According to Clutterbuck, probably the most important role for the police was the responsibility for intelligence gathering. This was not nor should it be a task assigned to the military, he says. Because of their continuous presence in the village, their search of the populace prior to daily departures to the fields or jungles, their identity card checks, etc., the police were ideally suited to gain intelligence. When they identified suspicious people, they could be interrogated, followed, etc. Once the police had reasonable assurance that these individuals were guilty of supporting the guerrillas, intense but humane interrogation followed. Clutterbuck says that most of these people would provide important information when assured of government protection and rewards. Many of these people continued to provide information out of fear of reprisals by the guerrillas. His chief hope would be that his continued information would result in the guerrillas being captured, destroyed or driven off. Even captured guerrillas provided significant information because of generous rewards, disillusionment with the communist movement, and/or recognition that the government was winning the counterinsurgency.
The government's role in the conduct of the counterinsurgency was significant. Clutterbuck identifies the Emergency Regulations that it instituted to maintain control over the population. The counterinsurgency was not purely a military operation. Controls such as identity cards, food rationing, etc. all contributed to the coordinated effort of the government, police and military. The government participation in and chairmanship of the War Executive Councils for the conduct of the counterinsurgency assured their control over all operations. These councils, consisting of government, military, and police representatives, were the controlling bodies for combating the guerrillas at the state and district levels. Also, monetary and land rewards provided by the government for surrendering guerrillas and collaborating supporters of guerrillas greatly aided in the intelligence effort by the police.
Brigadier Clutterbuck provides superb documentation of the military effort in defeating the insurgents. The information he provides concerning the tactical and operational facets of the counterinsurgency are invaluable. From the foregoing, one can obviously see that Clutterbuck sees the military as playing only a portion of the role in the counterinsurgency. This portion, however, is significant. It is the military which provides the security for the village police. The military accomplishes this and the destruction of the guerrillas by small unit patrolling and ambushes. Clutterbuck says that the military learned that large unit operations simply will not work against small units of guerrillas in jungle environments. Large units are far too slow to react to guerrilla attacks and "broadcast" their movements as they break through the jungle. By utilizing police intelligence, small units of platoon size can quietly move to guerrilla camps forcing the guerrillas to quickly move and become ambushed along trails as they withdrew from these camps. Clutterbuck notes Mao's principle that guerrillas should not allow themselves to be attacked-they should withdraw. This type of action lends itself to ambush, he says.
By making use of intelligence concerning the location of guerrilla camps and attacking them and by intensive patrolling, Clutterbuck says the British forced the guerrillas to stay on the move. At the same time this was happening the police were putting pressure on the political infrastructure which provided logistic' support, intelligence, and recruits to the guerrillas. This pressure reduced the support capability of the infrastructure. This is the first element for defeating the guerrilla-deny him food, according to Clutterbuck. He sees the result of this movement and loss of logistics as resulting in the breakup of guerrilla units into smaller organizations for survival. He argues that constant patrolling and ambushes by small military units are the key. British infantry companies used the village as their patrol base, not turning it into an armed fortress but simply using it as a rest area. The result was constant pressure on the Malay guerrilla and the breakdown of his forces into small platoon size units.
The closely coordinated effort by the police, military and government at the local level as Clutterbuck describes it brought about a successful counterinsurgency in Malaya. Sir Robert Thompson, a renowned counterinsurgency expert, has also used the Malaya war as a backdrop for discussing counterinsurgency with a somewhat different approach.
