And the concrete pads and tin roofs for
the housing of friendly Montagnards who promptly penned their pigs in them and built new elevated thatched huts for themselves nearby... :wry:
We gotta admit the bicycle powered paddy irrigation water pump was a good idea, though. ;)
We're getting smarter (not). Like the US standards hospital in Mosul we designed and donated with a built in O2 distribution system. Which will be great when and if someone starts producing O2 locally in a volume that will be adequate to fill the tanks... :(
Depends on what one wanted to accomplish.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Surferbeetle
With the benefit of hind sight would more MCO or COIN or some combo thereof have made a difference on the M side of DIME?
However, all things considered and given the goal of an independent, democratic (western version) nation, probably neither would've made much difference in the long run -- the nationalistic strain was too powerful. All out MCO could've taken us to Hanoi in less than six months -- but the Eurocentric staff at MACV / USARV would not have known how to handle the resultant COIN effort and the South was not ready for it at the time. In any event, we went in with a 'limited objective' in mind and "all out" wasn't in the cards. Shades of I-rak, 40 years later... :(
Quote:
During OIF 1 it was my impression that if we had consistently and heavily focused upon the populace across the country within the first six months after the initial MCO we could have kept/flipped enough folks to have kept the lid on. The combination of summer heat, little or no electricity, mass 'downsizing' among the workforce, and deteriorating population security snuffed out that candle however and we all know the rest...
Agreed. Missteps by the 2/82 in April of '03 followed by the doofus decision to disband the Army and Police allied with a total lack of knowledge (and combat arms ego-centric disinclination to use CA) of what to do doomed us to what occurred. Replacing McKiernan with Sanchez was also abysmally stupid... :rolleyes:
Both wars were hobbled by very poor pre attack intel and an overweening sense of hubris at the WH that didn't pay enough attention to the intel that was available. Add to that Army egos which refused to listen to FAOs and others who knew the area and the people; Commanders who selected campaign goals that were flawed; and an overall inadequately trained Army...
All problems that could've and should've been avoided.
Realistic Training is key...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ken White
Both wars were hobbled by very poor pre attack intel and an overweening sense of hubris at the WH that didn't pay enough attention to the intel that was available. Add to that Army egos which refused to listen to FAOs and others who knew the area and the people; Commanders who selected campaign goals that were flawed; and an overall inadequately trained Army...
All problems that could've and should've been avoided.
Ken,
Realistic training is more important than high dollar weapons systems; getting a consensus (as evidenced by sufficient resources) on what is realistic training however is always tough.
Keeping in mind that we do not have a habit of religiously following doctrine and instead we often seem to rely on adaption to existing ground conditions, there is an Oct 06 document that may still be floating around on CALL which covers an analysis of a battalion planning process. There are some points worth considering in there, despite the obvious influence of the MBA types :rolleyes: Here is a first hand account which might be of help in the analysis of the worth/lack of worth of portions of that planning process.
As with most things cookie cutter solutions do not work everywhere and as you know even better than I, we are playing for all of the marbles everytime we step onto a battlefield, even with the benefit of that 'sure-fire plan'.
Regards,
Steve
Hearts and Minds can be powerful
Ken, "Hearts and Minds" and "Carrots and Sticks" are overly simplistic and often misunderstood and misapplied. Unfortunately "hearts and minds" is too often interpreted as some politically correct feel good crap, and carrots and sticks while understood almost always turns out to be nothing but carrots when put into practice. However, when the phrases are correctly understood they can be useful guidelines to developing your strategy.
Frequently strategists define the center of gravity as the will to fight, while I don't think it is that simple, I do think that is critically important. How do you influence their will their fight?
If we're the counterinsurgent, then winning hearts means convincing the populace that their interests are best served if we win. This requires a considerable amount of information engagement to clearly deliniate the differences between an insurgent and government victory to the target audience. They don't have to love us, but they need to understand an insurgent victory will be a less desirable outcome. Relating back to Jone's Populace Centric Engagement argument, if we can't convince them that this is the case, then we probably can't win without employing draconian measures.
