The Realities of Southeast Asia

...My own views rest on two premises: First, that the present era requires the dominant power to fight small wars to gain time, while denying certain territorial and political advantages to the enemy...

...Only on the High Plateau of South Vietnam, sparsely populated and poor in natural foodstuffs, can the creation of strategic hamlets effectively isolate the guerrillas from the tribal villages which provide both their intelligence and food...

...The task is also complicated because the present focus of interest and conflict is South Vietnam, while Laos is actually the key to the future of both South Vietnam and all Southeast Asia...

...The effort at containment in South Vietnam is, however, worthwhile because the Communists operate under a major handicap, a handicap they did not encounter in either China or North Vietnam...

...Nor, for that matter, is Laos a country in any accepted modern sense of the world...

...commitment to prevent the Communist conquest of Southeast Asia...

...J. William Fulbright (D.-Ark...

...While military action in Laos is essential to eventual success in South Vietnam, the present, acute phase of the struggle in Vietnam is a distinct problem...

...And Malaya's New Villages went far beyond the mere light fortification of Vietnam's existing hamlets...

...But the Chinese would be handicapped by the Laotian terrain, which lacks the roads and railroads necessary for the movement of their mass formations...

...If anything, the natural allegiance of the non-Lao tribes, who make up nearly half the country's population, is directed to the Rightists...

...and...

...What little we actually know about the population of Laos bolsters the emotional reaction...

...Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Sylvester, adopting the language of public relations, recently declared that the U.S...

...Returning briefly to the United States after four years abroad, a good part of which was spent in Indochina, I have been startled by the different attitudes toward a conflict to which this country is currently committing one million dollars a day and at least one life a week...

...Finally, the responsible authorities in the State Department and the Pentagon contend that we are actually winning in Vietnam...

...To one who believes that the U.S...

...successes, the war would enter a phase perhaps more abhorrent to the American temperament than the unpleasant decision to commit American lives...

...What, one is prompted to ask, would be the need for assistance if it could...

...Much of Southeast Asia has already judged the American will to counteract such maneuvers as perilously weak, since Washington first proclaimed that it would prevent a Communist conquest of Laos and then countenanced the coalition government...

...There is equally little satisfaction in the likelihood that another settlement on the same order may be patched up...

...Despite the Vietnamese Government's grudging attitude, American soldiers and civilians now participate in the struggle at all levels, including the grass roots...

...A third maxim, dealing with the resolution of the authorities, holds: Guerrillas usually win because the enemy, even though he is still more powerful militarily, throws in his hand...

...Guerrilla war cannot be fought on the same terms as conventional war...

...The single most obtrusive fact of modern Laotian politics is that each round in the struggle has ended with the Communist position further strengthened...

...The outlook, therefore, is for a protracted and apparently inconclusive war in South Vietnam...

...Attempting to hold all Laos or to convert it into an anti-Communist bastion would be about as purposeful an endeavor as trying to empty the sea with a thimble...

...to support Mao Tse-tung now argue that Ngo Dinh Diem's dark and dictatorial ways have already conferred the moral right to power upon his enemies...

...The United States must, therefore, either persevere in Indochina lest it face nuclear war later, or simply abdicate its world-wide responsibilities...

...But these units would have to be ready to strike at any new Communist build-up which threatened neighboring nations...

...and geographical isolation from the source of revolution in China...

...policy...

...First, if Ngo Dinh Diem continues to be ineffective against the guerrillas, obstructing his allies and increasingly offending the Vietnamese people, the United States may be forced to permit a change of government...

...The military and the public, having shown no enthusiasm for the limited crusade in the first place, were bewildered by a war prosecuted in a way that made conventional victory impossible...

...Since the Communists cannot take South Vietnam against determined resistance without moving heavy equipment and regular units through Laos, the military advantage of this policy would be great...

...The general public apparently desires either a relatively quick victory or withdrawal from South Vietnam...

...To those who prophesied doom at the time the coalition was formed, taking as their text Mao Tse-tung's doctrine that coalition government is merely a framework for greater conquest, there is little satisfaction in the fact that the Laotian truce has now broken down...

