TRAINING INDIGENOUS FORCES IN 

COUNTERINSURGENCY:

A TALE OF TWO INSURGENCIES

James S. Corum

March 2006

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FOREWORD

This monograph examines the British experience in building and 

training indigenous police and military forces during the Malaya 

and Cyprus insurgencies. The two insurgencies provide a dramatic 

contrast to the issue of training local security forces. In Malaya, the 

British developed a very successful strategy for training the Malayan 

police and army. In Cyprus, the British strategy for building and 

training local security forces generally was ineffective. The author 

argues that some important lessons can be drawn from these 

case studies that apply directly to current U.S. counterinsurgency 

doctrine.

The research for this monograph was carried out while the 

author was a visiting fellow of All Souls College, Oxford University. 

The author used the superb library and archive of the Rhodes 

House Centre for Imperial and Commonwealth History at Oxford 

University. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this 

contribution to the current debate on counterinsurgency doctrine.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

Director

Strategic Studies Institute 
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

JAMES CORUM is a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army 

Reserve and served in Iraq in 2004. He was a visiting fellow at All Souls 

College, Oxford University in 2005 and is currently a professor at the 

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, 

Kansas. Dr. Corum is the author of four military history books: The 

Roots of Blitzkrieg, 1992; The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 

1997; The Luftwaffe’s Way of War, with Richard Muller, 1998; Airpower in 

Small Wars, with Wray Johnson, 2003. His most recent book, Quelling 

the Beast: A Counterinsurgency Strategy for America, is being published 

by Zenith Press in 2006. He has authored dozens of book chapters 

and journal articles on military history and counterinsurgency. Dr. 

Corum holds an M.A. from Brown University, M. Litt. from Oxford 

University, and a Ph.D. from Queen’s University, Canada. 
v

SUMMARY

Counterinsurgency is manpower intensive, and nearly all major 

counterinsurgency campaigns of the last century have relied heavily 

on indigenous police and military forces. Indeed, there have been 

few counterinsurgency situations in which the indigenous security 

forces were not the primary forces employed on the government side 

in the conflict, at least in terms of numbers. 

Although the importance of training indigenous police and 

military forces is understood in counterinsurgency doctrine and 

theory, relatively little research has been conducted concerning how 

this mission should be carried out. Hopefully, this monograph will 

help fill some of the information gap on this vital subject. There 

are several major questions that need to be addressed: How can 

the supporting or governing power best organize the local police 

and military forces for counterinsurgency? What level of training 

do security forces need to conduct effective counterinsurgency 

operations? What is the role of the police in counterinsurgency? What 

is the role of home guards or irregular security organizations? What 

kinds of training programs produce effective police and military 

leaders? 

These are very relevant questions today as the U.S. military revises 

its counterinsurgency doctrine. Currently, U.S. forces are engaged 

in campaigns against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are 

providing advice and support to the Philippine and Colombian 

governments in their battles against insurgents. In all of these 

countries, the U.S. military is engaged in training and supporting the 

local police and military forces for counterinsurgency operations. As 

the Global War on Terror continues, the U.S. military will certainly 

see many more missions to train and support indigenous security 

forces. 

Training indigenous security forces is also one of the most complex 

tasks in developing an effective counterinsurgency strategy. Building 

new forces from scratch is difficult enough. It is often even more 

difficult to take indigenous police and military forces with a tradition 

of incompetence and corruption and transform them into effective 

forces that can find and defeat insurgents without undermining the 

legitimacy of the government in the eyes of the population. 
vi

This monograph is built around two case studies concerning the 

British experience in training indigenous security forces in the Malaya 

and Cyprus insurgencies. Although these events occurred 50 years 

ago, most of the problems faced in both insurgencies would sound 

very familiar to any American soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan. In both 

Cyprus and Malaya, the hostility of major ethnic groups was at the 

heart of the insurgent movement. In both cases, the degree of success 

in counterinsurgency largely was determined by the effectiveness 

of the government in winning support among the disaffected part 

of the populace. The training, competence, and leadership of the 

indigenous security forces in these cases played a central role in the 

government’s ability to win civilian support. 

The two insurgencies were protracted conflicts. At the beginning 

of each conflict, the government’s police and security forces were 

undermanned, poorly trained, and poorly prepared to conduct 

counterinsurgency. Strategic success in both cases depended on the 

government’s ability to recruit, retrain, and reorganize the indigenous 

security forces. In Malaya, the British eventually succeeded in building 

a highly effective Malayan police and army. As the Malayans became 

more capable of handling their own security, the British were able to 

withdraw forces and leave behind a stable and democratic nation 

that was able to finish off the insurgent movement. In Cyprus, the 

British dramatically increased the Cypriot police force and organized 

new local security units. However, they failed to adequately train the 

police or provide effective leadership. Indeed, the poor discipline 

and training standards of the Cypriot Police were major factors in 

the British failure to defeat the small insurgent movement. 

The two case studies focus primarily upon the role of indigenous 

police in counterinsurgency. Soldiers must not forget that, in 

counterinsurgency, the line between law enforcement and military 

operations often is blurred. In fact, in most counterinsurgency 

campaigns, the primary role of the military has been to provide 

support and manpower for essentially police operations: search and 

cordon operations, roadblocks, and area control operations; and area 

search and sweep missions. In many, if not most, counterinsurgency 

campaigns, the police have been the major element of force employed 

by the government. This was the case in both Malaya and Cyprus 
vii

where the police usually operated jointly with the military forces. 

Neither the Malaya nor Cyprus insurgencies were characterized by 

large-scale combat. In both cases, normal operations more closely 

resembled policing on a large scale than conventional warfare. 

This is yet another similarity with current operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan and, indeed, with most counterinsurgency operations 

of the last century. 

This monograph first outlines the role of the Malayan Police in 

the context of the insurgency from 1948-60 and the evolution of 

the recruitment and training policies of the police. The process of 

creating and training the Malayan army and home guards also is 

considered. The programs to train the leadership of the Malayan 

forces are examined in some detail, and the British policies are 

assessed in terms of their effectiveness. The second part of the 

monograph provides a brief context for the Cyprus insurgency from 

1955 to 1959 and examines the organization, training, and leadership 

of the Cyprus Police in counterinsurgency operations. The problems 

of police training and discipline are outlined, and the reasons for 

poor police performance in the insurgency are assessed.

Some important lessons to be learned from examining the 

histories of these two counterinsurgency operations are presented 

in the concluding section. First of all, these case studies offer a 

comparison of the effectiveness of widely varying strategies as they 

relate to indigenous forces. Several lessons relevant to current U.S. 

doctrine are outlined. Briefly summarized, the lessons deal with 

recruiting security forces from disaffected ethnic elements, the 

training of indigenous security force leadership, the role of home 

guards in counterinsurgency, the role of civilian police trainers, and 

the establishment of ongoing police and military force training. 

TRAINING INDIGENOUS FORCES IN 

COUNTERINSURGENCY:

A TALE OF TWO INSURGENCIES

INTRODUCTION

Success in counterinsurgency depends on a number of major 

elements, to include establishing the legitimacy of the government 

in the eyes of the people, defeating the insurgent forces, providing a 

basic level of security for the population, and creating the conditions 

for economic growth. Underpinning these tasks is the establishment 

of an effective security force. 

Counterinsurgency is very manpower intensive, and nearly 

all major counterinsurgency campaigns of the last century have 

relied heavily on indigenous police and military forces. Indeed, 

there have been few counterinsurgency situations in which the 

indigenous security forces were not the primary forces employed 

on the government side in the conflict—at least in terms of numbers. 

Even if foreign forces had to carry the main burden for a time, the 

preference of the defending government has been to employ foreign 

security forces only as long as absolutely necessary, with the ideal 

being the creation of local forces capable of defeating insurgents 

with minimal support from foreign forces. Simply put, enabling an 

indigenous government to fight its own war is a key element of a 

sound counterinsurgency strategy.

Although the importance of training indigenous police and 

military forces is understood in counterinsurgency doctrine and 

theory, there has been relatively little research concerning how this 

mission should be carried out. What lessons can one learn from other 

insurgencies? How can the supporting or governing power best 

organize the local police and military forces for counterinsurgency? 

What level of training do security forces need to conduct effective 

counterinsurgency operations? What is the role of the police in 

counterinsurgency? What is the role of home guards or irregular 

security organizations? What kinds of training programs produce 

effective police and military leaders? 
These are very important questions today as the U.S. military 

revises its doctrine on counterinsurgency. Insurgency has long 

been the preferred means of a militarily weak faction to gain 

power. Although most insurgencies have failed for many reasons, 

throughout history there have been enough successful insurgencies 

to establish this form of warfare as the best option for a nonstate 

enemy in undermining the interests of the United States and its allies. 

Currently, U.S. forces are engaged in campaigns against insurgents 

in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are providing advice and support to 

the Philippine and Colombian governments in their battles against 

insurgents. Although the U.S. military would prefer not to engage in 

counterinsurgency operations, insurgencies are not going away for 

the foreseeable future as U.S. allies around the world are undermined 

by radical Islamic insurgents or other groups hostile to U.S. interests. 

Accordingly, we can expect to be called on to provide advice, training, 

and support. The U.S. military will therefore need to develop a more 

comprehensive doctrine for such missions. 

Soldiers must not forget that, in counterinsurgency, the line is 

blurred between law enforcement and military operations. In fact, in 

most counterinsurgency campaigns the primary role of the military 

has been to provide support and manpower for essentially police 

operations: search and cordon operations, roadblocks and area 

control operations, and area search and sweep missions. In many, 

if not most, counterinsurgency campaigns, the police have been 

the major element of force employed by the government. In both 

counterinsurgency campaigns examined, the primary indigenous 

forces employed were the police, who operated independently in 

some cases and, at other times, jointly with the military forces.1 In 

counterinsurgency, the police missions range from routine anticrime 

operations to fielding full combat forces. In Malaya, for example, the 

police forces ran the gamut from elite light infantry units, to security 

guards, to cops on the beat. In Cyprus, while the majority of the 

forces available were British military, the Cyprus Police still played 

a central role in all operations. In counterinsurgency, organizing and 

training the indigenous police forces often attains a higher priority 

than training the indigenous military. 

However, although the roles of the police and military in 

counterinsurgency are blurred, there are still important distinctions 
between the two forces. Because insurgent membership or activities 

in Malaya and Cyprus were considered criminal offenses, the police 

retained the primary responsibility for the arrest, detention, and 

prosecution of insurgents. In both cases, the police remained the 

force on the ground with daily contact with the civilian community, 

which was also the group from which the insurgents gained their 

recruits and support. The role of the military in both insurgencies 

was to conduct larger, manpower-intensive operations and longterm operations, such as patrols in the deep jungle. Much of the time, 

the task of the military was to provide manpower for support of 

police-led operations. Although some military units served for long 

periods in one district and maintained close relations with the civilian 

population, for the most part military units were shifted around the 

country to the sectors of most intense action. As the insurgents in 

both cases rarely fielded any large units, there was rarely any need 

for the military to think in terms of battalion or brigade tactical 

operations. The military experience of the two case studies was 

dominated by small operations that more closely resembled policing 

on a large scale than conventional military operations. This is a 

characteristic common to most counterinsurgency operations over 

the last century. 

I have chosen two counterinsurgency campaigns for close 

examination. I chose Malaya 1948-60 because it is a good example 

of a successful counterinsurgency strategy and doctrine. The other 

case study, the insurgency in Cyprus 1955-59, is an example of 

failure in counterinsurgency. While the Greek Cypriots did not get 

everything they wanted—namely union with Greece—they did 

win their independence from the British after a hard and bloody 

campaign. The indigenous police and military forces played a major 

role in both counterinsurgency campaigns and, although Britain was 

the foreign power fighting both insurgencies, Britain’s approach to 

organizing, training, and employing the indigenous security forces 

in the two campaigns was very different. In short, these two case 

studies offer an interesting comparison in the effectiveness of widely 

varying strategies as they relate to indigenous forces. By examining 

the organization, content, and effectiveness of indigenous security 

force training in Malaya and Cyprus, I hope to derive some lessons 
pertaining to training local security forces that will be of value in 

revising U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine and strategy. 

CASE STUDY MALAYA

Overview of the Malayan Campaign.

The insurgency in Malaya, called the “Emergency,” lasted from 

1948-60, and was one of the largest and bloodiest conflicts waged by 

British Commonwealth forces after World War II. The insurgency 

was born of the post-World War II disorder coupled with the rise of 

modern nationalism. The conflict also had a major ethnic dimension 

as the insurgent strength was centered primarily in the Chinese 

ethnic minority. Indeed, calling the Chinese a minority is almost a 

misnomer as they constituted 42 percent of the population of the 

six Malayan Federated States and Singapore, with the ethnic Malays 

about 40 percent and the rest of the population made up of Indians 

and aboriginal peoples.2 Although the largest ethnic group, the 

Chinese were mostly excluded from any proportional political power 

or influence under the Malayan Federation system that ensured 

that all the Federated States were controlled by ethnic Malays. The 

Chinese also generally were excluded from positions in the Malayan 

civil service. These policies, coupled with Communist efficiency in 

organization and propaganda, set the stage for general unrest among 

Malaya’s largest ethnic group. 

During World War II, the Malayan Communist Party, which 

was dominated by ethnic Chinese, took the opportunity to expand 

and organize its cadres. The Japanese occupation authorities singled 

out the Chinese community for exceptionally harsh treatment and 

thousands of Chinese fled to the jungle regions. There they became 

willing recruits for the Malayan Communist Party cadres, who had 

also sought refuge in the jungle. The Malayan Communist Party 

organized thousands of guerilla fighters who received arms and 

training from the British army. After the war, the communists—

now well-armed and organized—saw the opportunity to drive the 

British out of Malaya through a peoples’ war reminiscent of Mao’s 

concepts. The colonial government forces and infrastructure, as 

well as the valuable British business interests such as tin mines and 
rubber plantations, were targeted in a terrorist and guerrilla war 

campaign. 