Winnng minds means convincing the populace that we're going to win both the short and long term fight. The short term fight means we can protect them from insurgent coercion, and the long term fight means they know we're going to go the distance and do what it takes to win. If they think otherwise, then it would be to their benefit to support the insurgency since they will continue to live there regardless of who wins.
Written by Mike,
Quote:
Love that last line, Ken.....Far away and long ago, lots of hamlets in various provinces where economic prosperity seemed almost incongruous (indicators include power tillers having replaced buffalo, proliferation of well-built, new stucco houses, etc. )--Yet they remained insecure to the GVN...VCI ran the hamlets, usually in tandem with the menacing effect of a nearby enemy base area. (one example, southern panhandle of my first province, Tay Ninh, with NVA base area across the border in Svay Rieng)...
We failed to protect the populace, you can't win their hearts our minds unless we do. This is my biggest beef with our Civil Affairs folks, they do great work, and their projects make excellent Kodak Picture moments with smiling kids standing around the new school, etc., but it doesn't mean anything if we don't continue to exert continued presence in that area to ensure that the populace is protected and that they answer to State Law, not insurgent law.
This involves tough love, aggressive tactics, and higher risk operations (more exposure to attack).
Quote:
Actually, in Malaya the British -- correctly -- first went after the CTs and removed their ability to terrorize minds; then they terrorized the Malays and the Chinese civilians not playing CT by virtually eliminating Civil Rights and moving the majority of them into 'New Villages.' There was no winning of hearts and the minds involved were coerced, not coaxed.
I don't think they terrorized the Malays, but they did control them so they could eliminate the threat. War is tough, I think the measures that were taken were effective and I think they are in line with the hearts and minds concept. That approach won't work in most countries, the tactics you use to control the populace must be based on local factors.
Quote:
""People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...""
We have to find what their self interests are and show how a government victory is better aligns with those interests than an insurgent victory. If you don't do that you may have to do a lot more killing, which in the information age is not generally a feasible course of action.
Understanding culture is the first step...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
We failed to protect the populace, you can't win their hearts our minds unless we do. This is my biggest beef with our Civil Affairs folks, they do great work, and their projects make excellent Kodak Picture moments with smiling kids standing around the new school, etc., but it doesn't mean anything if we don't continue to exert continued presence in that area to ensure that the populace is protected and that they answer to State Law, not insurgent law.
Bill,
What the American taxpayer is looking for is a low cost solution to his problem in country X, or even better yet no problem in country X. SOF are there to see if they can prevent or resolve problems by working with the local culture to provide an acceptable and long term solution.
Population Security, Good Governance, and Government Services when provided by local people provide long term solutions. If we are taking the lead on population security or building new schools, providing government services, etc. then the solutions that we are providing are not reaching the 'hearts and minds' that we are aiming at, nor are they long term. Nobody likes charity. What people are looking for is a partner to commiserate with, perhaps teach them a few things, and to help them out of a bind.
Admiral Olson gave an interesting talk at the CNAS which spoke to the importance of the ability of being able to provide both direct and indirect solutions. He is able to address this concept better than I can.
Steve
My fault. Hyperbole is ee-vull...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Ken, I misunderstood your comments.
Thus my ""then they terrorized the Malays and the Chinese civilians not playing CT"" use of the word 'terrorized' with tongue in cheek [ ;^) ] should have had that tongue in cheek symbol to show it was intentional overstatement; your use of 'control' is correct, of course.
My wife keeps telling me to stop trying to be a comedian... :wry:
Interesting historical materials ....
for those interested in Vietnam. The only "but" is that the DL is over 130 MB - so broadband is needed. My plan is to burn a CD here and take it home where I am limited to dial-up. Will be interesting to compare these with the Pentagon Papers.
Example historical documents - 1972-1973
Lots of scanned documents (unclassified) are out there.
