Nov
17
2008
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Far From Won & Done |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 17 November 2008 |
In Brigadier Richard L. Clutterbuck's book "The Long Long War: The Emergency in Malaya 1948-1960" the end game of the British fight against the communist guerillas is very instructive.
Clutterbuck puts the begining of the end game around 1955. But the end was not until 1960.
I first encountered Clutterbuck and the Malayan civil war as model for counter insurgency in Fallujah in 2005.
After reading the book, I realized it was a blue-print for how to build a counter-insurgency.
The British, like the coalition in Iraq, spent a lot of time on mostly useless hammer and anvil type operations until they embarked on the "Briggs Plan."
If you put the Briggs Plan next to General Petraeus' counter insurgency manual, they are nearly identical. The accounts of the Briggs plan in action mirror the strategies and tactics employed by General Raymond Odierno when he was the Corps Commander in 2007.
The coalition is in a similar position to the British in 1956-1957.
The government of Iraq is becoming more capable. The Iraqi Police and military are more effective. The insurgency is waning and on the run. Many former insurgents, both Sunni and Shia, are being assimilated into mainstream.
But there is still a cadre of dedicated insurgents out there.
The British solution was to keep the emergency regulations in place, but with less strict enforcement on a case by case basis and to work closely with the new Malayan government. The British still kept their full complement of infantry battalions in the jungles, slowly hunting down the remnants and stepped up construction and commercial projects.
The British did not pull back into large bases. They dispersed out even deeper into the jungles of Malaya.
In Iraq, this move would be to reduce our logistical footprint in massive bases and to deploy infantry into even smaller outposts in the population centers where the Soldiers and Marines would live off the local economy as much as possible.
The arc of the war in Iraq has mirrored the British experience in Malaya to an uncanny degree. U.S. Policy makers should study the history of Malayan civil war.
If they do, they will see that we need another three years or more of deliberate and precision hunting down of the insurgent cadres to finish the job permanently, lest the core be able to reconstitute itself.
The surge has worked--to a stunning degree. But the war is not won yet.
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