An oversimplifiction certainly, because there were many very complex elements involved, but what do many consider to be the 'magic bullet' (no pun intended) that ended the Malayan 'Emergency'?
(The only instance where a communist insurgency has been totally defeated by a colonial power.)
The answer is cash for bullets/guns.
The British came to a similar conclusion as the Italians and the writer of the article above - that it was cheaper to pay the communists (and turn them into capitalists
) for turning in their bullets and guns than to have to take them off them in a far more costly to all concerned firefight.
They came up with a price per bullet, per pistol, per rifle and per machine gun. One communist became an instant multimillionaire when he led the British to a huge cache of buried arms and ammunition that THEY had dropped to the CTs during WW2. But they paid up, and the communists, almost overwhelmingly Chinese, (and therefore really businessmen at heart), quickly saw the error of their ways when they saw ex-colleagues, forgiven and granted full amnesty, buying mansions and businesses.
If there's anyone out there with no life willing to troll through the PPrune archives, you'll see that I predicted back in 2003 that this would be the only way the Americans had any chance of winning in Iraq.
Exactly the same system won't work with the Afghans,
(no rural Afghan is going to give up all his guns), but a variation, even if it isn't totally successful, will probably achieve as close to success as any foreigner's going to get in Afghanistan, and be a damn sight cheaper,
if only in that most valuable asset of all - our soldiers' lives - than Plan 'A'.