New War in Vietnam
By Colonel Bryce F. Denno, U. S. Army, (Retired)
The introduction of U. S. combat forces has precipitated a new—many consider it the fourth distinct phase of the Vietnamese War. What lessons of the first three phases are still germane?
Our military effort in Vietnam has evolved in classic, textbook fashion. Pursuing an objective of forcing the enemy to “stop doing what he is doing” in the Republic of Vietnam, we have matched the force which he has committed with carefully measured, precisely applied, force increments of our own. Enemy actions and our reactions have produced four fairly distinct phases of U. S. military participation in the war.
The first was our modest advisory effort which began shortly after the Viet Minh defeated the French. U. S. advisors assisted the Army of Vietnam (ARVN), a small Air Force (VNAF) and Navy (VNAV) to organize, equip themselves with U. S. arms, and to train. These forces were designed primarily to counter what seemed to be the most dangerous military threat at the time—a Korea-style attack across the 17th parallel.
By 1961, Viet Cong guerrillas had emerged throughout the country in frightening strength escalate a conflict which had been smoldering underground for years. We responded by increasing our material aid and our advisory effort. Assuming a more active role, our advisors not only assisted the Republic of Vietnam forces in training; they helped them plan military operations and accompanied them into battle. They brought with them U. S. combat support units such as troop-carrying helicopters and U. S. combat units such as armed helicopters and, later, fighter aircraft. In this second phase, the combat advisor and the pilot bore the brunt of American military action.
In 1964, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam greatly increased its flow of infiltrators into South Vietnam to include regular units of its 325th Division. Accordingly, we began air attacks against infiltration routes—we had entered phase three.
When the Viet Cong attacked the air base at Bien Hoa in November 1964, this country introduced Marine and Army combat units to defend air bases and other vulnerable U. S. installations. In so doing, our ground forces patrolled and conducted search-and-destroy operations to secure areas about defended bases—at least beyond effective mortar range. Gradually, U. S. Marines and soldiers increased the scope and range of operations seeking, especially, Viet Cong hard core battalions. The Army’s 173d Airborne Brigade penetrated Zone “D,” north of Saigon, in strength. The Marines, supported by U. S. air and naval gunfire, hit the 1st Viet Cong Regiment in the Van Tuong peninsula as it assembled, apparently to attack our base at Chu Lai. These activities provided a transition from phase three to phase four—active U. S. participation in ground, air, and sea combat—in which we find ourselves today.
Phase four prompts two questions. Of transcending importance is the first: How can we best employ our combat force in this phase to support the RVN forces which will continue to provide the main thrust of the counterinsurgent effort? Second, what role, if any, will the U. S. advisor—the man who bore the brunt of the battle in the first two phases—play today and tomorrow in Vietnam?
An analysis of the contribution of military force in attaining another objective of the counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam furnishes a starting point in answering the first question. This objective—winning the allegiance and support of the people—is one of the few immutable generalizations that can be made concerning any counterinsurgency. The people are not only the goal in Vietnam, they are the principal means by which the war is waged. Military force cannot, by itself, win popular support; it can help create a secure environment favorable to activities which can, however. Examination of the two basic types of military action in Vietnam and their purpose will illustrate this point.
The purpose of the search-and-destroy operation is clear from its name. It is enemy- oriented, in that friendly forces seek out the enemy, identify him, and kill or capture him. In Vietnam, the ARVN has employed search- and-destroy operations especially against Viet Cong regulars who are the enemy’s military backbone. Thus, these operations constitute a “counterforce” effort to destroy the enemy’s military forces which he can employ to control an area and its people. When planned well on timely intelligence and executed boldly and secretly to attain surprise, these operations can be extremely fruitful. They often produce intelligence leading to further successful operations, creating a snowballing effect. Even when such attacks fail to produce contact with the enemy, they have the value of keeping him off balance and on the move. A hunted guerrilla has little time, opportunity, or inclination to plan his own offensive. In this connection, our B-52 attacks against Viet Cong-dominated areas serve as search- and-destroy operations. Although difficult to evaluate in terms of casualties inflicted, they serve, at the very minimum, to harry the enemy and prevent him from resting, training, or preparing attacks.
