Counterinsurgency in Vietnam – schizophrenia until too late

ABSTRACT

Insurgencies remain political projects, and thus the American experience in Vietnam remains relevant in any search for approaches. A population-first strategy – with tactics compatible with protecting people and winning their willing support – is essential, as much for success in local pacification as in retaining support in the homeland which has deployed its personnel abroad to assist another state. In the actual area of operations, decentralization of effort is required to get as close as possible to the population base being targeted by the insurgents. This remains essential for all mobilization in support of a polity, regardless of the extent to which insurgent challenge is grounded in grievances or simply based on coercive power.

KEYWORDS:

• Vietnam War
• insurgency
• counterinsurgency
• pacification
• CORDS
• Lansdale

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For most recent biography, see Boot, The Road Not Taken.

2. For overview of the insurgency, though not the counter to it, see Kerkvliet, The Huk Rebellion; also, Pomeroy, “Source Materials on Philippine Revolutionary Movements,” 74–81; and Kerkvliet, “Additional Source Materials on Philippine,” 83–90; for roots of conflict, Mitchell, The Huk Rebellion in the Philippines.

3. For details, see Starner, Magsaysay and the Philippine Peasantry.

4. Some elements remained unreconciled and, encouraged by dysfunctional government, re-emerged later but at a relatively low level; for ideological tensions within the movement, see Carlson, “Born Again of the People,” 417–458.

5. The Viet Minh in Vietnam and Indochina – like the Huks in the Philippines – were a communist insurgency that included numerous non-communists motivated by a wide variety of concerns. The precise ‘communist’ content of Vietmind nationalism has been the a subject of debate but, the ideology in fact, dominated all insurgent objective formulation and decisionmaking. See, for example, Tuong, Vietnam’s Communist Revolution.

6. For details, see Spector, Advice and Support.

7. Group archives may be accessed at: http://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/browse_term.php?term=Michigan%20State%20University.%20Vietnam%20Advisory%20Group&cat=Subjects

8. For complete history of the effort, see Hunt, Pacification.

9. For details, see Dacy, Foreign Aid, War, and Economic Development.

10. For details, see Wurfel, “Agrarian Reform in the Republic of Vietnam,” 81–92; also, Prosterman, “Land Reform in South Vietnam,” 26–44.

11. Boot, 298.

12. On this topic, the classic remains Pike, Viet Cong.

13. See Cosmos, MACV.

14. See Kelly, Vietnam Studies.

15. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, xiii; see endnote 1 for original source.

16. For a measured discussion, see Daddis, No Sure Victory; for excellent comparative framework, see Connable, Embracing the Fog of War.

17. For problems encountered, perhaps illustrative of much that occurred in South Vietnam, see Debrief of a Former Senior AID Official (Saigon, Vietnam), 1957–1967, No. 12681A.

18. For a summary description, see “The Strategic Hamlet Program, 1961–1963,” 128–159.

19. Phillips, “A Report on Counterinsurgency.”

20. Ibid. Activities proposed by the report included: funds for emergency relief for Vietnamese and Montagnard refugees from VC areas; funds to pay villagers in-kind (rice) for relocation and hamlet development; pay for elected hamlet chiefs and councils; training for civic action teams to work in hamlets; training of elected hamlet chiefs and of hamlet militia; a self-help program for building hamlet improvements after elections for hamlet chiefs and committees; construction materials on self-help basis for hamlet schools; a series of agriculture and livestock development programs; and a miscellaneous fund to fill in the unanticipated gaps. Support for a surrender program, Chieu Hoi, was later added in 1963.

21. Two of the best known journalists from this period were present at the battle. See Sheehan, The Battle of Ap Bac, which is the relevant portion of his much longer, award-winning A Bright Shining Lie; and Halberstam, The Making of a Quagmire, For recent treatment, see Toczek, The Battle of Ap Bac, Vietnam.

22. To explain just why this gap in comprehension existed has occupied more than a few observers; see esp. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest. Ironically, Halberstam’s The Making of a Quagmire, now recognized for its keen insights, was but a moderate success at its 1965 publication.

23. Useful for its comparative framework, Ramsey, 24–81.

24. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, 152 (original document is in the Phillips collection at the Texas Tech Vietnam Center and Archive).

25. Bohannan and Valeriano, Counterguerrilla Operations (republished 2006). For Bohannan work in Colombia, see Rempe, The Past as Prologue?

26. It is useful to compare these observations with those of the Taiwan advisory mission that was present at the same time and filing similar reports. See Marks, Counterrevolution in China, 196–210.

27. Memorandum to Ambassador Nolting from Phillips, “Bombs, Rockets, Shells, Popular Support and the U.S. Interest” (original document in Phillips collection, Texas Tech Vietnam Center and Archive), 6 August 1963; see also Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, 338 (n. 23).

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid.

30. See esp. Miller, “Religious Revival and the Politics of Nation Building,” 1903–1962; also Hưng, “The Buddhist Crisis in the Summer of 1963 in South Vietnam,” 21–37.

31. Numerous excellent sources are now available on this topic; see esp. Miller, Misalliance.

32. See Burleigh, Small Wars, Faraway Places, 473.

33. JFK Library, “Vietnam – Mendenhall and Krulak Reports.” For the best known treatment of the province, see Race, War Comes to Long An; an updated, expanded edition was published by the same press in 2010.

34. For example, Catton, Diem’s Final Failure.

35. For details, Koch, The Chieu Hoi Program, 1963–1971.

36. Chau, Vietnam Labyrinth, 179–184.

37. Of the several works available, see Andrade, Ashes to Ashes.

38. For a general account of how various approaches to armed Revolutionary Development teams emerged, see Scotton, Uphill Battle.

39. Details at Willbanks, The Tet Offensive.

40. Phillips, Memorandum to the Vice President.

41. For specific singling out of the counterproductive practices involved, see Long, Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, 18.

42. The name was later changed to Civil Operations and Rural Development Support program. For overview, Andrade and Willbanks, “CORDS/Phoenix, 9–23; also, Honn et al., “A Legacy of Vietnam,” 41–50.

43. See, for example, Ferguson and Owens, Revolutionary Development in South Vietnam.

44. For the Vietnamese perspective, see Hosmer, Kellen, and Jenkins, The Fall of South Vietnam.

45. Security is essential for all political action; for specifics of local defense, see Marks, “At the Frontlines of the GWOT,” 42–50.