Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
No. More ignorance. The insurgents were severely tromped and almost totally ineffective before the last US troops left in 1973. The North Viet Namese Army won it in 1975 -- with a conventional invasion, not an insurgency..
Ken,

You've raised this point at least a couple of times that I am aware of, and while you are factually accurate, the grand design of Maoist Insurgency is to culminate in a conventional force that seals the deal. So to say that the insurgency did not win is not really fair, they simply followed the full program to its logical conclusion, moving up and down between phases I and II, attempting III prematurely and backing down to II again, and finally, as you state, in 1975 being able to pull off the phase III conclusion.

I am quite confident that if that attack had been defeated, things would have simmered down in phase II for a while until they felt the conditions were right to try a phase III operation again.

Which goes to the point of insurgency: So long as the underlying conditions that gave rise to the insurgency exist, you can suppress it, but you can not stomp it out. The government must ultimately answer to its populace; either at the end of a bayonet, or by simply doing their job and addressing the legitimate concerns and grievances (or getting out of the way and allowing a governance that will do so) before it comes to that.