University of York

How were the processes of

nation and state building

affected by the experience

of war in Malaysia and

Vietnam after 1945? WORD COUNT: 9904

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Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Literature on Counter Insurgency ............................................................................................................. 4

The historical context of liberal peace building and contemporary state building ................................... 8

State making through war making: the Predatory Theory of State Building .......................................... 11

An overview of Vietnam and Malaya before 1945 ................................................................................. 13

Vietnam before 1945: Dai Viet to Indochine française .......................................................................... 15

The Spice Islands in the Age of Exploration .......................................................................................... 15

Vietnam: The First Indochina War ......................................................................................................... 16

British Malaya until 1941 ....................................................................................................................... 18

Good Morning Vietnam: The Second Indochina War ............................................................................ 19

End of Empire and the Malayan Emergency .......................................................................................... 23

Consequences in the post colonial state: Vietnam and Malaysia today .................................................. 27

Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 29

Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 30

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Abstract

This essay explores how the political development of Malaysia and Vietnam, with regards

to state building and national identity formation, was affected by the process of war. The

focus is on how the counter insurgency strategies of Britain in Malaya; and France and

the USA in Vietnam, have profoundly affected the development of both states and have

defined their characteristics up until the present day. With regards to state building

theory in general, there is a brief comparison between South East Asia and different

regions, however the essay focuses on counter insurgency in Vietnam and Malaya

specifically. While the essay focuses on the effects of war, especially counter insurgency,

on state building, the essay questions to what extent this has led to the result of Vietnam

and Malaysia in its current form. The conclusion, after discussing the differing

approaches (and similarities) of British and American counter insurgency, is that the

milder experience of war in Malaysia has led to a mediated state with a fractured society.

Racial and communal tensions have been deferred in Malaysia, the legacy of the

predominantly ethnically Chinese Malayan Communist Party. On the other hand, the less

effective American war effort may have led to its defeat and Communist control of

Vietnam, but the consequence of this is that Vietnam is not only a strong state, but in

addition it has a stronger national identity.

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Introduction

This essay argues that the processes of war are directly responsible for the formation of a modern nation

state. In particular, the intensity of war and the strategies used by the state actor will determine the future

characteristics of the state. In doing so, this essay provides the link between predatory state building

theory and counter insurgency practice: it proves that attempts by external actors in state building through

counter insurgency strategies will be less effective, if not ultimately futile, compared to endogenous

processes of state building carried out as part of the processes of insurgency warfare. It compares two

empirical examples: the Malayan Emergency and the Wars in Indochina to show how the “milder”

experience of war and more “effective” British counter insurgency strategies in the former have resulted

in a weaker, more patrimonial state with a less coherent and more problematic national identity than the

latter. This, my essay argues, is because the Malaysian state was a result of British counter insurgency

practises while the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was a result of a long running insurgency against first

the French then the Americans. The total military victory of the People’s Army of Vietnam has created a

strong, unmediated modern state of Vietnam. On the other hand, the processes of the Malayan emergency,

while succeeding in the British objectives of creating a non-communist, independent Federation of

Malaya has deferred crucial issues on the latter’s national identity; specifically, the question of the

significant Chinese minority in modern day Malaysia.

Literature on Counter Insurgency

There is much written on the Vietnam War, mainly from American sources. Given controversy around the

Vietnam War and its effect on domestic politics in the USA, it is not surprising that the vast majority of

the literature I have surveyed revolves around the performance of the American troops and prescriptions

on the future undertakings of counter insurgency warfare. Much of it is derived from the military history

discipline and was authored by former American military personnel or was published by the RAND

Corporation. A comparison between the performance of the British forces in Malaya and American forces

in Vietnam is a popular slant in the literature. This is not surprising as most analyses of the failures of

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American strategy, such as the Strategic Hamlet Programme, were compared to the relative success of a

similar programme, the Briggs Plan, in Malaya (Leahy, 1990).

That having been said, most of the literature concerns the technical aspects of counter insurgency, such as

population control measures, strategic mobility and “winning hearts and minds”. It is the last of these

aspects which is the most salient for this essay, as it obliquely refers to processes of nation-building.

Population control and strategic mobility are physical manifestations of state building, as they are based

on the level of administrative power that the incumbent government wields (Mann, 1984). The key to

using the existing literature in this essay is to integrate the technical explanations of counter insurgency to

the broader theoretical framework of state building and identity formation. An important area to explore is

how certain strategies which have been undertaken due to military expediency have unintended and far

reaching political consequences. A case in point would be the actions of British security forces during the

Malayan Emergency in order to deny the Malayan Communist Party popular support but has affected

ethnic relations in Malaysia up until today (Hack, 1999; Morrison, 1949; Short, 1970). In effect, the

political processes of post colonial Malaysia was determined by how the legacy of infrastructural power

bequeathed by the British security apparatus during the Emergency was married to the despotic power

wielded by modern leaders of Malaysia (Hack, 2009).

The foundational work which this essay intends to reference is John Nagl’s “Counterinsurgency lessons

from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to eat soup with a knife”. While this book is primarily concerned

with the technical details of counter insurgency, in contains many implications of how effective state

building is inextricably linked to a successful counter insurgency campaign. Although it provides a full

and frank account of the short comings of the American military with regards to its prosecution of the

Vietnam War; cross-examining it with other sources shows that Nagl’s focus on the differences between

the British and American counter insurgency armies was at the expense of attention on the insurgent

groups they were fighting. While there is a detailed analysis of the doctrinal foundations and leading

personalities of the British and American forces, a similar overview of the Malayan Communist Party and

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the Vietcong is cursory. Furthermore, Nagl frames counterinsurgency prescriptions for the US army, such

as the Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam (PROVN), as being

something of a panacea; which once implemented, would undoubtedly lead to victory. The continued

reliance by generals such as Harkins and Westmoreland on conventional strategies was symptomatic of

their doctrinal inflexibility and a proclivity for fighting the last war, as evidenced by their continual focus

on preparing for PLA and PAVN armoured divisions sweeping over the 17th parallel, à la the Korean War

(Nagl, 2002). Further research has shown that American commanders were not as incompetent or narrow

minded as Nagl has characterised them to be. The recommendations of PROVN were implemented earlier

and more thoroughly than he contends (Birtle, 2008). While Nagl laments how the British Advisory

Mission to Vietnam was often ignored by the commanders of the Military Assistance Advisory Group and

the later Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MAAG/MACV), he does not explore the political

ramifications of their presence, namely, how American commanders were concerned that the leader of the

British Advisory Mission, Robert Thompson, was circumventing them politically by going over their

heads straight to Diem. In short, while criticising the American military for ignoring the political aspect of

counterinsurgency, he makes a similar mistake himself.

