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This article considers in a comparative historical and strategic perspective the large-scale deportations of restive populations during the Malayan Emergency, the Algerian War and the Romanian anti-communist rebellions. The failed American campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan witnessed a rebirth of military and academic interest in post-war counterinsurgencies (COIN), with an entire "COIN school" being put in charge of the two wars from 2006 to 2011. This particular school elevated the experiences of late colonial warfare, notably the French experience in Algeria and the British campaign in Malaya to the status of policy guides for the early 21st century world. However, one crucial aspect of these was not considered, both theoretically and militarily, for obvious political reasons. Both these conflicts witnessed large-scale deportations, amounting to between a fifth and a third of the population of these colonies. The democratic governments in London and Paris, signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dislocated millions of their subjects, destroyed their property and forced them to live in poverty and food deprivation in guarded settlements and concentration camps, undergoing interrogations, torture and systematic brainwashing. In Eastern Europe, following the Soviet example but with striking similarities with democratic countries, the government of Romania launched a similar program to defeat rebellions. This article considers the role of this "forced" mobility in shaping military victory in the three cases and argues that just by itself this aspect invalidates the strategic and political relevance of them for shaping COINs waged by democratic governments.

This paper achieves two things: first, it establishes the existence of a certain pattern of analysis, which I will call an academic canon, of analyzing the problems caused by the oil crises of the 1970's on the economy of Communist Romania. The canon seems to hold that a series of economic decisions taken in the 1960’s and 70’s by the communist leadership concerning the vast expansion of the petroleum industry led to huge problems after the enormous increases in the price of oil at the end of the 1970's, which led to the virtual destruction of the economy and the huge deprivations of the 1980’s, thus helping to explain the popular rejection of the socialist regime. Secondly, it analyzes what the Romanian communist leadership thought of the oil industry and what was their general strategy related to it. The general conclusion of the paper is that a deeper research on the party documents and economic policies leads to a wider understanding not only of the worldview of the Romanian communist leaders, but also to nuances when describing the economic causes of political and social change.

Highlighting the significance of counterinsurgencies fought in the aftermath of the Second World War for contemporary theory and practice, this thesis is a comparative analysis of the campaigns fought in Malaya, Algeria and Romania between 1944 and 1962. The case selection allows an engagement both with Western and non-Western patterns of anti-guerrilla warfare, allowing this work to conceive counterinsurgency as a coherent object of study across time and cultures. The research question at the heart of the thesis is what accounts for success in counterinsurgency? Considering that the government’s main tasks in dealing with armed rebellion are to prevent the spread of rebellion, to identify, find and eliminate the rebels, this work analyses the three campaigns on three dimensions: population control, intelligence and intelligence operations and military operations. In relation to population control, the findings point to the hollowness of the prevalent narrative concerning “hearts and minds” approaches and instead highlight the centrality of massive deportations and physical and psychological intimidation and control of targeted populations. The study of intelligence engages with the relative merits of centralized and decentralized organization for counterinsurgency campaigns, evaluates the use of interrogation and torture and assesses the role of infiltration and counter-gangs. Military approaches such as patrols, cordoning, garrisoning, raids, special forces operations are analysed in relation to achieving success in the campaigns. The concluding comparison section discusses the three cases in connection to contemporary counterinsurgencies. In answering the research question, the thesis argues that population control is the strategic-level answer in counterinsurgency, which makes it problematic for present-day contingencies. It also points out the tactical-level relevance of intelligence and military operations.