Draining the Swamp

The British Strategy of Population Control

Bibliographic Data

ID20138877
AuthorsWade Markel (corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume36
Issue1
Publication date2006-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe US Army War College Quarterly Parameters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-1723 • E-ISSN: 0031-1723
PublisherUnited States Army War College Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.55540/0031-1723.2295
OpenAlexW1484355241
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited1

Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States and its Army again find themselves confronted with a tenacious insurgency, this time in Iraq. Given our decidedly mixed record in counterinsurgency operations, we tend to look elsewhere for successful models. Many look to the British, especially their exemplary and thorough victory in Malaya, to provide such a model. Commentators cite the British Army's superior organizational flexibility, strategic patience, their use of the minimum force necessary, their ability to integrate civil and military aspects of national power, and the facility with which they adapted their strategies to local circumstances of geography and culture. We would do well to emulate the aforementioned characteristics of British counterinsurgency practice, but there was more to British success in Malaya than a good attitude. The key element of their success was the effective internment of the Chinese "squatter" population, the segment of Malayan society from which the insurgents almost entirely drew their strength. By interning the "squatters" in fortified "New Villages," the British and their Malayan allies were able to deny the communist insurgents access to recruits, food, and military supplies. This strategy was liable to abuse. In Kenya, against the contemporary Mau Mau rebellion, the British employed the same strategy as they had in Malaya, in this case interning basically all of the ethnic Kikuyu. The system of detention camps and fortified villages quickly degenerated into "Britain's Gulag in Kenya," but it was successful. A strategy of population control was not invariably effective, however. In Vietnam, the Diem regime's British-advised and American-supported attempt to implement the Strategic Hamlet program not only failed to weaken the insurgency, but actually exacerbated popular resistance. The author applies the British model of counterinsurgency and lessons learned from them to Iraq

Biology · Control (management) · Criminology · Economics · Geography · Management · Political science · Population · Sociology · Swamp · Demography · Ecology · Military and Defense Studies · Military History and Strategy · Military Strategy and Technology

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