A second type of operation, which goes by the descriptive name of clear-and-hold, is population-oriented, rather than enemy-oriented. Its purpose is to control the people in a selected area, isolating them from the Viet Cong politically as well as physically and shielding them from enemy overtures as well as attacks. The clear-and-hold operation is conducted in the villages of South Vietnam where more than 80 per cent of the people live. It supports a government-to-people effort to insulate the population from Viet Cong control or to reclaim areas under Viet Cong domination. Programs to accomplish these purposes have been termed, variously, “pacification,” “rural reconstruction,” and (currently) “rural construction.”
A typical clear-and-hold operation begins when friendly troops, in virtually saturation strength, enter a selected area under Viet Cong domination. They kill, capture, or expel identifiable Viet Cong. They supervise and assist the local inhabitants in fortifying their villages and hamlets and organizing a militia to defend them. Concurrently, under the protective canopy of the military umbrella, the real task of counterinsurgency—slow, tedious and largely undramatic—begins. Military intelligence and police operators work together, to uncover and destroy the Viet Cong "shadow government”—the whole structure of village chiefs, police, tax collectors, propagandists and local militia, which the Viet Cong employs to rule and administer the Populace and which often continues to function even when an area is under nominal control of government military forces. In the Place of the demolished Viet Cong structure, the government laboriously builds its own machinery of government officials and administrators. Schools and medical clinics are built or rebuilt and staffed. Wells are drilled; loads and bridges are repaired. Throughout these activities, often grouped under the term "civic action,” propagandists assure the People that their government has arrived in the villages to stay and to protect them.
Currently, the RVN’s major rural construction effort, the “Hop Tac” program centers in strategically important districts surrounding Saigon. Here, the so-called “oil spot” or blotter technique, projecting clear- and-hold operations methodically and slowly from the baseline of government-dominated areas, has been employed. This technique, incidentally, is far from new. Indeed, the entire rural construction program, is, essentially a modern adaptation to Vietnam, of a strategy that evolved in past wars of counterinsurgency. The British, for example, used a similar strategy against the Communist terrorists of Malaya.
In addition to eroding Viet Cong military strength and providing a protective blanket for civic action, counterinsurgency military forces must also do what they can to prevent, or at least restrict, infiltration from the north. Accomplishment of this mission requires a combination of the two basic types of military operations previously described. Friendly forces conduct search-and-destroy operations not only to detect and destroy infiltrators but the infiltration apparatus which the Viet Cong, assisted by their countrymen north of the 17th parallel, have erected along the RVN’s land and sea frontiers. By land, this apparatus includes way stations, guides and storage areas for food, and military supplies along the Ho Chi Minh trail system. By sea, it comprises junks and secret landing areas where men and material can be offloaded under local Viet Cong protection.
Here again, the local people who must not only condone but support the infiltration apparatus are a key element in its detection and destruction. Hence, the need for clear- and-hold operations with the ultimate purpose of denying the Viet Cong the local guides, porters, shelter, and food which they obtain through persuasion and terror from a tractable local population.
The initial experiences of our Marine and Army combat units in Vietnam suggest that our ground units, supported by our air and naval forces, can be quite effective in search- and-destroy operations. As mentioned earlier, success in these operations depends heavily on accurate and timely intelligence. The Marines credit intelligence, obtained in part from Vietnamese sources, for their success against the 1st Viet Cong Regiment in the Van Tuong peninsula. One wonders how much intelligence a U. S. unit in Vietnam could obtain, over the long pull, without relying on friendly Vietnamese. True, we have certain intelligence collection means under our control. But, in a war of insurgency, the insurgent’s military units are concealed by the population. Many Viet Cong part-time guerrillas live imbedded in the population, like ticks under an animal’s hide. Thus, the people are often the only means by which the enemy can be exposed. In most cases, Vietnamese military, police, and other governmental agencies will be in closer contact with their people than U. S. agencies.