Malaya was a protracted war comprised of thousands of small 

engagements. From 1948 to 1951, the insurgent forces expanded 

rapidly. In 1951-52 the British finally developed an appropriate 

strategy to defeat the guerrilla war. By 1953 the tide had clearly 

turned as the Malayan government forces became more effective, 

and rebel numbers and influence decreased. The now effective 

government forces systematically cleared settled districts of rebels 

and hunted down rebel bands in the jungle. With the insurgency 

clearly on the wane, the British granted Malaya independence in 1959 

but continued to maintain a force there. As in many insurgencies, the 

insurgent force in the field never surrendered formally, but rather 

dwindled to insignificance. In 1960 the Emergency was declared 

over.

The British Response to the Insurgency, 1948-51.

When the British government formally declared the Malayan 

Emergency in June 1948, the first response was to throw manpower 

at the crisis. With their long experience in controlling colonial 

populations, the British viewed insurgency as primarily a police 

matter, with the military providing support to the civil authorities. 

Steps were taken immediately to expand the Malayan Police force 

by recruiting “special constables” and “auxiliary policemen” and 

forming special units to operate against the insurgents. Between 1948 

and 1951, the Malayan Police was expanded to 50,000 personnel. In 

1948-49, the regular police force was expanded to 20,000 men, with 

the new police given only a short basic training course. The 30,000 

additional police, known as special constables, were not regular 

police, trained in routine law enforcement and apprehension of 

criminals, but paramilitary forces whose sole purpose was to carry 

out counterinsurgency and infantry operations. These men also were 

provided with only minimal training. 

When the insurgency broke out, the British were still in the 

process of organizing an army division in Malaya, composed 

primarily of Gurkha battalions that would form an imperial strategic 
reserve for the Far East. The British garrison of 13 battalions—

seven Gurkha battalions, three British infantry battalions and one 

artillery regiment, and two Malay Regiment battalions—was in no 

shape to conduct military operations. The seven Gurkha battalions 

were units that Britain had negotiated to keep after most Gurkha 

battalions had been turned over to the Indian Army when India was 

granted independence. The Gurkha units of the British Army were 

in a process of rebuilding, and those in Malaya were understrength, 

with a very high proportion of new recruits who had not completed 

basic training.3 The other regular British units in Malaya were 

scarcely better trained, and some were at half strength.4 The postwar 

British military was still in a state of flux, and units contained a high 

proportion of short-term national servicemen (conscriptees). The 

training level of units in the Far East was low, and none of the British 

units were trained for jungle warfare or counterinsurgency.

However, ready or not, the situation required that the army 

immediately be committed to the counterinsurgency campaign. 

Reinforcements were rushed from Britain and around the empire to 

support the Malayan government. Most units rushed to Malaya were 

short of basic equipment, key personnel, and even ammunition. The 

most urgent requirement, however, was to have enough troops and 

police on the ground to provide a basic level of security for the cities, 

and to protect some of the Empire’s most lucrative resources: the 

tin mines and rubber plantations of Malaya. As well as providing 

security, the police and army were to take the offensive against the 

rebels to try rooting them out of their jungle strongholds.

In order to provide a basic level of security for the tin mines and 

rubber plantations, the mine and plantation owners raised their own 

irregular security forces to guard the corporate assets, as well as the 

families of the British business community, a group that had been 

specifically targeted in insurgent terrorist attacks. These security 

guards, mainly raised and mostly financed by the tin and rubber 

companies, were dubbed “auxiliary police.” Due to a general shortage 

of weapons, the mine and plantation guards were equipped with 

whatever weapons were at hand, mostly old shotguns and hunting 

rifles. Aside from some ex-military mine and plantation managers 

who made an effort to provide some basic weapons training to their 

guards, auxiliary police forces essentially were untrained.
In the early stages of the insurgency, the regular Malayan Police 

were an easy target for the insurgents. While the urban police forces 

were fairly well-trained and supervised by experienced officers, 

the rural police generally were organized into small, vulnerable 

detachments under command of Malayan noncommissioned officers 

(NCOs). This was a fairly normal practice in the British Empire. 

Colonies had some centrally-controlled and professionally-led 

police forces to oversee the urban areas, and “native police” who 

dealt mainly with the countryside and served more as a symbol 

of government presence than anything else.5 As is the norm in 

developing countries, the rural police forces were complacent at 

best, and more often corrupt, augmenting their police salaries with 

small bribes extorted from the rural residents. The rural police, the 

first line of government authority in the most threatened regions, 

generally were incapable of mounting any kind of energetic action 

when confronted by a terrorist or guerrilla threat. Many of these 

police detachments simply avoided trouble. Other detachments 

surrendered themselves and their weapons without a fight to small 

insurgent bands. 

Before World War II, Malaya had one of the best colonial police 

forces in the British Empire. However, the force was demoralized 

and disorganized by the World War when the British police officers 

either had been imprisoned by the Japanese, or had fled to the jungle 

to fight as guerrillas. Some of the Malayan rank and file had fought 

as guerrillas, but most had collaborated. In 1948 the police were in 

a process of rebuilding. Normally, Malaya Police officers (the rank 

of inspector and higher) were career imperial policemen who had 

undergone the full 1-year police training course in Britain before 

being assigned to Malaya. The high pay and benefits of the Malayan 

Police attracted a high caliber of officer aspirants from Britain who 

saw police service as an attractive career. Upon completion of a 

thorough United Kingdom (UK) training course, the British officers 

of the Malaya Police were given additional training upon arrival 

in the country. They were expected to pass Malayan language 

examinations within 2 to 3 years of their assignment. All the higher 

officer ranks, and most of the mid-level police officers, were British. 

In 1948 only 188 Malayans served at the rank of inspector.6
The need to expand the police force rapidly meant discarding 

the previous standards and training programs for officers and for 

constables. The 30,000 hastily recruited special constables of the 

Malayan Police were organized into small detachments to conduct 

counterinsurgency operations in each district. A young Briton 

with some military experience and who could pass the colonial 

police entrance examination might get a few weeks of training—at 

best—and then find himself in Malaya commanding a local police 

detachment, of which perhaps only a couple of the Malayan NCOs 

might have some proper training.7 For the British officers of the 

Malayan Police, things like language requirements and training in 

police investigation were ignored in the rush to form units to fight 

the insurgents. Basic recruit training for the Malaya Police was cut 

to a minimum to man the expanded force and, from 1948 to 1951, 

most police training was “on the job.”8 A year into the insurgency, 

the Malayan government reported that manpower requirements 

were so urgent, no higher police training for officers and NCOs was 

taking place. Indeed, it was reported that even basic skills such as 

vehicle maintenance and communications training had fallen out, 

and that police units urgently needed a vehicle maintenance training 

program if police vehicles were to remain operational. Police basic 

skill training was found to be deficient in many other areas. For 

example, army support for basic signals training had to be urgently 

requested.9 However, in the early stages of the insurgency, it was 

difficult for the army to provide the police with basic skills training 

because of a severe shortage of experienced army personnel and a 

low level of training within the army itself. 

The only experienced police reinforcements readily available in 

1948 were 400 British officers and NCOs of the recently disbanded 

Palestine Police. These were quickly committed to Malaya, several 

being assigned to top leadership positions. The ex-Palestine Police 

had the advantage of experience in counterinsurgency, but no 

knowledge of Malaya or the language and local culture—things that 

had been an essential part of the training of the regular police before 

the insurgency. Another problem was that the Palestine Police had 

a long tradition of “strong-arm” police tactics, and many of the 

transferred policemen brought this approach with them. Many did 

not adapt well to Malayan conditions. 
Creation of Specialized Jungle Units.

One of the most important innovations, and a key element of the 

success of the British in Malaya, was the establishment of a jungle 

training school at Kota Tinggi in 1948. Most of Malaya was covered 

in deep jungle, and this provided a superb sanctuary for insurgent 

bands. Insurgents could emerge from the jungle at will, raid a 

plantation or ambush a police patrol, then slip back to their wellhidden base camps. While the insurgent leaders felt comfortable in 

the jungle, thanks to their experience of living as guerrillas during 

the war against the Japanese, the jungle was an alien place for the 

police and British troops. Slow and clumsy sweeps through the 

jungle by conventional infantry battalions were evaded easily by the 

smaller and more agile rebel bands that would slip right back into the 

“cleared” areas as soon as the British had passed through. These big 

conventional operations gave the impression of immense military 

and police activity, but yielded few concrete results in the form of 

insurgent prisoners or casualties.10 Luckily, the army had available 

Colonel Walter Walker and a few other veterans of the World War 

II Burma campaign who had considerable experience living and 

fighting in the jungle. Walker (later a general) organized the Jungle 

Warfare School with a few officers and NCOs with similar experience 

and began teaching small cadres from the army and police in jungle 

operations.11

Walker and others who understood jungle warfare knew that the 

best way to seek out and destroy small bands in jungle terrain was to 

employ small, jungle-savvy, light infantry patrols that could play the 

insurgents’ game of raid and ambush on the insurgents’ home ground. 

Men trained in the jungle school would return to their units and, in 

turn, train them to live and fight in the jungle. The Jungle Warfare 

School taught the difficult arts of land navigation in the jungle and 

jungle survival, but the core of the program was small unit patrolling 

and combat tactics. Combat marksmanship was stressed, and each 

course ended with a series of realistic exercises. The Jungle Warfare 

School employed a specialist Opposing Forces Section (OPFOR) 

of British and Malayan soldiers who were armed and dressed as 

communist guerrillas and could also imitate insurgent tactics and 
10

methods. They would ambush the army and police trainees on 

patrol and raid the trainee base camps. The course was considered 

highly effective from the start, the only problem being the small 

initial capacity of the school. As the British became better organized, 

whole companies were put through the course.12 However, getting 

a thorough jungle training program up and running was a slow 

process, and in the early stages of the insurgency, most of the British 

army and police units had to learn jungle warfare literally “on the 

job.” Many army companies arriving in Malaya went straight into 

combat operations without even a training exercise in the jungle.13

In November 1950 the police responded to the requirement to 

operate in the jungle by forming special jungle companies, composed 

mostly of Malayans with British NCO and officer leadership. 

The jungle companies, each about 180 men strong, would deploy 

detachments of 10-15 men to operate on long patrols in the jungle 

for days at a time. The plan called for 31 companies to be formed 

in 1951 and another 14 in 1952. Still, the police were limited by the 

shortage of properly trained officers and NCOs to command the 

detachments. For small detachments to operate effectively in the 

jungle, they required first-rate junior leaders who could operate 

independently for days at a time—and good junior leadership was 

in very short supply during the first years of the Malaya insurgency. 

Only 21 police jungle companies had been formed by August 1951, 

when the formation of further units was halted.14 Personnel of the 

police jungle companies were to be trained at the Jungle Warfare 

Center, but a full training regime came only later, so the first jungle 

companies went into action with little preparation and had to learn 

on the job.

Intelligence Operations and Training 1948-51.

Effective counterinsurgency operations depend more on accurate 

intelligence than any other factor. Government police and military 

forces usually have a great firepower advantage over the insurgents 

and can defeat the lightly-armed insurgents in combat if they can 

find the enemy. The problem is finding an enemy who recognizes 

no front lines, who draws logistics support from the civilian 
11

populace, and often wears civilian clothes and can blend in among a 

sympathetic population. Lacking accurate intelligence, conventional 

forces can only blunder about in the hope that the enemy guerrillas 

will decide to stand and fight. In the meantime, while conventional 

army and police units blunder about the countryside, insurgent 

organizers hiding among the population can continue to organize 

and propagandize the civilians and maintain the insurgency, even as 

their military forces suffer heavy losses in the field. Unless intelligence 

can locate and target the insurgents’ underground support network 

specifically, or locate small guerrilla bands in the jungle with some 

accuracy, an insurgency such as Malaya’s can continue indefinitely. 

Insurgents can even increase in power and influence despite 

overwhelming conventional power arrayed against them. 

For the Malayan Police in the first years of the insurgency, the 

most serious deficiency was the shortage of trained officers with 

a suitable background for intelligence work. At the start of the 

insurgency, the Malayan Police had only the Criminal Investigation 

Division (CID), with a small group of officers capable of manning a 

Special Branch (British term for a police intelligence organization). 

The colonial government had only a small intelligence staff, the 

Malayan Security Service, which provided domestic intelligence to 

the governor general that mainly concerned Malayan political groups 

and labor unions.15 The collection and analysis of intelligence on the 

insurgents was directed by the small and overworked CID, which 

was also responsible for investigating normal crimes. The CID and 

Malayan Security Service did not, at first, coordinate their efforts, 

nor did the police effectively coordinate and share information with 

the army intelligence staffs. Indeed, there was no police special 

branch until August 1950. At that time, a police special branch was 

organized to concentrate on collecting intelligence on the insurgents, 

while the CID was henceforth only responsible for crime.16

At the start of the insurgency, the police faced other daunting 

problems that severely limited their ability to collect intelligence. 

There were very few police personnel of Chinese ethnic background, 

and almost no Malayan or British intelligence personnel who knew 

Chinese. This greatly limited the amount and quality of intelligence 

that the police could collect on the insurgents, for almost all of the 
12

insurgents belonged to the approximately 42 percent of the Malayan 

population that was ethnic Chinese.17 At the beginning of the 

insurgency, the colonial government sent only one assistant police 

superintendent and 28 civil service cadets to China for language 

instruction. But attaining fluency in Chinese was a long process, and 

those men would not be available to support the intelligence effort 

for a couple of years. In the meantime, the intelligence service had to 

rely on the small number of Chinese-speaking personnel already in 

the police, or in other branches of the colonial administration. Only 

during the third year of the insurgency did the colonial government 

make a serious effort to train the police and civil service in the Chinese 

language. In July 1951 6-month intensive Chinese language courses 

were organized in Malaya’s Cameron Highlands. The first group 

of trainees included 20 police and 4 civil servants, and additional 

courses were laid on for 1952.18

In addition to the limits on intelligence imposed by a shortage 

of linguists and other trained personnel, the police and military 

intelligence collection in the early years of the insurgency was 

hampered further by the lack of cooperation between the intelligence 

agencies. Even had more qualified intelligence personnel been 

available, they could not have been used effectively due to the lack 

of an intelligence-sharing system between the police and the army. 

