Already read the article. Once again it's a case of "either/or" thinking with no real attempt to find a good middle ground. Westmoreland was "right" in a sense, but he was also "wrong" in a sense. He was correct in that larger units were needed to break up the main force VC units and to keep them away from populated areas (although the only real way to do that would have been to physically cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail...an option that was never really on the table), but he was wrong in his lack of attention to population security (leaving that mostly for ARVN after the force had been configured by its advisors to fight a regular enemy...even though as I recall their own leadership had hoped for training oriented more toward dealing with insurgent forces). Westmoreland paid lip service to finding a balance, but in practice he failed to do so. Most people were looking at a Korea scenario and past what they were actually facing on the ground. That is the truth of that situation. Korea and the Chinese intervention colored the majority of policy thinking in the Johnson administration, and a lack of attention to anything other than conventional war colored the evaluation of many military thinkers, to include Westmoreland. Vietnam required a blended solution, and that's something that I'm not sure we could come up with even today.

I also found Andrade's use of the communist histories interesting, as their current spin is to deemphasize the role of the VC in operations. This has more to do with the political and social split that existed between Northerners and Southerners at the time than actual objective history. It's easy to forget that they have an interest in presenting the history of the War of Liberation to fit their own domestic goals...not unlike the motives often attributed to Western commentators writing about the war.

If there's a flaw, it's the same one that we seem to be incapable of escaping...the "either/or" mindset. Vietnam was a blended situation. We missed that then, and we seem to be missing that again.

Cavguy...you should be able to log into the article through the library there without giving up any information. If not, PM me.