ISSUE 191 : Jul/Aug - 2013 - Australian Defence Force Journal

Where the Malayan Emergency is less relevant
The Malayan Emergency has less contemporary relevance in three important areas, namely
the misconceptions that have taken hold regarding the role of ‘winning hearts and minds’
in Malaya, the widespread changes since brought by globalisation and urbanisation, and the
currently feasible levels of civil-military integration.
The myths of ‘hearts and minds’
A major reason for a lessening of relevance of the Malayan Emergency to counterinsurgency
broadly, and in contemporary circumstances, is the myths that have persisted regarding a
British counterinsurgency model, as noted by historian Hew Strachan:
The model was more selective than the reality, and has increasingly tended to overlook some
of the campaign’s more unpalatable features—or cherry-picked those that are compatible with
today’s operational concepts and their legal and moral norms. 57
An over-emphasis on the idealised perception of what ‘hearts-and-minds’ involved in Malaya—
and an avoidance of the historical reality of coercion’s role in success—has rendered the
Malayan case study irrelevant to some degree, albeit not because of its intrinsic worth but
because of the pervasiveness of certain superficial consideration.
Brigadier Justin Kelly’s 2009 article on ‘How to Win in Afghanistan’ identifies actions required
for success in Afghanistan. 58 He provides a valuable counterpoint to the counterinsurgency
scholarship which downplays the use of coercive force to obtain objectives in favour of
development activities:
There will be a time when reconstruction and other aid will begin to produce dividends and
that time will be marked by the establishment of security which, in Afghanistan, requires the
removal of the insurgent and the extension of the coercive authority of the Afghan state into
Pashtun areas … [and] establishing control over the Pashtun population. Without security there
is nothing. 59
Unfortunately, the misleading analysis of Malaya (that the campaign was won largely by nonkinetic
means, that is, by the ‘winning of hearts and minds’) has made it a tool to support
erroneous approaches in current operations. Kelly’s argument that security must be established
first, then development and other aspects be employed to provide effective counterinsurgency
solutions, can be supported by detailed understanding of what the Malayan campaign entailed
but not by the simplistic interpretation that it was about ‘winning hearts and minds’. 60
Globalisation and urbanisation
A second area in which the Malaya example is less relevant is because of the effects of
globalisation. As noted by Lieutenant Colonel Trent Scott, 61 the character of counterinsurgency
has changed since Malaya and other classical campaigns in the post-colonial era. He argues
that ‘this change is due in part to the influences of globalisation, a globalised information
network and a pervasive media presence’. 62
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