At the national level, there was no system for coordinating police 

and military intelligence, and coordination took place at the lower 

levels only if the local police and military officer commanders used 

their own initiative to cooperate. Commonly, the inexperienced 

junior officers and staffs of the police and military did not cooperate. 

When General Briggs took over as military commander in 1950, he 

instituted a committee system of military and police cooperation 

at every level, and intelligence coordination and collection slowly 

began to improve. 

The Malayan Army and Security Forces.

In 1948, the Malayan army, a force then subordinate to the British 

army, consisted of three battalions of the Malay Regiment, which 

had been established in 1933-34. The Malay Regiment had all-Malay 

enlisted men, commanded by seconded British officers, and had a 
13

solid record. During the defense of Singapore in 1942, the unit had 

performed well, holding on while some white British and Australian 

units broke and ran.19 When the insurgency broke out, the decision 

was made to double the size of the regiment quickly and add three 

more battalions by 1950.20 However, the process of expanding the 

Malayan army went more slowly than planned, and the strength 

goal was not reached until 1953 under General Templer, and then 

only because Templer pushed hard to see that the proper equipment, 

officers, and training facilities were made available. 

Early in the insurgency, the Malaya Federation governments 

authorized the establishment of village home guards. These home 

guards had no uniforms, received no pay, and had few weapons. 

The home guards served purely as a local security force to guard the 

villages at night, essentially to stand shifts at the village gate or in 

hastily constructed watchtowers. A village home guard detachment 

of 60-100 men might have 12 rifles, just enough to arm one shift of 

guards. After each shift, the guards would turn the rifles or shotguns 

over to the next shift. Early in the insurgency, the army could spare 

little in the way of training, rifles, or ammunition for the home 

guards. By 1951 an estimated 100,000 Malayans belonged to the 

home guards, each member mounting guard for a few hours a week. 

While of minimal tactical or operational value, these irregular local 

defense units at least served to give the Malayans a greater sense of 

security.21

The government’s initial response to the insurgency was to 

throw a large amount of manpower at it. The military garrison 

was reinforced heavily, and the police and security forces initiated 

a massive expansion program. By 1950 the country abounded in 

home guards and auxiliary security units. The massive application 

of largely untrained manpower worked to stabilize the situation. 

Despite an overwhelming advantage in manpower and resources, 

this policy made no headway. Indeed, the insurgency continued 

to grow, with the active insurgent military force reaching its peak 

of 8,000 in 1951. Despite heavy insurgent casualties, the insurgent 

forces continued to win support among the population. Increasing 

the police and military manpower failed to keep the violence from 

escalating. The bloodiest year of the Emergency was 1951, with 
14

6,082 recorded incidents in which 533 civilians, 354 policemen, and 

124 soldiers were killed, for insurgent losses of 1,078 killed and 322 

captured.22 Although the force of active insurgent combatants was 

relatively small, the guerrilla forces also received strong support from 

the Communist Party organization that held sway over hundreds of 

thousands of Chinese rural laborers living in squatter settlements at 

the edge of the jungle. 

By 1950, the problem of employing large numbers of virtually 

untrained police, led by officers and NCOs with little experience 

or training, had become a major concern of the government. Rapid 

recruitment and the lack of trained police leadership afforded 

many new policemen the opportunity to abuse their power and 

use their status to extort money from the population.23 The Malaya 

Police earned a well-deserved reputation for widespread brutality, 

especially in its manner of dealing with ethnic Chinese—all of whom 

were viewed as insurgents or potential insurgents. Some observers 

saw this attitude stemming largely from the ex-Palestine Police 

officers, who brought a ruthless approach to counterinsurgency to 

Malaya.24 The 1950 Police Commission to Malaya noted that the 

problems of bribery and corruption were present in a high degree 

throughout the Malayan government, and especially in the lower 

ranks of the police. In fact, the Police Commission viewed police 

corruption as a major source of the people’s dissatisfaction with the 

government. The many bad policemen served as some of the best 

recruiting agents for the insurgents. The commission noted, “The 

insidious cancer of corruption eating into the system of government 

may render impotent its vital services, including its police force.”25

In the midst of an insurgency and with the need to expand, the 

problems of police corruption and brutality had been overlooked. 

Cleaning up the police force and establishing a professional ethic 

would have to wait for new leadership.

Templer and Young —New Leadership and a New Plan, 1952-54. 

Lieutenant General Harold Briggs, military commander in Malaya 

from April 1950 to late 1951, was a key figure in the development 

of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy for Malaya. Briggs 

pushed for numerous reforms, including closer police and military 
15

cooperation, especially on intelligence collection; and he promoted a 

civil affairs strategy to deny the insurgents public support. The key 

element of the “Briggs Plan” was a “drain the swamp” approach. 

Since the rural Chinese population living on the edge of the jungle was 

the primary source of recruits and support for the insurgents, Briggs 

proposed moving whole villages of squatters to new governmentbuilt villages complete with clean water, electricity, schools, and 

medical clinics. Landless Chinese laborers would receive deeds for 

small plots of government land and, more importantly, could now 

be kept under much closer supervision by the police and army. It 

was an expensive and time-consuming approach to defeating the 

insurgency, but it eventually proved successful.26 Briggs was in poor 

health, though, and as his plan got underway in 1951, he retired 

and returned to England, where he soon died. British leadership 

took another blow in October 1951 when General Gurney, the high 

commissioner, was ambushed and killed by the rebels while driving 

home. At the same time, the government decided to relieve the Malaya 

Police commander, Colonel Grey, since both the government and his 

subordinates had lost confidence in his leadership.27 In late 1951, it 

appeared that the British strategy in Malaya was foundering, and 

the British Defence Coordination Committee in London reported: 

“The communist hold on Malaya is as strong, if not stronger, today 

than it ever has been. This fact must be faced.”28

Colonial minister Oliver Lyttelton traveled to Malaya in 1951 

and was disturbed by what he saw. Although the strategy of 

throwing manpower at the insurgency had at least stabilized the 

situation, the government was making no progress to defeat the 

insurgency. Although the Briggs Plan was a good start on a strategy, 

the government and military forces required a new leadership 

team to make it work, and in early 1952, it arrived. General Gerald 

Templer was named as both the high commissioner and the military 

commander, combining the civil government and military forces 

under one hat.29 The new police commander was one of the top 

policemen in the Empire, Sir Arthur Young, Commissioner of the 

London Metropolitan Police. Young agreed to come to Malaya for a 

year to sort out a demoralized and disorganized police force. Then, 

at Templer’s and Lyttelton’s request, he stayed an extra 3 months, 

returning to London in mid-1953. 
16

The leadership team of Lyttelton, Templer, and Young proved 

exceptionally dynamic and competent. The Briggs Plan was carried 

forward energetically. Moreover, Templer and Young insisted on a 

complete overhaul of the Malayan police and military training and 

leadership, as well as a reorganization of the Malayan military and 

police forces. The British government was under heavy political 

pressure to end the insurgency and anxious to pull British troops—

many of them conscripted soldiers—out of Malaya as soon as 

possible. Despite this, Lyttelton steadfastly supported Templer 

when the new high commissioner insisted that London commit to 

maintaining a large British military force in Malaya until the new 

civil affairs strategy could take effect, and until the Malayan military 

and police forces could be trained systematically and prepared to 

take responsibility for Malaya’s security. It was a tall order to fight 

the insurgency as a prolonged war, and Lyttelton deserves credit 

for ensuring that Templer and Young got the troops and resources 

they needed, and for garnering political support for a long-term 

counterinsurgency strategy.

Training the Police.

Templer and Young agreed that training the Malayan Police and 

military forces and providing those forces with good leadership 

would be a top priority of the new administration. When Young 

arrived, he recalled, 

The lack of training was everywhere evident. The pressure of the 

Emergency to increase the numbers of police and auxiliaries had allowed 

no time to train the thousands of newcomers who were employed almost 

exclusively upon guard and static duties. I considered the need for 

training as of top priority and arranged for training depots to be set up in 

regional areas with a program to complete the training of the force within 

12 months so that the police could be progressively employed on active 

antiterrorist duties rather than on their existing passive ones.30

Badly-trained and badly-led security forces were inefficient in 

counterinsurgency, at best. At worst, they undermined the effort of 

the government to win the support of the people. Young, therefore, 

insisted that police operations against the communists be cut back 
17

while the virtually untrained special constables were pulled out of 

action and sent to a 2-month basic training course.31 For overseeing 

an ambitious program to retrain the whole Malaya Police force, 

Young brought in some of the top policemen and intelligence 

specialists in the Empire. Young sent for Superintendent John Kane, 

the commandant of London’s Metropolitan Police School, to come to 

Malaya and take charge of the police training program. Five highly 

experienced officers and 65 of the best NCOs in the Malaya Police 

were pulled out of action for 3 months to attend an intensive course 

on police operations at the new Police Training School in Taiping. 

After the course, these carefully-selected officers and NCOs served 

as instructors for the special constables in the new police training 

courses Young had organized. Young quickly initiated a systematic 

program to retrain the entire police force over an 18-month period. 

Young’s ambitious program put an increased burden on the army, 

who had to carry out offensive operations and pacification programs 

with less police support. Young even requested additional support 

from the army for instructors and resources for police training, 

including weapons instruction and signals instructors. Despite 

complaints from senior army commanders, Templer saw the value 

in Young’s strategy and supported the police program.32

Young also made Malayanization of the police leadership a 

priority mission. He selected 29 Malayan inspectors and officers 

who had been promoted from the NCO ranks to be sent to the UK 

police college course in Ryton and Hendon—courses that usually 

lasted a year. A new police college for officer training was built at 

Selangor, Malaya, and opened in 1952. The school included an 8-

month course for new policemen selected for the officer program 

and a 3-month course for officers who had already been promoted to 

officer rank but had not been to a proper police course. Other police 

officers were sent to 4-to-8-week courses at the Frasers Hill Police 

Training Centre and the Federal Police Training Depot at Tanjong 

Kling. Chinese language training was increased, and in 1952 46 police 

officers, all destined for Special Branch operations, were sent to the 

Chinese Language School set up in Malaya’s Cameron highlands. 

Full training for the NCOs and enlisted policemen was instituted, 

with 596 NCOs taking a 10-week course at Kendong, and 2,594 

regular police recruits completing the full training program at the 
18

Federal Police Depot at Kuala Lumpur.33 Hundreds of police officers 

and enlisted men attended army courses in vehicle maintenance, 

communications operations, and weapons repair. Police weapons 

instructors were trained by the army.34

Training the Army.

While supporting Young’s police reform and training efforts, 

Templer made the expansion and systematic training of the 

Malayan army another high priority project. One of Templer’s first 

acts as high commissioner was to announce the creation of a new 

Malaya Federation Regiment that would be recruited from all of the 

Malayan ethnic groups, not just from the Malays, as was the case 

with the Malay Regiment. Since independence would likely come 

sometime in the next decade, the Malayan armed forces needed a 

solid foundation, and that meant properly trained Malayan officers. 

Templer stepped up the flow of Malayan officer cadets to Sandhurst. 

He personally selected 24 prospective Malayan cadets to be sent 

to the full 1-year officer course in the UK, after which they would 

return as lieutenants. Templer also sat on the selection board for the 

first group of officer cadet applicants for the Federation Regiment. 

Consistent with his policy that the Chinese needed to be integrated 

fully into Malayan society, he chose six ethnic Chinese to be in the 

first group of officer trainees.35

Templer established a new officer school at Port Dickson, Malaya, 

where the officers of the Malayan Army could be trained along 

Sandhurst lines. In order to get top-quality civilian instructors for 

the new officer school, he requested volunteers from the Sandhurst 

civilian faculty and found 18 eager to come to Malaya for the new 

venture. In early 1953, the Port Dickson officer training college was 

opened as the primary military school of the Malayan army.36

Reforming the Security Forces.

While retraining the police, in 1952-53 Young also reduced the 

force by 10,000 personnel, cutting mostly special constables who 

had been recruited early in the emergency and who had proven 

incompetent or corrupt. Fighting corruption in the police force 
19

was a major theme of Young’s tenure, and hundreds of police were 

dismissed for cause. Young found that many of the special constables 

hastily recruited at the start of the insurgency were physically unfit, 

illiterate, or otherwise disqualified from effectively carrying out 

police duties. These police were weeded out in a more gentle fashion, 

being sent to jobs training programs when they were demobilized 

from the police.37

By cutting out corrupt and incompetent police personnel, Young 

raised the efficiency of the force while saving money to finance his 

new training program, an expensive proposition. As a means of 

combating the “police state” mentality that had become common in 

the police, Young instituted “Operation Service,” a program to change 

the perception of the police in the eyes of the civilian population. 

Hitherto, the police were seen primarily as an authoritarian arm of 

the government, and Young wanted the police personnel and the 

general population to understand that the police were also a branch 

of government dedicated to public service. Police detachment 

commanders, and even individual policemen, were expected to 

perform some public service on a daily basis—everything from 

helping civilians get care at government health clinics to helping farm 

laborers with their applications for a plot of government land.38 The 

idea that the police were there not only to arrest miscreants but also 

to serve the people at large was a new concept for Malaya, a country 

where most people feared the police—usually with good reason. 

