The report is one of several case studies on the organization and management of counterinsurgency efforts in Southeast Asia. It focuses on the structure and control -- and their effect on policy and performance -- of an actual counterinsurgency effort. Its purpose is to determine what lessons of future value the U.S. military establishment may learn from that effort.

The Malayan Emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960. During these tumultuous years, following so soon after the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War, the whole country was once more turned upside down and the lives of the people changed. The war against the Communist Party of Malaya's determined efforts to overthrow the Malayan government involved the whole population in one form or another. Dr Comber analyses the pivotal role of the Malayan Police's Special Branch, the government's supreme intelligence agency, in defeating the communist uprising and safeguarding the security of the country. He shows for the first time how the Special Branch was organised and how it worked in providing the security forces with political and operational intelligence. His book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the Emergency and will be of great interest to all students of Malay(si)a's recent history as well as counter-guerrilla operations. It can profitably be mined, too, to see what lessons can be learned for counterinsurgency operations in other parts of the world.

The Malayan Emergency, the confrontation with Indonesia and the Brunei Revolt are fundamental to an understanding of Southeast Asia during the 20th century. This bibliography brings together 4575 sources which should provide useful information for scholars researching these developments and Southeast Asian history in general. Sources include books, theses, newspaper and magazine articles and unpublished manuscripts.

Dr Comber's account of General Templer's administration in Malaya as High Commissioner and Director of Operations (1952-54) during the Malayan Emergency departs from the usually accepted orthodox assessment of his time in Malaya by focusing on the political and socioeconomic aspects of his governance rather than the military. In doing so, Dr Comber has relied mainly on primary and other first-hand sources, including the confidential reports sent from Malaya by the Australian Commission to the Australian government in Canberra, and the private papers of some of the leading Malayan politicians of the time with whom Templer had dealings which have been deposited in the ISEAS Library, Singapore, many of which have not been used before.The evidence and facts that Dr Comber marshals in this study reflect well the reservations that were often felt about General Templer's authoritarian form of government. While he was a good general and had an impressive military record, his administration in Malaya was marred by a lack of understanding of the background to Malaya's history and the subtleties that are inherent in its culture and way of life which would have enabled him to come to terms more easily with the aspirations of the Malayan people for self-government and independence.

Low Intensity Operations is an important, controversial and prophetic book that has had a major influence on the conduct of modern warfare. First published in 1971, it was the result of an academic year Frank Kitson spent at University College, Oxford, under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence, to write a paper on the way in which the army should be prepared to deal with future insurgency and peacekeeping operations. Its findings and propositions are as striking as when the work was first published. 'To understand the nature of revolutionary warfare, one cannot do better than read Low Intensity Operations... The author has had unrivalled experience of such operations in many parts of the world.' Daily Telegraph 'A highly practical analysis of subversion, insurgency and peacekeeping operations... Frank Kitson's book is not merely timely but important.' The Economist

Australia’s involvement in the Malayan Emergency from 1950 to 1960 and later in a confrontation with Indonesia in the 1960s is little remembered today. Yet the deployment of over a third of the RAAF to support the British and Malayan governments in what became a long war of attrition against communist insurgents in the former case, and against Indonesian regulars and militia in the latter, kept the RAAF engaged for over 15 years. Wars by another name, these two events led to the birth of Malaysia and the establishment of an ongoing RAAF presence in South East Asia. Until recent operations in Afghanistan, the Malaya Emergency was Australia’s longest conflict. Malayan Emergency and Indonesian Confrontation recounts the story of the politics, strategies and operations that brought these two conflicts to a close.