While Nagl is a good starting point for this essay, he tends to have a binary view of how the British

strategy was “correct” and the American one, by definition, “incorrect”. He is reflective of the wider

school of American military theorists who pored over the experience in Vietnam in order to provide a

lessons learned report for future endeavours in Afghanistan and Iraq. This essay uses counter insurgency

as an example of how a certain form of war affects the processes of state building. To repeat, the intent of

this essay is not to show how the British army was more of a learning institution than the American

military, but how British and American actions during a war inadvertently created two rather different

nation states. The “successful” counter insurgency carried out by the British left more unanswered

questions with regards to the national identity of the future federation of Malaysia compared to the

sanguine finality of the Vietnam War. Simply put, the milder experience of war in Malaya led to latent

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conflict later on. This draws on the arguments of Taylor & Botea and Thies; who contend that resilient

states are the outcome of bloody interstate wars. This is a controversial statement as it implies that the

best course of action to ensure stably and resilient nation-states in sub Saharan Africa is to simply let

them collapse in an orgy of violence and recognise the surviving polities as manifestation of legitimate

ethnic, tribal and religious lines (Herbst, 2004).

While a substantive comparison between sub Saharan African states with those of South East Asia is

beyond the scope of this essay, it is worthwhile critiquing their argument that Tilly’s predatory state

building model is equally applicable to developing countries as it is to Western Europe. Taylor and Botea

state that the Asian post colonial experience has differed from the African one due to: a) the presence or

at least the threat of interstate war; and b) the relative ethnic homogeneity of South East Asian states

(particularly Vietnam) compared to African states with their arbitrarily drawn borders. Unlike Africa,

Asian states have more or less maintained pre colonial forms of organisation (Bayart, 1991). These

systems lay dormant during the colonial era and resurfaced afterwards, thereby explaining this difference

(Haynes, 1996). This essay’s main point of contention is the assumed ethnic homogeneity of Vietnam.

Ethnic minorities in Vietnam, while less of a political issue than in Malaysia, were historically in

opposition to the Vietnamese state in all its forms (Katz, 1980; Devillers, 1952; Piasecki, 2009; Jones Jr,

2007). This essay will argue that it took the processes of war with France and American for the

Vietnamese state to eventually co opt them.

Finally there is the literature on post Cold War state building theory in general, examples of which are the

long, drawn out multilateral interventions in Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, Cambodia and Timor Leste,

which have seen mixed results (Paris & Timothy D. Sisk, 2009, p. 7). This essay will present the

arguments against contemporary state building theory, especially accusations that it has become a form of

neo-colonialism where the agenda is increasingly being set by donor states. Examples of this are the

effects of post conflict state building in Cambodia and Timor Leste and the contrast between multilateral

UN forces in both countries with the largely unilateral British and American presence in Malaya and

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Vietnam. What is essential is the comparison between the willingness of the British and Americans to

intervene in domestic politics as compared to the hands off approach of the UN missions; in the case of

Cambodia, this has lead to the spiritual survival of the Khmer Rouge in the form of Hun Sen’s clique. A

counterpoint to the continuity of post conflict politics in Cambodia would be the American willingness to

depose Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam when he proved to be intransigent to American war aims. This

examples tie in with the literature on Empire in Denial which I will expand on below.

The historical context of liberal peace building and contemporary state

building

Since this essay is concerned with situating the development of Malaysia and Vietnam within the context

of state building theory, the literature review must begin with an outline of what exactly is contemporary

state building theory. The state is assumed to be the standard unit of analysis in international relations, the

lowest common denominator that unifies both the realist and liberal schools of thought. This state centric

perspective has been the prevailing lens with which to view international relations since the treaty of

Westphalia (Berger, 2003). The sovereign nation state has become the norm at the expense of other forms

of political organisation, such as the multinational empire. The prevailing realist view of international

relations is that the international arena is comprised of sovereign nation states preoccupied with their

survival and the increase of their power relative to other states. The liberal tradition broadly agrees with

this but with the caveat that cooperation through international organisations and regimes has scope for

success, as states are concerned more with absolute benefits than relative benefits. Regardless, both

theories are in opposition to critical international relations theories which prefer using systems or norms,

rather than states, as their unit of analysis. Since the state system and the concept of state sovereignty

have been enshrined since 1945, the primary concern for international relations theory has been the

stability of this system. However, the stability experienced during the bipolarity of much of the 20th

century has come into question since the end of the Cold War. This phenomenon has resulted in a greater

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scope to act by international regimes and is concurrent with an increase in intrastate war, along with a

decrease in interstate ones.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a momentous occasion which paved the way for a new world order.

This New World Order, as it was coined by George H.W. Bush, was in essence the Liberal International

Economic Order. The sense of triumphalism in the West was accurately summed up by Fukuyama in one

of his seminal works: the capitalist liberal democratic state was the ultimate evolution in political order

and with the discrediting of its only serious alternative, human society had reached the end of its historical

development (Fukuyama & Bloom, 1989). The greatest challenge to international security now came not

from the aggression of strong states, but the instability of weak ones (Rice, 2008; Call, 2008). The fall of

the USSR also removed the ideological deadlock which characterised much of the UN inaction during the

cold war. International regimes; armed with a new normative toolset consisting of a firm belief in the

universality of democracy, free market reforms and the importance of the rule of law, now found

themselves with a greater capacity to act (UN Secretary General, 2004). They were quickly given

opportunities to do so. The end of soviet patronage led to the disintegration of many “quasi states”, which

supported their existence on foreign rents rather than extractive capabilities (Jackson, 1990). The

proliferation of intrastate wars was accompanied by the theory of “New Wars” which characterised

conflicts post 1991 as mainly taking place in weak, post colonial states (Kaldor, 2006). Peace building

efforts were thus aimed at addressing the multitude of state and non-state actors in a post conflict

environment. State building was recognised to be taking place in a society divided by identity politics and

deprived of public goods and basic services by weak, if not non-existent, state institutions.

The sovereign nation state exists:

“when there is a political apparatus (governmental institutions, such as a court, parliament, or congress,

plus civil service officials), ruling over a given territory, whose authority is backed by a legal system and

the capacity to use force to implement its policies” (Giddens, 1993, p. 309).

