South Vietnam: the Theory

...Mao's chief tenet is an indefinitely continuing fluid war...

...and literacy classes are given which blend almost imperceptibly into political indoctrination...

...In the West, guerrilla revolutions would probably fail...

...medical teams treat the sick...

...The Vietnamese and their American adviser, on the other hand, left the village with no more information than they had brought to it...

...Mao explicitly states that the "new-democratic state system" is followed by Communist rule...

...But Mao insists that they can win power in Africa, Asia and Latin America—• the underdeveloped world...

...The global assertion may be incorrect, but geographical, political, economic and psychological circumstances in Southeast Asia today are undeniably ideal for guerrillas...

...their mission was to harrass the occupying power and to prepare the ground for an Allied landing...

...But terror for terror's sake is no longer a primary technique, since it has a tendency to boomerang...

...When the country is once more unified, you will be free to hunt and go about as you please—and to live by the laws of your ancestors...

...Even if the political climate changes radically, the United States must be prepared to fight a protracted war...

...And it will take many grueling years of direct United States involvement before that war is won...

...Fighting Guerrilla Warfare—Two Articles South Vietnam: The Theory By Robert S. Elegant SAIGON THE BLACK FIGURES slipped through the evening mist into the village just two miles from II Corps Headquarters at Plekhu, on South Vietnam's High Plateau...

...The simile is plausible but inaccurate, for the fish does not attempt to convert the sea...

...Besides, the French were fighting amid a population which hated them, and, unfortunately, today Ngo Dinh Diem is contending against the growth of the same contemptuous hatred...

...Despite the common frontier, Laos is not as useful as China was previously...

...Literally, "guerrilla" means "a little war...

...Then the irregulars, guerrillas no longer, can seize political power by force of conventional arms...

...Shivering in their breechclouts and coarse blankets, a few mountain tribesmen came forward with smiles and offerings of rice, while others ran off to hide in thatched huts set high on stilts...

...Phase II: The hard core trains recruits...

...Though their ardor remained high, their bodies and their equipment deteriorated...

...Actually, like bacterium, the guerrilla requires a special environment...

...The Communists are, therefore, less able to cope with a strategy of aggressive defense than they were in Indochina...

...indeed, one of his chief handbooks for guerrillas is entitled On Protracted War...

...But there is no easy way...

...BEHIND THE guerrillas of Southeast Asia is a body of doctrine as extensive and sophisticated as that taught in the West's war colleges...

...The tribesmen made their political decision in isolation from the great currents stirring South Vietnam, a country they hardly know exists...

...Without outside assistance, neither the Viet Minh nor the Pathet Lao could have succeeded...

...After the "soft" phase, harsher measures enforce discipline...

...But the Communists themselves have proved that while it is simple to disrupt a nation's normal life by guerrilla action, it is difficult to seize power unless all the proper conditions exist...

...drama troupes entertain...

...Even if the present American build-up should result in aggressive tactics against the Viet Cong, the West cannot win in South Vietnam until the political situation becomes more favorable...

...The present revolt in South Vietnam is in good part succeeding because of the common frontier with Laos...

...In Malaya, for example, a hard core of guerrillas remained in the deep jungle for years...

...and 2) to organize the people into a complex of organizations—Farmers' Associations Women's Leagues, Youth Societies and the like...

...Phase IV: Larger units form and operate in coordination, carving out rear bases called "liberated areas...

...Moreover, in Indochina Ho Chi Minh was supplied by a railway and road complex from Communist China, rushed to completion in 1952, just before his final campaign...

...Armed attacks are supplemented by front organizations, an underground party structure and veiled propaganda in the "nonliberated areas.' The political struggle now enters the United Front phase...

...The climate and the terrain, too, could be decisive...

...The Chinese say, "The guerrilla moves among the people like the fish through the water...

...In sparsely populated Southeast Asia such areas are exceedingly difficult to maintain if the defending force uses offensive tactics, rather than the defensive techniques employed by the French in Indochina...

...The guerrillas in Malaya had previously been trained by the British to fight the Japanese...

...Of course, although military strategy is vital, the political atmosphere in a guerrilla struggle is equally important...

...The father of modern guerrilla warfare, Mao Tse-tung, is concerned with guerrillas as a means to the end of creating conventional armies...

...Nonetheless, swift punishment is visited upon informers and hostile officials...

...In Mao's own language "guerrilla" means "roving attack band...

...The Communists bring under their influence the intellectuals, workers, technicians and malcontents of the areas they have not yet occupied...

...A coalition government, such as they seek in Laos, is a convenient device...

...Yet the Viet Cong, at once ruthless and persuasive, got what they wanted from the mountain people...

...They succeeded in Indochina because the Chinese were able to provide direct assistance across a common frontier...

...South Vietnam is now in this phase...

...The next morning an informer sidled into Corps Headquarters...

...But the guerrilla phase is merely a preparation for outside intervention or for a political crisis...

...We stand for freedom for all men...

...Their visitors were the Viet Cong, the Communist guerrillas who rule half of South Vietnam...

...And that decision, repeated thousands of times, is why the hungry guerrilla, not the well-armed Vietnamese soldier, holds the future of the country in his hands...

...Since the sparsely populated, inadequately mapped mountains and jungles of chaotic Southeast Asia appear to be the perfect milieu for guerrillas, the West has reason for despair...

