This is how The British Way ends: not with a bang but a whimper. Of the four scenarios in Stephen Rangazas’s vivisection of 20th-century British colonialism, Cyprus is the briefest and least rules-heavy inclusion, a suitable outcome for a conflict that was comparatively minor when contrasted with the counterinsurgencies of Palestine, Malaya, and Kenya. Exhausted by colonial occupations across the globe, the British Empire was spread too thinly to enact a full response. Instead, it elected to utilize the lessons of occupations past to sway international opinion and brutalize the insurgents into surrender.

As we will see, the outcome proved unsatisfactory to everybody.

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It’s all too easy to think about colonialism as something that occurred centuries ago, resolved in the dim twilight of history and bearing little import on current interests. But as we examined in our last two entries on Stephen Rangazas’s The British Way, both the Palestinian and Malayan “emergencies,” as they were euphemistically known, are relatively fresh historical atrocities whose reverberations can still be felt today.

The same goes for British imperial behavior in Kenya. Indeed, the imperial incursions into Kenya were a 20th century phenomenon. Missionaries and British corporate interests began settling East Africa in the late 19th century, but the incorporation of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya only occurred in 1920. Over the next three decades, British abuses reached a fever pitch. It was no surprise when an undermanned and underequipped group of rebels named the Mau Mau began to terrorize the countryside.

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In the West, it’s all too easy to blind oneself to the long-term consequences of colonialism. As we examined last time, the reverberations of British Imperial promises in the Middle East continue to be felt a full century after they were made. Today we’re looking at a conflict — euphemistically called an “emergency” — that was far bloodier and more pressing to the Crown than the logistical colony of Mandatory Palestine: the communist uprising and subsequent imperial deployment on the Malay Peninsula.

The Malayan Emergency is the second of four insurgencies included in Stephen Rangazas’s The British Way, and it’s by far the most robust of the multipack. Were players to pursue these scenarios in order of complexity, this would likely constitute the final installment. Unfortunately, history doesn’t gently ramp up its level of complexity for our ease of play. Cinch up that rucksack, because this one is going to require some explanation.

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If you’re invested in historical board games, you’ve probably heard about Phil Eklund’s infamous essay defending British colonialism. Personally, the backlash against that essay was a pleasant surprise. Perhaps I had become numb to imperial apologetic. To me, the essay was merely the latest impressionable perspective in a century that had been meticulously prepared for selective memory. The notion that the British Empire was a gentle overlord has been a constant drumbeat across its tenure, from its earliest adventures in the New World to its participation in my generation’s quagmires in the Near East and Central Asia. Where other empires were vicious taskmasters, so the story goes, the British were invested in winning the hearts and minds of their colonial subjects.

That’s precisely the topic behind The British Way by Stephen Rangazas. This is the first official spinoff of Volkho Ruhnke’s now-formidable COIN Series. Rather than tackling a single conflict, The British Way functions as a folio series in a single box, covering four wars from 1945 to 1960. It has quickly become my favorite expression of the system. Which is why I intend to cover each of its conflicts separately. Today we’re looking at the first battle of the era: the Jewish insurgency against British rule in Mandatory Palestine.

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