Communist counter-insurgency

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britain couldnt afford to obliterate a resource rich colony
US just likes bombing shit

>>1800930

Because the British applied a strategy and operational model that actually worked; they attempted to clear and hold areas that the insurgents were unable to operate in, and keep the loyalties of the foreign population they were supposedly protecting.

The U.S. didn't bother trying to actually make sure the South Vietnamese government could actually work, and preferred to hump around the jungle killing as many VC and NVA as they could. Turns out, no matter how many they did in, they couldn't make their ally any less worthless, which made it something of a losing proposition from the start.

They cut the Malaysian communist off from resupply whereas the US failed to sever the Ho Chi Minh trail.

>>1800947
but the Emergency ended by 1960, couldn't the US have just learned/used the same strategies as the Brits?

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>>1800930
Read pic related - they acted a lot smarter than burgerland. For example the British fought against Japan in their colonies so people didn't outright despise them. Also Malaysia didn't have any Chinese or Soviet support afaik and the Vietcong was massive when the Malayan insurgents were like 10000 tops.

>>1800958

I mean, they could have, they probably should have, I'm honestly not 100% sure why they didn't. I vaguely remember something about experiences island fighting with Japan in WW2 lead to a mentality of "Gotta kill them all", but that could just be a fever dream.

It's been a very, very long time since I read it, and I don't remember specifics, but you might want to check out this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Eat-Soup-Knife-Counterinsurgency/dp/0226567702

It goes into that question specifically.

>>1800958
>>1800960
US fought in the jungles of Asia against the Japanese too

compare and contrast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5fgRgAk9uk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE1l4-vo8I4

>>1800972
Cheers, will have a look

>>1800973
Seldom side by side with colonials though.
>>1800958
France and Britain ruled differently in the colonies. You know direct vs indirect rules and the French direct rule pissed a lot of people of (and rightfully so). Plus the operations in Vietnam and Algeria were bloody and violent. This was no hearts and minds operation.

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>>1800930
the Malayan communists never numbered more than 8000 but the Vietnamese got support from China and the U.S. bombing campaigns like rolling thunder turned the population towards insurgency

>>1800930
>>1800945

The British knew their empire was crumbling and that they couldn't afford another war but needed tin from Malaya so they had an interest in building a sustainable independent Malayan state
The US was pretty much blinded by Cold War thinking that the loss of Vietnam was an existential threat re:domino theory... plus they had the money to just pour more and more treasure into the war

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>>1800972
>"British army evolved a combined civil-military-political strategy... based on intelligence derived from a supportive local population"
>"US army continued to rely on a conventional approach to defeating the insurgents through an attrition-based search and destroy strategy"

>>1800930
Britain fought a largely unpopular communist uprising in Malaya.

Meanwhile the US not only faced having to deal with an unpopular, shitty, South Vietnamese government, a large guerilla force, but also had to deal with the fact that it can never address the problem directly by invading North Vietnam. Not without setting off a Korean War 2.0. Deathmatch, this time with an even better equipped (and Nuclear) China.

tl;dr Malaya was Easymode. You can never compare it to Vietnam. You can however compare it to another US backed anti-communist campaign: the Philippines. Which succeeded but the stupid Flips had a dictatorship which reignited communist revolt in the 70s.

>>1800930
Because the Malayan insurgency was a joke

The Vietmihn started during the Japanese occupation.
By 1945, there were already hundreds thousands of armed and combat experienced rebels in the jungle
Then they fought the French for a decade.
It was still the beginning of the rebellion, and it could have been defeated if the US had intervened like the French asked them to, but hatred of France and European colonialism was still stronger than hatred of communism in American hearts at that time.
So the rebellion kept getting stronger and the French got expelled
In 1955, a year after the French left, America finally intervened
By that time, it had been 15 years since the Vietminh was created, and millions of armed and experienced rebels were in the jungle

Meanwhile, the Malayan uprising consisted in dozens thousands of unexperienced faggots (there was no Malayan resistance to Jap occupation) who mostly conduced riots in big cities.
It was enough to make the UK shit themselves and give up the place after having crushed the "rebellion" though