E.g., MACV Command History 1972-1973, whose Table of Contents is here. Brief discussion of "shadow supply system" starts at A-41, p.18 of .pdf, in this part of the MACV history.
Explanation of Texas Tech Vietnam Center and Archive is here.
For a different slant on the "VC villagers" - and a couple of articles on "in country logistics" and "import-export", see an article collection by Jacques Leslie, which has a number of articles from the 1972-1973 period:
Quote:
"
Communist Cadres Use Nightly Persuasion: Told to Hamper Truce, Viet Villagers Say"
November 21, 1972. [JMM footnote *]
«The following stories from Vietnam won A Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award, an Overseas Press Club citation, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination for foreign correspondence.»
"'
We Are Friends,' Viet Cong Tell Visiting U.S. Newsman"
February 1, 1973.
An account of the first visit by an American correspondent into Viet Cong territory in South Vietnam.
"
Binh Phu: A Lesson in How Viet Cong Village Operates"
February 2, 1973.
Analysis based on my trip to Viet Cong territory.
"
In Viet Cong Country, Villagers Are the Key"
February 4, 1973.
More reflections on the Viet Cong visit.
.....
"
U.S. Advisers Tell of Viet Corruption"
April 23, 1973.
This story and the next two were based on documents surreptitiously taken out of the United States embassy in Saigon.
"
Both Sides Found Committing Major Viet Truce Violations: Although White House Depicts Reds as Main Transgressor, U.S. Embassy Documents Present Far Less Clear-Cut View"
May 26, 1973
"
Troop Corruption Seen Alienating S. Viet Populace"
May 27, 1973. [JMM: brief mention of "shadow supply"]
"
Vietnam Generals Suspected in Brass Smuggling Scandal"
June 20, 1973.
I became curious when I read that the Japanese manager of Mitsubishi's Saigon branch had been imprisoned without explanation. This story was the main factor in my expulsion from South Vietnam a month after it appeared
.
--------------------
[*] from last paragraph of this article:
Quote:
The informants said that when villagers asked why there was no cease-fire Oct. 31, cadres told them, “The deceitful Americans have tried to delay the agreement, but they cannot betray the peace-loving people of the United States and Vietnam. This plot of the American leaders will be crushed soon, because if there is no cease-fire, we will go on fighting, and 17 million people in South Vietnam cannot defeat 19 million in North Vietnam and 800 million in China.”
The view of this VC guy is well kept in mind in assessing the line-up in this armed conflict.
1972 CIC-V Annex E to ST 72-03 ...
at Texas Tech (declass. 19 May 1983) - 9 pages - Shadow Supply System.[*]
And, another piece from another journalist in 1971.
NIE 53/14.3-73 Estimate of Vietnam Short-Term Prospects, October, 1973 (20 pages) (FOIA declss.) - accurate prediction of NVA offensive in 1974-1975 (page 20).
Another dozen or so hits turn up for "shadow supply" in TTU Archives.
----------------------------------------
[*] E.g., Lenin's "All in a Week's Work" in SE Asian terms. We will rob the capitalist's bank on Mon. He will collect from his insurance company on Tues. We will use the bank money to buy arms from the capitalist on Weds. We will have our revolution on Thurs. We will take the capitalist's money on Fri. We will execute the capitalist on Sat. We will rest on Sun.
If you search for this among Lenin's works, you won't find it - cuz I just authored it. :) He did say something similar, but where I forget.
Harold Ford's short analysis
Among the many papers at CSI, Harold Ford's "Why CIA Analysts Were So Doubtful About Vietnam" is a must read - no doubt, it will generate some opinions contrary to his.
His background on things Indochinese was long. His thesis is summed as follows:
Quote:
Why CIA Analysts Were So Doubtful About Vietnam
Unpopular Pessimism
Harold P. Ford (1)
(1) Editor's Note: The author of this study drafted his first National Intelligence Estimate on Indochina in 1952, and subsequently had Vietnam-related duties as staff chief of CIA's Office of National Estimates and as a CIA representative to certain interagency working bodies. Since retiring from CIA in 1986, when he was Acting Chairman of CIA's National Intelligence Council, he has prepared classified studies on Vietnam for CIA's History Staff.