Young’s concept was to make the police stations the purveyors of 

essential public services and have the police recognized as friends, 

and not enemies, of the average citizen. Surprisingly, Operation 

Service was effective in changing the attitude of the Malayan civilians 

towards the police.39

Young also understood the value of good intelligence in 

counterinsurgency and believed that no progress could be made 

unless police intelligence training was overhauled. One-fifth of the 

senior ranks in the Malaya Police, usually men with extensive criminal 

investigation experience, were assigned to the Special Branch and a 

highly-qualified Special Branch officer, Claude Fenner, was brought 

in to establish a Special Branch Training School where all the senior 

police officers and all Special Branch personnel would take courses 

in intelligence operations and analysis.40 The Police Special Branch 
20

Training School was one of Young’s pet projects. He regularly 

visited the school, giving talks, and personally selected the senior 

faculty.41 In 1952, 77 superintendents and assistant superintendents, 

71 inspectors, and 129 detectives passed through the Special Branch/

CID courses.42 Many army personnel also were sent to the Special 

Branch School since police and military intelligence operations were 

coordinated in joint intelligence centers. The days of army and police 

intelligence sections not sharing information were over by 1952, 

and much of the credit should go to the Special Branch School. The 

Special Branch Training School succeeded not only in providing 

officers with the skills necessary for counterinsurgency intelligence, 

but also in professionalizing the leadership of the Malayan Police. 

For example, the school included courses on the latest investigative 

techniques and police equipment.43 Another of Young’s initiatives to 

build up the Special Branch was to increase the number of Chinese 

linguists in the police. The 46 additional officers that Young ordered 

pulled out of operations and sent to study Chinese would, in time, 

be exceptionally useful in Special Branch operations.44

That very few Chinese served in the Police or Malayan civil 

service, and no Chinese served in the Malaya Regiment, was a major 

obstacle in responding effectively to an insurgency centered in the 

Chinese community. Although the Chinese were a plurality of the 

population of the six federated states and Singapore, the Malaya state 

governments were all Malay-dominated. The Chinese were regarded 

as outsiders, even though many had been there for generations. 

From the Malay point of view, the Chinese were unwelcome 

ethnic competitors. Many of the Chinese were in business, and the 

education level of the Chinese middle class was higher than that of 

the Malays. With British approval, the Malays long had excluded the 

Chinese from the Malaya Regiment and from the higher ranks of the 

civil service. In addition, the Chinese were not encouraged to join 

the Malay-dominated police force. In 1947 there were only 26 ethnic 

Chinese officers and inspectors in the entire Malaya Police.45

Little had been done to bring the Chinese into the Malayan 

military or police after the insurgency started, which Templer 

and Young regarded as a serious problem. Until the Chinese were 

brought into the process of government and recruited to fight the 
21

communist insurgents, the Chinese community would continue to 

view the government with hostility, or at best, indifference. Templer 

forced the Malayan Federation governments to admit Chinese to 

the civil service and into the security forces.46 In his program to 

reorganize the Malayan army forces, Templer put a high priority on 

recruiting Chinese for the enlisted and officer ranks. Although the 

Malayan Regiment still only recruited Malays, the new Armoured 

Car Regiment, the Federation Regiment, and the technical and 

support branches of the army were open to all the ethnic groups 

of Malaya. The Chinese did not enthusiastically answer the call 

to join the army, which remained overwhelmingly ethnic Malay 

throughout the insurgency. No more than 15 percent of the Federation 

Regiment’s personnel were Chinese, although a higher percentage 

of Chinese signed up for the army’s technical and support services. 

Although Templer failed to meet his goal of recruiting Chinese for 

the Federation Regiment and new units in proportion to their share 

of the population, enough Chinese recruits and officer cadets joined 

to make the Malayan army credible as a multiracial force. 

Under Templer, the foundation was laid for a systematic 

expansion of a Malayan army that was well-trained, well-led, and 

able to take progressively more responsibility for counterinsurgency 

operations. When Templer arrived in early 1952, there were only 

four Malayan battalions available for operations, all from the Malaya 

Regiment. By mid-1954, there were seven Malayan battalions. Most 

of the officers were seconded from the British army, but the new 

officer training college was beginning to provide a steady stream of 

properly trained Malayan junior officers. Also, the first increment of 

Sandhurst-trained Malayan officers had returned and was able to 

put a Malayan face on the army leadership. In October 1953, Templer 

could form the 1st Federation Division of the Malayan Army.47

When Templer left Malaya to become British Army chief of 

staff in 1954, the process of Malayanization of the army and the 

counterinsurgency campaign was progressing smoothly. With 

better-trained Malayan forces led by competent officers and NCOs, 

the British could feel confident enough to withdraw some British 

battalions from the country. Not counting the eight Gurkha battalions, 

the British army and Royal Marine commitment to Malaya reached 
22

a peak of 10 battalions in 1951-52. With the Malayans and some 

Commonwealth battalions bearing a larger share of the burden, 

British army strength was reduced to four battalions by mid-1954, 

but with no decrease in the total number of battalions available for 

operations (22).48

Since the police were the main force fighting the insurgency, 

Young put a high priority on recruiting Chinese for the regular police. 

Young established cordial relations with the Chinese associations of 

Malaya and ethnic Chinese political leaders, working to get their 

support to recruit Chinese into the police force. In 1952 there were 

only 800 Chinese in the regular police force of over 20,000, and Young 

hoped to get 2,000 Chinese recruits. He pushed his campaign through 

public radio broadcasts and private appeals to Chinese leaders. 

Although Young failed to reach his goal, the Chinese recruitment 

of the force still had improved significantly. Between April and 

October 1952, 505 Chinese joined the Malaya Police.49 By November 

1953, the Malayan Police included 1,824 Chinese in a total regular 

force of 22,934. Although it would take decades to right the ethnic 

imbalance in the police force, a start was made under Young.50

Another part of the Templer/Young reform and reorganization 

was a program to improve the efficiency of the home guard. Templer 

created a new post of Inspector General of the Home Guard, sending 

for Major General Edward de Fonblanque to take charge of the force. 

Fonblanque, a competent and energetic leader recently retired from 

the army, managed to get some experienced Commonwealth and 

British officers assigned to the home guard and ensured that a proper 

training camp was set up in each Malayan state. The main thing was 

to train the home guardsmen to handle firearms and to carry out 

basic security duties. Goals were set to expand the home guard to 

240,000 men and to ensure that there was proper supervision of the 

force by trained officers.51 Each Malayan state had a home guard 

headquarters, staffed by professional officers, to direct the training 

programs. Manuals on weapons handling and village security 

were produced, and a force that previously had been indifferently 

organized was put on a more regular footing. Each of the states 

raised “operational sections,” small units composed of the best 

home guardsmen, who were paid, given extra training, and made 
23

available to go on patrol with the regular police and army units.52

Although Templer’s predecessors refused to arm any part of the 

Chinese community, Templer disagreed strongly with this policy. 

He placed a high priority on recruiting Chinese into the home guard, 

and making the Chinese community fully responsible for defending 

their own villages. Many feared that the Chinese would defect 

with their weapons to the rebels, but such fears proved groundless. 

Surprisingly, 50,000 Chinese willingly joined the home guards, and 

by 1954, 150 Chinese villages were protected by their own security 

force.53

Though the home guards saw little action in Malaya, they were 

still of enormous value in suppressing the insurgency. The home 

guards were able to assume many routine security duties, freeing 

up thousands of regular police and military personnel for offensive 

operations. Moreover, recruiting the Chinese into the home guard 

had the very positive political effect of bringing a large number of 

the Chinese into the government process and making them part of 

the solution to the insurgency. 

The Foundation of Success in Malaya.

When Templer left Malaya in 1954, the British strategy was 

clearly working. Insurgent strength was down, and violent incidents 

less frequent. The British could withdraw forces, confident that the 

Malaya Police and army could take over the responsibilities, thanks 

to their thorough training and the presence of a cadre of competent 

indigenous officers. In the senior leadership of the Police Special 

Branch, well-trained Malayan officers were able to take over from 

the British personnel without any drop in that branch’s efficiency.54

In fact, the key intelligence side of the counterinsurgency campaign 

steadily improved, thanks to the increased presence of Chinese in 

the army, police, and home guards. As the security forces became 

more representative of the population, the attitude of the Chinese 

population towards the government became more positive. As the 

reforms in the Malayan security forces took effect, the insurgents 

had to operate among an increasingly unfriendly population.

The value of thorough training in defeating an insurgency was 

demonstrated clearly in the improved efficiency of the intelligence 
24

system after Arthur Young established the Special Branch School. 

Within a few months of the start of the intelligence training program, 

the military and police forces in the field were able to target specific 

rebel bands much more effectively than before. Guy Madoc, who 

served as director of the special branch in Malaya, commented on 

the value of the intelligence school to the success of the campaign: 

“The school was the sluice valve of the Emergency. Defeating the 

Emergency depended on intelligence. Intelligence capacity depended 

on the output of the school.”55

CASE STUDY CYPRUS

Overview of the Insurgency in Cyprus, 1955-59.

Cyprus was acquired by Britain from the Ottoman Empire in 1879 

and spent the next 70 years as a minor colonial backwater. The small 

colony, with total population of just over 500,000 in 1950, assumed 

an increased importance for British strategy after Britain pulled out 

of its colonies and protectorates in the Mideast after World War II. 

The British viewed Cyprus as its vital base for forces in the Mideast 

as well as its regional center of influence.56 However, trouble long 

had been brewing. The overwhelmingly Greek population of Cyprus 

(82 percent) was strongly in favor of ending British rule and uniting 

with Greece. In 1931 the desire for union with Greece (called “enosis” 

in Greek) led to widespread anti-British riots and the suspension of 

local government. After World War II, a war in which many Greek 

Cypriots loyally served Britain, the sentiment for enosis increased. 

A plebiscite sponsored by the Cypriot Church in 1950 resulted in a 

vote of 95.7 percent of the Greek Cypriots in favor of enosis.57 The 

Greek government supported the cause as well, and tried to bring 

the issue to international forums.58 However, the British were deaf 

to any suggestion of abandoning Cyprus. The British Chiefs of Staff 

insisted that the continuance of the colonial regime in Cyprus was 

necessary for British defense. Having abandoned Palestine and 

Egypt, the idea of losing their last colony in the Mideast region was 

unthinkable. There would be no discussion of enosis or compromise 

with the Greek Cypriots.59
25

Given the degree of British intransigence, Cypriot political 

leaders quietly prepared for an insurgency 3 years before it broke 

out. Archbishop Makarios was acknowledged as the political as well 

as spiritual leader of the Greek Cypriots, and the military leader was 

a retired Greek army colonel, George Grivas, who had been born in 

Cyprus. Grivas spent 2 years organizing and training cells of guerrilla 

fighters around the island before initiating an insurrection. Through 

1954, weapons and explosives were smuggled in from Greece. On 

April 1, 1955, the insurgency began with a series of terrorist bombings 

directed against government and police installations. 

In drawing up his “General Plan for Insurrectionary Action” to 

drive the British out of Cyprus, Colonel Grivas intended to institute a 

campaign of violence and terror specifically directed at the British, “to 

draw the attention of international public opinion, especially among 

the allies of Greece . . .”60 There was no intention or expectation to 

win militarily. “It should not be supposed that by these means we 

should expect to impose a total defeat on the British forces in Cyprus. 

Our purpose is to win a moral victory through a process of attrition, 

by harassing, confusing, and, finally, exasperating the enemy forces 

. . .”61 By demonstrating Cypriot resolve and self-sacrifice, “we are 

prepared to continue until international diplomacy exercises through 

the United Nations, and the British in particular, are compelled to 

examine the Cyprus problem . . .”62

Although the insurgent military force (known by the Greek 

acronym EOKA) never amounted to more than 200-300 active 

fighters, they were able to mount a spirited campaign of bombings, 

small ambushes, and assassinations. Although British losses were 

relatively light—several dozen military and police personnel killed 

each year—the insurgent campaign won worldwide attention as it 

continued. Even though the insurgents put few active fighters into 

the battle, they were highly effective because of the wide support 

they had from the Greek Cypriot population. 

For 3 years, the British struggled against small insurgent bands 

with occasional successes, won more through luck than through 

good planning or tactics. However, losses among the EOKA bands 

were replaced quickly by other nationalists, and the fight continued, 

quieting down only occasionally during periods of political 
26

negotiation. As a point in the history of counterinsurgency, the British 

government had the most lopsided ratio of police and military forces 

to rebel forces ever seen. At the height of the insurgency in 1956-

57, the British government deployed 40,000 military and security 

personnel to Cyprus to control a total population of 400,000 Greek 

Cypriots—one British soldier or policemen for every ten Greek 

Cypriots. And the total number of active insurgents was never more 

than a few hundred. If one views insurgency as a mathematical model 

of force application, then the Cypriots did not have a chance. Yet the 

Cypriots basically won the conflict. Although they did not get the 

hoped-for union with Greece, the British cut a deal with the Cypriots 

to grant them independence in 1959, with the government of the 

island passing to the Cypriots who had mounted the insurgency. 

The State of the Cyprus Police at the Start of the Insurgency.

Despite several years of warnings by Cyprus government officials 

of the increased level of Greek Cypriot unrest, the outbreak of the 

insurgency in 1955 caught the British government almost completely 

unprepared. The Cyprus Police were especially unready for the task 

at hand. For decades the Cyprus Police had been, in the words of 

the Colonial Office’s chief police advisor, “a Cinderella service in a 

Cinderella colony.”63 Cyprus was not a wealthy colony, and, although 

it was supposed to be a major strategic asset, the fiscal realities of 

Britain before and after World War II required that the colony pay 

its own way. This meant that there were few funds to pay, train, or 

equip the police.

