I am embarking on project looking at counterinsurgency in the 20th Century from Imperial Policing to conflict the end of the century. I will be employing my rather large library I have built up, including my 28 years military service and relevant research and material I have written on.

I am friends or had colleagues who were involved in many counterinsurgency campaigns during the latter half of the Twentieth century. There is not a witch hunt on the conduct of the military personnel in the field but will be an extensive and unbiased review of the strategy and tactics, including the Cold War where applicable.

In nearly all cases the soldiers in the field, and in some cases in higher echelon, were unaware of the politics involved.

Frank Kitson wrote in his 1971 book, Low-Intensity Operations, what is now known as asymmetric warfare was the warfare of the future. Yet, the British strategy and tactics in the Kenyan Uprising have now been largely discredited.

Britain’s Colonial and Foreign Offices were not well equipped to understand the nationalist movements following Woodrow Wilson’s comments about self-determination during the discussions on the break up of the Ottoman Empire.

British counterinsurgency (COIN) tactics and strategy date from the post-First World War operations in Ireland and then onto political policing in China and Palestine. Their roots lie in Britain’s Imperial Policing policy and operations in its colonial empire particularly, India and Africa.

Post-war British COIN operations in Malaya and during the Confrontation are hailed as a model of success. Yet that was only the middle of a campaign that had its roots in 1920 against Chinese nationalist influence and operationally ran from 1925 to 1991 when Sarawak People's Guerrillas negotiated settlement with the Malaysian Government. A period of sixty-six years.

It can be argued that the Sarawak People's Guerrillas were successful in their aims than the Malaysian government.