Vietnam War Collection: books plus

[davidbfpo]

A British military academic, Christopher Tripodi, has embarked on reading on the Vietnam War, with a focus on:

.....‘Village War’, i.e. the vast US backed pacification campaign mounted throughout South Vietnam from the early 60’s in an effort to weaken and dislocate Communist influence in that country.

So he offers a short list of books to read, only one of which I have read (Douglas Porch's tome).

A searing passage:

Even though still a relative newcomer to the war, it’s become obvious to me that this should be a compulsory field of study for anyone interested in the fundamental complexity of engineering satisfactory political outcomes at distance through the medium of military power. And the pacification campaign, in and of itself, has revealed such a panoply of theories, assumptions, judgements and practices that consistently crumpled in the face of the unrealistic expectations underpinning their employment in Vietnam that it makes one genuinely wonder why any US policymaker or academic contemplating similar escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan could possibly have thought they could get away with it.

Link:https://defenceindepth.co/2018/08/06...mer-reading-6/