New Guidance on Counter-Insurgency

[slapout9]

Phil Ridderhof USMC

Are you the same Phil R. that wrote this paper?
Sorta fits New Guidance if it is the first time you have read it
http://capmarine.com/cap/thesis.htm

[PhilR]

Are you the same Phil R. that wrote this paper?
Sorta fits New Guidance if it is the first time you have read it
http://capmarine.com/cap/thesis.htm

I wrote that as an undergraduate thesis in 1986. I gave a copy to a CAP vet in 1997 and he later uploaded it to the internet.
Its been some time ago, but I don't think I'm far off my present point, in one of the paper's concluding paragraphs, however:

"Combined Action worked at providing area security. It excelled at this. It did work at pacification and Vietnamization. Pacification could only occur if the population felt that the GVN was stronger and preferable than the VC. Successful Vietnamization of the war was the only way this shift of thought could happen. No matter how effective at combating the VC the CAPs were, the CAPs were still US run units and represented foreigners who would someday leave. Unless the GVN was able to survive without US troops, it would lose the war. Combined Action could have been a positive step towards preparing the GVN to survive alone, but the effort in that direction was not there. There is also evidence that with the GVN, all the effort in the world would not have worked."

s/f
Phil Ridderhof USMC

[slapout9]

I wrote that as an undergraduate thesis in 1986. I gave a copy to a CAP vet in 1997 and he later uploaded it to the internet.
Its been some time ago, but I don't think I'm far off my present point, in one of the paper's concluding paragraphs, however:

"Combined Action worked at providing area security. It excelled at this. It did work at pacification and Vietnamization. Pacification could only occur if the population felt that the GVN was stronger and preferable than the VC. Successful Vietnamization of the war was the only way this shift of thought could happen. No matter how effective at combating the VC the CAPs were, the CAPs were still US run units and represented foreigners who would someday leave. Unless the GVN was able to survive without US troops, it would lose the war. Combined Action could have been a positive step towards preparing the GVN to survive alone, but the effort in that direction was not there. There is also evidence that with the GVN, all the effort in the world would not have worked."

s/f
Phil Ridderhof USMC

It is an excellant paper and you make an excellant point.