Managing COIN: Lessons from Malaya

[davidbfpo]

Thread reopened after a catalyst landed.

There is a SWJ article which may be of value: 'Algeria and Malaya: A Tale of Two Distinct and Dramatically Different Counterinsurgency Campaigns':https://smallwarsjournal.com/index.p...nsurgency-camp
Searching SWJ with Malayan found numerous articles, only a few are here. The best may be those with numerous comments.

[davidbfpo]

A 2015 PhD thesis from Brunel University (near London) found today: ‘Our Achilles’ Heel’ – Interagency Intelligence during the Malayan Emergency. From the Abstract:

Given that the British intelligence organisations had learnt to function in a joint manner during the Second World War, it is remarkable how much had apparently been forgotten in the three years preceding the outbreak of the Communist insurgency in Malaya and how long it took to create an effective method of coordinating intelligence during subsequent Emergency.

Link:https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/...textThesis.pdf
The bibliography appears to cover more than intelligence matters - so worth a peek.

The late British diplomat and intelligence officer Brian Stewart edited a short book 'Memories of the Malayan Police', covering the period 1948-1958, which is available online anda review by Anthony Short includes:

One knows that for every soldier who was killed, two policemen died. Not a lot of people, however, would know how fraught the situation was at the beginning and that police lieutenants could be killed within days of arrival without firing a shot. And there are few who have known the eventual, awful and terminal silence of ambush as well as the mayhem and fury when it begins. These are the unaffected and understated accounts of those who were at the sharp end. There is some very fine writing.

Taken from the author's preface:

When I suggested this book, I captioned my proposal Operation Sharp End, a phrase chosen to emphasise that my central objective was to record memories of junior officers who bore the brunt of the fight on the ground.

Link:https://www.britishempire.co.uk/arti...onsharpend.htm

Coming soon hopefully a Kings War Studies PhD: Mark Baillie, ‘British Cabinet-Level Policy on the Malayan Emergency: An Enquiry into the Reasons for the Decisions’; described all too briefly:

showing how an understanding of the ‘official mind’, as opposed to military tactics, is crucial to understanding the prosecution of the campaign

Link:https://defenceindepth.co/2018/06/18...23-april-2018/