Abstract
This chapter gathers together the various threads discussed in previous chapters. It argues that the intelligence apparatus that evolved during the Emergency was not a single-dimensional entity focused solely or even predominantly upon Special Branch. Nor did it the apparatus evolve in a linear or whiggish manner. It took the best part of seven years of trial and error to reach a degree of structural maturity. The chapter also considers the implications of these finding. It argues that potentially British and American efforts in contemporary campaigns against terror may have struggled in part because they were based on previous, infirm, assessments of how intelligence was managed in Malaya. This suggests a more systematic review of current counterinsurgency doctrine is required.
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Notes
- 1.
H. Bennett, “‘A Very Salutary Effect’: The Counter-Terror Strategy in the Early Malayan Emergency, June 1948 to December 1949”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32: 3 (2009), pp. 415–444; D. French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency 1945–67 (Oxford 2011); K. Hack, ‘Everyone Lived in Fear: Malaya and the British Way of Counter-Insurgency’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 23: 4–5 (2012), pp. 671–699.
- 2.
R. Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency—Experience from Malaya and Vietnam (1966).
- 3.
See, for instance, A. Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya (London 1975), p. 502; R. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London 2006), p. 494; F. Kitson, Bunch of Five (London 1977), p. 286; R. Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency—Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam (London 1966), p. 84; H. Miller, Jungle War in Malaya, fn. 90, p. 90; B. Stewart, “Winning in Malaya: An Intelligence Success story”, Intelligence and National Security, 14: 4 (1999), pp. 267–283.
- 4.
Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya; L. Comber, Malaya’s Secret Police 1945–60—The Role of the Special Branch in the Malayan Emergency (Singapore 2008); G. Sinclair, “‘The Sharp End of the Intelligence Machine’: The Rise of the Malayan Police Special Branch 1948–1955”, Intelligence and National Security, 26: 4 (2011), pp. 465–467.
- 5.
See Comber, Malaya’s Secret Police, Chapter 5 entitled “The Rise of Special Branch (1950–52): Sir William Jenkin”, pp. 131–146.
- 6.
The archivists at The Military History Museum provided the author access to the Intelligence Corps archives and also the Medmenham Collection. I was able to speak with two officers who had served in Malaya during the Emergency, one with JAPIC (FE), the other as young subaltern. I am very grateful for their time, insights and hospitality.
- 7.
K. Hack, “‘Devils that Suck the Blood of the Malaya People’: The Case for Post-revisionist Analysis of Counter-Insurgency Violence”, War in History, 25: 2 (2018), pp. 202–226; French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency 1945–67.
- 8.
J-P Brodeur, “High Policing and Low Policing: Remarks About the Policing of Political Activities”, Social Problems, 30: 5 (June 1983), pp. 507–520.
- 9.
A number of commentators trace the origins of Britain’s counter-insurgency theory back to General Callwell’s Small Wars (1898) and Charles Gywnn’s Imperial Policing (1934). For a broader discussion of Britain’s counterinsurgency theory see A. Alderson, “Britain”, in T. Rid and T. Keaney, eds., Understanding Counterinsurgency—Doctrine, Operations and Challenges (Oxon 2010), pp. 28–45; D. Porch, Counterinsurgency—Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War (Cambridge 2013), pp. 246–268; I. Beckett, “The Historiography of Insurgency”, in R. Rich and I. Duyvesteyn, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, pp. 23–31.
- 10.
R. Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency—Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam (London 1966).
- 11.
Ibid., pp. 50–62.
- 12.
F. Kitson, Gangs and Counter-Gangs (London 1960); Kitson, Low Intensity Operations—Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (London 1971); Kitson, Bunch of Five (London 1977).
- 13.
T. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919–60 (London 1990).
- 14.
US Army and Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
- 15.
J. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (Chicago 2002).
- 16.
See T. Ricks, The Gamble (London 2009); P. Broadwell, All In—The Education of David Petraeus (London 2012); F. Kaplan, The Insurgents (New York 2013).
- 17.
Gian Gentile, an ardent critic of FM 3-24 , argues that Malaya formed the “historical bedrock” upon which contemporary counter-insurgency doctrine is based. See G. Gentile, Wrong Turn—America’s Deadly Embrace of Counter-Insurgency (New York 2013), pp. 12, 25, and 36.
- 18.
US Army and Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago 2007). See AIR 20/7777, The Briggs Plan for the original quotation. See also Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, p. 89.
- 19.
British Army Field Manual, Vol. 1, Part 10, Countering Insurgency. Accessed on 15 July 2015, via http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_11_09_Army_manual.pdf.
- 20.
W. Chin, “Why Did It All Go Wrong—Reassessing British Counterinsurgency in Iraq”, Strategic Studies Quarterly (Winter 2008), p. 133.
- 21.
I. Rigden, The British Approach to Counter-Insurgency: Myths, Realities, and Strategic Challenges, Strategic Research Project—US Army War College, Abstract. See also D. Ucko, “The Malayan Emergency: The Legacy and Relevance of a Counter-Insurgency Success Story”, Defence Studies, 10: 1–2 (March–June 2010), pp. 13–39.