The British long had tried to police Cyprus on the cheap, and they 

got what they paid for. Police in Cyprus always had been poorly 

paid, and postwar inflation made things especially bad. In the mid1950s, unskilled laborers could earn £25-30 per month, more than the 

starting salary for a police constable, £21 per month.64 It was hard 

to attract recruits with even a minimum standard of education to a 

service in which the police officers earned no more than government 

livestock managers or bailiffs. In comparison to other colonies, 

pay was also low for the officers who might transfer from Britain 

or another colonial police force.65 Simply put, the Cyprus police 

did not attract a high caliber of enlisted or officer personnel. The 
27

colonial government’s attitude towards police working conditions, 

or even basic police equipment, followed the same pattern. Police 

stations did not have mess halls, and many were in old, ramshackle 

buildings that the government refused to refurbish on the grounds 

of economy.66 The quest for budget cutting extended even to a failure 

to supply flashlights for the police. Before the insurgency, colonial 

officials denied a request for £175 to equip the police with flashlights.67

Indeed, the entire Cyprus Police budget for 1954 amounted to only 

£600,000. As one might expect, police morale was low, and the force 

had a reputation for incompetence, poor leadership, and corruption. 

Policemen stationed in villages had a reputation for avoiding duties 

that might require actually confronting criminals, so banditry and 

even vendetta killings were said to go unnoticed by policemen 

unwilling to risk their lives for a pittance. 

On the eve of the insurgency in 1954, the Cyprus Police consisted 

of 1,386 men, a disproportionate number (37 percent) drawn from 

the Turkish Cypriots (18 percent of the population).68 Police training 

consisted of a 6-month basic course conducted in an old castle. Before 

the insurgency, there were no higher training or specialist courses 

offered for Cyprus Police personnel, which had a tradition of being 

more of a gendarmerie than a modern police force. The Cyprus 

Police were so backward that a criminal investigation branch was 

only created in 1951. A police special branch was formed with three 

officers in 1954 after the government became aware that radical Greek 

factions were smuggling weapons from Greece. Thus, the police had 

little time to study the incipient insurgent organization before the 

violence began.69

The insurgent commander, Colonel Grivas, prepared the 

insurgency by quietly searching out sympathizers among the Greek 

Cypriot policemen. With morale and conditions in the police force 

low and desire for enosis high among the Greek population, Grivas 

had no trouble recruiting selected policemen from every branch of 

the force who would provide the insurgents with detailed intelligence 

information. From 1954 to 1958, as many as 20 members of the 

Cyprus Police worked as active agents for the insurgents. During the 

insurgency, some police officers actually hid wanted EOKA terrorists 

on the sound assumption that the last place the British would search 

would be the home of a police officer.70
28

One of the first actions of the insurgents was to cripple the police 

special branch, killing selected police personnel including two of 

the three Greek Cypriot policemen assigned to Special Branch. In 

June 1955, EOKA dramatically assassinated a Greek police sergeant 

who had just been assigned to the Special Branch. The message to 

the police was loud and clear: EOKA had full inside knowledge 

of police operations and could target key personnel at will.71 If a 

Cypriot policeman wanted to live, his best option would be to do as 

little as possible against the insurgents. Thus, in the first 3 months 

of the insurgency, the regular police effectively were crippled, and 

the military had to take over most of the basic police duties on the 

island. 

Exacerbating the problem was the colonial government’s policy 

of trying to fight an insurgency on the cheap. In protest over their 

ludicrously low pay, Greek Cypriot policemen began resigning 

from the force at the start of the insurgency. Those remaining were 

compelled to work longer hours and perform extra shifts for no 

additional pay. It was the last straw for police morale. With morale 

already low and the cost of living increasing, the police considered 

their working conditions to be intolerable. In June and July 1955, 

many Greek policemen refused to draw pay in protest of their work 

conditions. In August, many Greek Cypriot policemen submitted 

their resignations from the force. The government, already concerned 

over the personnel hemorrhage, took disciplinary action against 12 

policemen and refused to allow the others to resign.72 Henceforth, no 

policeman under 55 years of age would be allowed to resign.73

Since Greeks were refusing to join the police, almost all 

new recruitment into the regular police came from the Turkish 

community. Still more men were needed, so a force of 400 Auxiliary 

Police was raised quickly among the Turkish Cypriots. The already 

low standards of the police force were lowered even further to 

allow the recruitment of Turks, who generally had a much lower 

education level than the Greeks, but were considered reliable and 

loyal by the colonial government. Many of the Auxiliary Police were 

Turkish farmers or laborers who viewed police work as a means of 

income during the slack part of the agricultural year. With virtually 

no training, the Auxiliary Police were sent into action and generally 

employed in guard and security duties.74
29

The British Respond.

With the situation clearly beyond the government’s ability 

to control it, the hapless governor was fired in September 1955. 

Recently retired Field Marshall Sir John Harding, formerly Chief 

of the Imperial General Staff, was appointed Governor General of 

Cyprus.75 Harding immediately called for army reinforcements, and 

by October 1955 two infantry battalions had been sent, which raised 

the army garrison to over 12,000.76 The military force on the island 

would continue to grow throughout 1955-57.

Harding wanted to get the police back into the fight to free up the 

army for offensive operations against EOKA, so he greatly expanded 

the size of the Auxiliary Police. This action was against the advice 

of experienced colonial officials who knew that overreliance upon 

a Turkish police force would alarm the Greek Cypriot population 

and likely lead to open conflict between the island’s ethnic 

communities.77 By 1956, the Auxiliary Police had been expanded to 

1,417 personnel. Distaining advice from some of the civilian officials 

with long experience in Cyprus, Harding preferred to employ the 

Turkish Cypriots to suppress the insurgency. In September, a new 

police force, the Special Mobile Reserve, was recruited exclusively 

from the Turkish community. The Special Mobile Reserve was to 

serve as riot police and received considerably more training than the 

Auxiliary Police. By 1956, the force had grown to 569 personnel.78

Because so few policemen met the minimal qualifications to serve 

as officers or NCOs, the leadership for the new police forces would 

be provided by importing police from Britain. British policemen 

who came to Cyprus would receive a promotion in rank as well 

as double credit towards their pensions. The colonial government 

hoped to recruit young, aggressive police NCOs for the campaign, 

but what they mostly got were older, lower-ranking policemen 

close to retirement. Many saw a tour in Cyprus primarily as an 

opportunity to improve their pensions. From 1955-59, a total of 400 

UK policemen would serve on Cyprus. They did their best but were 

not considered very effective because they arrived knowing nothing 

of the language or local conditions and could barely communicate 

with their subordinates, if at all.79 The UK Police unit in Cyprus also 
30

developed a reputation for poor discipline. The first commander of 

the UK Police Unit expressed dismay at the caliber of police sent 

out from Britain and maintained that some of the UK county police 

forces dumped their unwanted personnel on Cyprus.80

Harding refused to worry about the long-term effects of recruiting 

police from the Turkish community, and failed to ensure that the 

police had training or competent leadership. Expert advice from the 

outside generally was ignored. General Templer visited the island 

just after the start of the insurgency in April 1955 and called for a 

thorough overhaul of the police force.81 Little was done that year. 

The Cyprus Police Commission, composed of several senior police 

chiefs in Britain, visited Cyprus in February and March of 1956 and 

came up with a detailed and critical study of the police. Many of the 

criticisms concerned the poor conditions and low pay that had pushed 

the Greek Cypriots out of the force. The top UK policemen especially 

were concerned about the poor quality of the newly raised Auxiliary 

Police, who had received “little, if any, training.”82 The Commission 

also expressed concern about the low personnel quality and training 

of the hundreds of special constables—almost all Turkish—recruited 

since the start of the insurgency. The Cyprus Police Commission 

recommended that the Auxiliary Police and the special constables 

be disbanded as soon as possible.83 Ignoring such advice, Harding 

even expanded the Auxiliary Police, a force that reached a peak of 

1,594 men in 1958. The Police Mobile Special Reserve also expanded 

from 569 to 580 in the next year.84

Many of the Cyprus Police Commission’s specific recommendations addressed the need for a comprehensive program to train 

the police and provide professional indigenous police leadership. 

They noted that the Cyprus Police training program was completely 

inadequate. There was not only a lack of basic training for the 

police enlisted men, but there was also no special branch course or 

courses for higher officers. Unlike Malaya, there was no police cadet 

program.85 Because of the lack of adequate mid and senior leadership 

in the Cyprus Police, the Commission recommended that sergeants 

be promoted from the ranks and sent to the UK for 2 years of police 

training in order to provide the Cyprus Police with competent 

indigenous leadership.86 The Commission recommended that a new 
31

police school be opened with the capacity to train 240 policemen 

in a 6-month basic course and the capacity to train 100 officers in 

advanced and special courses. Plans were proposed to establish a 

new police school that would open in 2 years.87 In contrast to Young’s 

approach in Malaya, there was no sense of urgency in training local 

police leaders. The problem of reforming the police, training the 

rank-and-file, and developing professional police leadership was 

seen essentially as something to be dealt with after the insurgency 

was defeated. In the meantime, the Cyprus Police would remain a 

poorly trained, poorly led force, which would have a major impact 

on the Britain’s failure to suppress the insurgency. 

Harding did not see the insurgency as a prolonged war, but 

rather as a campaign to be completed victoriously by inflicting a few 

sharp blows against EOKA. He was confident that, with his ample 

resources, he could finish EOKA quickly. On January 1, 1956, he 

announced that EOKA’s days were numbered.88 Despite the recent 

example of Malaya with its sophisticated civil/military strategy, on 

Cyprus the governor general preferred a heavy-handed approach 

to counterinsurgency that would bludgeon the population into 

compliance with British rule. His willingness to employ firepower 

upset some of the colonial officials and senior officers. For example, 

Harding had more than a dozen naval vessels at his disposal to 

patrol the island’s shores and interdict arms shipments from Greece. 

Immediately upon his arrival, Harding issued orders to shoot on sight 

any Greek vessel appearing off the coast of Cyprus, an act that drew 

protests from the commander of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean 

Fleet, who sensibly pointed out that such actions would cause serious 

problems with Britain’s NATO ally.89

With his massively expanded police force—up from 1,397 

personnel in 1954 to 5,878 in 1956—Harding succeeded in freeing 

up military manpower to conduct large-scale operations in the 

mountains and rural districts of Cyprus where many of the rebel 

bands were based. Military reinforcements continued to flow into 

the island, and by early 1956, more than 20,000 army troops were 

on Cyprus. With the thousands of Royal Navy and Royal Air Force 

personnel on the island, plus the Cypriot security forces, Harding 

had approximately 40,000 military and police personnel under his 
32

command to oppose about 200 insurgents. However, lacking an 

effective special branch to provide intelligence and employing an 

overwhelmingly Turkish police force that was alienated from the 

Greek population, British intelligence on the rebels was consistently 

poor. It was a war of the blundering elephant versus the gnat. Small 

guerrilla bands, supported by the rural population, regularly evaded 

the regime of strict controls, district searches, and massive sweeps. 

The massive British use of manpower also failed to interdict EOKA’s 

arms smuggling or inhibit offensive actions against the British. The 

occasional British successes in destroying small EOKA units tended 

to come more through chance contacts with patrols than through 

any clear intelligence information. Despite Harding’s prediction of 

a quick decisive victory, throughout 1956 the program of bombings, 

assassinations of police and British officials, and attacks on military 

convoys increased.

The Police and the Greek Population.

If Harding carefully had planned to alienate the entire Greek 

population of the island and push the moderate Greeks into full 

support of EOKA, he could not have done better than by his policy 

of unleashing a horde of untrained, poorly-led Turkish police on the 

population. Communal violence, rare in Cyprus before the insurgency, 

flared up in 1956 and increased throughout the insurgency. When 

the Turks rose against the Greeks, usually in response to an EOKA 

killing of a Turkish policeman, the all-Turkish Special Mobile Reserve 

and Auxiliary Police routinely stood by as Turkish mobs assaulted 

Greek civilians and ransacked their property.90 The Cyprus Police 

were not merely passive about their duty to protect all Cypriots from 

lawbreaking. During a series of searches in Famagusta, the Auxiliary 

Police were accused of looting Greek homes. While Harding 

dismissed claims of police and military abuse as Greek propaganda, 

his own officers saw the issue rather differently. The district police 

commissioner of Famagusta noted that many of his policemen had 

come from the lowest level of Turkish society and “are known not to 

have been beyond criminal activities in the past.” Of the allegations 

of police looting, he commented, “I myself have little doubt that 

there is substance in a fair proportion of them.”91
33

While it is difficult enough to keep well-trained and welldisciplined police and intelligence officers from abusing prisoners 

and detainees in counterinsurgency campaigns, Harding’s policy of 

employing poorly-trained policemen guaranteed a culture of prisoner 

abuse during interrogations. Many reports of the insurgency include 

British observers’ accounts of abuse of Greek detainees by the Cyprus 

Police.92 British journalists on the island nicknamed the Cyprus Police 

and intelligence personnel “HMTs” for “Her Majesty’s Torturers.”93

The poor standard of leadership throughout the Cyprus Police 

added to the discipline problems. Although Harding ordered his 

police to operate according to the law, he did little to ensure proper 

behavior of the security forces. In reality, the British administration’s 

policy was to deride any criticism of the police automatically and 

characterize accusations of misconduct by the security forces as part 

of an orchestrated insurgent plan to discredit the security forces.94

Such confrontational tactics did not go over well with the British 

journalists, especially those who personally witnessed incidents. 

British and international press coverage became increasingly 

negative about British policy and behavior throughout the course of 

the insurgency.

The abusive behavior of the Cyprus Police was a godsend to the 

insurgents, who made the actions of the security forces a central 

theme in their international propaganda campaign. Claims of British 

police abuse were made by the Greek media and brought to world 

attention with the support of the Greek government. There was 

enough evidence of police and military brutality to lend credence 

to the charges. In 1956 the Greek government brought the issue of 

security force abuses in Cyprus before the European Commission, 

forcing an international investigation of British police and military 

actions.95 Although some of the allegations were refuted later, the 

political damage to the British government was severe. 

