ABSTRACT
While the challenge of communist ideology had been overcome in Malaya and the Philippines, it remained a potent threat to Western interests amid the escalation of the Cold War. Indeed, as suggested by the announcement in January 1961 by Khrushchev of the Soviet Union's support for 'wars of national liberation', the link between communism, anti-colonial nationalism and insurgency was more than coincidental. In facing this challenge, the lessons learned in Malaya were crucial to the evolving pattern of British counter-insurgency, being applied both during the Mau Mau emergency in Kenya between 1952 and 1960 and in the Confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia between 1962 and 1966. Moreover, the Malayan influence was also clear in the European response to other African insurgencies, such as that confronted by white Rhodesia between 1966 and 1979 and those in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974. To a certain extent, it was also evident in the South African campaigns in South West Africa (Namibia) between 1966 and 1984.
