghanistan in 1838-42 and 1878-81. Both were "armed political interventions", rather than "wars", as a contemporary commentator observed. In the first, the British intervened to depose Dost Muhammad, who was believed to be pro-Russian, and put Shah Shuja on the throne in Kabul.

Shah Shuja's government proved unpopular with the locals and the British envoys supporting it were murdered. Dost Muhammad's son offered to let the British force supporting Shah Shuja leave Kabul, but it was a trap. The force was harried on its way back to India and only a handful escaped, including a doctor whom the Afghans let go to tell the tale.

The Second Afghan War began when three British columns invaded in November 1878 to depose Sher Ali, again believed to be pro-Russian. The timing of the attack is interesting, given the nonsense that has been talked recently about the impossibility of fighting in the Afghan winter. The division into several striking columns was standard British imperial practice, confusing and dividing the opponents' forces, and it usually worked. The hit-and-run raids by American and other special forces that have now started utilise the same principle.

The British defeated the Afghans in the Khyber Pass at Ali Masjid and the Kurram valley at Peiwar Kotal. In the south, Kandahar was occupied almost without a fight. Peace was agreed at Gandamak in May 1879, providing, once again, for a British envoy at Kabul. But he and his escort were again murdered.

A British striking force under Roberts occupied Kabul and executed a number of suspects. In the face of civil war within the country, the only political solution the British could come up with was to break up the country.

At this point another would-be ruler, Ayub Khan, the governor of Herat, made an attempt for the throne. He was intercepted by a British force at Maiwand in 1880, but defeated it and besieged the survivors until Roberts arrived after his famous Kabul to Kandahar march at the end of August. The British sensibly withdrew in 1881.

Between 1860 and 1890 the British undertook expeditions on the North-West Frontier about every two years ­ apart from the special ones as part of the Second Afghan War. These expeditions involved 2,000 to 5,000 troops and were directed against individual tribes. They involved destroying crops, forts and villages to make the tribe concerned surrender individuals or to make redress for crimes ­ not unlike the present operation.

In Kolwezi in 1978, Belgian and French regiments para-chuted in to rescue European citizens. The Rangers did a similarly sized drop at Panama in 1989 but, whereas that was a "one off", this may be a template for the future.

The last time a large British force was dropped in a real war was when the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment operated at Suez in 1956.

Film of the US Rangers dropping near the village of Baba Sahib, or a remote airfield 60 miles south-west of Kandahar, on Friday showed company-sized drops ­ about 100 troops with what looked like low-level parachutes, more like flying saucers than the traditional type.

There has been much debate on the need to maintain parachute-droppable units in the era of helicopters, but present events have probably vindicated that decision.

Christopher Bellamy is Professor of Military Science and Doctrine at Cranfield University and heads its MSc programme in global security