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The international response to the lack of these has been primarily technical in nature (Chandler, 2010, p.

5). This is shown in the considerable literature churned out by international organisations and their

“lessons learnt” reports; stressing the importance of preparedness, early intervention, strategic planning,

interagency and international coordination, the rule of law, health, education, etc (Khan, 2009). A

variation of this technical approach has been institutional state building theory. Supporters contend that it

is not enough to simply ensure “free and fair” elections in a state; it is equally important for external

actors to have the patience and resilience to make sure that strong state institutions are developed in order

for market reforms and political liberalisation to be effective. This perspective warns against making state

building a top down exercise characterised by collusion between external actors and local state elites.

Institutionalists aim to give a greater voice to civil society and argue that the input of citizens is vital for

building a state that is reflective of the society it governs (Paris & Timothy D. Sisk, 2009, p. 15).

This cleavage between state and society, often seen in developing nations, is rooted in their post

colonialist character. Patterns of colonial rule, a predatory, resource extracting state imposed by

foreigners on a society, have persisted even after the wake of decolonisation in the latter half of the

twentieth century. The colonial system was designed to benefit foreign actors who colluded with local

elites, the latter helping governance on a day to day basis in exchange for rents and a marginally higher

social position. Having been imposed by outsiders, the colonial state was intrinsically alien to the society

it controlled (Haynes, 1996). This sense of alienation is perpetuated by the processes of liberal peace

building. In order to “win the peace” after a conflict, it is necessary to develop “representative”

institutions, along with more baseline reforms such as free and fair elections. Criticism against this form

of institution building is that it legitimises and perpetuates ethnic divides (Barnett & Zürcher, 2008).

While power sharing is a useful tactic in bringing a variety of warring actors to the negotiating table, there

is a possibility that it precludes long term efforts to subsume ethnic and communal loyalties into a

collective loyalty to a “nation”. This, coupled with the prescription on long term multinational peace

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keeping forces, may result in a state which is superficially imposed over the society it governs; a state

dominated by ethnic elites at the expense of the average citizen (Marquette & Beswick, 2011, p. 1708).

The problem with the technical nature of contemporary state building discourse is that it depoliticises it.

By shifting “ownership” of state building processes on the target state, international actors have absolved

themselves of political responsibility despite wielding disproportionate power. In fact, the power that

international regimes which control the technical and administrative aspects of state building possess is

even greater than that of naked imperialism (Chandler, 2006). By denying the political history of

developing states and evading the responsibility that comes with their power, international actors have

wilfully precluded serious discussion on a more effective approach to state building. This is specifically

why I have chosen the case studies of Malaysia and Vietnam for this essay. The willingness of the British,

French and American forces to intervene on a political, social and economic level in those two countries

is in stark contrast to the squeamish reluctance of international regimes to go beyond capacity building

administration. It is for this reason that an analysis of Cold War era counter insurgency might prove more

elucidating to future trajectories of state building than the liberal peace building case studies since 1991;

challenges in the form of Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, Cambodia and Timor Leste (Paris & Timothy D.

Sisk, 2009, p. 7).

State making through war making: the Predatory Theory of State Building

Charles Tilly coined the famous aphorism “the state made war, and war made the state” (Taylor & Botea,

2008). Using Early Modern Europe as a historical example, he shows how the rising costs of war,

facilitated by advances in technology allowed the modern state to coalesce. War-making provided three

concurrent mechanisms for the creation of the state: raising money, building armies and making nations.

As the state sought to secure its existence against external enemies, it needed to create adequate military

forces. To raise these forces, the state had to devise means of raising revenue from its territory, such as

taxation (Tilly, 1994). It is through these efforts at raising money that the state gained the impetus to

intervene in society in ever more intrusive ways. Record keeping and census taking were a means with

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which the state could gauge its manpower reserves in times of war, to calculate its agricultural or

industrial output in order to plan for a war, to rationalise its capital stock to apply for loans during a war.

These processes constituted an aggregate increase in the infrastructural power of the state, and throughout

the early modern period, this was solely with a view to wage war (Mann, 1984).

The “making of nations” occurred as a means for the state to justify the ever increasing sacrifices it

demanded from its citizens, measures such as conscription (Anderson, 2006). Clausewitz, writing during

the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, grasped the importance of nationalism in war-making,

and described the military as a “school for the nation” (Leander, 2004, p. 574; Conversi, 2007). This was

echoed by Mao Zedong in his treatise on insurgency, confirming the role of politics within a military

context (Zedong, 1937). Tilly argues that the prevalence of interstate war throughout the Early Modern

Period resulted in the creation of a Europe made up of territorially and ethnically homogenous nation-

states. “Strong” states, defined as such by their superior ability to raise revenue and thus military forces,

annexed Europe’s myriad of increasingly obsolete polities, such as Free Cities and Archbishoprics, until

the number of polities in Europe declined from 500 in 1500 to 25 in 1900 (Porter, 1994, p. 12).

Since the state provides security to its citizens by extracting resources from them in order to defend them

from external enemies, Charles Tilly argues that it is little more than a protection racket taken to its

logical conclusion. The crux of his theory is that there needs to be external enemies in the first place in

order to justify the extractive power of the state. While Tilly has used Western Europe as a historical

example to explain the formation of the modern nation-state, other authors have questioned whether his

model is applicable in post colonial states. Such states are challenged by having arbitrary borders drawn

by retreating colonial overlords with little regard to actual ethnic boundaries, without the means to

consolidate them through processes of war against external enemies (Marquette & Beswick, 2011).

Furthermore, international norms since 1945 have stressed the inviolability of international borders and

have delegitimized interstate wars (North, 1981). The absence of interstate war precludes nation-building

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efforts of subsuming local and community loyalties to state loyalty; in effect, how to create Anderson’s

“imagined community” on a practical level (Herbst, 1990).

As stated previously, the case study used by proponents of predatory state building is the comparison

between South East Asian states and sub-Saharan African states; the former of which have had war or the

threat of war to rationalise their capacities, and the latter which suffer from ethnic and political intrastate

wars but due to the tenets of the African Union, have accepted their present borders in perpetuity, thus

removing the threat of interstate wars (Stubbs, 1999). Cameron Thies argues that ethnic intrastate wars

produce the same state-building initiatives as interstate wars but political intrastate wars have an opposite

effect (Thies, 2004, p. 69). The reasoning behind this is that political civil war is over control of the

centre, while ethnic civil war is usually manifested in the demands for secession by minority groups

inhabiting resource rich areas of the state far from the capital. By losing its ability to act as a rentier state,

state elites are forced to undergo the processes which will allow them to extract resources from the

citizens: in effect the same ones that Western European states had to go through historically.

