‘Hearts and Minds’? British Counter-Insurgency from Malaya to Iraq
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This paper argued that the phrase "hearts and minds" does not accurately describe Britain's highly coercive counter-insurgency campaign in Malaya, which led to abuses of human rights.Abstract:
This article introduces this special issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies by discussing the British model of counter-insurgency. General (later Field Marshal) Sir Gerald Templer associated the phrase ‘hearts and minds’ with Britain's apparently successful counter-insurgency campaign in Malaya (1948–60). The phrase ‘hearts and minds’ is generally associated with a less coercive approach to counter-insurgency which emphasises the importance of using ‘minimum force’ in order to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people. This article argues that the phrase ‘hearts and minds’ does not accurately describe Britain's highly coercive campaign in Malaya. The British approach in Malaya did involve high levels of force, was not fought within the law and led to abuses of human rights. Britain's counter-insurgency campaign in Northern Ireland did not deploy the same levels of coercion that were used in Malaya but, nevertheless, considerable levels of coercion were used which did not succeed in winning the ...read more
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References
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Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice
TL;DR: The Prerequisites for a Successful Insurgency: Nature and Characteristics of a successful insurgency as discussed by the authors The Strategy to Tactics: The Operations and Operations of Successful Insurges.
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The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World
Lawrence Freedman,Rupert Smith +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explain why we try to use military force to solve our political problems and why, when our forces win the military battles does this still fail to solve those problems.
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Contemporary Conflict Resolution
TL;DR: The second edition of this hugely popular text charts the development of the field from its pioneers to its contemporary exponents and offers an assessment of its achievements and the challenges it faces in today's changed security environment as mentioned in this paper.
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Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam
TL;DR: Nagl argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict as discussed by the authors.
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Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
TL;DR: The first book to give us a true picture of the reality on the ground, through the words of the people there - from commanders to intelligence officers, army doctors to ordinary soldiers as discussed by the authors.