UK mishandles the Malayan Emergancy?

Bad as in? I see 2 options,

- Bad as in lose quickly and expensively humiliating GB.

- Bad as in copy SS/NKVD methods at counter insurgency and make GB a pariah.
 
Bad as in, a much less effective counter-insurgency, whilst possibly also straining relations between the British and local forces. Along with a much less successful hearts and minds campaign. Were there any alternate choices for Director of Operations who might have done things differently, and specifically more aggressively, than Briggs and Templer (say for example if they had to be called away to some other conflict in the region)?

What I'm looking for wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to an outright British defeat (although there are some other factors I'm thinking of playing with), it should go some way to causing America to later reconsider excessive hard power in their containment strategies and instead favour a more soft power centric approach.
 
Bad as in, a much less effective counter-insurgency, whilst possibly also straining relations between the British and local forces. Along with a much less successful hearts and minds campaign. Were there any alternate choices for Director of Operations who might have done things differently, and specifically more aggressively, than Briggs and Templer (say for example if they had to be called away to some other conflict in the region)?

What I'm looking for wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to an outright British defeat (although there are some other factors I'm thinking of playing with), it should go some way to causing America to later reconsider excessive hard power in their containment strategies and instead favour a more soft power centric approach.

TBH the British didn't need to handle it well. They had naval superiority in a island environment and their enemies were a hated minority they could trust the locals to massacre for them if needed. Vietnam it was not.
 
TBH the British didn't need to handle it well. They had naval superiority in a island environment and their enemies were a hated minority they could trust the locals to massacre for them if needed. Vietnam it was not.

If they bungle the whole thing, though...

Maybe they try to depose the Sultans, if they get too close with the Chinese. Remember, the Sultans owed the Chinese HUUUGEE sums of ca$h, so if the Chinese promise to end all the debt in return for support...
 
Were there any senior British military officers who were opposed to the Briggs plan? If Briggs' replacement is more impulsive and impatient, and ends up butting heads with Robert G. K. Thompson and other local authority figures, then the situation might get more messy. The trouble is finding a good candidate, as most of the British generals in this period tend to be fairly competent (side effect of recently fighting a World War I suppose).
 
If they bungle the whole thing, though...

Maybe they try to depose the Sultans, if they get too close with the Chinese. Remember, the Sultans owed the Chinese HUUUGEE sums of ca$h, so if the Chinese promise to end all the debt in return for support...

Then they just default and ask the British for cash or the possibility to take over the rights of the Chinese to collect debt from others.
 
Please keep in mind that I know (almost) nothing about Malaya...

Neither do I. I am just guessing that someone with the title of Sultan in colonial British lands might do the math and decided they just won't pay instead of fighting their own overlords who can obliterate them.
 
If they bungle the whole thing, though...

Maybe they try to depose the Sultans, if they get too close with the Chinese. Remember, the Sultans owed the Chinese HUUUGEE sums of ca$h, so if the Chinese promise to end all the debt in return for support...

Trouble is the uprising was communist, the sultans are very well aware that they are public enemy number 1 to communists.
The sultans will always be on side- turn the population against the sultans in some way?

You would have to have Britain go in very handed and somehow make it less of an ethnic Chinese thing. Piss off Malays so much that they also go into the communist camp
 
Trouble is the uprising was communist, the sultans are very well aware that they are public enemy number 1 to communists.
The sultans will always be on side- turn the population against the sultans in some way?

You would have to have Britain go in very handed and somehow make it less of an ethnic Chinese thing. Piss off Malays so much that they also go into the communist camp

Agreed - the thing is though this would take years and years. So you'd probably need an earlier POD. Maybe the Communists proved effective resistance to the Japanese during the war and have a good name in Malaya? Then somehow the Tories win the 1945 election and go in to Malaya all guns blazing to root out the reds and keep the place British. The emergency kicks off with a stronger and better regarded Communist element?
 
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