This situation generates a clear requirement for U. S. combat units to gain and maintain continuous access to intelligence sources of the Vietnamese—civil as well as military. (In a war of insurgency, the distinction between military and non-military intelligence, often becomes blurred.) Here is where American intelligence and police advisors, who operate not only with the military units of the RVN, but with civic officials at the province and district levels, can be most helpful. They can provide invaluable intelligence liaison between U. S. combat units planning operations and Vietnamese intelligence and police agencies. When executing operations, U. S. combat units may, with profit, take with them Vietnamese familiar with the area—especially military intelligence operators and police officers. Not only can these Vietnamese specialists furnish valuable information on the area of operations and its population, but they can assist in the tactical exploitation of intelligence gained from captured documents and the interrogation of prisoners, defectors, or local people friendly to the government. This idea, of course, is far from novel. Our army habitually used Indian scouts throughout our Indian wars.
On most occasions, our Army and Marine combat units will participate with RVN units in search-and-destroy operations. When they do, they can expect to encounter all the familiar problems which historically have plagued allies waging war together. These stem from differences in language and culture, as well as military doctrine, organization, and armament. The long association between American and Vietnamese military men can minimize many of these difficulties. RVN forces not only employ American equipment and adaptations of our military organization, but follow, to a large extent, our military doctrine and procedures, learned in our schools or from our advisors. In joint U.S./RVN operations, American advisors with RVN units involved can do much to improve teamwork. Because the advisors are known by their Vietnamese counterparts, they can not only improve communication between U. S. and Vietnamese units but also promote mutual trust and confidence.
At the same time, it behooves both Vietnamese and Americans to recognize certain additional problems in conducting joint operations which arise from the very nature of counterinsurgency warfare. The first of these stem from the Viet Cong enemy. Like any sensible guerrilla, the Viet Cong usually avoids inviting attack by an enemy superior in numbers and armament. Toward this end, he habitually disperses his forces, sometimes in three-man groups, to avoid presenting a remunerative target.
When he encounters superior forces, he fights delaying actions to permit his main body to escape. He masses rarely (usually to attack) and disperses quickly thereafter. His conduct explains why search-and-destroy operations in Vietnam often produce negligible results in terms of enemy casualties. However, surprise attacks on an enemy who is massed and unprepared (like the marine assault against the 1st Viet Cong Regiment in the Van Tuong peninsula) can be extraordinarily profitable. It follows, obviously, that there is a great premium on the counterinsurgent’s ability to react quickly when he obtains that rare ingredient for success—good intelligence on sizable Viet Cong units.
The need for speed in planning and executing attacks against promising Viet Cong targets is complicated by an equally imperative requirement for careful co-ordination among Participating forces. The routine operation m Vietnam—be it a search-and-destroy operation, the relief of a friendly unit under Viet Cong attack, or an ambush—is far from simple. It can involve the employment of supporting field artillery and naval gun fire, troop-carrying helicopters, armed helicopters, fighter aviation, landing craft, tanks, or M-113 personnel carriers—all operating on tight time schedules.
Alternate plans are usually necessary to cope with an enemy who may, when cornered, turn in any direction, or literally, go underground. Weather, especially in the mountainous jungles of the Central Highlands, is erratic and unpredictable. As any fighting man knows, factors such as these demand detailed planning, co-ordination, and preparation if only to avoid the losses which friendly units can suffer from their own mistakes.
Yet, this planning and preparation must often be accomplished in a fish bowl. In Vietnam, Viet Cong and loyal Vietnamese often live cheek by jowl. Military posts and bases are normally in populated areas. Through years of practice, the enemy has developed a warning system that stretches from RVN and U. S. barracks to distant Viet Cong targets. What American advisor has not watched with chagrin smoke signals rising from the countryside to warn the enemy of approaching U. S. helicopters or listened to interrogations of Viet Cong prisoners who had known hours, or even days, before of impending attack?
The need in offensive operations for hasty yet detailed planning, co-ordination, and preparation conducted in great secrecy is difficult enough to meet by either American or Vietnamese units working alone. When they operate together, problems intensify. Under these circumstances, frictions, misunderstandings, distrust and suspicion can arise. There can be understandable temptations for both Americans and Vietnamese to cut corners in preparing for operations, to withhold information, or to take unilateral action for which preparation is less complicated. These tendencies could produce unfortunate results. For American and RVN units in Vietnam need each other and should complement each other. Frank recognition, by both Americans and Vietnamese, of the problems which can arise in joint counterinsurgency operations is a first step in meeting and solving them.