When this model of how different types of intrastate war affect state building is applied to our case

studies, it shows a certain contradiction in the effects on North and South Vietnam. The Southern

counterinsurgency campaign, being ideologically based and tactically non-territorial, was inherently

counterproductive to its state building efforts. In contrast, the north, while not overtly appealing to ethno

nationalism, framed its struggle as a people’s war against a foreign oppressor. The anti colonial narrative

of indigenous self determination has an underlying implication of Vietnamese versus European and

American oppression, thus it can still be construed as a struggle against “outsiders”.

An overview of Vietnam and Malaya before 1945

The political history of pre colonial Vietnam and Malaya has been very different, despite them both being

part of South East Asia. There is, broadly, a cleavage between the Muslim archipelago and the Buddhist

mainland of South East Asia. However, Vietnam is unique to its neighbours on the mainland as the only

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South East Asian state to have been affected primarily by Confucian China rather than the Hindustani

influence of the rest of the region (Myint-U, 2007). If this was viewed through the lens of Fukuyama’s

state building theories, it would imply that the Chinese influence on Vietnam would have bequeathed it

with a preference for an omnipotent state at the expense of civil society whereas Malaysia, like the rest of

South east Asia, would see a minimal state overly constrained by a clerical rule of law (Fukuyama, 2011).

His argument was that the prevalence of wars in China allowed the formation of an eternal state; periods

of disunity were the anomaly and regional warlords found their legitimacy shaky unless they unified

China and claimed the Mandate of Heaven. Conversely, while the Indian subcontinent is no less

geographically conducive for military campaigning than China, it had never been truly unified by a single

native dynasty until, of course, the arrival of the British Raj. The reason for this was the ability of the

Brahmin caste to impose its proscription of violence on the warring kings, being both higher than the

warrior caste (which all kings were drawn from) and having the ability to impose sanctions by

withholding ancestral rites. The result was a rather weak state in relation to civil society and a stronger

tradition of the rule of law.

In the following chapters describing the historical development of Malaysia and Vietnam, my essay will

show that the development of national identity and state formation does not quite follow Fukuyama’s

grand narrative. While Malaya was indeed politically fractured by the time the British arrived, this was

not due to religious factors. Furthermore, centuries of Chinese influence in Vietnam did not lead to an all

powerful state with a monopoly in the use of force (Jumper & Normand, 1964). Fukuyama’s state

building theory, based on the history of political order, is as inadequate as liberal state building theory in

explaining the divergent results of Vietnam and Malaysia. Once again, this essay will emphasise that it is

predatory state building that provides the best form of analysis. Both states were forged through war,

specifically counterinsurgency warfare, and it was the details of counterinsurgency strategy that

determined their relative differences in national identity formation and state capacity.

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Vietnam before 1945: Dai Viet to Indochine française

Vietnam's long history of subordination to China profoundly shaped its national identity (Hood, 1993, p.

14). Tonkin’s proximity to China resulted in domination by successive Chinese dynasties, being governed

as an imperial province for the better part of a millennium. Despite adopting many aspects of Chinese

culture, including a Confucian bureaucracy, the inhabitants of Tonkin were for the most part hostile to

what they perceived was a form of foreign domination (Jumper & Normand, 1964). Semi mythical

entities such as the Trưng Sisters were lionised as forms of popular resistance to imperial rule. Hostility to

the Chinese continued into the modern era, after the French period.

The Confucian tradition bequeathed by China was wholly dismantled by the French colonial

administration. The French presence in Asia had begun as early as the 17th century through Jesuit

missionaries. This continued into the 19th century; the pretext for the initial French intervention in

Vietnam was over the alleged mistreatment of missionaries. Certainly the Paris Foreign Missions Society

had an active role in the politics of the incumbent Nguyễn Dynasty and the struggle over influence by

these two factions eventually led to the French intervention of 1858. Admiral Charles Rigault de

Genouilly led a joint Franco-Spanish invasion of Vietnam at the behest of Emperor Napoleon III and by

1862; France acquired its first possessions in Vietnam. Unlike the British, who preferred to rule

indirectly, France was dedicated to its “Mission Civilisatrice” (Goodwin, 2001, p. 130). There was a

marked absence of locals in the colonial administration, even at the provincial level and there was no

attempt at introducing moderate reforms in home rule (Scigliano, 1963, p. 186). However, much like in

the British Raj, a Western educated middle class formed the nucleus of opposition to imperial rule. One of

these individuals was Nguyễn Sinh Cung, later known as Ho Chi Minh.

The Spice Islands in the Age of Exploration

The political history of Malaya has been characterised by the issue of control over the Straits of Malacca.

This crucial waterway has been the maritime link between South and East Asia for centuries. As stated

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previously, Malaya’s cultural and religious heritage was defined by the Indianized kingdoms of Majapahit

and Srivijaya. The first regional hegemon was the sultanate of Malacca. Initially Hindu, like the rest of

South East Asia, it was the first polity to embrace Islam and the spread of the religion across South East

Asia was facilitated by Malaccan control of maritime trade. The first European encroachments into the

region came in the form of Portuguese expeditions. The Portuguese seized Malacca in 1511 and used it as

a base to explore and trade for over a century. Its influence through the Roman Catholic religion and

Mestizo population was discernible even until the 20th century. Portuguese hegemony in South East Asia

was replaced by that of the Dutch in 1641, and consequently the importance of Malacca declined in

favour of the Dutch colonial capital in Java. The Dutch themselves began to be threatened by the British

East India Company operating from bases in Bombay, Calcutta and Pegu (Parmer, 1964, pp. 281-282).

Their decline was sealed by the onset of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars: the occupation

of the Kingdom of Holland by France allowed the British to snap up much of their overseas empire and

gave the latter a stronger hand in negotiations during the Anglo Dutch treaty of 1824. This agreement

sealed the efforts made by Sir Stamford Raffles in initiating Britain's new presence in the region.

