In the past, the British government has failed history in a number of ways. Whilst it is clear that learning has developed over time, as has the emphasis placed upon the importance of learning lessons, it is also apparent that the FCO, MoD and IC each learn from history in different ways. Each focuses their efforts to learn on different stages of the learning process, different learners, different stages of an intervention, different levels of policy-making, through different methods and to different extents; there is no consistency for learning from history across government.

Learning from the past is not easy. It is a complex process, with several stages, that develops from ‘the acquisition of knowledge’ to ‘informing policy decision-making’ and within, as well as between, each stage – identification, distribution, retention and implementation – there are challenges to be overcome. From 1956 to 2009 the FCO was primarily focused on the lesson identification stage of the process, from internal sources, including the use of despatches. Attempts by the Foreign Affairs Committee to offer external lesson identification were largely ineffective as the FCO did not seek to acquire knowledge from this body. The types of lessons identified were usually strategic, rather than operational or tactical, and there was no routine learning process as there was within the MoD. Any lesson implementation was ad hoc and lessons were only retained in individual memory and through the informalities of best practice. Despite the existence of in-house historians, no official histories have been written in the FCO on any of the interventions examined in this book and consequently they do not offer a method of retention for the future.

Out of the three government bodies, the MoD had the most comprehensive and substantial learning process, which developed and proliferated over time to cover all four stages of learning with specific lessons teams and systems.