United States and RVN combat units differ in their capabilities to conduct counterinsurgency. This becomes apparent when one considers the role of military force in the rural construction program. As indicated earlier, the clear-and-hold operation is the mainstay operation in this effort. Troops occupying an area to be denied the Viet Cong or reclaimed from their control, must be prepared to remain, often for months. The ultimate measure of their success is not only their ability to expel the Viet Cong but to establish ties with the people. While preventing the Viet Cong from re-entering the area, they also assist the people in harvesting their crops, building houses and roads, and drilling wells. The more ARVN soldiers identify with the local peasants, the greater the success of the operation.
Clearly, these soldiers, and especially the RVN regional forces (somewhat comparable to our National Guard) and the RVN popular forces (a local militia) are more qualified for this task than U. S. combat units. Differences in language and culture, security considerations, requirements for minimum living standards for U. S. troops and their relatively short tours in Vietnam—all these factors militate against the use of U. S. combat units for this type of duty.
There is another more fundamental reason why it would not be desirable to employ U. S. combat units to assist in the construction program in the Vietnamese countryside. As has been emphasized time and again, the war in Vietnam, like any counterinsurgency, is basically political in character. No one recognizes this better than the Viet Cong who have adopted very many of the propaganda techniques and themes which the Viet Minh found so successful against the French. One extremely potent rallying point used by the Viet Minh was the emotionally charged issue of colonialism. This issue provided a common denominator understandable even to Vietnamese groups holding diametrically opposed views on any other subject. Throughout the Indochinese war, the Viet Minh repeated endlessly and countrywide, a simple message of monotonous sameness: “The Frenchman is the despoiler and exploiter of the Vietnamese people. Whoever fights for him fights against his own kind.”
This was such effective propaganda that the Viet Cong have adapted it unabashedly in the current war, substituting “American” for “Frenchman.” When the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (the political arm of the Viet Cong) was founded on 20 December 1960, it announced a “ten-point program.” Eight of the ten points mentioned Americans specifically. Some samples: “Overthrow the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists and their servants...” “Confiscate the land owned by American imperialists and their servants, and distribute it to poor peasants...” “Combat all forms of culture and education enslaved to Yankee fashion...”
It matters little that these phrases arouse only amazed incredulity among Americans who know why they are in Vietnam. The important thing is that Viet Cong propagandists, by radio, leaflet and person-to- person contact repeat them daily. How effective is this propaganda?
I recall, in early 1963, an operation during which troops of the I Vietnamese Corps (which I then served as senior advisor) penetrated the rice-rich valley of the Tun River in Quang Tin province. This area had been under Viet Cong domination for years. I was anxious to employ civic action during the short period our troops would remain in this enemy-controlled area. Accordingly, I suggested to my counterpart that we bring medical teams into the area to hold “jungle sick calls.” Receiving his concurrence, I had American medical personnel flown immediately into the area; unfortunately no Vietnamese medical units were available. They had barely set up for business when scores of women and children emerged from the jungles skirting deserted villages. I was delighted with the response.
However, several days later the Corps Chief of Staff informed me that the Corps Commander had been displeased by my action. Why? Because only American medical teams had been used. Then the chief of staff read me excerpts from a Viet Cong “newspaper” taken from a prisoner. The entire issue was devoted to the “American imperialists” and the stupidity of Vietnamese who were fighting for them. Obviously, my counterpart thought that this Viet Cong propaganda, patently false though it was, could be effective, especially in an area whose people were unfamiliar with Americans. He was therefore anxious to avoid action, no matter how innocent, to lend credence to the enemy’s propaganda line.
This anecdote points up a basic truism applicable to the employment of U. S. combat forces in Vietnam today. Not only must the Vietnamese themselves bear the main burden in the current war, but they must also appear to be doing so if they are to give the lie to Viet Cong propaganda. From a military viewpoint, this means that they must be "dual purpose" forces employed not only in operations to destroy the Viet Cong but in the rural construction effort to assist, as well as protect, the people rebuilding their villages. By contrast, the U. S. provides primarily "single purpose combat forces whose main mission is to assist the RVN in achieving that military stability which will permit the people to build a new and secure life. These differing roles of U. S. and RVN combat forces were placed in focus recently by a U. S. Marine officer in Vietnam when he said: "We can't be an army of occupation here. Whatever we do has got to be in co-operation with the local Vietnamese administration. Our main problem is an enemy all mixed in with the population. . . . We can supply firepower and temporary security, but only the Vietnamese can move in and uproot the Communists."