British and international journalists also reported in detail 

on the communal riots in Cyprus and described how the Cyprus 

Police stood by as Turkish mobs attacked Greeks. Such actions 

undermined British legitimacy, and the images of the communal 

violence were broadcast around the world in graphic detail. British 

newspapers began to criticize the Harding regime—and with good 
34

cause.96 The failure of the British government to respond to credible 

allegations haunted the debate over Cyprus policy. In time, criticism 

of the Cyprus administration found its way to the House of Lords, 

as well as the United Nations (UN) and the European Civil Rights 

Commission.97

Field Marshall Harding left Cyprus and retired in November 

1957, convinced that his strategy had worked. He was wrong. A year 

later the Greek Cypriots and British negotiated a deal to give Cyprus 

independence in 1959. Harding’s strong-arm tactics, combined 

with a policy of throwing large numbers of poorly-led and poorlytrained police at the insurgency, had been a spectacular failure. 

More than anything else, the end of British rule was brought about 

by international political pressure, fuelled by the effective use of the 

media by Greek Cypriots and the Greek government. Grivas’ longterm strategy—to simply stay in the field and harass the British with 

small attacks—failed to inflict any serious damage on the British 

forces, but was successful in keeping the attention of the international 

media focused on Cyprus. 

Security force misbehavior played a key role in mobilizing world 

opinion against Britain. In the end, the insurgents were grateful for 

Harding’s strategy. Colonel Grivas, the insurgent leader whom the 

British never caught, declared that the first act of the new government 

after Cypriot independence should be to raise a statue to Field 

Marshal Harding, “since he had done more than anybody else to 

keep alive the spirit of Hellenic resistance in Cyprus.”98

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A study of the two counterinsurgency campaigns offers some 

important practical insights and lessons concerning the best 

means of standing up and training effective indigenous police and 

military forces. While every insurgency has its unique aspects, 

there are also circumstances that often are repeated in other 

insurgencies. This conclusion offers a few general insights to help 

understand the nature of counterinsurgency operations, as well as 

some specific recommendations to change U.S. military doctrine 

and policy for training indigenous police and military forces in 

counterinsurgency. 
35

Keeping the Endstate in View.

The two case studies emphasize the importance for the military 

and political leadership to focus on the endstate rather than on the 

immediate goals. For the first 3 years of the Malaya insurgency, the 

attention of the British government and military high command 

was focused on short-term fixes to suppress the insurgency. When 

Templer and Young arrived in early 1952, they changed the strategic 

focus towards attaining the desired endstate—building professional 

and well-led security forces to serve a democratic post-independence 

Malayan state. Such forces would be able to provide effective security 

for the Malaysian state and people, and would also be representative 

of the major ethnic groups of the nation. Professional and well-led 

security forces are a key element in building a democratic state. 

Although the focus on the endstate in Malaya required an 

expensive, long-term strategy, it was also a success. Despite political 

pressure to accomplish a quick fix that would enable the British 

military to remove forces from Malaya, the Colonial Office had 

the moral courage to support the long-term strategy proposed by 

Templer and Young. In Malaya, Templer and Young understood 

that they were fighting a prolonged war that required a long-term 

commitment. In 1953, even though the situation was noticeably 

improving, Templer cautioned against declaring victory too soon. 

At a press conference he declared, “I’ll shoot the bastard who says 

this emergency is over.”99 Templer believed that any premature 

withdrawal of British forces could undermine the program oriented 

to patiently and systematically enabling the Malayans to fight their 

own war—but only when they were properly trained for it. 

In Cyprus, Field Marshal Harding and the British High Command 

failed to understand the insurgent strategy of prolonged war, and 

the British strategy was therefore oriented to the quick solution. 

Little thought was given as to what the Cyprus government and 

police might look like, or what political conditions would exist, after 

the insurgency. The short-term fixes not only failed to suppress the 

insurgency, they also failed Cyprus in the long term. In the short term, 

Harding’s strategy increased the level of communal violence on the 

island. In the long term, when Cyprus was granted independence by 
36

the UK, it was left with a badly-trained, badly-led police force that 

was unable to help stabilize the new nation. 

Training the Police as the Primary Counterinsurgency Force.

In both Cyprus and Malaya, insurgent combat forces normally 

were organized into small groups that hid among a sympathetic 

civilian population, or operated in close proximity to sympathetic 

civilians who provided support. In Cyprus, the largest insurgent 

force fielded was 20 to 30 men. In Malaya, there were only a few 

operations in which any large rebel force was encountered, and 

anything resembling large-scale combat was exceptionally rare. 

Normally, the Malayan guerrillas lived and fought in small units of 

10-40 men. Both conflicts were characterized by the large number of 

small combat actions and incidents. 

In Cyprus and Malaya, because of the small unit nature of the 

conflicts, the primary front-line counterinsurgency force was the 

police. What determined government success or failure in counterguerrilla operations was not force size or firepower, but intelligence. 

In Malaya, the rebels found that large army units blundering about 

with little detailed intelligence were far less dangerous than small 

police and army units armed with good intelligence. In Cyprus, 

small insurgent bands routinely evaded sweeps by large army forces 

that lacked detailed intelligence. 

Police are the most appropriate force in combating small 

insurgent bands that receive support from elements of the civilian 

population because it is the job of the police to work among the 

civilian populace. In counterinsurgency campaigns, military units 

and special police strike units, such as the police jungle companies in 

Malaya, are routinely shifted around to different sectors, according 

to the needs of the moment, while police remain on the ground 

dealing with civilians on a daily basis and, hopefully, building a 

detailed intelligence picture of the insurgent strength, organization, 

and support in each local sector. Effective counterinsurgency relies 

on good human intelligence, and no military unit can match a good 

police unit in developing an accurate human intelligence picture of 

their area of operations. 
37

There are some key similarities with the insurgencies in Cyprus 

and Malaya and current insurgencies such as Iraq. In Cyprus and 

Malaya, the insurgents fought primarily as small groups that 

received support and shelter from disaffected elements of the civilian 

population. This is similar to Iraq, where insurgents rarely operate 

in large groups that can be targeted and attacked with superior 

Coalition firepower. In Cyprus and Malaya, the main issue for the 

government forces was not defeating the enemy in battle but, rather, 

simply finding the enemy. This is also characteristic of operations in 

Iraq. Success in the two case studies was dependent on the quantity 

and quality of human intelligence, and not on the size of forces 

engaged or their ability to employ firepower. 

The Cyprus and Malaya case studies dramatically demonstrate the 

central role of police in counterinsurgency. In Malaya, a key element 

in turning the situation to the government’s favor was the program 

to reform and retrain the police and make it a more professional body 

that could interact with the civilian population more effectively (and 

thus gain good intelligence), and act efficiently on the intelligence it 

received. In Cyprus, the British failed to address the serious flaws in 

the Cyprus Police. As a result, the relationship between the police to 

the civilian population was poor. Consequently, British intelligence 

on the Cyprus insurgents was consistently weak.

In Iraq, as in Malaya and Cyprus, the police are on the front lines 

every day. Arguing from historical precedent, the effectiveness of 

the Iraqi police will be one of the key factors in the success or failure 

of the insurgency. If the Coalition nations succeed in standing up a 

competent and professional Iraqi police force that can gain the trust 

of most of the Iraqi civilians, then the insurgents have no long-term 

chance. If, on the other hand, we keep large military forces in Iraq 

but fail to build an effective Iraqi police force, we cannot expect to 

suppress the insurgency in the long term. 

The Limitations of “On the Job” Training in Counterinsurgency.

Both the Malaya and Cyprus counterinsurgency campaigns 

emphasized putting plenty of manpower into the field. In Malaya, 

however, even a vast manpower advantage only got the British so 
38

far. Deploying a large number of minimally-trained police helped 

stabilize the government’s position from 1948 to 1951, but even a 

significant manpower advantage did not prevent the insurgent force 

from growing and government casualties from increasing. Ultimately, 

the British realized part of their strategy was counterproductive: 

that poorly-trained and led police and security forces were inclined 

toward corruption and abusive behavior towards the population, 

tendencies that undermined the government’s goal to win over the 

people. In Malaya, the answer was a comprehensive program to 

retrain the police force and raise its professional standard. Although 

it was expensive and required pulling large numbers of police out of 

operations for months, within a year the program paid off in much 

higher level of police effectiveness and far better relations with 

the civilian population. This, in turn, notably improved the police 

intelligence collection from the civilian population. 

In Cyprus the police force also was increased dramatically 

during the insurgency, growing from less than 1,400 men at the 

start to almost 6,000 within 2 years. However, unlike Malaya, there 

was little attempt to provide any systematic training to the auxiliary 

police and special constables after the start of the insurgency. Nor 

was there any serious attempt to retrain the regular police for the 

complex duties of counterinsurgency. The result was a corrupt, 

abusive, and largely ineffective police force that further alienated the 

civilian population.

Unfortunately, to date the U.S. and Coalition effort to build a 

national police force in Iraq resembles the Cyprus model rather than 

the Malaya model. The Iraqi Police, a force notorious for corruption 

under Saddam Hussein, were reorganized hastily in 2003, and police 

personnel who had served under the old regime given only short 

retraining courses. New police personnel were given only 8-week 

courses before being sent into the field (in contrast to a 6-month 

course given to basic police recruits in Malaya at the height of the 

insurgency). Such brief and ad hoc training programs have done 

little to counteract the culture of incompetence and corruption from 

the old regime, and poorly-trained and led police have performed 

poorly in counterinsurgency operations. At this time, the Iraqi Police 

remain one of the weakest links in the counterinsurgency battle.100
39

Without a systematic and comprehensive professional training 

program lasting for 18 to 24 months, the Iraqi Police will remain only 

marginally effective. 

U.S. military doctrine needs to spell out clearly the limitations 

and dangers of employing minimally-trained indigenous security 

forces in counterinsurgency operations, or even to conduct basic 

police duties. While it might be necessary to stand up ad hoc security 

forces at the start of an emergency, U.S. policy should be to institute 

a comprehensive program of police and security training as quickly 

as possible. When conducting operations to stabilize a country, 

American and coalition partners should have a comprehensive plan 

for police training ready before intervention begins, as well as ample 

funds and specialist personnel allocated for the task. Moreover, 

plans for police training need to envision a several-year program to 

systematically build police institutions and leadership. 

Plans to stand up and train a foreign police and military force 

need to include a transparent and fair system of vetting personnel, 

especially the officer applicants. The vetting process needs to 

include an examination of the applicant’s background and political 

affiliations, as well as past activities to include possible human 

rights violations and links to criminal groups. The standard for 

officer applicants should be set high, even if this slows the process of 

building a police force. It is better to suffer from a shortage of officers 

than to have sufficient numbers, but many of those incompetent or 

corrupt. A corrupt police and military culture is of enormous benefit 

to the insurgents. 

Planning guidance and doctrine for building indigenous military 

and police forces must ensure that the pay, benefits, and living 

quarters are adequate. This is especially important for the police, 

who have the greatest opportunity for corruption in the nature of 

their duties and contact with the civilian community. Police pay, 

housing, benefits, and work conditions have to be high enough 

to attract a high quality of police recruit and to serve as a shield 

against the temptation towards accepting the petty corruption that 

undermines the public’s confidence in the police and government. 

Good pay and attractive benefits must be combined with a strict 

code of conduct that allows for the immediate dismissal of police 
40

personnel for corruption. Ensuring that the police pay and benefits 

are attractive will be an expensive proposition for U.S. and allied 

nation planners. This is, however, necessary as a means to prevent 

the wholesale corruption of the police and security forces. In the 

long run, it is cheaper to spend the money up front to build effective 

police and security forces than to spend less and end up with corrupt 

and abusive forces that alienate the population.

An Interagency Approach to Police Training.

When Sir Arthur Young arrived in Malaya, he resisted the 

suggestion that the Malayan Police should be placed under army 

command. While the police would routinely coordinate their 

operations with the district military commands and conduct joint 

operations with the army, Young insisted that the police needed 

to keep their identity as a separate institution. Young feared that 

the Malayan Police had already become too militarized, and that 

returning to police basics was necessary to reestablish the identity 

of the police as a force to serve the whole population. Although the 

police continued to carry out many military-style operations, after 

1952 a new emphasis was placed on containing routine crime and 

providing social assistance to local people, actions geared to win the 

trust of the civilians.

To reform the force, Young made sure that the primary instructors 

at the new police schools and courses would be policemen, not 

soldiers. To ensure a high quality of instruction, he brought a team 

of first-rate senior policemen from the UK to supervise the police 

training program, with an emphasis on basic police skills for all 

recruits. While the army assisted the police training program by 

providing instruction in weapons and tactics and in setting up 

special courses in communications and vehicle maintenance, the 

British army role was that of a supporting force.

This interagency approach to police training worked well in 

Malaya, and should serve as a model for U.S. efforts to build and 

train foreign police forces. The current U.S. Army counterinsurgency 

doctrine makes the military police a lead agency for training national 

police forces.101 This is not an effective approach. The U.S. Army 
41

military police do not have the experience or trained personnel to 

handle many vital aspects of civilian policing, such as big city police 

operations or operations against organized crime. On the other hand, 

the U.S. Department of Justice already has expert personnel in those 

fields. 

I strongly recommend that U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and 

doctrine be revised to give the U.S. Department of Justice the lead 

role in building and training foreign police forces. The Department 

of Justice is best suited to hire senior police trainers with extensive 

experience in big city law enforcement. In addition, the Justice 

Department has Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other 

personnel with extensive experience in operations against organized 

crime—law enforcement operations that are especially relevant to 

counterinsurgency, as many insurgent groups, in Iraq for instance, 

more closely resemble Mafia gangs than traditional military 

organizations. 

