Vietnam: Origins and Guerrilla War

1. Vietnam: Origins and Guerrilla War Lsn 32

2. ID & SIG: • Dien Bien Phu, Diem, domino theory, French in Vietnam, guerrilla war, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh Trail, Mao, Military Assistance Advisory Group, Navarre, Viet Cong

4. Key Players President Kennedy will begin US involvement in Vietnam using counterinsurgency techniques. When Kennedy is assassinated, Johnson becomes president and escalates US involvement. Nixon becomes president in 1968 promising “peace with honor.”

5. Key Players General Westmoreland commanded US forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968 Creighton Abrams succeeded Westmoreland US troop levels peaked in 1968 at over 500,000

6. Key Players General Vo Nguyen Giap led North Vietnamese military forces The Viet Cong soldier was tough, disciplined, and in it for the long haul Ho Chi Minh was the political leader of the Viet Minh

7. Key Players Vietnamese civilians were often caught in the middle of the fighting Journalists like Walter Cronkite did much to influence public opinion College students were among the most active war protesters

8. The French Period • Between 1859 and 1893, the French established a large southeast Asian colony consisting of the modern states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos • Indochina would become an important supplier of rubber • The French lost their influence in Indochina in World War II • After Hitler defeated France, the Japanese moved into Vietnam, occupied strategic points, and ultimately stationed 35,000 soldiers in Indochina • French colonial administrators remained nominally in charge through the Vichy government until March 9, 1945 when the Japanese arrested all French officials and civilians in the country and all but destroyed the French military there • In the last days of the war, Japan acceded to Vietnamese demands to regain its precolonial 1858 boundaries

9. The French Period • In 1941 Ho Chi Minh secretly returned to Vietnam after 30 years abroad and began organizing the Viet Minh, a communist guerrilla movement hoping to take advantage of the World War II situation • During the war, the US worked with Ho to harass Japanese and rescue downed US pilots Ho Chi Minh

10. The French Period • Ho Chi Minh put Vo Nguyen Giap in charge of training a guerrilla force during World War II and on December 22, 1944, Giap created the first unit of the Vietnam People’s Army • Giap had been a history professor in Hanoi until 1940 and a part of various nationalist and communist organizations • His wife had died in a French prison in 1943 • Giap was second only to Ho in the communist movement in Indochina Giap and Ho Chi Minh

11. The French Period • When Japan surrendered in August 1945, the Allies divided Vietnam to aid in disarming the Japanese (Chinese were to disarm the north and British were to disarm the south). • Even before the Allies arrived though, the Viet Minh proclaimed Vietnamese independence from France and set up the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam in Hanoi • In the south the Viet-Minh were weaker and could only establish a shadow government

12. The French Period • In Sept 1945, Ho unsuccessfully asked for US recognition • Instead the Allies honored the French request for restoration of its pre-war Indochina colonies (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) • In Oct 1945, French troops returned to Vietnam and guerrilla fighting began almost immediately French Far East Expeditionary Corps

13. The French Period • In Dec 1946, the Viet Minh launched their first large scale assault on the French • The Viet Minh learned they could not go toe to toe with the French and reverted to flexible, low-level attacks with a strong emphasis on mobility • In 1949, Mao defeated Chiang Kai-shek in China and the US began its “containment” policy • Vietnam now was much more important to the US and in 1950 it authorized aid and advisors to French • The US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Viet Nam was activated and by mid-1954 about $1 billion worth of equipment had been delivered to the French

14. The French Period • The French struggled for a strategy, always seeking to fight a set-piece battle against the illusive Viet Minh • Even the French inflicted casualties, they could not break the Viet Minh’s means of military and political resistance • General Henri Eugene Navarre assumed command of the French Union Forces in 1953 and began a plan to free the Free Expeditionary Corps from all static defense missions and conduct aggressive and mobile offensive operations

15. The French Period • In the meantime, the French built a series of air-supplied “hedgehog” positions designed to protect vital centers against Viet Minh attack • Dien Bien Phu, designed to block the communist advance into Laos, was one such hedgehog position

16. The French Period • Dien Bien Phu was in a valley less than 10 miles long and 6 miles wide • Eight battalions of 15,000 French soldiers were garrisoned there • In March 1954, the Viet Minh took up positions in the hills overlooking the French outposts and began to bombard the French with artillery French paratroopers run for cover during the 55 day siege of Dien Bien Phu

17. The French Period • The monsoon season served to curtail the French air support necessary to deliver supplies and the Viet Minh siege prevented a relief force from reaching the garrison • The French asked the US to help and President Truman considered using the atomic bomb but did not • On May 8, 1954, the French surrendered

18. The French Period • The loss of Dien Bien Phu was devastating to French morale and world opinion • The French needed reinforcements and supplies in large numbers • French law forbade the use of French draftees outside of Europe • The US was willing to send supplies but not soldiers (especially so soon after Korea) Lieutenant General Samuel T. Williams became commander of the Military Assistance Advisory Group, Vietnam in 1955. MAAG-V’s strength was 342 men.