Thus, U. S. combat units appear suited to Perform one of the basic military tasks in Vietnam—eroding Viet Cong military power—but not the other, providing a protective blanket for the rural construction effort amidst the Vietnamese people. Are they fitted for the third military task, restricting, if not eliminating, Communist infiltration into the Republic of Vietnam?
In answering this question, it is not my purpose to suggest a specific strategy to defeat infiltration. The extremely difficult problem of sealing off the 1,500 miles of coastline and 800 miles of land border that runs along the 17th parallel and then south between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia has been likened to building a fence from New York to San Francisco. Rather, let us examine the suitability of U. S. combat units to perform the military tasks which would probably be a part of such a strategy.
As indicated earlier, there would be two such tasks. The first is detection and destruction of the enemy’s infiltration system. The second is action to prevent the enemy from rebuilding the system. In the spring of 1963, I observed the anti-infiltration operations of eight battalions of the 1st Vietnamese Division which patrolled the Laos-Vietnam border aggressively for three months. After this experience, I am convinced that the second task is more important that the first.
Destruction of the infiltration system involves sea, air, and land action. Anyone who has flown along the Vietnamese coastline on a clear day can appreciate immediately the difficulty of preventing Viet Cong infiltration by sea. Thousands of fishing junks ply their trade in coastal waters daily and the problem, of course, is to identify possible enemy intruders among the fishermen. This, clearly, is a task for the VNAV “junk fleets,” composed of armed sail and motorized junks, and VNAV patrol craft. The U. S. Navy, however, can assist in patrolling further off-shore to intercept large enemy vessels which might attempt to break the VNAV blockade. Our U. S. Coast Guard (which gained considerable operational experience in intercepting “infiltrators” during the days of Prohibition) can also assist, not only by patrolling off-shore but by passing on its expertise to the Vietnamese Forces.
U. S. air, both land-based and sea-based, can assist in stifling enemy infiltration by spotting from the air, and attacking identified enemy infiltrators. By land, this identification and interception will stem primarily from search and destroy operations along the border. U. S. ground units would be as suited for these operations as they are for similar operations elsewhere in Vietnam. Preventing the enemy from rebuilding the system would require a rural construction program among the people along the border who help support the system by providing porters, guides, and scouts, as well as food and shelter. In the main, these people are the Montagnards, the original inhabitants of Vietnam who, centuries ago, were driven into the jungle- covered mountains by the ancestors of today’s Vietnamese. There are an estimated 700,000 of these people grouped in tribes of varying cultural levels.
An attitude of mutual suspicion often exists between the Montagnards and the Vietnamese. The Montagnards protest against what they consider a form of “colonialism” which they feel the Vietnamese have imposed on them. The French cultivated the Montagnards’ loyalties and, as a result, the Montagnards were traditionally friendly toward the French. To some degree, this friendship has extended to other Westerners. The Montagnards frequently develop strong personal loyalties which they have often displayed toward American advisors. This sometimes places Americans in an anomalous position between Montagnards and Vietnamese. In 1964, for example, American advisors in the II Corps area of Vietnam played a crucial role in forestalling a serious Montagnard uprising by aiding in keeping channels of communication open between Vietnamese and Montagnards.
In this situation, U. S. combat units operating among the people in clear-and-hold operations might, ironically, be better received by the Montagnards than Vietnamese units. True, there might be administrative and security drawbacks against casting our combat units in such a role. We would also have to have the consent of our Vietnamese friends. Ideally, of course, Montagnard military units are best suited to operating in villages of their own tribes. We are currently helping to train and employ such forces. However, the need for U. S. combat units to support these indigenous forces in a Montagnard rural construction program may well arise, especially along isolated borders where the people are subject to the threats, as well as the blandishments, of infiltrators from the North. It is therefore conceivable that U. S. combat units, with or without Vietnamese units, might be employed to meet that need.
