“Out-guerrilla’ing the guerrilla”? Hybrid war, CLARET operations, and British tactical success, 1963–66

Operation CLARET, a British-led covert campaign during the 1963–66 Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation, is often hailed as an exemplary success in counterinsurgency warfare. General Walter Walker, the initiator of CLARET, attributed its success to, on the one hand, British forces’ out-guerrilla’ing the guerrillas, highlighting their tactical mobility, flexibility, intelligence capabilities, and focus on hearts and minds. On the other hand, however, he noted the importance of discipline and training, and the attributes required to conduct tactical actions reminiscent of the fight against Japanese forces in Burma. This article, drawing on previously unused military operations reports, argues that it was the latter that was critical. CLARET was not primarily a guerrilla conflict, but an exercise in hybrid warfare. Using Frank Hoffman’s 2007 concept of hybrid warfare, the blending of regular and irregular tactics at the tactical level, the article posits that British success was grounded in the mastery of conventional warfare techniques. CLARET was not a guerrilla war won by guerrilla methods, but a high-intensity, tactical campaign.