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>>1801093
>You can however compare it to another US backed anti-communist campaign
Fuck no. The USA pulled it off so well, it was just CIA agents doing the job alongside local Flip forces. Although with the occasional Studies and Observations Group of elite special forces monkeys from the JUSMAG-PHIL

>>1801094
>enough to make the UK shit themselves and give up the place after having crushed the "rebellion" though

The brits knew that they couldnt hold onto their empire (unlike the french) so wanted to reach an amicable independence... the fact they were communist just plays into cold war 'commies taking over the world' so we better stop them first

>>1800930
same as Afghanistan, if you coerce a rural population, they'll turn into insurgents

>>1801094

>there was no Malayan resistance to Jap occupation)

Lolwut? Where do you think all of the weapons used by the MRLA and most of their leadership and core fighters came from?

A hint: the British supplied and trained them, in order to fight the Japanese.

Christ, the leader of the Malay communists, Chin Peng, was given a OBE for fighting the Japanese!

>>1801147

The Malay communists kept fighting loooong after Malaya became independent. 1989 to be exact. Turns out, they weren't fighting for Malayas freedom after all...

>>1800986
true, during WW2 Malayans fought alongside the empire whereas Vietnam was Vichy controlled under Japanese occupation so a much more forceful insurgency developed

>>1800930
Cause they gave the Malayans part of what they wanted to appease them after killing a bunch.

Are you comparing rhodesia to vietnam? Id wager over ten times as much supply was in vietnam than was funding rhodesia insurgency. They even had migs.

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>>1802042
>whereas Vietnam was Vichy controlled under Japanese occupation

Nope
The Vichy administration was expelled when the Japs took over

>>1801015
I hope this is bait. If not, please dont attempt to make posts about wars.

The big problem was that North Vietnam existed.

The US did an ass backwards job at COIN for the first three years of the war, but in between CORDS, Pheonix, and Tet, the insurgency was essentially annihilated in between 1969 and 1971.

But South Vietnam bordered a communist country, and there was no feasible way of turning off the tap of troops.

Cambodia and Laos were "neutral" which meant they refused to do anything about the communists.

US policy makers had decided early on not to expand the war into these countries or into the North, (Nixon did eventually get the fun started in Cambodia.)

Simply put, the entire strategic plan for Vietnam was predicated on the idea that the North Vietnamese would surrender, and they simply didn't.

>>1802383
Japan entered Indochina on September 22, 1940. An agreement was signed, and promptly violated, in which Japan promised to station no more than 6,000 troops in Indochina, and never have more than 25,000 transiting the colony. Rights were given for three airfields, with all other Japanese forces forbidden to enter Indochina without Vichy consent. Immediately after the signing, a group of Japanese officers, in a form of insubordination not uncommon in the Japanese military, attacked the border post of Đồng Đăng, laid siege to Lam Son, which, four days later, surrendered. There had been 40 killed, but 1,096 troops had deserted.[12]

Japan apologized for the Lam Song incident on October 5. Decoux relieved the senior commanders he believed should have anticipated the attack, but also gave orders to hunt down the Lam Song deserters, as well as Viet Minh who had entered Indochina while the French seemed preoccupied with Japan.

Through much of the war, the French colonial government had largely stayed in place, as the Vichy government was on reasonably friendly terms with Japan. Japan had not entered Indochina until 1941, so the conflicts from 1939 to the fall of France had little impact on a colony such as Indochina. The Japanese permitted the French to put down nationalist rebellions in 1940.[13]

Vichy agreements with Japan about Indochina[edit]
Vichy signed the Protocol Concerning Joint Defense and Joint Military Cooperation on July 29. This agreement defined the Franco-Japanese relationship for Indochina, until the Japanese abrogated it in March 1945. It gave the Japanese a total of eight airfields, allowed them to have more troops present, and to use the Indochinese financial system, in return for a fragile French autonomy.
The French admittedly were expelled in 1945 though, but your pictures are of 1940, and the French were still holding administration power from 1940-1945.