...On leaving, the Viet Cong leader spoke in the tribal language: "Oh men of the mountains, the American-Diem clique oppresses you...

...But neither the French nor the South Vietnamese ever effectively carried the war to the enemy's bases...

...Most of the revolts ordered in 1948, for example, failed because the guerrillas received insufficient outside support...

...The development of guerrilla warfare generally follows five phases : Phase I: Cadres (usually from outside) build the hard core, marking out small "safe areas...

...The strategy also includes welltested techniques for mobilizing the civilian population...

...Even Dienbienphu, however, did not defeat the French militarily: It broke the French will to resist...

...If the people are convinced we are going to lose, we will eventually lose, no matter how big our forces, nor how overwhelming our technological superiority...

...The present Communist strategy is clearly based upon the presumption that the West's will to resist can be broken in South Vietnam, though the Communists are prepared for protracted campaigns if necessary...

...Initially, the methods are deliberately "soft," designed to win loyalty: Peasants are protected against the government's tax collectors...

...A mythology has grown up around the decision to fight at Dienbienphu...

...Western strategy, though not immediate tactics, must seek to prevent the external intervention essential to the guerrillas' success...

...The guerrilla defying the might of the West has become a new force in Asia...

...Through these efforts the guerrillas seek 1) to alienate the peasants from the government, thus making them outlaws...

...An inspired government could win back the people's allegiance...

...The South Vietnamese rode in American trucks and flourished American automatic weapons...

...His doctrine prescribes that the guerrilla must exploit a stronger enemy's weakness—until power positions are reversed...

...Second, the Communists now possess neither really secure bases within South Vietnam nor the privileged sanctuary of China...

...landlords are dispossessed and their land's distributed...

...The guerrilla phase ends...

...The Chinese Communists could spend 30 years in the wilderness before seizing power, since they generally operated from secure "liberated areas'" where men lived fairly normal lives...

...Obviously well-fed, they carried machines with whip-like tails which could summon other machines that rose straight into the air like .birds...

...His triumph comes from his enemy's weaknesses and errors...

...Their tactics in the 194861 Emergency seemed based on the unconscious assumption that massive help would eventually come from the outside...

...Moreover, Mao Tse-tung, who does not know Southeast Asia, tends to draw parallels with China which, if exploited, could prove fatal...

...But most important, they were isolated from their primary target, the people, whose alliance alone could insure victory...

...The villages beheld an overwhelming contrast...

...The basic principle of war," he wrote in Strategic Problems of the Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War, "is to preserve oneself and to annihilate the enemy...

...As one Asian general put it: "Guerrilla war is fought as much in the minds of men as on the battlefields...

...The guerrillas wanted rice, venison, wild boar meat and bearers...

...But he is in the ascendant, largely because his will to endure —and to triumph—is sustained by a doctrine perfectly adapted to his circumstances...

...Except for their leader's Czech sub-machine gun, they possessed only old rifles and ancient fowling pieces patched with wire...

...The American was a tall, strong man in rich clothing...

...The French failure and the more recent failures of South Vietnam may appear to disprove the contention that terrain can be vitally important...

...Ho's ultimate thrust, significantly, was a conventional battle against the French defensive outpost at Dienbienphu...

...Mao himself consistently points out that guerrillas are highly vulnerable unless properly commanded...

...THE WEST MUST assume that Mao Tse-tung and Ho Chi Minh have read the lessons of Dienbienphu correctly...

...Phase V: Heavily supplied with outside arms, the irregulars become conventional units...

...Phase III: Small groups begin to operate as units...

...For their part, the civilians provide food, labor, intelligence—and recruits...

...There is nothing small, however, about the modern concept of guerrilla war created by Chinese Communist party Chairman Mao Tse-tung...

...Where such conditions do not exist, he can be destroyed—or at least frustrated—with little difficulty...

...First, the guerrillas' supply lines—through Laos and by sea—are both difficult and vulnerable...

...Assuming that the West will not recede from this battle, the defense of South Vietnam poses quite different problems from those the French faced...

...In South Vietnam, the "National Liberation Front" is temporarily taking the place of a coalition government...

...He flourishes amid discontent and the absence of authority...

...The present increasing demoralization of antiCommunist Vietnamese could lead to neutralism and the feeling that it is better to try a coalition government than fight...

...The West has, up to now, failed to adopt this strategy, and has allowed Laos to be used as a corridor for reinforcements and supplies...

...At this point, the guerrillas seek not only to extend the area under their control, but to loosen the government's grip over its remaining territories...

...Unfortunately, he has found the environment that suits him best in Southeast Asia...

...In Coalition Government, Mao explained: "We propose to establish a new-democratic state system, as we call it, namely, a state of the united front or democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority of the people under the leadership of the working class...

...When it did not come the terrorists failed in Malaya...

...Coming on foot stealthily in the dark, the Viet Cong were lean, wore thin faded clothes, and carried their belongings in shiny black hammocks...

...The closer the Communists move to the final phase of guerrilla warfare, when they will need massive battles, the more open to attack become their supply lines...

...Despite these techniques and the fanatical spirit which sustain him for years in the jungle, the guerrilla is not invincible...

...This has turned the psychological tide against us throughout Southeast Asia...

...He is plagued by disease, he is badly armed, he is perpetually foraging for food, and he possesses only a few spluttering radios against his opponent's vast technological arsenal...

...Later, a column of Vietnamese troops, accompanied by an American adviser, stormed into the village...