Andrade's analysis is on point if the threat to South Vietnam came from without. North Vietnam certainly had its own agenda regarding unification. However, those plans would have gone the way of North Korea's had South Vietnam not had its own very serious internal problems, had there not been a serious disconnect between the government and the governed. Whether American counterinsurgency efforts could have changed this is unknown. However, it does make clear that however successful the conventional war could have been, it would not have been enough to secure South Vietnam as a viable, independent entity.

From this perspective, there is an interesting connection with Iraq -- there is often a temptation to conflate the foreign fighter problem with the bulk of the security issues in Iraq. But there are serious internal issues regarding relations between the localities and the central government. Even those Iraqis who are working to support the American effort are not entirely comfortable with the emerging model of a central government that controls more of daily life than has ever been the norm -- for example, even under Hussein Fallujah was pretty much left alone to run its own affairs. I would argue that this antipathy to the center is expressed in the black market activities in oil - while some amount of the theft is tied to supporting anti-government/American military activities, some is simply about building the strength of local actors. In any case, solving the foreign fighter problem is never going to pacify Iraq. The problems are within, and they are going to require a whole different set of answers - many of which exceed the capabilities of the military or the use of military force, either conventionally or in COIN.

Steve's point re the use of North Vietnamese histories is a good one. They tend to downplay the role of the southern agents -- and their very different agendas, many of which did not include unification with the north.

Jill