.....
Areas of Doubt
These, then, were the principal areas of doubt that for years lay behind so many CIA analyses of the outlook in Vietnam. Except for those occasions where Agency officers produced flawed accounts or rosied up their judgments to meet pressures from above, the areas of doubt translated into the following fairly stark messages to successive policymakers:
1. Do not underestimate the enemy's strength, ruthlessness, nationalist appeal, and pervasive undercover assets throughout South Vietnam.
2. Do not underestimate the enemy's resilience and staying power. He is in for the long run and is confident that US morale will give way before his will. He will keep coming despite huge casualties. If we escalate, he will too.
3. Do not overestimate the degree to which airpower will disrupt North Vietnam's support of the VC or will cause Hanoi to back off from such support.
4. Do not overestimate the military and political potential of our South Vietnamese ally/creation.
5. The war is essentially a political war that cannot be won by military means alone. It will have to be won largely by the South Vietnamese in the villages of South Vietnam.
6. The war is essentially a civil war, run from Hanoi, not a Communist bloc plot to test the will of America to support its allies.
7. Winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese is a tough task. Most Vietnamese simply want to be left alone, and most do not identify with Saigon. And many are either too attracted to the VC or too afraid to volunteer much information about the VC presence in their midst.
Ford outlines one of several fundamental dichotomies in 1963-1964 between the CIA analytic view and the policy makers - the domino theory.
As to the policy makers, he sums their view:
Quote:
[NSC Action Memorandum 288, 17 March 1964]: We seek an independent non-Communist South Vietnam. . . . Unless we can achieve this objective in South Vietnam, almost all Southeast Asia will probably fall under Communist dominance . . . accommodate to Communism so as to remove effective US and anti-Communist influence . . . or fall under the domination of forces not now explicitly Communist but likely then to become so . . . . Even the Philippines would become shaky, and the threat to India on the west, Australia and New Zealand to the south, and Taiwan, Korea, and Japan to the north and east would be greatly increased.(33)
(33) As quoted in The Pentagon Papers (New York: Bantam/New York Times, ed., 1971), pp. 283, 285. That portion of NSC 288 repeated, verbatim, a text which Secretary of Defense McNamara had written the day before. McNamara, Memorandum to the President, 16 March 1964. FRUS, 1964-68, Vietnam, Vol. I, p. 154.
On the other hand, the CIA analysts had this to say:
Quote:
[ONE Memorandum for the Director, June 1964]: We do not believe that the loss of South Vietnam and Laos would be followed by the rapid, successive communization of the other states of the Far East. . . . With the possible exception of Cambodia, it is likely that no nation in the area would quickly succumb to Communism as a result of the fall of Laos and South Vietnam. Furthermore, a continuation of the spread of Communism in the area would not be inexorable, and any spread which did occur would take time--time in which the total situation might change in any of a number of ways unfavorable to the Communist cause. . . . [Moreover] the extent to which individual countries would move away from the US towards the Communists would be significantly affected by the substance and manner of US policy in the area following the loss of Laos and South Vietnam.(34)
(34) As quoted in FRUS, 1964-68, Vol. I, p. 485.
My own perception is that the NSC view was too pessimisic - and the ONE view too optimistic - for the timeframe of 1963-1964. After a passage of four years to 1967-1968, events had modified the picture for SE Asia as a whole:
1. The Sino-Soviet split (which Ford discusses)
2. The sea change in Indonesia from 1965 caused by the abortive Com revolt and subsequent eradication of the party apparatus there (which Ford does not discuss).