...Besides, neither the economy nor the transportation system of China could support a sustained effort on a large scale, as the pullback on India's frontiers has demonstrated...

...is determined to fight...

...retain the will to do battle, the Communists cannot win except by using conventional, mass formations to destroy the Vietnamese military...

...to strike a sharp, decisive blow, while avoiding entrapment in the quicksands of anti-guerrilla warfare, as in South Vietnam...

...The British commander in Malaya, Sir Gerald Templer, declared: "We must win the hearts and the minds of the people...

...Still, South Vietnam is of vital importance because President Kennedy has committed U.S...

...A major movement of men and supplies through Laos would be necessary—and such a movement could be blocked...

...Robert S. Elegant recently completed eleven years as chief of the Newsweek bureau in Southeast Asia...

...But despite all this, Laos is vital, both strategically and psychologically, to the U.S...

...In other words, these forces would be equivalent to the legions which have guarded the marches of empire since Roman times...

...It does not even have a land-tenure problem—that bane of modern Asia—because it has no land-tenure system...

...the U.S.'s purpose would not be to hold territory, but to deny its use to the enemy...

...Barring a complete change in Communist tactics, the struggle could go on for years, the American contribution all the while gradually increasing...

...For all these reasons, action in Laos would enable the U.S...

...Both measures would be fraught with peril, but either would be preferable to losing the struggle...

...The chief maxims on guerrilla war in Asia were coined by a pair of opposing field marshals...

...I find myself in substantial disagreement with all those positions...

...Eventually, it might be possible for the allies to withdraw from Laos while maintaining strong, highly mobile units in neighboring Thailand...

...Moreover, given the differences between Malaya and Vietnam, it is more unlikely that merely fortifying villages will lead to decisive success...

...It is unlikely that they could form such units within South Vietnam or that they could equip them, as they did in China, from the Government's arsenals...

...I refer to the lack of direct supply lines...

...Before either of these points were reached, however, the situation would probably produce an East-West confrontation leading to general war...

...A possible American policy is suggested by these two hard facts when they are combined with the fact that Laos is not a "people's struggle" in the normal Communist sense of the term...

...Assuming initial U.S...

...effort in South Vietnam, Laos must be "sanitized," and two other measures may also prove necessary...

...Yet until both the people and the nation's policymakers accept the necessity to persevere in wars that cannot be clearly won, the prospects for success—by which I do mean unattainable total victory—are small in Indochina...

...Malaya was characterized by a number of conditions which do not exist in Vietnam: an adequate road network...

...Regardless of the tactical disposition, the United States would be committed to years—perhaps decades—of military presence in Laos...

...Of late, fashion, as tyrannical an element in international reporting as in women's clothing, has produced a figure which encourages the American desire to pretend that Laos does not exist: The population of Laos, it is affirmed, is exactly 1,850,000...

...Second, that it is vital to American interest to prevent Communist hegemony over Southeast Asia...

...direct British command...

...Persevering, even with all its frustrations, is the only logical course...

...Second, if the Viet Minh steps up its offensive significantly, the only effective riposte may be to send counter-guerrilla forces into North Vietnam...

...engagement in Korea prevented the Communist conquest of Asia, it is disheartening to find that most Americans consider it a failure of U.S...

...In addition, the chances of escalation in remote Laos would be even less than they were in Korea...

...Despite the equipment the Viet Minh captured from the French during the Indochina War, they could not stage the decisive battle of Dienbicnphu until new roads and railways from China were completed...

...The best estimate of the country's population is somewhere between 1,250,000 and 2,250,000, at least half of whom have little or no sense of national identity, of what men mean when they say "The Kingdom of Laos...

...The concepts of punitive or political war were alien to a nation which had rendered the German and Japanese empires prostrate beneath the boots of its soldiers...

...On the other hand, the United States, seeking limited objectives, would enjoy good supply routes from Thailand and maneuverability conferred by its own technological superiority...

...The allied forces, even if they were not under direct attack, would be required to remain in blocking positions for many months...

...The Communists' chief purpose at the moment, though, is to break the U.S...

...An effort of this kind would by no means be all roses...

...As long as the South Vietnamese Government and the U.S...

