Drawing upon a wide range of unpublished sources, including files from the recently-released Foreign and Commonwealth Office 'migrated archive', Fighting EOKA is the first full account of the operations of the British security forces on Cyprus in the second half of the 1950s. It shows how between 1955 and 1959 these forces tried to defeat the Greek Cypriot paramilitary organisation, EOKA, which was fighting to bring about enosis, that is the union between Cyprus and Greece. By tracing the evolving pattern of EOKA violence and the responses of the police, the British army, the civil administration on the island, and the minority Turkish Cypriot community, David French explains why the British could contain the military threat posed by EOKA, but could not eliminate it. The result was that by the spring of 1959 a political stalemate had descended upon Cyprus, and none of the contending parties had achieved their full objectives. Greek Cypriots had to be content with independence rather than enosis. Turkish Cypriots, who had hoped to see the island partitioned on ethnic lines, were given only a share of power in the government of the new Republic, and the British, who had hoped to retain sovereignty over the whole of the island, were left in control of just two military enclaves.

'This book makes uncomfortable reading both in its detailed analysis of terrorism and its causes, and in the critique of state responses, particularly in modern times. It is unusual to have such a defence of a 'human rights framework' from a counter-terrorism practitioner rather than from within the legal fraternity. It is this that makes the case even more persuasive. All who are involved in counter-terrorism strategy should consider carefully the arguments put forward.'Global Policy JournalFor more than 150 years, nationalist, populist, Marxist and religious terrorists have all been remarkably consistent and explicit about their aims: provoke states into over-reacting to the threat they pose, then take advantage of the divisions in society that result. Yet, state after state falls into the trap that terrorists have set for them. Faced with a major terrorist threat, governments seem to reach instinctively for the most coercive tools at their disposal and, in doing so, risk exacerbating the situation. This policy response seems to be driven in equal parts by a lack of understanding in the true nature of the threat, an exaggerated faith in the use of force, and a lack of faith that democratic values are sufficiently flexible to allow for an effective counter-terrorism response. Drawing on a wealth of data from both historical and contemporary sources, Avoiding the Terrorist Trap addresses common misconceptions underpinning flawed counter-terrorist policies, identifies the core strategies that guide terrorist operations, consolidates the latest research on the underlying drivers of terrorist violence, and then demonstrates why a counter-terrorism strategy grounded in respect for human rights and the rule of law is the most effective approach to defeating terrorism.

Britain is often revered for its extensive experience of waging ‘small wars’. Its long imperial history is littered with high profile counter-insurgency campaigns, thus marking it out as the world’s most seasoned practitioner of this type of warfare. This is the first book to detail the tactical and operational dynamics of Britain’s small wars, arguing that the military’s use of force was more heavily constrained by wider strategic and political considerations than previously admitted. Outlining the civil-military strategy followed by the British in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, Defending the realm? argues that Britain’s small wars since 1945 were fought against the backdrop of an irrevocable decline in British power. Written from a theoretically-informed perspective, grounded in rich archival sources, oral testimonies and a revisionist reading of the literature on counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism, this is the definitive account of the politics of Britain’s small wars.

An overview of modern Western militaries’ response to armed rebellion, from Indochina to Northern Ireland to Iraq. Counterinsurgency—or efforts to defeat and confine a rebellion against a constituted authority—has become a buzzword in recent times, but the term is as old as society itself. This concise history covers the development of modern counterinsurgency over the last two hundred years, from the concept of “small wars” and colonial warfare to the ideas of early insurgents like Clausewitz and the theories of Lawrence of Arabia to the methods of twentieth-century insurgents including Mao and Che Guevara. It also examines a number of post-1945 insurgencies and how Western armies have tried to counter them, in particular the French in Indochina and Algeria, as well as the United States in Vietnam and the reaction to the American experience there. This is compared with the British approach in the years after World War II, particularly in Malaya, but also in Kenya and Northern Ireland. Against this backdrop, there is an investigation of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of COIN literature, and the subsequent backlash against that literature—and finally, a discussion of the future of COIN.