The military police should still have a large role to play in training 

foreign police forces, but army and joint doctrine should be revised to 

emphasize the military police role as a supporting force, rather than 

a lead force in the effort. The military police are well-suited to train 

foreign forces in many basic police skills, and to provide trainers for 

weapons handling, small unit tactics, and communications. Training 

in the higher level police skills such as civilian criminal investigation 

procedures, antiorganized crime operations, and police intelligence 

operations is best taught by civilian experts.

This approach is workable. It will require a significant expansion 

of the Justice Department’s division for international law enforcement 

assistance, as well as a commitment of the U.S. Army military police 

to provide personnel and resources to support police training 

programs organized and led by the U.S. Justice Department. This 

strategy will also require a much higher degree of coordination and 

planning between the Department of Defense and the Department 

of Justice than exists today. However, building and training effective 

national police forces is so important to success in counterinsurgency 

that we need to overcome interagency friction as we make the Justice 

Department one of the lead agencies in counterinsurgency. 
42

Training the Police and Military Leaders.

The military has long known that you cannot have an effective 

army without effective leaders. The same is also true for the 

police. The Malaya and Cyprus insurgencies illustrate the central 

importance of trained leadership to police and military effectiveness. 

The effectiveness of the indigenous security forces in Cyprus and 

Malaya was directly related to the quality of the officer leadership. 

In Cyprus, the police leadership ranged from mediocre to bad. The 

problems of police incompetence and corruption were never solved. 

In Malaya, the effectiveness of the Malayan security forces increased 

sharply after the large-scale officer training programs were initiated, 

and officers with full professional training returned to the field. In 

the police, the extensive program for officer training, which included 

training Malayans in the UK police courses, worked to curb the 

problems of corruption and abuse within the Malayan Police ranks. 

The problem of poor officer training is evident in Iraq and in other 

nations the United States has aided in combating insurgencies. In 

Iraq, before the U.S. invasion of 2003, the army officer corps suffered 

from a poor training system at all levels. As of this writing, the new 

Iraqi army still suffers from poor officer leadership. Officers who had 

their training under the old regime (most of them) lack a grounding 

in leadership basics and the skills of command. Many have proven 

incompetent in combat operations. Even the brightest and most 

dedicated Iraqi officers lack the skills necessary for effective staff 

operations or higher command.102 In the Iraqi Police, the problems of 

poor officer leadership are also evident.

Applying the very successful approach of General Templer and Sir 

Arthur Young to the issue of Iraqi leadership training makes a great 

deal of sense. Building an effective leadership cadre for the Iraqis, 

or any small nation facing insurgency, requires a comprehensive 

program of officer and staff training. Currently, few Iraqi officers 

have been trained in U.S. professional courses—certainly not enough 

to provide a cadre of qualified commanders and staff officers.103

It is doubtful whether the Iraqis can build truly effective military 

and police forces and be able to take over the counterinsurgency 

campaign in their own country, unless the current lack of effective 
43

officer leadership is addressed. For the Iraqi military, this means a 

program to send dozens of field grade officers to U.S. staff colleges 

for the full 1-year courses, and a large number of company grade 

officers to the U.S. officer basic and advanced courses (normally 5 to 

6 months). As in Malaya, the Iraqi forces contain many men who are 

potentially good officers and leaders. What the Iraqis lack is solid 

professional training. A program to send 50-100 of the best Iraqi field 

grade officers to U.S. staff colleges every year for several years would 

enable the Iraqi military to build its force upon a highly-trained 

professional cadre. Sending a much larger number of company grade 

officers to the shorter U.S. branch qualification courses would ensure 

competent officer leadership at the lower levels. 

There are, of course, some negative short-term drawbacks to a 

comprehensive officer training program such as one proposed for the 

Iraqi military and police. The Malaya experience is a good illustration 

of these problems. The Malaya Police training program necessitated 

pulling large numbers of police out of offensive operations and 

sending them to courses that lasted from 8 to 16 weeks. The best of 

the indigenous police leaders were unavailable for unit command 

and staff duties at the height of the insurgency, when they were sent 

to professional courses lasting from 6 months to a year. During this 

period, the British army had to continue to maintain large forces in 

Malaya and carry the burden of offensive operations—an approach 

not appreciated by the British government at the time. The British 

training program was also expensive. Sending dozens of Malayan 

police and military officers back to Britain for complete courses, and 

building and staffing top notch military and police training schools 

in Malaya cost millions of pounds.104 The exact same objections 

could be made about any comprehensive U.S. program to train Iraqi 

officers. 

However, the benefits of a comprehensive program far outweigh 

the costs. Again, the Malaya experience provides a useful illustration. 

Once a solid leadership cadre for the Malayan Police and army was 

trained, the British were able to reduce their military forces quickly 

and turn the main burden of the conflict over to the Malayan army 

and police, assured that both the police and army had an officer cadre 

fully trained to the British standard. The confidence that, with solid 
44

leadership, the Malayan forces would be effective was justified fully. 

The cost of sending Malayan police and military officers to British 

professional programs and of setting up first rate officer schools in 

Malaya was justified in the improved effectiveness of the Malayan 

security forces. 

There were other benefits to the program. Malayan officers trained 

in the British schools had a strong credibility when they returned to 

the Malayan forces, and passing through the British schools became 

a requirement for rapid advancement. Training a carefully selected 

group of Malayan officers in the UK ensured that the future leaders 

of the military and police would be well-disposed to Britain and 

continue to maintain close links with the UK after independence. If 

the goal of the United States is to build a democratic and stable Iraq, 

it would certainly be a long-term advantage to have a large number 

of Iraqis in leadership positions who have lived in the United States, 

directly experienced police and military operations in a democracy, 

and who had developed close personal ties in the United States. The 

financial costs would not be high. The U.S. schools and programs 

already exist, and places could be found for a few dozen Iraqis a 

year without requiring any expansion or new infrastructure. We are 

talking in terms of millions of dollars, not billions. 

The Malaya experience provides a good model for training 

indigenous police leadership. In the early 1950s, the UK had some 

of the best police training programs in the world, and the same 

level of training could not be replicated in Malaya. In the UK police 

colleges, the Malayan Police officers were trained in the most modern 

investigative and forensic techniques, and then experienced modern 

police operations first-hand during their required attachment to a 

UK county police force. During their period with a UK police force, 

Malayan officers also were able to see how the police operate in a 

democracy. Today, the larger U.S. police forces, the FBI, and agencies 

of the Justice Department offer a range of superb law enforcement 

training programs. Police officers from Iraq, or from other allied 

nations, could get a level of professional training unavailable in a 

developing nation, and also get to see first-hand how police forces 

function in a democracy.

As with setting up basic police training programs within 

a country, the Justice Department should be given the lead in 
45

managing a program to train a significant number of Iraqi and other 

allied nation mid- to senior-level police officers. Police leadership 

in counterinsurgency is an exceptionally complex task, and officers 

trained in the New York City detectives’ course, or trained in an FBI 

course on organized crime, would be invaluable assets for a police 

force such as Iraq’s. As with the military training course, no new 

infrastructure is required, and the primary cost would be to pay 

and maintain the foreign officers during a 6 to 12-month course in 

America. The Justice Department can train foreign police officers 

in its own schools, or contract with larger police departments to 

train officers in special courses. A comprehensive foreign police 

training program in the United States would be extremely important 

in improving the effectiveness of a police force facing insurgency. 

Moreover, training some of the police leaders in the United States 

supports the goal of helping democratize developing nations.

Incorporating Disaffected Ethnic Groups into the Security Forces.

In both cases studied, the insurgency was concentrated within one 

highly disaffected ethnic group. In both cases, most government and 

security force leaders commonly viewed the whole of the disaffected 

ethnic group as “the enemy” and were reluctant to recruit security 

forces from among the disaffected groups, preferring to rely on the 

“trusted” ethnic groups. In both cases, this approach alienated any 

moderate or pro-government sentiment within the disaffected ethnic 

population. 

In Malaya, Templer and Young understood that such an attitude 

was counterproductive in the long term. Against considerable 

resistance from the Malay-dominated state governments and from 

within the British police leadership, Templer and Young made a 

concerted effort to reach out to elements of the Chinese population, 

personally consulting with Chinese associations and business groups 

to drum up Chinese recruits for the Malay Police and army. Both 

set goals for recruiting ethnic Chinese into the police and military. 

Against the protests of the Malayan State governments, Templer 

insisted on setting up a large number of Chinese home guard units 

as a means of giving trusted elements of the Chinese population a 
46

stake in their own security. The effort to recruit Chinese into the 

Malayan security forces paid off handsomely in both the short and 

long term. In the short term, the hostility of the Chinese community 

towards the Malay-dominated government was reduced, and this 

helped defeat the insurgency. In the long term, the Malayan Police 

came to be seen as an arm of the government that was above race 

and ethnicity as it was transformed from a virtually all-Malay force 

into a relatively well-integrated force. During urban race riots in the 

1960s, the impartial approach of the Malaysian Police and its good 

relationship with the population made a big difference in quelling 

trouble with minimal violence.105

In Cyprus, Harding’s employment of untrained, poorly disciplined 

Turkish police auxiliaries against the Greeks, coupled with the threat 

of Turkish mobs unrestrained by the police, forced the whole Greek 

community to unite against the British. Even the most moderate Greek 

Cypriots came to see EOKA as the only defense against an abusive 

police force. The British solution of employing indigenous security 

forces from a hostile ethnic group proved counterproductive. 

The British had a window of opportunity at the start of the 

insurgency in Cyprus to address the valid complaints of police 

pay and working conditions presented by the then mostly Greek 

police force. By swift action and a program to improve the lot of 

the policemen, the British government likely would have retained 

the loyalty of many of the Greek police. A more “Greek face” on 

the police force would have certainly lessened the tensions between 

the British and Greek community and forestalled many of the later 

police abuses that undermined the British policy. 

The ethnic problems at the core of the Malaya and Cyprus conflicts 

are clearly relevant to current U.S. counterinsurgency dilemmas. 

Most insurgencies the United States and its allies face today have a 

strong ethnic component (Iraq, Philippines, Afghanistan) and, given 

the tensions in developing nations today, this will certainly be a 

central issue in future insurgencies. U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine 

needs to stress the requirement of seeking out moderate groups and 

factions within hostile, or potentially hostile, ethnic groups, and 

ensure that places are found within all branches of the military and 

security forces for their recruits. Moreover, the U.S. military should 
47

be willing to use its aid and support programs as a lever to ensure 

that appropriate leadership positions in the security forces are given 

to members of disaffected ethnic groups and withhold aid if host 

nation governments refuse to cooperate. We can expect that policies 

to incorporate disaffected ethnic groups into the military and police 

forces will become a major issue of contention and will be resisted by 

most host nation governments. However, despite the friction it will 

engender, furthering the inclusion of all major ethnic groups of a 

country in the security forces is worth the short-term political price. 

Even moderate success in recruiting from disaffected ethnic groups 

provides an enormous payoff in terms of building the image of 

legitimacy of the security forces and in quieting the often legitimate 

fears of such ethnic groups per their relationship with the national 

government.

The Use of Home Guards in Counterinsurgency.

The Malayan Campaign illustrates the important role irregular, 

part-time security forces can play in supporting the government 

campaign. In Malaya, over 200,000 villagers eventually were enrolled 

and organized into home guard units that served primarily to guard 

the villages at night. The home guards, with only basic arms and 

minimal equipment, were very useful in freeing up a large number 

of regular police and military personnel from basic security and 

guard duties, which enabled the better-trained and equipped forces 

to concentrate on the complex operational tasks. 

The Malaya case study provides a useful model for employing 

militia and other irregular forces in counterinsurgency. Templer 

took an eclectic mix of loosely-organized local forces and quietly 

instituted some centralized control and supervision. He brought in 

a team of experienced officers and set up a district and state home 

guard organization with a small training center in each state. The 

central home guard command issued doctrine, provided training 

guidance, and set standards. The state and district commands 

ensured that some rudimentary training was provided, and that 

local commands performed to standard. The efficiency of the home 

guards was improved without sacrificing their local character. 
48

One of the reasons the home guard program worked in Malaya 

was that the British did not demand too much from part-time forces 

with minimal training. The home guards were responsible for only 

the most basic duties, usually guarding the villages at night, or 

providing point security for mines and plantations. With additional 

training, some of the best home guards were able to provide 

supporting manpower for police patrols and operations. However, 

at no time were the home guards given a lead role in operations or 

assigned complex tasks. 

When a nation is faced with instability and disorder, there is an 

inevitable response for local citizens to establish militias and irregular 

forces for their own security. It is politically unwise, perhaps even 

impossible, for any national government to ignore the issue of local 

militias, which are based on the natural desire for local security. The 

issue is, therefore, controlling and managing the process. General 

Templer’s program to organize the local home guards offers a good 

doctrinal model for controlling the process and providing a useful 

outlet for local groups to participate in their own security. 

ENDNOTES

1. There is relatively little written about the subject of police and 

counterinsurgency. On the British use of police, there are several important works, 

including David Anderson and David Killingray, eds., Policing and Decolonisation: 

Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917-1965, Manchester: Manchester University 

Press, 1992. For an overview of the Malayan Police during the insurgency, see 

Government of Malaya, The Federation of Malaya and its Police, Kuala Lumpur: 

Government of Malaya, December 1952.

2. On the Malayan population and ethnic groups, see Lucian Pye, Guerrilla 

Communism in Malaya: Its Social and Political Meaning, Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1956, pp. 12-13; T. H. Silcock and E. K. Fisk, The Political Economy 

of Independent Malaya, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 1963, pp. 16-17.

