Insurgency vs. Civil War

[jmm99]

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

[Steve Blair]

Of course, if we ignore Marc and focus on Vietnam, this could also take on a different aspect. SVN was never really heavily controlled by either the French or the Viet Minh (it wasn't as settled as the north, for one, and lacked the industrial base), and the traditional "seat" of Vietnamese government had been in the center of the country (Hue). So looking at local realities, it doesn't become as simple as a Northern counterinsurgency against the South. Much of SVN was something of a recent acquisition in historical terms, and the people there had developed different cultural patterns and dialects than their northern "cousins." Plus you had certain indigenous populations added to the mix as well.

Still, the Entropy/Mike angle is an interesting one, and might provide some insight into possible reasons for some of Giap's decisions and outlooks.

[slapout9]

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

Mike

Yes,Yes,Yes that is exactly what we did when I went through the "One Minute Guerrilla Warfare Course" this was basic Special Warfare, which we seem to have forgotten and it can be done very fast as Operation Jawbreaker proved (we left out demobilization)as well as several others during the Ike administration. We had one bad one "Bay Of Pigs" and then went off on the COINISM theory.