Vietnam: The First Indochina War

At the close of the Second World War, as the French were not immediately able to occupy their former

colony, it was agreed that British forces in the South East Asian theatre would maintain law and order

south of the 16th parallel while Chinese Nationalist forces would do so in the north. In doing so, the

Kuomintang strove to create a sphere of influence in Vietnam at the expense of the French. These ill

disciplined troops under the command of KMT warlords aroused the ire of the Vietminh, which did not

wage its own campaign of resistance against the Japanese just to see them replaced by the Chinese, or the

French for that matter. Ho chi minh eventually saw the need to reach an agreement with the French and

the Chinese. The March Accords forsook Vietnamese independence and invited French forces north of

the 16th parallel in order to compel the Chinese forces to withdraw (Shipway, 1994). Ho Chi Minh himself

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saw the Chinese as being a more potent threat than the French, justifying his actions with this colourful

quote:

“You fools! Don't you realize what it means if the Chinese remain? Don't you remember your

history? The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are

foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the

Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to

eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.” (Buzzanco, 2001, p. 97)

They were eventually persuaded to leave, but not before inciting the French and Viet-Minh against each

other through sabotage and false flag attacks. This has the result of weakening the Vietnamese hand in

negotiations towards statehood and confirmed the existing nationalist narrative of Vietnamese opposition

to the Chinese (Katz, 1980, p. 136).

French policy in Vietnam was deeply affected by the domestic politics of the Fourth Republic. The accord

signed on 6th March 1946 was in favour of France, considering its weak military position as well as the

political instability it was undergoing (Shipway, 1994, p. 5). Charles de Gaulle’s abrupt resignation on 20

January 1946, despite being elected as head of government, removed an important prop in French colonial

policy. There had previously been some sort of rapprochement between France and her colonies; the so-

called Politiques de Brazzaville promised greater autonomy for the latter in return for continued

association with the former. This was the result of a unique confluence in the interests of both Gaullists

and the French Left; however the primary ideological and institutional support came from Gaullist figures

such as Leclerc and d’Argenlieu. With the resignation of de Gaulle, these individuals lost their ideological

cohesion and simply followed the orders of the new government in Paris (Shipway, 1994).

Tactics used by the French in the First Indochina War were broadly similar to those used by the

Americans later on. There was limited use of chemical warfare, such as napalm and defoliants, as well as

an emphasis on broad sweeps of the Vietnamese country side aided by air support. The effectiveness of

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the French war effort was limited by a lack of funding, manpower and the frequent turnover of

commanders. Added to this was the French disdain for the Vietminh, who had effectively progressed

through all of Mao’s three stages of insurgency into a well armed, well led conventional army (Zedong,

1937). What the French lacked in coherent strategy and tactics, they made up for in brutality. French

patrols had neither the time nor inclination to discriminate between non political peasants and insurgents.

This reflected their earlier policies of repressing all forms of nationalist revolts; incidentally their

suppression of non-communist nationalists such as the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đản and other moderates

delegitimized non-violent attempts at pressing for reforms and left the Vietminh as the sole representative

of Vietnamese nationalism (Goodwin, 2001).

British Malaya until 1941

The British presence in South East Asia had begun in earnest with Raffles’ founding of Singapore in

1819. The British approach to colonialism was in stark contrast to the mercantilist policies of the

preceding Dutch and the Portuguese, and more importantly, to the future French policies in Indochina.

The laissez faire policies propagated by Raffles resulted in Singapore being the greatest entrepôt port in

South East Asia (Parmer, 1964, p. 283). British economic interests in Malaya were served by tin mining

and later on, rubber plantations. The former brought in large numbers of Chinese immigrant labour

starting from the 1850’s while the latter led to a semi-official policy of importing South Indian labour

throughout the early 20th century. The Chinese immigration had far reaching consequences for the

political future of Malaya as it permanently changed ethnic demographics (Hirschman, 1986). It was

determined primarily by the pull factors of steady employment but no less important were the push factors

of perennial instability and civil conflict in China as the Qing dynasty began its decline. The Straits

Chinese community was characterised by its apolitical nature, individuals preferring to devote their

attention to economic affairs and content to leave the political sphere to the British and Malays. To this

end, by the first half of the 20th century, the Chinese were present in almost every sector of the economy

and in the technical branches of government (Parmer, 1964, p. 318).

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Direct control by the British was limited to the Straits Settlements, consisting of Malacca, Penang and

Singapore. Initially administered by the East India Company, they were constituted as a crown colony in

1867 and administered by a Governor who was in theory all-powerful yet in practice consulted with local

elites. Informal control of the peninsular hinterland was exercised via trade agreements negotiated with

the local sultans. Johor in particular showed a predilection for cooperation with the British while Perlis,

Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu were acquired from Thailand in 1909. The last 4 states; Perak,

Selangor, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan, were organised as the Federated Malay States in 1896. The

extension of British informal empire was advanced less by the will of the colonial authorities but rather

the lack of ability or willingness by the Malay sultans to confront intra-communal violence by the

Chinese (Parmer, 1964). This form of indirect control by the British was reminiscent of their

administration in India with the princely states and was in marked contrast to the later French colonisation

of Indochina. While the direct rule and civilising mission of the French posed its own problems with the

alienation of local society, the maintenance of the Kerajaan (Malay royalty) by the British complicated its

efforts to extricate itself from the region post 1945.

Good Morning Vietnam: The Second Indochina War

American strategy was defined by the conflict between proponents of conventional warfare and counter

insurgency. While the characterisation of General Westmoreland, US Chief of the Army and head of

MACV, as a conventional officer stubbornly resistant to counter insurgency doctrine is overly simplistic,

the fact remains that Search and Destroy missions took precedence over the creation of controlled

enclaves, with negative ramifications for GVN efforts in state and nation building (Birtle, 2008).

American war strategy has obvious physical effects on the Vietnamese state. Carpet bombing, napalm

strikes and the judicious use of Agent Orange defoliants wreaked havoc on Vietnamese infrastructure and

caused plentiful Vietnamese casualties (Buckingham Jr, 1983). Furthermore, the intrusive character of

Search and Destroy missions brought the Vietnamese peasant face to face with what the Viet Cong

characterised as the foreign occupier, confirming their propaganda (Nagl, 2002). As the war in Vietnam

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was “Americanized” with ever increasing troop levels, the GVN risked becoming the puppet state the

North accused it of being. As damaging as these offensive actions were in themselves, they consumed

resources that could have been directed to a more coherent state and nation building programme by the

GVN, such as the Strategic Hamlet Programme and the creation of local militias. However, as I will argue

below, state and nation building by the GVN was as equally hampered by its own weaknesses and

contradictions as it was by the American war effort.