Making War and Building Peace examines how well United Nations peacekeeping missions work after civil war. Statistically analyzing all civil wars since 1945, the book compares peace processes that had UN involvement to those that didn't. Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis argue that each mission must be designed to fit the conflict, with the right authority and adequate resources. UN missions can be effective by supporting new actors committed to the peace, building governing institutions, and monitoring and policing implementation of peace settlements. But the UN is not good at intervening in ongoing wars. If the conflict is controlled by spoilers or if the parties are not ready to make peace, the UN cannot play an effective enforcement role. It can, however, offer its technical expertise in multidimensional peacekeeping operations that follow enforcement missions undertaken by states or regional organizations such as NATO. Finding that UN missions are most effective in the first few years after the end of war, and that economic development is the best way to decrease the risk of new fighting in the long run, the authors also argue that the UN's role in launching development projects after civil war should be expanded.

Introduction : counterinsurgency and human rights in the post-1945 world -- A lawyers' war : emergency legislation and the Cyprus Bar Council -- The shadow of Strasbourg : international advocacy and Britain's response -- Hunger war : humanitarian rights and the Radfan campaign -- This unhappy affair : investigating torture in Aden -- A more talkative place : Northern Ireland

This book evaluates the prosecution of British counter-insurgency operations during the Cyprus Revolt of 1955-1959. Historians have typically cast the Cyprus Revolt as a failure, situating it within the larger pattern of the post-1945 failure of conventional armies to deal with insurgencies. By analyzing the reminiscences of British policemen, National Servicemen, and officers both junior and senior, the study provides a ground-up assessment of the British counter-insurgency effort. The work examines also the contradictions gripping Greek and Turkish Cypriot opinion, arguing that developments during this time period set the scene for intercommunal violence in the 1960s and 1970s. Military history is taken in a broad sense and includes the Cypriot government’s attempts to control its image in the eyes of international opinion. By intimately dealing with indigenous news outlets like the Times of Cyprus and Halkın Sesi, this book offers lessons for modern policymakers and civil servants concerned with the importance of sound press strategy.

A capacious history of decolonization, from the decline of empires to the era of globalization Empires, until recently, were everywhere. They shaped borders, stirred conflicts, and set the terms of international politics. With the collapse of empire came a fundamental reorganization of our world. Decolonization unfolded across territories as well as within them. Its struggles became internationalized and transnational, as much global campaigns of moral disarmament against colonial injustice as local contests of arms. In this expansive history, Martin Thomas tells the story of decolonization and its intrinsic link to globalization. He traces the connections between these two transformative processes: the end of formal empire and the acceleration of global integration, market reorganization, cultural exchange, and migration. The End of Empires and a World Remade shows how profoundly decolonization shaped the process of globalization in the wake of empire collapse. In the second half of the twentieth century, decolonization catalyzed new international coalitions; it triggered partitions and wars; and it reshaped North-South dynamics. Globalization promised the decolonized greater access to essential resources, to wider networks of influence, and to worldwide audiences, but its neoliberal variant has reinforced economic inequalities and imperial forms of political and cultural influences. In surveying these two codependent histories across the world, from Latin America to Asia, Thomas explains why the deck was so heavily stacked against newly independent nations. Decolonization stands alongside the great world wars as the most transformative event of twentieth-century history. In The End of Empires and a World Remade, Thomas offers a masterful analysis of the greatest process of state-making (and empire-unmaking) in modern history.

Analyzing the period after 1945 when uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world, Age of Emergency (Oxford University Press), focuses on how violence was experienced in the lives of ordinary people in imperial Britain. Using various historical records including letters, television, newspapers, novels, and more, Linstrum uncovers the violent torture, executions, and gruesome punishments the community faced. Throughout his writing, Linstrum demonstrates the significance of war beyond the fight between soldiers, and the ways in which war encroaches on all aspects of life.

For nearly fifty years, Cyprus has attracted considerable international attention. However, while numerous volumes have been written on the causes and consequences of the conflict between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and the many efforts to reunite the island, very little work has been done on the domestic politics and society in the Republic of Cyprus. This volume addresses this major gap in the literature by providing the first comprehensive examination of the institutions of governance and the political environment in Cyprus. As well as focusing on issues such as the presidency, parliament, the legal system, local government and civil society, it also analyses and explains the historical development of politics in Cyprus and the ways in which the conflict between the two communities, the division of the island and, more recently, European Union accession have all affected the conduct of politics and system of government.