Counterinsurgency Intelligence and the Emergency in Malaya

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxvii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 1-15

3. Status Quo Ante

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 17-40

4. Creating a New Intelligence Apparatus in the Far East

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 41-64

5. Organisational Conflict

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 65-86

6. Intelligence Prior to the Declaration of Emergency

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 87-114

7. Paramilitary Intelligence

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 115-146

8. Policing and Human Intelligence

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 147-174

9. Organising Intelligence

   • Roger C. Arditti

   Pages 175-205

10. Conclusion

    • Roger C. Arditti

    Pages 207-233

11. Back Matter

    Pages 235-254

    PDF

This book examines the full range of counterinsurgency intelligence during the Malayan Emergency. It explores the involvement of the Security Service, the Joint Intelligence Committee (Far East), the Malayan Security Service, Special Branch and wider police service, and military intelligence, to examine how British and Malayan authorities tackled the insurgent challenge posed by the Malayan Communist Party. This study assesses the nature of the intelligence apparatus prior to the declaration of emergency in 1948 and considers how officials attempted to reconstruct the intelligence structures in the Far East after the surrender of the Japanese in 1945. These plans were largely based upon the legacy of the Second World War but quickly ran into difficultly because of ill-defined remits and personality clashes. Nevertheless, officials did provide prescient warning of the existential threat posed by the Malayan Communist Party from the earliest days of British reoccupation of Malaya. Once astate of emergency had been declared, officials struggled to find the right combination of methods, strategy and management structures to eliminate the threat posed by the Communist insurgents. This book argues that the development of an effective counterinsurgency intelligence strategy involved many more organisations than just Special Branch. It was a multifaceted, dynamic effort that took far longer and was more problematic than previous accounts suggest. The Emergency remains central to counterinsurgency theory and thus this wide-ranging analysis sheds crucial light not only on the period, but on contemporary doctrine and security practices today.

• Security Service
• Malaysia
• British Empire
• Local intelligence
• Human intelligence
• Malayan Communist Party
• British authorities
• Special Branch
• Terrorism
• Policy
• Security

“This sophisticated book skilfully weaves the personal and the political to provide an impressively holistic account of intelligence during the Malayan Emergency. It successfully unravels the complex array of factors driving intelligence and demonstrates the lengthy, chaotic, process of reform.’’ (Rory Cormac, University of Nottingham, UK)

 

• Independent Scholar, Wraysbury, UK

  Roger C. Arditti

Roger C. Arditti is a full-time police officer in London and an associate researcher at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. He previously studied at Brunel University London and Royal Holloway College, UK, and his primary research interests focus upon Britain’s post-war counter-insurgency campaigns and the role of intelligence.

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