Abstract
This chapter provides a brief overview of the Malayan Emergency. It places the Emergency in the broader historiological context, particularly in relation to the key “stale-mate” and “continuity” interpretations of how the counter-insurgency campaign evolved. It then considers how historians have previously assessed the role of intelligence within the Emergency, which revolves predominantly around Special Branch. The chapter then defines the various other elements of the intelligence apparatus during the Emergency, which have been thus far largely ignored. This includes the Joint Intelligence Committee (Far East), Security Intelligence Far East, the Malayan Security Service, and various forms of military intelligence. Finally, the chapter outlines the thesis of the book: that the development of an effective counter-insurgency intelligence was far more complicated, broad, and uncertain than previously acknowledged.
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Notes
- 1.
A. Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya (London 1975), Appendix, pp. 507–508.
- 2.
WO 208/5356, Review of the Emergency Situation in Malaya at the End of 1956 by the Director of Operations, Malaya; M. Postgate, Operation Firedog: Air Support in the Malayan Emergency 1948–1960 (London 1992), Annex L—Air Forces Order of Battle—Squadrons Available 1948–1960, p. 165.
- 3.
Short, The Communist Insurrection; R. Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare: The Malayan Emergency 1948–1960 (Singapore 1989); K. Ramakrishna, “‘Transmogrifying’ Malaya: The Impact of Sir Gerald Templer (1952–54)”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32: 1 (February 2001), pp. 79–92; S. Smith, “General Templer and Counter-Insurgency in Malaya: Hearts and Minds, Intelligence and Propaganda”, Intelligence and National Security, 16: 3 (2001), pp. 60–78.
- 4.
K. Hack, “British Intelligence and Counter-Insurgency in the Era of Decolonisation: The Example of Malaya”, Intelligence and National Security, 14: 4 (Summer 1999), pp. 124–155; K. Hack, “Corpses, Prisoners of War and Captured Documents: British and Communist Narratives of the Malayan Emergency, and the Dynamics of Intelligence Transformation”, Intelligence and National Security, 14: 4 (1999), pp. 211–241; K. Hack, “‘Iron Claws on Malaya’: The Historiography of the Malaya Emergency”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 30: 1 (March 1999), pp. 99–101; K. Hack, “The Malayan Emergency as Counter-Insurgency Paradigm”, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 32: 3 (2009), pp. 383–414; 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.
- 5.
Hack, “Iron Claws on Malaya”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 30: 1 (March 1999), p. 101.
- 6.
Ibid.
- 7.
The act of declaring a state of emergency might have in fact forced the communists to start their insurgency earlier than they would have wished. See A. Stockwell, “‘A Widespread and Long-Concocted Plot to Overthrow the Government in Malaya?’ The Origins of the Malayan Emergency”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 21: 3 (September 1993), pp. 66–88; Chin Peng, Alias Chin Peng—My Side of History (Singapore 2003).
- 8.
For instance, see Hack, “Everyone Lived in Fear”, Small Wars and Insurgencies, 23: 4–5 (2012), pp. 671–699; K. Hack, “‘Devils That Suck the Blood of the Malayan People’: The Case for Post-revisionist Analysis of Counter-Insurgency Violence”, War in History, 25: 2, pp. 202–226; 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).
- 9.
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.
- 10.
R. Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency—Experience from Malaya and Vietnam (1966); F. Kitson, Bunch of Five (1977); Kitson, Low Intensity Operations—Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (1971); T. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919–60 (London 1990).
- 11.
See, for instance, M. Bloch, The Historian’s Craft (Manchester 1952); E.H. Carr, What Is History (London 1961); J. Gaddis, The Landscape of History (Oxford 2002); G. Elton, The Practice of History (Oxford 1967); Evans, In Defence of History (London 1997).
- 12.
CO 537/2653, Note by JIC Secretary entitled, Composition and Functions of JIC (Far East), Appendix B, Draft JIC (FE) Charter, 5 January 1948.
- 13.
US Army and Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago 2007); British Army Field Manual, Volume 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.
- 14.
Chin Peng, Alias Chin Peng—My Side of History.
- 15.
P. Deery, “The Terminology of Terrorism: Malaya, 1948–52”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 32: 2 (June 2003), pp. 236–245. See also S. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds—British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency 1944–1960 (London 1995), p. 85.
- 16.
K. Hack and C.C. Chin, “The Malaya Emergency”, in C.C. Chin and K. Hack, eds., Dialogues with Chin Peng : New Light on the Malayan Communist Party (Singapore 2004), pp. 3–5; J. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (Chicago 2002), pp. 61–63; Comber, Malaya’s Secret Police, p. 14.
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Arditti, R.C. (2019). Introduction. 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_1
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