Posted on 08/25/2006 12:50:38 PM PDT by neverdem
To the lists of the enemies of the West — Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the tyrannical nations of Iran and North Korea, and others — we can now add a new foe: instant gratification.
Think of how we live now. One can now send an e-mail in New York. An instant later it arrives halfway across the world. A second later the recipient responds. Text messaging via cell phones has brought even faster access to information. With a Blackberry, an individual can find restaurant reviews on five neighborhood eateries in quicker time than it takes to walk across a broad city street to peek in the restaurant's window.
Our enemies, on the other hand, have the luxury of time. No...
--snip--
The 20th century model for the defeat of an insurgency is the British during the Malayan Emergency. Communist fighters began their armed effort in 1948. Sir Robert Thompson, the British leader in Malaya, employed a variety of British forces in an all-out effort to defeat the enemy. It included the use of both commando forces and efforts to win over the populace with food, medical care, and other services. The fighting went on in earnest through the 1950s with both Australia and New Zealand contributing troops. The time allowed Britain to foster Malayan independence, which was eventually proclaimed in 1957. It was not until 1960 that the war was deemed over. "In Malaya, it took 70,000 British Commonwealth troops, backed by 180,000 local forces, twelve years and perhaps $2.5 billion to stifle an insurgency waged by 8,000 guerrillas," writes Charles Simpson in "Inside the Green Berets: The Story of the U.S. Army Special Forces." This was a 12-year war, and it is considered a success story. Would world sentiment and public opinion permit such an effort to go on today?
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
I wasn't aware that they helped in Malaya.
That's about half the manpower we have in Iraq, and a lot less money. Financially, I'd say the Brits got a real bargain. Our budget seems to be about $2.5B per week.
Given the small numbers of "insurgents", it seems like we ought to be making major investments in technology for targeted assassinations.
Sir Robert Thompson, who was important in the British fight against the guerrillas was also involved in Vietnam on the US-side. I don't know if he ever really addressed the ethnic conflict that went along way in accounting for his earlier success.
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IF you don't allow the enemy sanctuaries, and if you wage war against their sponsors (terrorists ALWAYS have sponsors) you can get a relatively quick victory. In Malaya, the Brits couldn't go after the enemy's sponsors, the PRC.
In Iraq, we CAN go after the Iranians and Syrians if we have balls.
I can't speak for New Zealand - don't know their military history as well as Australias, but 1 and 38 Squadrons, Royal Australian Air Force operated out out of Singapore from July 1950. 1 Squadron flew Lincoln bombers, 38 flew Dakotas. The RAAFs Lincoln bombers dropped 85% of the entire bomb tonnage dropped during the Emergency, carrying out a total of approximately 4000 sorties up until July 1958.
In addition, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions of the Royal Australian Regiment served in Malaya at various times from 1955 until the end of the Emergency in 1960. They lost fifteen men killed in action, with a further 27 wounded in action.
Throughout the Emergency, HMAS ANZAC, HMAS Arunta, HMAS Melbourne, HMAS Quadrant, HMAS Queenborough, HMAS Quiberon, HMAS Quickmatch, HMAS Sydney, HMAS Tobruk, HMAS Vampire, HMAS Vendetta, HMAS Voyager, and HMAS Warramunga were all deployed on operations at various times.
The Malayan Emergency actually represents the longest continuous military commitment in Australia's history.
If you can document and link it, IMHO, history will appreciate it.
Converts from Islam to Christianity in Malaysia are sent to "re-education camps".
But back to the subject.
What if we are facing, not a 12 year war against "insurgents", but a Hundred Year War against Radical Islam and their Intimidated "moderates" ?
If frogs had wings, they wouldn't bump their ass when they hit the ground.
There are usually fairly good reasons for not turning counterinsurgencies into Third Generation conventional Industrial Age wars between nation-states, most of which have nothing to do with testicular inadequacy.
Dunno. But if 8000 commie guerillas could keep a war going for 12 years, can you imagine how long we're going to be in Iraq? Better to go after their sponsors.
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