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Posted at http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/678
THE MALAY PRECEDENT
Lessons from
the Brits
by John O'Sullivan
NATIONAL REVIEW
NOVEMBER 24, 2003 VOL.
LV, NO. 22
How the Iraq crisis is resolved will be decided in two countries: Iraq and America. If the U.S. defeats the insurgency quickly and thoroughly, American voices demanding withdrawal will fade away. If on the other hand the conflict drags on in apparent confusion and futility, there will be growing domestic pressure for withdrawal. And if, furthermore, the American people are asked to make heavier sacrifices for Iraq � higher taxes, more reservists sent to the front, perhaps even the return of the draft � the political convulsion could resemble Vietnam.
Until recently there have been two opposite tendencies in Iraq: economic and social improvements, and the deterioration of the security situation. It was, at first, a reasonable assumption that the first trend would eventually correct the second. But the decline in law and order, though localized, seems to be accelerating. Should this continue, it will eventually abort economic recovery and political stability. People will not save, invest, and establish businesses, let alone cooperate with the occupying power, in conditions of growing anarchy.
What the future apparently holds, as everyone now accepts, is a long hard slog. But a great deal will depend on whether the U.S. begins to win that slog soon and visibly. What are the prospects of this? What examples are there of a successful anti-guerrilla campaign? Every columnist has his favorite analogy � Vietnam, Bosnia, the Philippines, and so on. No two conflicts are exactly alike, but we can learn from both the similarities and the differences.
One of the most successful anti-guerrilla campaigns was that waged by the British against the (mainly Chinese) Communist insurgents in Malaya between 1946 and 1958. It makes a particularly useful comparison with Iraq because, though the British eventually won, they started badly. For the first three years the Communists gained; it was only when the Brits remembered the jungle fighting techniques they had successfully employed against the Japanese in Burma that they recovered the initiative. Let us first examine the differences between the Malayan "emergency" and the Iraq liberation:
One: Borders. An important factor assisting the British was that the Communists had no safe haven across the Thai or Burmese borders to which they could retreat under pressure. Iraq has famously porous borders with nations that have been known to assist terrorism, including Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Islamist terrorists undoubtedly infiltrate Iraq across these borders. This disadvantage may be somewhat counterbalanced by sophisticated aerial reconnaissance of Iraq's largely sparse desert terrain, but it remains a disadvantage.
Two: Strategic hamlets. Once they reformed their tactics, the British forces separated the insurgent "fish" from the "sea" of peasants by relocating Chinese and Malay villagers into new protected hamlets defended against the guerrillas. That cut off their enemies from food, shelter, and intelligence. Forced back into the jungle, the Communists now found themselves the hunted ones, pursued by small anti-guerrilla units, skilled in tracking, camouflage, and close-hand fighting, including the feared Gurkhas. In Iraq the Saddamite and Islamist fish swim in an urban sea consisting of cities like Baghdad, Tikrit, and Fallujah; it is simply not practicable to move the residents from these areas, nor therefore to separate the fish from the sea. But see the point on intelligence below.
Three: Forces Favorites versus the CNN Effect. In Malaya the British had no need to worry that any accidental civilian deaths, inseparable from war, would become a major news event and political embarrassment. Quite the contrary, the main media influence was that of the weekly radio program Forces Favorites, broadcast to British forces all over the world, in which listeners sent in song requests like the following: "And now for Lance Corporal Brian Jones, serving with the Sappers in Malaya, from his sweetheart Beryl in Stockport, with all her love, their favorite song." This was commonly Anne Shelton singing "Lay down your arms and surrender to mine." But it had no pacifist overtones whatsoever. Indeed, the media in general preached support for the troops. By contrast CNN and the international news media today are alert for stories of military error and American unpopularity.
Four: Imperial fortitude. British domestic opinion took small wars and imperial sacrifice in stride. Americans are more questioning, and more willing to resort to the clear-cut choice of quick victory or withdrawal. This places greater pressure on policymakers to get fast results. But see below for possible substitute fortitudes.