The influx of U. S. combat units into Vietnam recently prompted one American newsman there to report that the U. S. advisor—who played such a key role earlier- had become much less important in the “new war.” The record of advisors in the Korean War would seem to lend historical support to such a thesis. Before the Korean war, our advisors were assigned, as in Vietnam, through battalion level (although their strength was never adequate to cover all battalions). They performed notable service in assisting the Republic of Korea’s Armed Forces to organize and train. Once the war began, however, their function dwindled speedily in importance as U. N. forces, under a U. S. commander and comprising heavy commitments of U. S. ground, air, and sea Power, fought a conventional war.
But Vietnam is not Korea. As our top officials have emphasized time and again, the RVN military must carry the main thrust of the effort in this war. If the U. S. advisor has rendered invaluable service in the past—and all agree that he has—his importance is not diminished one whit because U. S. combat units have arrived in strength. To the contrary, he is now more important than ever. This is because he must now perform, in addition to his advisory duties, the highly important liaison functions between U. S. and RVN combat units discussed earlier. Beyond this, the advisor, especially those who work with RVN governmental officials at province and sector levels, provide U. S. military forces with an indispensable link with the people who remain the crucial element in the war. Security and administrative requirements in Vietnam tend inexorably to restrict U. S. combat units to bases and enclaves, isolating them from the Vietnamese people. By contrast, the U. S. advisor will continue to gain and maintain contact with his Vietnamese counterpart and with the Vietnamese people because this practice is a fundamental part of his job. In so doing, he provides a reasonable guarantee that Americans in Vietnam will keep a hand on the pulse of the patient all are trying to assist.
As of January 1966, U. S. military strength in Vietnam was in the neighborhood of 190,000 men and President Johnson indicated that greater U. S. military commitments would probably be made. These forces can be used effectively to deliver military blows against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam and (in the case of our air and sea forces) north of the 17th parallel. We must resist the temptation to use our troops in a clear-and-hold role. They are not fitted to perform such a function and their prolonged presence in Vietnamese villages could be counter-productive politically. The Vietnamese generally can be employed more profitably in the rural construction effort.
As the U. S. applies greater military pressure, it is possible that the enemy effort will correspondingly diminish. Such a strategy is consistent with past Viet Cong local practice and that of their revolutionary forebears, the Viet Minh. Conversely, a relaxation of pressure on our part can encourage expansion of the enemy’s military effort. The result, especially if the war continues indefinitely—as Ho Chi Minh says it can—would resemble the alternating contraction and expansion action of an accordion.
We must be prepared psychologically, as well as physically, for such a war. Today, we say we are prepared for a long war in Vietnam—although only a little more than a year ago, we were predicting that the war would end in three years. But are we prepared for a war that may see not only a build-up of U. S. military strength in Vietnam, but a reduction when the threat diminishes to be followed by the need for another build-up as the enemy threat revives?
The war in Vietnam has been marked—as are most wars of insurgency—by a distinct asymmetry between contestants, militarily, politically and economically. But there may well exist a psychological asymmetry between Americans and both Vietnamese sides in the current war. Virtually all the Vietnamese I encountered during my tour in Vietnam felt that war there would be interminable. Certainly, the Viet Cong talk and act as though it will be. They are thinking like Asiatics as they engage in an Asiatic war. Perhaps, as we assume an increasingly active role in that war, it behooves us to adjust our thinking accordingly.
A graduate of the U. S. Military Academy with the Class of 1940, Colonel Denno served in the European Theater during World War II. He was a Military Assistant to the Secretary of the Army (1951-1952) and, upon graduation from the Command and General Staff College in 1953, served in the G-2 Section, Headquarters, Army Far East (1953-1956). Subsequent assignments include duties as Chief of both the Technical Liaison Office (1957-1958) and of the Plans Division (19581959) of the Office of the Chief, Research and Development. He was assigned to the Office of the Army Chief of Staff (1959—1961) and served as senior Advisor to the 1st Vietnamese Corps (1962-1963). He was a member of the Faculty of the National War College until his retirement in December 1965.