Quote Originally Posted by MattC86 View Post

Nagl emphasized that a large part of the British success in Malaya was because the British Army and political apparatus recognized both the political nature of the struggle (and thus the associated requirements of limited and discriminate force, employment of troops in policing roles, etc.) which I think we have understood properly, at least now, in Iraq; and also the tradition of imperial soldiering and policing - that the troops on the ground would have to make do with limited resources and support from the home country. This "forced privation," I think it could be argued, help spur creative solutions and innovation that enabled success.
This is why Nagl is pretty much ignored in the UK. The campaign in Malaya was founded on torture, assassination and mass punishment techniques, that were not acceptable at the time and would not be now. The whole "hearts and minds" gimmick was the cover story. Same in Kenya. We won using well disguised brutality.

When used in isolation, all the techniques applied in Malaya failed miserably in Vietnam, and all thanks to a self styled expert, called Robert Thompson.