How many wars by conventional (or more or less conventional) armed forces and police forces against terrorist groups have been won by the former? In which cases have governments ended up in effect negotiating with the terrorists or their civilian allies? In which cases have the conventional forces been defeated?

It's my hope that this thread will stay historical - despite possible implications for the current "War on Terror".

I'll begin by noting that after over two decades fighting the IRA the British government entered into indirect negotiations with the IRA terrorists.

"In which cases have the conventional forces been defeated?"
Cuba.
Castro started out as a terrorist,[many might say he was a guerrilla fighter but that`s just semantics] well he was a terrorist fighting against a semi-former terrorist anyway,Batista[Batista defeated political opponents using terrorist methods].

Unless I'm vastly mistaken, the British Army won against Communist guerrillas in Greece in 1944-46. However, there are rumours that because of the agreed carving up of Europe into spheres of influnce (which put Greece in the Western sphere) the guerrillas may not have had the full support of Stalin. Does anyone have more information on the campaign and the background?

The Malayan campaign or 'Emergency' springs to mind. This was jungle guerrilla warfare (same as Vietnam) fought from 1948-1956. The Malayan guerrilla fighters fought on the side of the British during WW2 against the Japanese. However, on seeing how easily the Japanese had conquered their country, and how the British and Commonwealth forces folded and capitulated at Singapore, this gave the guerrillas fresh heart.These guerrillas had communist sympathies and were known as the Communist Bandits or CT's. White plantation owners were the early targets for the CT's, and after a few were killed the colonial government of the time declared a state of emergency in Malaya. In 1948 British and Commonwealth forces were dispatched and the long jungle warfare campaign began.
By 1956 the communist threat was virtually over and Malaya achieved her independence the following year (as a non-communist country and amalgamating with North Borneo thus creating the state of Malaysia).
The colonial government forces actually won this campaign through sensible policies and just plain common sense. A 'Hearts and Minds' policy was adopted towards the inhabitants and the Empire troops had also learnt the art of jungle guerrilla warfare from their previous enemies, the Japanese.

Here's a bit of trivia (and that's what this site is all about after all)
Future Ugandan madman and dictator Idi Amin fought on the British side with the 'Kings African Rifles' during this campaign.

Mexico, the "Emergency" in Malaya was an example that had crossed my mind, too. Thanks for posting and for the information on the unspeakable Idi Amin.

Think about what you write before you say it.

I always wondered why,

A person or group who bomb, injure or kill civilians are classed as terrorists but isn't that exactly what the British, American and other countries who sent their soldiers to Iraq are. The majority of the people they killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were civilians, so why aren't they classed as terrorists.

For those of you in America, Britain or whatever country that has had some sort of attack done on them, those who did it are terrorists in your eyes, so you's turning around and attacking Iraq and Afghanistan just makes you's as much terrorists as those who attacked you. You's are doing the same thing as they did.

I think that it depends on the size of the country in which the army or attackers are based, if it's a powerful country such as America they'll get away with it and it's seen as a good thing - them helping another country, but if it's someone based in a smaller country - they are seen as terrorists.

I know that one person's "guerrillas", "freedom fighters", are seen by others as terrorists and vice versa. The key point wasn't actually Iraq, but rather the ability of "regular" forces to win against "irregulars".

I wonder which, the Founding Fathers of the US or their British Loyal neighbors, would be considered terrorist by today's terms. Surely the minutemen were "irregular troups" and surely they used guerilla tactics, though against regular army. I'm sure, though, that plenty of civilians were killed by both parties during that conflict.

As another bit of food for thought, were the "savage" native Americans the terrorists, or were American soldiers? Were they both terrorists at one time or another, and both noble at other times? One was a conquering force, the other a defending one, but if history books are to be believed, both also did their share of killing and terrorizing civilians.

the early American settlers would have been regarded as terrorists

It seems that warfare often favours the irregulars provided they are well organized and can more or less match the regulars in weapons - at least at the level of the infantry.

Consider, for example, the Boer War (1899-1901), which I regard as one of the most shameful wars in British history. It took a force of 250,000 (!) Britons to defeat about one-tenth of that number of Boers. Moreover, despite this numerical superiority, in some areas the British Army cleared the terrain of civilians, in order to deprive the guerrillas of shelter and food. The civilians were sent to camps, called "concentration camps", and their houses and farm buildings were burned down. Worse still, conditions in many of the camps were so appalling that an estimated 22% of the prisoners perished ...

Despite the British military victory, the long term result was a legacy of often intense hatred on the part of Afrikaners. The cost of victory was very high indeed, especially in moral terms.

That said, I don't accept the view that these camps were comparable to the later Nazi concentration camps, though undoubtedly some of the commandants were psyochopaths. There were questions at the time in Parliament, criticism in some newspapers, pamphlets and books, and the campaigner Emily Hobhouse managed to visit some of the camps, write and speak about the conditions in the camps and raise money in Britain to help relieve the distress of the women and children there - and later, on their release.
That required immense courage, not least because the British government and army were keenly aware that in Continental Europe, some commentators were writing Britain off as a great power and in some cases even talking and writing about the country as if it were a huge laughing-stock ...

"Some commentators were writing Britain off as a great power and in some cases even talking and writing about the country as if it were a huge laughing-stock"

In my view, the Boer War was the beginning of the end for the British Empire. I think it was Bismark who once said that the British army could be easily arrested by the German police force.

The forces of the Roman republic finally managed to put down the revolt of Spartacus, though it took them something like two years to do so. This might be seen as one victory for regulars over irregulars.