3. In 1948 the Gurkha battalions in Malaya had an average of only 300 men. On 

Gurkha training and readiness in 1948, see Raffi Gregorian, The British Army, the 

Gurkhas and Cold War Strategy in the Far East 1947-1954, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002, 

pp. 46-50, 61. The poor state of training of the Gurkha units early in the campaign 

is documented in J. P. Cross and Buddhiman Gurung, Gurkhas at War, London: 

Greenhill Books, 2002, pp. 190-191, 201, 203,209. 

4. Gregorian, p. 56. 
49

5. Anderson and Killingray, pp. 2-5. For details on police training and 

organization in the British Empire in the 1940s and 1950s, see Sir Charles Jeffries, 

The Colonial Police, London: Max Parrish, 1952. 

6. British Documents on the End of Empire, Series B, Vol. 3, Malaya, Part 2. A. J. 

Stockwell, ed., London: HMSO, 1995, Doc. CAB 129/48, “Malaya Cabinet Memo 

by Mr. Lyttelton” (Secretary for the Colonies), November 20, 1951, pp. 318-348.

7. An account of this era comes from Derek Franklin, a young man of middle 

class background in 1953. After his 2 years of national service in the army, he 

joined the Kenya Police during the Mau Mau rebellion when police officers were 

needed urgently. He received only a few weeks of training in the local language and 

conditions before being assigned to command a Kenya Police unit. His experience 

was fairly typical of the era. Franklin went on to serve in three other colonial police 

forces. See Derek Franklin, A Pied Cloak: Memoirs of a Colonial Police Officer, London: 

Janus, 1996.

8. In 1949-50, the Singapore Police reported that there was no coordinated 

system of training police personnel after they left basic training at the police 

depot. Young Papers, “Report of the Police Mission to Malaya,” March 1950; 

and “Singapore Police Force Organization,” June 1949, Rhodes House, Oxford 

University.

9. Young Papers, “Memo by Creech Jones on UK financial assistance to 

Malaya,” June 8, 1949, pp. 102-114.

10. A typical example of British operations in the early period was the 

North Malay Sub-District in which large unit operations in the second quarter 

of 1949 yielded one enemy kill and no captures or surrenders. See John A. Nagl, 

Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a 

Knife, Westport: Praeger, 2002, p. 78.

11. Major Scott McMichael, A Historical Perspective on Light Infantry, 

Leavenworth: U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute, Research Survey No. 6, 1987, 

p. 125. See also Gregorian, pp. 61. 

12. The difference in training between the early and later stages of the 

insurgency is dramatic. Later in the insurgency, whole units were put through the 

course. When the 1st Battalion Royal Australian Regiment arrived in 1959, every 

company went through the full 1-month course. See Peter Denis and Jeffrey Grey, 

Emergency and Confrontation: Australian Military Operations in Malaya and Borneo 

1950-1966, St. Leonards, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 1996, pp. 151-152. A good 

description of the Jungle Warfare Centre curriculum is found in Richard Miers, 

Shoot to Kill, London: Faber and Faber, 1959, pp. 30-35. 

13. Anthony Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya 1948-1960, London: 

Frederick Muller, 1975, p. 138. In some units, there was an informal training course 

in jungle warfare taught by Burma veterans. For a description of one such training 

program, see Arthur Campbell, Jungle Green, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1953, 

pp. 10-24. 
50

14. Government Report, “Malaya: A Review of Development in 1952, Part I,” MS

British Empire, 486, 3/1. Rhodes House, Oxford University.

15. The Malayan Security Service was a small group but could at least 

function as the nucleus of an expanded intelligence service. By the start of the 

insurgency, the Malayan Security Service had complied brief dossiers on leading 

Chinese communists and other political figures. The Malayan Security Service also 

translated captured communist documents and manuals. Some of the records of 

the Malayan Security Service are found in the Rhodes House Centre for Imperial 

and Commonwealth History at Oxford University. See MS Ind. Ocean S 254 

Report: “Threat of Communism in Malaya and Singapore,” June 26, 1947; and MS 

Ind. Ocean S251/1948, “Malayan Security Service Supplement Number 10,” 1948, 

Rhodes House, Oxford University.

16. Richard Clutterbuck, Riot and Revolution in Singapore and Malaya 1945-1963, 

London: Faber and Faber, 1973, pp 178-179.

17. A. J. Stockwell, “Policing during the Malayan Emergency, 1948-60: 

Communism, Communalism and Decolonization,” Policing and Decolonisation: 

Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917-65, David Anderson and David Killingray, 

eds., Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992, pp. 105-125, particularly p. 

107. 

18. “The Situation in Malaya,” Cabinet Memo by Oliver Lyttelton, November 

20, 1951, CAB 129/48, British Documents on the end of Empire, A. J. Stockwell, ed., 

Series B, Vol. 3, Malaya, Part II, London: HMSO, 1995, pp. 310-347.

19. Karl Hack, Defence and Decolonisation in Southeast Asia: Britain, Malaya and 

Singapore 1941-1968, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001, pp. 110-111.

20. Gregorian, pp. 63-64.

21. A good description of the home guards system is found in John McCuen, 

The Art of Counter-Revolutionary Warfare, London Faber and Faber, 1966, pp. 159-

160.

22. John Scurr, The Malayan Campaign 1948-60, London: Osprey, 1986, p. 22.

23. John Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency from Palestine to Northern Ireland, 

London: Palgrave, 2002, p. 48.

24. Richard Stubbs, Hearts and Minds in Guerrilla Warfare; The Malayan Emergency 

1948-1960, Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 72-73.

25. Report of the Police Commission to Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, March 1950, 

Papers of Sir Arthur Young, Rhodes House, Oxford University. On the negative 

perception of the police by the public, see Hack, p. 127.

26. On the Brigg’s Plan, see Victor Purcell, Malaya: Communist or Free, Stanford: 

Stanford University Press, 1954, p. 65.

27. See footnote 2, British Documents on the End of Empire. Malaya Part 2. CAB 

Papers 129/48. 
51

28. Ibid. British Defence Coordination Committee, November 15, 1951, CAB 

Papers, pp. 310-315.

29. Templer had a good background to lead a counterinsurgency campaign. 

He served in Palestine during the 1930s revolt, served as a division and corps 

commander in World War II, and then as director of the British military government 

in Germany. Few in the British military had a similar civil/military background. 

On Templer’s background, see John Cloake, Templer: Tiger of Malaya, London: 

Harrap, 1985. 

30. Sir Arthur Young, “Malaya 1952: Narrative Report, 1967,” Young Papers, 

Rhodes House, Oxford University.

31. Letter, Sir Arthur Young to Hugh Fraser, Officer Administering the 

Government, Kuala Lumpur, December 22, 1951, Sir Arthur Young Papers, Rhodes 

House, Oxford University, MS Brit. Emp. S.486. 

32. Cloake, p. 234.

33. Government Report, “Malaya: A Review of Development in 1952, Part I” MS 

British Empire 48, 3/1, Rhodes House, Oxford University, pp. 25, 31-32.

34. Ibid. pp. 32-34.

35. Cloake, p. 246.

36. Ibid., p. 247.

37. Young, “Malaya 1952: Narrative Report.”

38. Purcell, pp. 212-213.

39. Hack, p. 127.

40.Young, “Malaya 1952: Narrative Report.”

41. Cloake, pp. 234-235.

42. Government Report, “Malaya: A Review of Development in 1952, Part I, 

MS Brit Emp. 486, 3/1, Rhodes House, Oxford University, p. 34.

43. Nagl, p. 92.

44. Sir Arthur Young, “A Review of Development in 1952, Part I,” Circa late 

1952, Young Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford University, MS Brit Emp. 486 3/1. p. 

32.

45. Coates p. 43.

46. Purcell, pp. 229-230.

47. Gregorian, pp 171-172.

48. Gregorian, p. 172.

49. Purcell, p. 255.

50. Stockwell, pp. 114-117.

51. Cloake, pp. 249-250.
52

52. “The Emergency in Malaya,” Army Quarterly, April 1954, pp. 46-65.

53. Coates, pp. 120-121.

54. Clutterbuck, pp. 179-180.

55. Nagl, p. 93.

56. Good overviews of Britain’s relationship with Cyprus and the origins of the 

insurgency are found in Robert Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus 1954-1959, 

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. For a good general history of the insurgency, see 

Nancy Cranshaw, The Cyprus Revolt, London: Allen and Unwin, 1978; and Charles 

Foley and W. I. Scobie, The Struggle for Cyprus, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 

1975.

57. Leontios Ierodiakonou, The Cyprus Question, Stockholm: Almquist and 

Wiksell, 1971, p. 21.

58. Holland, p. 32; Ierodiakonou, pp. 21-22.

59. In 1954, Colonial Minister Henry Hopkinson declared in Parliament that 

Britain would never agree to self-determination for the people of Cyprus. Robert 

Holland, “Never, Never Land: British Colonial Policy in and the Roots of Violence 

in Cyprus, 1950-54,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. XXI, 

No. 3, September 1993, pp. 148-175, especially pp. 148, 153,154.

60. George Grivas, Guerrilla Warfare, Athens: Longmans, 1964, pp. 5-10.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. David Anderson, “Policing and Communal Conflict: The Cyprus Emergency 1954-1960,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, September 

1993, pp. 177-207, especially pp. 182-183.

64. Cyprus Police Commission Report, March 1956, Doc. NA 378, Rhodes House, 

Oxford University, para 114.

65. Ibid.

66. Cyprus Police Commission Report, para 9.

67. Ibid., para 10.

68. Anderson, “Policing and Communal Conflict,” p. 182.

69. Ibid., para 29.

70. For a good view of the campaign from the insurgent viewpoint, see The 

Memoirs of General Grivas, Charles Foley, ed., London: Longmans, 1964. Grivas 

provides considerable detail on how he subverted the police force. On the 

infiltration of the police, see Anderson, “Policing and Communal Conflict,” pp. 

184-185; Foley and Scobie, pp. 104-105.

71. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 60.

72. Anderson, “Policing and Communal Conflict,” p. 185. 
53

73. Cyprus Police Commission Report, para 74.

74. Anderson, p. 191.

75. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 80.

76. Ibid p. 100.

77. Ibid p. 60.

78. Anderson, p. 190.

79. Anderson, pp. 194-197.

80. Anderson, p. 196.

81. Ibid., p. 187. 

82. Cyprus Police Commission Report, para 197.

83. Ibid., paras 198-200.

84. Anderson, p. 190.

85. Cyprus Police Commission Report, paras 117, 136, 138.

86. Ibid., paras 140, 149.

87. Ibid., paras 103-106.

88. Cranshaw, p. 153.

89. Holland, Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, p. 101. 

90. Anderson, p. 193. 

91. Ibid.

92. John Newsinger, pp. 97, 101; Charles Allen, The Savage Wars of Peace, 

London: Michael Joseph, 1990, pp. 148-149; Charles Foley, Island in Revolt, London: 

Longmans, 1962, pp. 130-132.

93. Foley, p. 132.

94. David Anderson, “Policing and Communal Conflict: The Cyprus 

Emergency, 1954-60,” Policing and Decolonisation. Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 

1917-65, David Anderson and David Killingray, eds., Manchester: Manchester 

University Press, 1992 pp. 187-217, particularly p. 204.

95. Thomas Ehrlich, International Crises and the Role of Law: Cyprus 1958-1967, 

Oxford University Press, 1974, pp. 16-17.

96. Foley, p. 219.

97. Ibid., pp. 140-141.

98. Holland, p. 210.

99. Purcell, pp. 93-94. As Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Harding irritated 

Templer in May 1953 with a premature announcement of success in Malaya, 

“Thanks to General Templer’s inspired leadership the battle against the terrorists 

was nearly won.” Purcell, pp. 93-94.
54

100. Several major studies published before the war and immediately after the 

fall of Baghdad assessed the Iraqi police as thoroughly corrupt and inefficient. See 

The Fund for Peace, Iraq as a Failed State, Report #1, September 2003, p. 15. See also 

U.S. Institute for Peace, Establishing the Rule of Law in Iraq, April 2003, at http://www.

U.S.ip.org/pubs/special reports/sr104.html. Other articles and reports have noted the 

problems of poor leadership in the Iraqi Police. See Tom Squitieri, “Long Way to 

go Before Iraqis Take Over Security,” USA Today, December 14, 2004. When the 

police in Mosul came under attack in November 2004, three-fourths of the 4,000-

member force ran away. Most of the ICDC battalion in Mosul also ran, but not 

before looting their base of weapons and equipment. For a mid-2005 assessment, 

see also Eric Schmitt, “Iraqis Not Ready to Fight Rebels on Their Own, U.S. Says,” 

New York Times, July 21, 2005.

101. U.S. Army FM 3-07.22 Counterinsurgency, p. 3.5. One mission of the 

military police is to set up a host nation police academy.

102. Christine Spoler, “Iraqi Soldiers Deserting New Army,” Chicago Tribune, 

December 9, 2003. See Mark Bowden, “When Officers Aren’t Gentlemen . . .,” Wall 

Street Journal, February 8, 2005, p. A-18; Eric Schmitt, “U.S. May Add Advisors to 

Aid Iraq’s Military,” New York Times, January 4, 2005; Eric Schmitt, “Iraqis Not 

Ready to Fight Rebels on Their Own, U.S. Says,” New York Times, July 21, 2005.

103. In the 2004-05 academic year, only one Iraqi officer attended the U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff course at Ft. Leavenworth. In the 2005-06 academic 

year, there is again just one Iraqi officer. In December 2004, there were only two 

Iraqi officers at the U.S. Army Infantry Officers Advanced course.

104. Templer’s 1952 proposals to build an adequate Malayan Army required 

an extra British grant of 8 million pounds for 1953-54. See John Coates, Suppressing 

Insurgency: An Analysis of the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1954, Boulder: Westview 

Press, 1992, pp. 121-122. 

105. Ibid.