Jedburgh
02-27-2006, 02:57 AM
From the Spring issue of Parameters: Draining the Swamp: The British Strategy of Population Control (http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/06spring/markel.pdf)
Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States and its Army again find themselves confronted with a tenacious insurgency, this time in Iraq. Given our decidedly mixed record in counterinsurgency operations, we tend to look elsewhere for successful models. Many look to the British, especially their exemplary and thorough victory in Malaya, to provide such a model. Commentators cite the British Army’s superior organizational adaptability and flexibility, strategic patience, their predilection for using the minimum force necessary, the relative ease with which they integrated civil and military aspects of national power, and the apparent facility with which they adapted their strategies to local circumstances of geography and culture.
We would indeed do well to emulate the aforementioned characteristics of British counterinsurgency practice, but there was more to British success in Malaya than a good attitude. The key element of their success was the effective internment of the Chinese “squatter” population, the segment of Malayan society from which the insurgents almost entirely drew their strength. By interning the “squatters” in fortified “New Villages,” the British and their Malayan allies were able to deny the communist insurgents access to recruits, food, and military supplies. It also allowed them to narrow the scope of their intelligence efforts, as the insurgents had to maintain contact with their base under the very noses of the Anglo-Malayan government...
Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States and its Army again find themselves confronted with a tenacious insurgency, this time in Iraq. Given our decidedly mixed record in counterinsurgency operations, we tend to look elsewhere for successful models. Many look to the British, especially their exemplary and thorough victory in Malaya, to provide such a model. Commentators cite the British Army’s superior organizational adaptability and flexibility, strategic patience, their predilection for using the minimum force necessary, the relative ease with which they integrated civil and military aspects of national power, and the apparent facility with which they adapted their strategies to local circumstances of geography and culture.
We would indeed do well to emulate the aforementioned characteristics of British counterinsurgency practice, but there was more to British success in Malaya than a good attitude. The key element of their success was the effective internment of the Chinese “squatter” population, the segment of Malayan society from which the insurgents almost entirely drew their strength. By interning the “squatters” in fortified “New Villages,” the British and their Malayan allies were able to deny the communist insurgents access to recruits, food, and military supplies. It also allowed them to narrow the scope of their intelligence efforts, as the insurgents had to maintain contact with their base under the very noses of the Anglo-Malayan government...