3. Confirmation of stabilization in Thailand, Malaya and the Philippines (also not discussed by Ford).
So, by 1967-1968, in the view of some, South Vietnam had become expendible - measured in the larger context of SE Asia. What received the larger media and scholarly attention, however, was the "anti-war" reaction in 1968-1969 and thereafter. All of that is beyond the intended scope of Ford's brief article.
To the extent that Vietnam is suggested as a template (usually in the negative sense) for present-day efforts at counter-insurgency, one must recognize that Vietnam was very complex, not only internally, but also with respect to regional geopolitics. My perception is that it is not a very good template (positive or negative) for anything other than itself. Others differ.
On-line source materials about the Vietnam War.
At the home page of the U.S. Department of State is it possible to browse through the Foreign Relations of the United States series and find plenty of documents from the administration of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon concerning the war in Vietnam.
You can visit the Foreign Relations of the United States at:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/index.htm
A real gold mine for people with historical interests:)
Moyar's forthcoming book.
Has anybody heard of the new book "A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq" by Mark Moyar? And does anyone know which approaches Moyar uses in his new book? And how he regards counterinsurgency through the period?
Thanks in advance.
If we're talking about if...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AGBrina
If...If...If...If !!!
If the ports of Haiphong and Vinh Thinh had been closed by the U.S. Navy in 1965, and not left open until 1972....
If the B-52s had leveled North Vietnam's Transportation and Power Distribution networks in 1965, and not limited to low risk missions over South Vietneam and Laos until after the election of 1972....
If the U.S. Marines had been used as a mobile amphious force to interdict and destroy up and down the Vietnamese coastline, rather than to defend the DMZ....
But most of all...
If the Marxist-sympathizing and Democratically-controlled Congress had allocated just a fourth of the funds lavished on the Israelis in 1974 toward the South Vietnamese instead....
Here's an even bigger if... what about IF we'd actually listened to these rather prescient conclusions from 1951 (cited by jmm on another thread):
Quote:
In October 1951, the student conclusions to their study of US policy in Southeast Asia were presented to the college. Although opinions were somewhat divided, a large majority opposed any major US involvement. The conclusions of the majority could be summarized as follows:
(1) The United States had probably made a serious mistake in agreeing with its allies to allow French power to be restored in Indochina. As a colonial power, France had done little to develop indigenous civilian and military leaders and civil servants in preparation for the countries' eventual independence.
(2) Indochina was of only secondary strategic importance to the United States. The economic and military value of Vietnam, the most important state in the region, was not impressive. Politically and socially, Vietnam was obviously entering an unstable period with uncertain consequences. In any event, it did not warrant the commitment of US forces to its defense.
(3) General war planning by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) envisioned a strategic defense in the Pacific, drawing the US forward defense line to include Japan, South Korea, and the offshore island chain (Okinawa-Taiwan-the Philippines). But in Southeast Asia, the line was drawn through the Isthmus of Kra on the mainland, excluding all of Indochina and most of Thailand. Thus, the Strait of Malacca and populous, richly endowed Indonesia were considered to be the prime strategic targets of the region.
(4) Militarily, the region in general and Vietnam in particular would be an extremely difficult operational area, especially for US forces. Unlike the relatively narrow Korean peninsula, Vietnam presented very long land and coastal borders that would be almost impossible to seal against infiltration and difficult to defend against overt military agression. Much of the region was covered with dense jungle and much was mountainous. Weather, terrain and geographic conformation combined to present formidable obstacles for military operations and logistic support.
(5) Politically and psychologically, the United States, if it were to become involved, would have to operate under severe disadvatages, for it would inherit the taint of European colonialism. The United States should not become involved in the area beyond providing materiel ["-iel", not "-ial"] military aid.
"US Policy in Southeast Asia". Reports of Student Committees #13-17 (Carlisle Barracks, Pa: US Army War College, 1951), cited in Bruce Palmer Jr, The 25-Year War (1984) - with HT to Ken White for suggesting this book.
The bold portions are added by me, emphasis probably unnecessary. At least somebody was looking at the situation clearly. Pity nobody listened.