British Counterinsurgency: From Palestine to Northern Ireland

by John Newsinger

British Counterinsurgency examines the insurgencies that have confronted the British State since the end of the Second World War, and at the methods used to fight them. It looks at the guerrilla campaigns in Palestine, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, South Yemen, Oman, and most recently in Northern Ireland, and considers the reasons for British success or failure in suppressing them. It provides a hard-nosed account of the realities of counterinsurgency as practised by the most experienced security establishment in the world today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, Military History, 20th Century

233 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

John Newsinger is a British Marxist professor of History at Bath Spa University.

A book reviewer for the New Left Review, he is also author of numerous books and articles, as well as studies of science fiction and of the cinema. He teaches on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Reviews

[A. Notch · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's well written and covers a good bit of ground, but the author clearly wears his political biases on his sleeves. An example:

"... established a right-wing traditionalist breakaway group... The provisional IRA". I don't know what insane flavor of marxist you have to be to think the Provos of all people are right wing, but he's either delusional or lying through his teeth.


This book is worth reading for the comparison between the UKs counterinsurgency experiences, but take anything even remotely editorial with a massive grain of salt.

[Tommy Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provides a refreshingly critical overview of British military policy over the years in a number of different countries

[Luke Bowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Newsinger's very readable study of British counterinsurgency post-WWII is written with a laser-like precision that will prove useful for those looking for a general introduction to these forgotten conflicts (I am writing about British military and policing policy in Palestine at the moment.)

For this reason some scholars may find this study to be too brief (I read it in two sittings at the NYPL) and Newsinger's Marxist perspective may get traditional military historians riled up. But Newsinger (a frequent contributor to the New Left Review) is not as overtly political in this study as his past reputation has suggested and instead chooses to take a clinical approach. He's not completely de-fanged however and he does challenge the "orderly retreat" narrative found in the histiography of British decolonizaton. But the fact remains that Britain did not find itself in an Algeria or Vietnam type war (like the French or Americans respectively.) The British response in Kenya (as Caroline Elkins has shown) is hardly admirable but is it necessarily comparable to The Battle of Algiers? The Mau Mau revolt was smaller in scale. Perhaps Newsinger could have probed this a little more? Nonetheless, a worthy study.

[Julian Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I read the second edition, prompted by greatly enjoying the GMT games wargame The British Way, which was based in large part on the scholarship in this book)
Newsinger's "British Counterinsurgency" was one of the most engrossing history books I've ever read. With clarity and conciseness, Newsinger clearly lays out the approaches, motivations, and strategies of the warring sides in eight post-WWII British counterinsurgency conflicts: Palestine, Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus, Yemen, Dhofar, Northern Ireland, and finally the 21st century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Newsinger's analysis is insightful and it's easy to draw meaningful conclusions from his case studies. The book deserves special praise for highlighting in full the human rights violations that characterized counterinsurgency warfare in the cases he studies.