The relegation of the Clear and Hold strategy in favour of Search and Destroy at the highest levels of the

US military resulted in successful initiatives by the CIA and Marines being dismissed as the protection of

real estate at the expense of winning a war. After offensive actions, the American forces simply withdrew

without follow up government programmes to secure the territory, as evidenced by the actions at Binh

Dinh and Bong Son. Due to concerns over their lack of “strategic mobility”, militias such as the Regional

and Popular Forces were neglected in favour of building the ARVN into a mirror image of the US Army,

despite promising results of Combined Action Platoons and the Civilian Irregular Defence Group

programme in reducing Viet-Cong infiltration and recruitment. With the transformation of the CIDG

forces into a conventional role, Viet-Cong permeation into South Vietnamese villages proliferated and

their clandestine efforts at community building created the groundwork with which the North Vietnamese

government could impose its control upon eventual reunification (Piasecki, 2009). Instead of providing

Vietnamese villages with a sense of security and governmental presence, American policy of designating

“free fire zones” resulted in massive civilian casualties and engendered resentment amongst the local

populace. The MACV policy of ignoring regional forces in favour of a strategically mobile ARVN

coincided with Huntingdon's theory of state building through the professionalization of the military

(Huntington, 1957). However, in practice, it was more informed by prevailing attitudes within the

American military. Conventionally trained regular officers despised the National Guard and what they

considered to be “weekend warriors” back home. Likewise, they were equally disparaging of militia

forces in Vietnam, despite the completely different character of the Vietnamese and American state (Nagl,

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2002). As mentioned previously, the Vietnamese state, even in its “golden era” in Hue, was always

lacking in presence at the village level. Even the most charismatic of the old Nguyễn emperors recognised

the power of regional warlords (Jumper & Normand, 1964). A more methodical application of pilot

programmes started by the US Marines and CIA would have allowed, for the first time, a true monopoly

on the legitimate use of force by the GVN. Unfortunately this initiative was ceded to the Vietcong, who

proceeded to fill the security and political vacuum left by American forces after their Search and Destroy

missions. Clear and Hold tactics would result in less Vietcong infiltration (as evidenced in Binh Dinh)

and greater infrastructural power for the GVN. This is the clearest example of how counterinsurgency

strategy and state building are intrinsically linked.

While American doctrinal inflexibility certainly had its role to play, it is problematic to compare the

British experience in Malaya with that of the Americans in Vietnam. As stated previously, the colonial

policies of the French precluded the creation of a moderate, non-communist state with strong links to

local society, and what the Americans were left with after the Geneva Accords of 1954 was a rump South

Vietnamese state rife with political instability The processes of the First Indochina War and French

colonial policy as a whole left the GVN with few possible leaders possessing legitimate nationalist

credentials. As such, Ngo Dinh Diem was able to come to power, a result of the French having executed

many non-communist nationalist leaders. Diem presented the Americans with a dilemma, despite having

“impeccable” nationalist credentials; he was a hugely divisive character who squandered popular support

by favouring Catholics in his administration in a majority Buddhist country (Jacobs, 2006). Furthermore,

his blatant nepotism encouraged a culture of patrimonialism which was counterintuitive to the creation of

an unmediated state (Fukuyama, 2011).

Despite its potential as an important tool in state and nation building, the Strategic Hamlet Programme

was hamstrung by Diem’s personal ideology and the delegation of its ownership to his brother-in-law

Ngô Đình Nhu. Diem’s ideology of Personalism, a “confusing” mix of Confucian and Christian

Philosophies, was aimed at creating an alternative to communism and the Strategic Hamlet Programme

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was the vehicle with which to deliver it to the Vietnamese villager (Leahy, 1990, p. 23). The Strategic

Hamlet Programme thus had a 2-pronged mission: to enable South Vietnam to establish its presence

throughout its territory (state building), and to encourage political participation and the creation of a

South Vietnamese identity (nation-building) (Donnell & Hickey, 1962). In both objectives, it failed to

different extents. It recognised the centrality of the village in Vietnamese society and its self sufficiency,

and thus the need to replace village and community loyalties with that for the Vietnamese state. While the

infrastructural development of South Vietnam through Corvée labour gave both tangible benefit and

imparted a sense of civic pride on the Vietnamese peasant, it did not encourage the sense of nationalism

desired by the progenitors of the programme. Contemporary assessments of the political goals of the

Strategic Hamlet Programme were scathing. It was a described as a “grotesque” and self serving

experiment in social engineering on the part of the Diem regime. While a self stated objective was to

encourage political participation, this was the rhetoric of an authoritarian regime whose leader was

referred to as the “last of the mandarins.” (Warner, 1963, p. 90)

The Strategic Hamlet Programme failed for reasons separate from the character of the GVN. Robert

Thompson, head of the British Advisory Mission, supported the programme and drew parallels to the

“New Villages” created during the Malayan Emergency (Thompson, 1966). What he failed to take into

account was that the Viet-Cong was very different to the MCP. While the latter’s strength peaked at 8,000

members, the former was estimated to consist of approximately 100,000 guerrillas, supplemented by a

PAVN strength of 250,000. The British army viewed the Malayan Emergency through the lens of a

colonial policing operation, yet it is difficult to characterise the war in Vietnam as the same thing (Nagl,

2002). Westmoreland did not reject the enclave strategy out of hand; he saw it as a complementary, if

secondary, aspect to offensive operations. His justification for subordinating population control measures

in favour of search and destroy missions aimed at breaking up concentrations of Viet-Cong forces was

that if such forces were allowed to coalesce, they would easily be able to overrun the lightly defended

village enclaves (Birtle, 2008). The Viet-Cong adaptability in switching between guerrilla and

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conventional tactics was amply shown by its ability to mount the Tet Offensive, a joint Viet-Cong/PAVN

operation where the Viet-Cong alone committed 130,000 personnel, a far higher level of manpower than

the MCP ever enjoyed (Lung, 1978). Furthermore, since Thompson’s prescriptions did not entail political

reforms, they were enthusiastically received by Diem over the American Commercial Import Program

and Counter Insurgency Plan, which came with the same type of conditionality that the World Bank and

IMF would impose (Taylor, 1961). The ethnic aspects of the two counterinsurgency operations, which

determined the success of the Briggs Plan failure of the Strategic Hamlet Programme, will be discussed in

the chapter on Malaya.