...True, there might be a Chinese military response...

...In the populous, food-rich coastal and southern regions, massive military force is essential to controlling the guerrillas...

...There can be no "victory" until we destroy the enemy's forces and, hence, his ability to renew the contest...

...Farmers simply use a plot until its fertility flags, and then carve another farm out of the abundant fallow fields...

...They cannot win as long as the U.S...

...Obviously, generalizations about Indochina are easy, whereas suggesting concrete policies is exceedingly difficult...

...But the United States, in conjunction with the mountain tribes and its British, Filipino, Thai and Australian allies, could use a limited number of American troops to block the mountain passes which are now used as avenues of subversion...

...Neither group was pleased with the final armistice, since both instinctively felt that somehow it was unAmerican to settle for anything less than complete subjugation of the enemy and the occupation of his territory...

...Senators Mike Mansfield (D.-Mont...

...Only the slow growth of political stability in Southeast Asia, accompanied by evolutionary changes in Communist China, would finally permit withdrawal...

...For any good to come out of the U.S...

...The Chinese Communist Chu Teh said: "The guerrillas are fish and the people are the water in which they swim...

...Even more important, in Laos the Communists possess a direct pipeline for men and arms bound on missions of subversion in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand...

...argue that there is little point in assisting Ngo Dinh Diem's Republic of Vietnam if it cannot solve its own problems...

...The prize is not the allegiance of the Laotian people, but control of key routes through an empty land...

...Our success in Korea demonstrated the validity of the first proposition...

...On the far Left, the same men and women who in 1947-48 urged the U.S...

...The conclusion, bolstered by recalling how the Communists took over China, is that when the last round of charades is finished a Communist government will rule all Laos...

...had "turned the corner" in Vietnam, but he was only a shade more emphatic than the "operational personnel" are in private...

...will to resist, and win by default...

...efficient police and intelligence organizations...

...limited guerrilla food supplies...

...Not only would it block the channels of corruption into Cambodia and Thailand, but it would also stimulate resistance by those nonCommunist Asians who now fear that Communist hegemony is inevitable because no one is offering effective resistance to the tides rolling in from the north...

...and 2) encourage the irresponsible Chinese Communist Government to still more dangerous ambitions...

...a guerrilla force racially distinct from the majority of the population...

...Two years ago, the United States blessed the formation of a coalition government in Laos composed of Rightists, Neutralists and pro-Communists...

...To this day, because the common attitude is frozen, the public disregards the great lesson of the Korean War...

...Nonetheless, the prospects for long-term success remain dim for two reasons: the Diem Government's inefficiency, and the ability of the Communist North Vietnamese to intensify the struggle at will...

...The tribespeople are frightened by the Viet Minh (not because they are Communists, but because they are Vietnamese) and inclined toward the Americans, who briefly took the place of their former white protectors, the French...

...The United States is, therefore, almost unique among the great powers in having a psychological block against fighting wars of containment or pacification...

...And, it should be emphasized, there is no analogy here with the British and French failures to retain their possessions in Asia...

...The unspoken implication is that it is ridiculous to worry about so small a country...

...The tactical situation there appears to have improved slightly because of the increased American effort and the "strategic hamlet" program, which is fortifying villages in order to protect the civilian population...

...An efficient "food denial" operation would require concentration of the tribespeople in large New Villages, as well as intensive air reconnaissance to spot camps where the guerrillas grow their own food...

...To obtain their success, the British relocated onethird of the rural population in order to isolate the guerrillas and starve them out...

...As to the second, it appears clear that Communist conquest of Southeast Asia, the final consequence of a Communist victory in Laos and Vietnam, would 1) make untenable the economic and strategic positions of India and Japan on the flanks...

...Yet even under these advantageous circumstances, it still took over 400,000 men more than 13 years to put down about 15,000 Communist guerrillas—and success came only after the Communist high command decided to abandon its concentration upon armed revolt in favor of subverting the normal institutions of civilian life...

...prestige to its preservation...

...The strategic hamlets, based upon British experiences in Malaya, have made it slightly more difficult for the Communists to harry civilians, but they do not touch on the essential problem of destroying the guerrillas...