we are on the same page:

Mike,

My point exactly - why can't South Vietnam be viewed as the "insurgents" against the North? This goes back to my earlier point that these classifications are often self-referential.
So, let's then look at Giap's strategy as a counter-insurgency strategy (rather than an "insurgency" strategy), which was quite different from the conventional "clear-hold-build" COIN strategy.

In fact, it was the reverse:

1. build - establish the guerrillas and political cadres (ongoing from 1959 on a generally increasing basis).

2. hold - secure base areas (well accomplished, with some assistance from Kissinger, by the 1973 Paris Accords).

3. clear - achieve juncture of unconventional and conventional forces after causing dispersal of ARVN forces (success in 1975).

In a sense, Jim Gant has suggested something similar without citing Giap.

Regards

Mike