19. The French Period • The war was becoming increasingly unpopular in France and the French government began to negotiate • Hostilities ended on July 20, 1954 with the Geneva Accords which divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel • Viet Minh forces regrouped in the north and French forces in the south • In 1955 Ngo Dinh Diem became president and began an illegitimate and corrupt (but strongly anticommunist) rule • The last French soldiers left Vietnam in 1956

20. Beginnings of the US Period • In 1959, Ho declared a “Peoples’ War” to unite Vietnam. • In 1961, President Kennedy sent 400 Green Berets to Vietnam • In Oct 1961, Maxwell Taylor visited Vietnam and reported “If Vietnam goes it will be exceedingly difficult to hold Southeast Asia.” (domino theory) Recommends sending combat troops.

21. Beginnings of the US Period • In 1963, Diem was assassinated in US-backed coup • In 1964, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked a US destroyer in Gulf of Tonkin • US begins bombing • Operation Rolling Thunder begins on Mar 2, 1965 • First US combat troops arrive on March 8, 1965. • By the end of the year, 184,300 troops are in Vietnam. The massive bombing campaign was plagued by restricted targeting and the non-industrialized nature of North Vietnam

22. Guerilla War

23. Definitions • Insurgency-- An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict • Guerrilla warfare-- Military and paramilitary operations conducted in enemy-held or hostile territory by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces.

24. Vulnerable population Leadership available for direction Lack of government control Popular support Unity of effort Will to resist Discipline Intelligence Propaganda Favorable environment External support Prerequisites and Other Conditions Required for or Conducive to an InsurgencyFM 90-8

25. Conditions in South Vietnam • Diem illegitimate and corrupt • Catholic in an overwhelmingly Buddhist society • Ignored Geneva Accords call for elections in 1956 • Nepotism • Succession of military coups resulted in a revolving door government Several Buddhist monks burned themselves alive to protest Diem’s religious oppression

26. Insurgent Leadership • Increasing North Vietnamese infiltration creates security threat in South Vietnam • In Dec 1960, the insurgents formed the National Liberation Front (typically called the Viet Cong or VC), a broad-based organization led by communists but designed to rally all those disaffected with Diem by promising sweeping reforms and genuine independence Flag of the National Liberation Front

27. Insurgent Leadership • The NLF skillfully combined political and military organizations and efforts • Politically they created special organizations to give status to such groups as farmers, women, and youth • Used agitation and propaganda (“agitprop”) to arouse the people to the government’s oppressiveness and lack of responsibility Protesters in Saigon to express their dissatisfaction with the Diem government.

28. Insurgent Leadership • Militarily they assembled a disciplined and potent force of an estimated 80,000 fighters by 1965 • Relied on speed, surprise, and deception to strike targets selected for the maximum psychological effect • Used violence to coerce or win over the population and undermine the legitimacy of the South Vietnamese government A hit and run Viet Cong attack in 1968 leaves a South Vietnamese soldier and civilian dead as children run for cover.

29. External Support • North Vietnam began constructing a massive supply route through Laos and Cambodia that allowed it to infiltrate supplies and personnel south • The Ho Chi Minh Trail • The Soviet Union and China provided equipment, advisors, and diplomatic support

30. Mao on Guerrilla Warfare • Mao wrote On Guerrilla Warfare in 1937 while in retreat after ten years of battling the Nationalist Chinese army of Chiang Kai-shek • In 1949, Mao defeated the Nationalist Chinese and validated his theories of revolutionary guerrilla warfare • The National Liberation Front patterned much of its strategy and tactics after Mao

31. Phases of Development • Phase I: Latent and incipient insurgency. • Activity in this phase ranges from subversive activity that is only a potential threat to situations in which frequent subversive incidents and activities occur in an organized pattern. It involves no major outbreak of violence or uncontrolled insurgent activity. The guerrilla force does not conduct continuous operations but rather selected acts of terrorism. Viet Cong tactics included the use of punji sticks smeared with excrement to foster infection

32. Phases of Development • Phase II: Guerrilla warfare. • This phase is reached when the insurgent movement, having gained sufficient local or external support, initiates organized continuous guerrilla warfare or related forms of violence against the government. This is an attempt to force government forces into a defensive role. As the guerrilla becomes stronger, he begins to conduct larger operations. Scene of Viet Cong terrorist bombing in Saigon, 1965

33. Phases of Development • Phase III: War of movement. • When the guerrilla attains the force structure and capability to directly engage government forces in decisive combat, then he will progressively begin to use more conventional tactics and may obtain combat forces from an external source. He may also begin to conduct more extensive defensive operations in this phase to protect the areas he controls. VC planning an attack upon a South Vietnamese Regional Force post.

34. Next • Vietnam: Pacification and The Big War