The Commercial Import Program was a means to for the Americans to inject much needed capital for the

economic modernisation of South Vietnam. It was designed to deliver this capital without the resulting

increase in inflation and was informed by the experience of the Korean War. Unfortunately its

implementation makes it easy to see why the Americans attached a conditionality of political reform in

South Vietnam. Rampant corruption and rent seeking behaviour resulted in most funds being used for the

production of consumer, instead of capital goods (Masur, 2002). Much like in post-1991 scenarios of state

building, the heavy footprint of external intervention resulted in a situation of dependency (Kahin, 1986).

Local elites felt no need to increase the state’s infrastructural power for resource extraction as they could

rely on the collection of rents from their Cold War patron. That this was a result of the processes of war is

not in question, if one considers the amount of similar aid given by the USA to other South East Asian

countries, such as the Philippines, during the same period. In between the Geneva Accords and the

assassination of Diem, the USA was beginning to form its image of South Vietnam as the first domino

facing communist aggression and was keen to not let it fall (Holbik, 1968).

End of Empire and the Malayan Emergency

The government of the Straits Settlements changed little until 1942. It is impossible to over state the

importance of the effects of the Japanese occupation. The British, once seen as the natural overlords of

Asia, were humbled by their rapid collapse in the face of an Asian enemy. Their aura of invincibility was

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permanently shattered and after the Japanese surrender in 1945, Great Britain’s return to Malaya was met

with lacklustre enthusiasm (Bayly & Harper, 2005).

Prior to the fall of Singapore, however, the British made contingency plans by belatedly training a stay-

behind force of Chinese volunteers. This was trained and equipped by the Special Operations Executive,

and there was a strong communist element in the resistance. Its effect on the Japanese occupation army

was minimal, as it seemed to be more concerned with preserving its strength and hoarding supplies for a

future anti colonialist conflict against the British. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Malayan

Communist Party pursued a strategy of open politics and entryism (Stockwell, 1994). This was in line

with the then current international communist policy of popular front; elsewhere Stalin stayed the hand of

communists in France and Greece (Raack, 1993, p. 57). Less clear are the reasons why the MCP decided

to disarm in the face of British reoccupation. The MPAJA preferred not to engage with Japanese forces in

order to preserve their strength for the inevitable war with Britain. Despite their few numbers, they had

considerable control of the countryside and a window of opportunity in between the Japanese surrender

and the re-entry of British personnel. The key to this question might have been the mysterious figure

known as Lai Teck. Little is known about his background: it is possible that he was a Vietnamese

working as a spy for the French and later was recruited by British intelligence forces to infiltrate the

Malayan communist movement. In addition to this, he coincidentally avoided a Japanese raid on 1

September 1942 which saw most of the MCP and MPAJA leadership captured or killed. Lai Teck

emerged as Secretary General of the MCP and oversaw its disarmament; the MCP busied itself with non-

violent activities such as strengthening its grip on the labour movement for the first 18 months of British

reoccupation (Stockwell, 1994, p. 69).

This changed with the ascension of Chin Peng as secretary general following Lai Teck’s disappearance.

The former’s more militant stance, as well as the outcome of the Calcutta Conference of February 1948,

led to an increase in acts of violence against plantation owners and collaborationist workers. The

promulgation of the Zhdanov Doctrine as well as the Calcutta Conference in informing the decision of the

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MCP to engage in insurgency stands in stark contrast to the events in Vietnam (McLane, 1966, p. 375).

The Vietminh, unlike the MPAJA, took an active and celebrated role in the resistance against the

Japanese, with the view of establishing an independent government as soon as possible. Unlike other post

war communist leaders like Maurice Thorez and Chin Peng, Ho Chi Minh was not inclined to be dictated

by the Soviet Union’s foreign policy (Friend, 1986). The Vietnamese politburo’s decision to either

escalate or subdue its war effort was affected to some extent by foreign affairs. For example, the decision

to launch the Tet Offensive was opposed by individuals leaning towards the Soviet camp; then pressing

for detente, while supporters of a general offensive were influenced by Mao’s belligerence against

Western imperialism. It was important for the Vietnamese to balance the interests of these two communist

superpowers: while the USSR offered more material aid, it had to come through China. On the other

hand, the decision to launch the Tet Offensive was also affected by domestic concerns: between those

who wanted to redirect resources towards Northern reconstruction and those who argued that a quick end

to the war would allow Vietnam to rebuild at its leisure (Nguyen, 2006). The exogenous nature of the

Malayan insurgency stands in stark contrast to the Indochinese experience in this respect. On a practical

level, things were different. North Vietnam was dependant on war material from the USSR and China; the

Vietcong was bolstered by manpower from the PAVN while the Ho Chi Minh trail proved a thorn in the

side of American efforts to defeat them. The MCP, on the other hand, “could have brought as much as

they wanted across the Thai border” but decided to follow Maoist insurgency doctrine by getting men and

materials from the local people (Peterson, et al., 1963, p. 25).

According to an internal review, the British counter insurgency response had 4 periods but for the

purposes of analyses it was split 2 main phases: between 1949-51, when the campaign peaked and the

foundations for success were laid, and from 1951-54 when ‘The back of the revolt was broken’ (Director

of Operations, Malaya, 1957; Komer, 1972, p. 9). Authors like Nagl are keen to stress the achievements

of Sir Gerald Templer, appointed as High Commissioner and Director of Operations in Malaya in 1952,

as being pivotal in turning the tide of the war. However most of his strategies were laid by Harold Briggs,

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the preceding Director of Operations (though not High Commissioner as these posts were still separate)

between 1950 and 1951 (Mills, 1968). It was his vision of a multi faceted approach to tackling the

insurgency that proved crucial for the British. Unlike the American, the British were aware of the

consequences of poor management and effectively organised the war effort through unified civil/military

committees (Robinson, 1956). While there might have been similarities in the theory and intent of British

and American strategies, the British were able to implement them more methodically and effectively.

