Successful Counter-insurgencies?

Counter-Insurgency: State sponsored Police and/or military war/action against insurgents and/or geurilla forces.

We here alot about failed counter-insurgencies around the world. SOme examples include, The Viet-Minh and Viet-cong of Vietnam and the insurgency in Algeria. Infact most that I know of saw victory for the guerillas and are repeadedly brought up in arguements against the Iraq war.

But is this because most insurgencies are successful? or is their a greater or equal amount of successful counter-insurgencies led by governments and when, where and how were they won?

Malaysia had a successful counter-insurgency against the communists. I can't elaborate about it right now.

The history of the British Empire throws up examples, though in many cases it's a grey area. One of the more celebrated was the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya- it was crushed, but independence followed a few years later.

Malaysia- as AIF! states- was another example. British troops saw a lot of action there.

USA's victory over the Phillippino guerillas in 1900-02, also victory over Muslim in the philippino guerillas in 1913.

US Marines and The Banana Wars

US occupation of Cuba

The US and Britain defeated Nazi insurgents in occupide Germany after WWII.

The US and SK also successfully put down several North Korean insurgencies in the late 40s, 60s and one even into the 1970s.

british COIN operations:

Oman (For a succesful war fought within the middle east)

I'm not sure Mau-Mau is such a good example. The methods used are somewhat brutal. I'm somewhat surprised, after reading this recent piece fr the Economist.

http://www.economist.com/books/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518628

Kafka2 said:

The history of the British Empire throws up examples, though in many cases it's a grey area. One of the more celebrated was the Mau-Mau uprising in Kenya- it was crushed, but independence followed a few years later.

Malaysia- as AIF! states- was another example. British troops saw a lot of action there.

Click to expand...

XIII said:

I'm not sure Mau-Mau is such a good example. The methods used are somewhat brutal. [/url]

Click to expand...

It certainly wasn't pretty, and there's no point looking for who were "the good guys" or "the bad guys. However it was a successful counter-insurgency operation.

The French in Algeria did something similar. And in that case as well the end result was a political solution leading to independance for the colony shortly afterwards.

Every time in history an ethnically different conquered area has been successfully incorporated into as state there has usually been a successful case of counter-insurgency.

The French picking up of Languedoc/Provance etc, in southern France beginning with the Albigensian crusade for instance.
The local guerillas, the "faydits", fighting the French got their support mostly from Aragon. What broke them was a combination of military defeat, economic ruin of the whole area, the implementation of the Inquisition, the establishment of universities (Toulouse, Montpellier) to monitor doctrine etc.
Today the old language is virtually forgotten in favour of French.

The Swedification of the three southern counties ceded by Denmark in the peace of 1658, Halland, Skåne and Blekinge.
Again there was a guerilla, "snapphanar", and it was stamped out with extreme brutality. When old king Charles XI was put on the 500-kronor bill there was a petiton against it handed in by eleven parrishes down south that had been burned by him. Captured insurgents would be hung, drawn and quartered and the pieces of the body nailed to the local church doors and left to rot where people would see and walk past them every sunday. All subjects was obliged by law to attend church (the priests were the servants of the state) and all parrishioners had to take an exam on Luther's cathecism once a year as well.
And to attach the new provinces more closely to the realm the University of Lund was founded.
What remains today is a peculiar dialect and the knowledge that people down there have been Danes a lot longer than they have been Swedes.

Massive terror, religious orthodoxy, good networks of informers and the founding of learned institutions would seem to do the trick, at least historically.

Brazil has numerous exemples.
All insurgencies, and there were many, were crushed. The grey exception is the Farroupilha Revolt, that ended in a political compromisse(but they were re-incorporated to the empire, so ultimatley the insugents were defeated).

AS a recent exemple there is the Araguaia guerilla, maoists who wanted to overthrow the military regime. All insurgents got killed or arrested. Their tactics sucked though, and I'm oftenly impressed with their stupidity. So they were no exemple of dangerous insurgents.

Boer Wars in South Africa might be another except as the Brits had to resort to dealing with hit and run raids by Boers.