Taken together, these differences suggest that Iraq might be a tougher nut to crack than Malaya. Let us now look, however, at the similarities:
One: Social divisions. The British generally benefited from the fact that the Communist insurgency was almost entirely a Chinese one in a country with a large Malay majority. By forging an alliance with the Malay community � in particular, by promising to grant independence when the emergency was over � the British ensured that they had local allies and good intelligence. Iraq is similarly divided, on both ethnic and religious lines. Thus far the U.S. has managed to keep the Shiites and the Kurds largely on its side. That keeps two large areas of the country fairly stable, and allows the U.S. to concentrate its counterinsurgency efforts on the "Sunni triangle."
Two: "Hearts and minds." This phrase actually dates from the Malayan campaign, and not from Vietnam (as Americans often assume). In order to win Malay and Chinese hearts and minds, those Brits not hunting guerrillas in the jungle were helping villagers to build huts, improve irrigation, and set up defenses against attack. This undercut the "social justice" arguments of the Communists just as the promise of independence undercut their political claims. U.S. soldiers already perform exactly the same tasks in Iraq. Naturally, they enjoy varying success from district to district. We need a "best practice" approach, with military units learning from one another. But the big picture is that, behind the headlines on security, the U.S. soldier is gradually making life better for ordinary Iraqis. That will not compensate for any security failures, but it will ensure that if security improves, Iraqis are more likely to be well disposed to Americans and to cooperate with the U.S. and its local allies.
Three: Leadership. In Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, whom the government sent out to take control in Malaya, the British had one of their most formidable soldier-diplomats. (He was not invariably diplomatic, however, once telling Mountbatten, "Louis, you're so crooked that if you swallowed a nail, you'd sh** a screw.") Others had laid much of the military and political groundwork for the British recovery in Malaya, but Templer built on this and quickly established his authority everywhere. After a short time almost everyone outside the Communist forces believed that the government was certain to win. Malaya got its independence in 1957, but the defeat of the insurgency was run by the British to the end. Malay politicians were willing to accept this because they trusted and respected Templer, and because they wanted to see the Communists well and truly beaten for the sake of future stability. In Iraq, similarly, the war will be won, or lost, by Americans. Putting an Iraqi face on the counterinsurgency may well be good politics, but the substance of authority must remain in the hands of the U.S.
Four: Intelligence. All the experts agree that in counterinsurgency operations, body counts are meaningless and good intelligence is the key to ultimate success. In Malaya the Communists initially enjoyed better intelligence than the authorities, from frightened and/or sympathetic villagers. Once the villagers were separated out in protected villages, however, the balance of advantage switched sides and the British began to get the better information. In Iraq we are at an earlier stage of this process. The Saddamite-Islamist coalition seems to have more agents in sensitive posts than the U.S. and its allies have in their conspiracy. What is now needed is clever exploitation of the divisions within Sunni Iraq. Most Sunni Moslems were not Baathists but victims of Saddam Hussein. We ought to be able to exploit that fact to get better intelligence. But this is a long job, and it will require the commitment of a large U.S. force for a long time.
All of which confirms that we face, indeed, a long hard slog. If, moreover, the U.S. needs to commit more resources to Iraq at a time of multiplying crises in Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere, two conclusions follow. First, the U.S. needs allies, because global unilateralism is an impractical fantasy. Second, the American people need a kind of non-imperial fortitude to sustain them through the inevitable setbacks. And because America is where the battle for Iraq will be won or lost, fostering such a fortitude is perhaps the central task of statecraft. Two American qualities might, together, have provided such a fortitude towards Iraq: the traditional American determination to avenge attacks upon the U.S., and the strong national patriotism of ordinary Americans. But the administration has not succeeded in demonstrating that the war in Iraq is part and parcel of the War on Terror. And though September 11 made patriotism almost universal again, after years of multicultural dilution, the Bush administration took no steps to give this emotion political clarity and intellectual content, and therefore permanence. Unless the Iraqi security situation improves soon, these may be failures the administration comes bitterly to regret.
