Personally, I found the way the British handled their psychological operations to be an interesting case study with some transferrable lessons to today's fight. The brits focused more on turning the insurgents, versus killing them. Just like in Iraq today, the lower level insurgents are not the die-hard fanatics, those you just have to kill. By turning the lower-level insurgents, the British not only were able to gain valuable intelligence, but also did specific, by name, targeting against the insurgents still in the fight. Utilizing voice aircrafts, the Brits would have the former insurgents record specific messages to their comrades still fighting out in the jungle. Can you imagine the psychological shock if one of the former-Baath party insurgents in Iraq heard a message coming from one of his best friends telling him that his family was doing well, the Americans were taking good care of him and to come over to our side? The voice aircrafts seemed to be very effective with over 95% of captured CTs (communist-terrorists) admitting to hearing them by 1957.

Additionally, I personally like how the Brits conducted their COIN training of not only the military, but of the police as well. The Conduct of Anti-terrorist Operations in Malaya (ATOM) went through several iterations being updated as tactics, techniques and procedures changed. The Brits also made a huge effort to ensure the growing police organizations went through their COIN training and was issued the latest ATOM manuals. As we see today and is highlighted in the CALL Special Study 07-16, From Zero to Blue, often the police graduating from Iraqi Police Academies do NOT have the COIN survival skills to stay alive in their areas. Not only do Iraqi police need to understand the law enforcement aspect of their jobs, but also have a deep understanding of COIN tactics and individual survival skills to defeat the insurgents. The Brits understood this and focused on getting well trained police out front.

Finally, the different leadership examples found by the British command is very interesting. It wasn't until you had ONE head of all efforts appointed did you finally see unity of effort in the COIN fight. When GEN Templar took command, he immediately left for a two week, on the ground, assessment of the situation to guage where to go as the new leadership in Malaya.

Of course there are alot of lessons which are simply not applicable to today's fight...but that doesn't mean we won't need them again in a future fight!