Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
I think there are some lessons to be learned from Malaya, but most of them center on necessary police/military interaction and the potential value of local forces.

One mistake that is often made is the thought that either ALL lessons from an area can be shifted to another or that NONE of them can be used. I think the real value lies in sifting through the cases for specific techniques that worked (or didn't work) and examining them in light of your current situation. For example, elements of Malaya would have worked in Vietnam (since you did have ethnic minorities to work with...and in some cases the South Vietnamese thought of the Northerners as something of a foreign element), but they may gain less traction in Iraq or Afghanistan where tribal factors can play a bigger role. That said, you could possibly modify some Malay techniques to work with tribal cultures.

It's an interesting problem, and one of the things that keeps drawing me to history.

I am burning through John Nagl's book and I just entered the section on Vietnam after finishing the part on Malaya. John's writings on the Brits resonated with me as a guy very interested in Queen Victoria's military and a graduate of the Sudanese Junior CGSC (CAS3) team taught by Brits and Sudanese.

Where John's book is strongest (so far) is its contrasting study of the British and American militaries' willingness to learn. Simply put the British approach to issues of doctrine is dramatically different than our own. We approach doctrine as a stone tablet found on a mountain called Fort Leavenworth. The British approach is much more individualistic and area focused than our own.

Don't get me wrong here; I am not saying the Brits get it right everytime because clearly they don't. But they do adapt more quickly than we do where we tend to fall back on the core "values" of technology, firepower, and annihilation of the enemy when we stumble.

Best

Tom