- 22.
Ucko, “The Malayan Emergency”, Defence Studies, 10: 1–2 (March–June 2010), p. 36.
- 23.
See, for instance, French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency 1945–67; Hack, “Everyone Lived in Fear”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 23: 4–5, pp. 671–699; Bennet, “A Very Salutary Effect”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32: 3 (2009), pp. 415–444.
- 24.
R. Egnell, “Lessons from Helmand, Afghanistan: What Now for British counter-Insurgency,” International Affairs, 87: 2 (2011), p. 300.
- 25.
N. Aylwin-Foster, “Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations”, Military Review, November–December 2005.
- 26.
F. Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars (London 2011), p. 154.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 159; See also, Rigden, The British Approach to Counter-Insurgency: Myths, Realities, and Strategic Challenges, p. 10; Gentile, Wrong Turn, pp. 37–39.
- 28.
D. Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency Redux”, Survival, 48: 4 (2006), pp. 111–130.
- 29.
D. Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency—The State of a Controversial Art,” in Rich and Duyvesteyn, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, p. 128.
- 30.
AIR 20/7777, Report on the Emergency in Malaya, from April 1950 to November 1951, by Sir Harold Briggs.
- 31.
See CAB 129/48, c (51) 26, The Situation in Malaya: A Cabinet Memorandum by Lyttelton, dated 20 November 1951; WO 216/806, Sir Rob Lockhart (Director of Operations) to Sir William Slim (CIGS), 14 January 1952; WO 208/3219, Director of Operations, Malaya, “Review of the Emergency Situation in Malaya at the End of 1954”; WO 216/885, Bourne to Harding, 3 June 1955; WO 208/5356, Director of Operations, Malaya, ‘Review of the Emergency Situation in Malaya at the End of 1956’.
- 32.
AIR 20/10377, Director of Operations Malaya, Review of the Emergency in Malaya from June 1948 to August 1957, September 1957.
- 33.
Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, pp. 50–62.
- 34.
Ibid., pp. 84–89.
- 35.
Kitson, Bunch of Five, p. 287.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Bennett, “A Very Salutary Effect”, Journal of Strategic Studies, 32: 3, pp. 415–444; French, The British Way in Counter-Insurgency 1945–67 (Oxford 2011); Hack, “Everyone Lived in Fear”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 23: 4–5, pp. 671–699.
- 38.
Kitson, Bunch of Five, p. 288.
- 39.
US Army and Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency Field Manual, p. 132.
- 40.
R. Schultz and A. Dew, “Counterinsurgency, by the Book”, The New York Times, 7 August 2006.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, p. 84; Kitson, Bunch of Five, p. 287; D. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare—Theory and Practice (London 2006), p. 50; FM 3-24 , Counterinsurgency Field Manual, p. 79; Alderson, “Britain”, in Rid and Keaney, eds., Understanding Counterinsurgency, p. 29.
- 43.
P. Davies, “The SIS Singapore Station and the Role of the Far East Controller: Secret Intelligence Structure and Process in Post-war Colonial Administration”, Intelligence and National Security, 14: 4 (1999), pp. 105–129.
- 44.
M. Flynn, M. Pottinger, and P. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan (Centre for a New American Security January 2010), p. 23. Accessed on 6 July 2015 via, www.cnas.org/files/…/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf.
- 45.
See, for instance, J. Cooper, Curing Analytical Pathologies—Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis (Centre for the Study of Intelligence 2005); A. Gendron, “Improving the IC’s Analytical Performance”, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 25: 2 (2012), pp. 420–426; S. Marrin, “Intelligence Analysis Theory: Explaining and Predicting Analytical Responsibilities”, Intelligence and National Security, 22: 6 (2008), pp. 821–846; S. Marrin, “Preventing Intelligence Failures by Learning from the Past”, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 17: 4 (2004), pp. 655–672; C. Wastell, “Cognitive Predisposition and Intelligence Analyst Reasoning”, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 23: 3 (2010), pp. 449–460.
- 46.
Lord Butler, Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction (London 2004).
- 47.
For instance, see S. Freyn, ‘Using Structured Methods to Improve Indicator and Warning Analysis, Competitive Intelligence, 15: 4 (October / December 2013), pp. 22–29.
- 48.
Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, p. 85; C. Grado, Anticipating Surprise, Analysis for Strategic Warning (Centre for Strategic Intelligence Research 2002); S. Khalsa, Forecasting Terrorism—Indicators and Proven Analytic Techniques (Oxford 2004).
- 49.
Flynn, Pottinger, and Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan, p. 12.
- 50.
Paul Rich and Isabelle Duyvesteyn advocate a similar argument in relation to ‘hearts and minds’. See Rich and Duyvesteyn, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, pp. 362–363.
- 51.
AIR 20/7777, Report on the Emergency in Malaya, from April 1950 to November 1951, by Sir Harold Briggs.
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Arditti, R.C. (2019). Conclusion. In: Counterinsurgency Intelligence and the Emergency in Malaya. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16695-3_9
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