lb >>7445971
Successes:
The British suppression of the "Malayan Emergency" was probably the greatest success of the counterinsurgents. In Malaya the British colonial authorities faced a clearly communist guerrilla movement that consisted altogether of overseas Chinese living in the midst of a majority Malay and Muslim population. The area of operations was a peninsula nearly completely surrounded by ocean areas dominated by the British. Navy. The British forces suffered from cross department coordination issues early in the campaign, but once those were solved and the "Communist Terrorists" (CTs) isolated in the jungles and rubber plantations all that was needed to defeat them was persistence in small unit patrolling until the CTs were exterminated. There were never more than a few hundred of them. The British succeeded in suppressing this revolt but what did this successful effort cost them. It was enormously expensive and success was followed by British withdrawal from Malaya and the creation of an independent Malaysia completely dominated by the Malay ethnic adversaries of the overseas Chinese.
Kenya and Cyprus were both gripped by revolts by the Kikuyu and Greek populations respectively. In both cases, RW campaigns based on terrorism were fought to a standstill by the British only to be followed by political decisions on the part of the British government to abandon these countries and allow the ascent to power of the former leaders of the insurgencies, Kenyatta and Makarios respectively.
In Latin America, where I participated in several COIN efforts, the Kennedy created "Alliance for Progress" sought to defeat local insurgencies inspired and led by cadres from Castro's Cuba. These countries were particularly good targets for communist inspired RW because the political and economic structures of the Central American and Andean states were so clearly unfair and un-democratic that local populations of underfed Indians and peasants could be easily proselytized In the process of RW. In many cases in Latin America the low level economic development efforts of the civil and military arms of the US Government met with considerable success. Villagers were protected from the insurgents, local (village economies) were improved. Medical treatment was provided to those who had never known it.
Nevertheless, the "Alliance for Progress" can not be considered a strategic success. Why? The local elites in all these countries quickly perceived the COIN campaign as a threat to their political privilege and wealth in land and simply refused to institute the reforms sponsored by the alliance. Much the same thing happened in various parts of Africa and Southwest Asia where it was attempted.
Failures
The American war in Vietnam is a typical example of failure of the COIN theory. The massive communist led Viet Minh independence movement was a classic example of RW in all its components taken to its ultimate development in the creation of a regular army for the insurgent movement under the sponsorship of its Chinese communist ally. The United States participated in the French COIN effort against the Viet Minh and then became the sponsor of the post-colonial government left behind by the French on their departure. Contrary to popular legend (I served there for two years) the initial approach of the United States to the situation in South Vietnam was pure COIN right out of the Ft. Bragg School.
Populations of villagers were protected, the South Vietnamese armed forces were developed, village militias were created for self defense, good government was preached to the Diem government in Saigon. Economic development was fostered. It was only when the government of North Vietnam decided that these methods were a serious bar to their eventual success in RW in the South and brought its regular army into South Vietnam in 1964 that US forces escalated their own deployment to the conventional war level. This was a necessary step if the eradication of the South Vietnamese government and the US COIN effort was to be avoided. There followed three years of conventional warfare between US and North Vietnamese forces. This warfare was largely conducted outside populated areas. COIN efforts continued during this period but took second place to the need to defeat or at least seriously weaken North Vietnam's army. In 1967 it was j
https://www.wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/16A7F412-8C35-4323-A16E-DC0625C41D0F
https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/us-department-of-state-case-no-f-2014-20439-doc-no-c05760317-date-1231201