A case in point would be to compare the New Villages of Malaya with the aforementioned Strategic

Hamlet Programme. Since the British plan actually succeeded in relocating half a million villagers, it

provided the Chinese with the physical presence of security provided by the state that was lacking in

South Vietnam. Another difference between the resettlement programmes in Vietnam and Malaya was the

people being resettled. British New Villages targeted landless Chinese who eked a living in the fallow

lands at the edge of Malaya’s jungles. This was not a natural state of affairs, as they had been driven from

their previous villages during the Japanese occupation. While some aided the communists out of

sympathy, many did so out of coercion. By being relocated, they could now enjoy education, healthcare

and other amenities. Furthermore, the Chinese villagers were given plots of land to farm; for some of

them the first they had ever owned (Leahy, 1990). The Vietnamese village was more akin to the Malay

kampong. The average Vietnamese peasant would be forcibly relocated, often without compensation, and

resented being separated from the graves of his ancestors. Anyone who refused to move would find their

village part of a free fire zone; subject to wanton artillery and air strikes. This was completely the

opposite of the British approach, the creation of “white” zones where reduced levels of insurgent activity

would be rewarded by the lifting of emergency regulations. Instead of pouring men and bullets into the

jungles, the British dealt with insurgents by encouraging collaboration (Clutterbuck, 1967). The ham

fisted efforts by the Diem regime at creating a sense of national identity through village organisations and

the ideology of Personalism is contrasted by the serious efforts the British made at creating a “Malayan”

identity through education and winning hearts and minds. While the integrationist model of national

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identity expounded by the British did not win out over communal politics of UMNO, the basic premise

that the Straits Chinese should be made to identify more with a new, independent Malaya than with Red

China was successfully borne out (Short, 1975).

Consequences in the post colonial state: Vietnam and Malaysia today

This essay has thus far described the history of Malaya and Vietnam and the effect that Cold War counter

insurgency has had on them. In the 21st century, Malaysia and Vietnam have many superficial similarities,

both states possess a high level of infrastructural power and both are Newly Industrialised Countries

(Prajogo, et al., 2007). The point of this essay is to explore their differences. While the new Federation of

Malaya and then Malaysia was not as dysfunctional as the ill fated republic of Vietnam, it was a far cry

from the unitary state of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

The British managed to take much of the steam out of the MCP insurgency by committing to an

independent Malaya. While this was successful during the insurgency itself, questions were raised as to

what form this new state would take. Certainly for the British, it needed to be a non-communist entity

friendly to the West; a partner that Britain could do business with in the future (Harper, 2001, p. 358).

However, ethnic politics in Malaya posed a formidable challenge to the British post colonial vision. The

awakening of Malay political consciousness manifested itself in the outright rejection of extending

citizenship to straits Chinese. This view was later mellowed by UMNO, which, joining in an alliance with

the MCA conceded to a level of political cooperation in order to stave off the communist threat. This

alliance, later to become Barisan Nasional with the addition of the Malayan Indian Congress, had an

instrumental view of multiculturalism. The MCA saw that political cooperation was not precluded by

cultural autonomy and fought to keep its Chinese medium schools; UMNO accepted Chinese citizenship

with the caveat of special prerogatives for Malays (Harper, 2001). This political expediency won out

against the British and the Anglophile DAP. This narrow coalition of ruling elites dominating the state is

the precise definition of a mediated state (Hadjor, 1993).

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Vietnamese policy towards the Montagnards was different. A general term for the Bahnar, Rhade and

Jhari hill tribes, the Montagnards numbered 670,000 amongst a total Vietnamese population of 14.2

million (Steinberg, 1965). While French generals like d’Argenlieu recognised the military utility of the

Montagnards, there was no sustained effort to use them to undermine Viet-Minh nationalist narratives

(Devillers, 1952). The Montagnards were eventually co-opted by the Viet-Minh, their motivations being

more out of grievances against the colonial authorities rather than through identification with the Viet

Minh cause (Jones Jr, 2007). Through French actions in the First Indochinese War, the Viet-Minh was

able to create a “Vietnamese” national identity which managed to subsume ethnic loyalties providing the

empirical evidence to Skocpol’s claim that war enables nationalist groups to mobilise minorities to their

cause (Skocpol, 1988).

On the economic front, while Vietnam was devastated by the effects of war, such as the destruction of

infrastructure, napalm bombings and use of Agent Orange, Malaya was relatively unscathed due to the

policing tactics of the British and the much lower intensity of the emergency (Kocher, et al., 2011).

However, later attempts to modernise and diversify the Malaysian economy away from its colonial model

of exporting tin and rubber was problematic. The Malaysian state sought to rebalance the control of

politics and the economy. Malay participation in the economy would be increased through affirmative

action and the ownership of publicly listed companies (Lim, 1985). Programmes like the New Economic

Policy, the National Development Policy and now the New Economic Model were initially planned as

temporary measures to raise the skills and participation of the Malay majority but have since become

accepted as a permanent fixture (Guan, 2005). Furthermore, their implantation leaves much to be desired,

as it has allowed cronyism and corruption to flourish while alienating the minority Chinese and Indians

(Putra, 1986).

This stands in stark contrast to the Vietnamese experience. Naturally, the victory of the socialist north

resulted in a centrally planned economy. However, the nature of the communist insurgency, both during

the French and American periods, gave the socialist republic a “quasi democratic” character (Womack,

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1987). Communist party cadres relying on popular support to continue their insurgency had to be

responsive to their demands to some degree; this is evidenced by the initial unwillingness to embark in far

reaching land reforms, in order to keep a united front against the French (Goodwin, 2001, p. 10). Post

unification, land reform in the Mekong delta was measured and sensitive to cultural differences from the

northern Red River delta (Kerkvliet, 1995).

Conclusion

Comparisons between Vietnam and Malaysia are manifold. Considering the difference in outcome of the

Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War, it is clear to see why military historians have compared these

two case studies in order to draft prescriptions for the future of counter insurgency. There are indeed

many similarities between the two countries and the two conflicts that make a comparative study seem

appropriate: Their location in the South East Asia region, their colonial heritage and the eruption of

conflict after the Second World War. The global trends of modernisation left traditional societies with

much to answer for. Eschewing a static past yet apprehensive of an unstable future, many individuals in

developing countries saw communism as a viable alternative; a new order that would link effort with

reward (Pye, 1956, p. 7). The Western response was predictably hostile. After the upheaval of war and

foreign intervention, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam stood triumphant: a bond between the Vietnamese

people and the Vietnamese state was forged through its fires. While certainly guilty of coercion through

purges and re-education, the socialist north presented itself as the legitimate manifestation the will of the

Vietnamese people; certainly far better alternative than the American backed south (Latham, 2000).

Malaysia, while spared from the full horrors of war, deferred crucial questions on its identity. Ethnic

tensions simmered long after the emergency was declared over, finally boiling over into the Racial Riots

of 1969 (Time Magazine, 1969). The ample foundation of infrastructural power left over by the

emergency era security apparatus was used to enforce the despotic power of the ruling elite (Slater, 2003).

While Malaysia has enjoyed one of the highest levels of economic prosperity in South East Asia, Vietnam

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is fast catching up. Because of the differences in the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War, Malaysia

might find its success to have been built on feet of clay.

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