The Dynamics of Defeat: The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province
This book, written by Eric M. Bergerud, a professor of military and American history at Lincoln University in San Francisco, covers the path of the Vietnam War in a single province. Hau Nghia Province, just west of Saigon, played an important part of the war, with its western border along the “Parrot’s Beak” of Cambodia.
The story covers mainly from 1963, when the province was created by Diem, through 1973, when the last Americans left the province. Professor Bergerud originally undertook the research for the book to find out how the United States could have taken a different road to have come up with victory, but instead, wound up becoming convinced that the war could not have been won since the South Vietnamese were not prepared to undertake the sacrifices needed to win. Essentially, the ruling elites that were supported by the United States wanted to win with the social structure of South Vietnam intact; however, without social change that would empower the rural population (while at the same time eroding the status of the elites), it was not possible to win the hearts and minds of the rural population.
He chronicles the military successes of US forces in the province (manned by the 25th Infantry Division) and how the Tet Offensive and its aftermath severely weakened the National Liberation Front; however, despite low morale and numbers by the high tide of 1970, the “Front” continued to have its political apparatus spread out across the province and the fear imposed by its targeting of defectors and competent prevented stronger progress by those who might have decided to support the Thieu government. He shows that the Phoenix Program was a resounding failure in the province, with a Vietnamese structural deficiency due to either corruption or fear of retaliation by the Front. In the end, the combination of the government never being able establish legitimacy among the rural population combined with the psychological edge held by the Front created the conditions such that Vietnam was not winnable.
In terms of the author’s thesis, he does a good job at looking at three main groups of arguments on where the US went wrong:
1. The end of support in 1973 was the cause of failure, a la Nixon, Kissinger, Westmoreland
2. The flexible (read: piecemeal) response that was further inhibited by the inability to target the Ho Chi Minh trail and sanctuaries along with North Vietnam a la Summers
3. The focus on the “big war” instead of the “village war” a la Colby, Komer, Lewy, Krepinevich, Vann
I think his arguments for the most part do a good job in addressing the fact that there was a structural issue with the Southern ruling elites such that fixing any of the above wasn’t a sufficient condition to have allowed the US to have found victory.
I do think that there are deficiencies in his thesis such that he doesn’t address the success of Marine CAPs (he presents the argument that American soldiers simply couldn’t fight a village war and win hearts and minds, but the successes of some Marine CAPs put this thesis to question). While his single province approach allows for some great micro-level insights, his evidence of there being too large of a cultural barrier to overcome uses weak evidence that is endogenous (i.e., because a true village war wasn’t fought, the outcome of distrust was partly due to that fact). While I don’t know to whether the Marine CAP strategy was scalable enough (especially given the deterioration of the quality of soldiers post-1968) to allow for the same level of success seen in its smaller application, it is an issue avoided by Bergerud. Also, he doesn’t explore whether a hybrid strategy using combination of the above three could have found more success. Finally, because Hau Nghia province was such an active Front province, I worry about the bias created in readers by not exploring a counterexample, i.e., a province where Vietnamization found great success.
Nonetheless, I think it is a great book to read. I especially enjoyed the discussion from the perspective of Front successes in building their political apparatus as well as looking at whether the Front saw the same action in a similar or different manner as the official 25th Infantry Division reports. It gave much more balance to the account than other books that often spend more time on the American perspective. Also, there were a few interesting insights that I gleaned as I was reading through the book (I can’t promise that you’ll find them interesting, though).
For example, there was a quote from a high-level defector from the Front that addressed the question as to when the NLF should switch from political agitation to armed struggle, and he cites a saying from Mao: “A firefly can set a whole field ablaze” (page 21). I thought it to be a brilliant analogy to frame the decision. Also, as an economist, I like to look at incentive structures and found the NLF’s taxation and land policy to be brilliant. The Front “introduced a policy of progressive taxation that both lowered most peasants’ tax bills considerably and discouraged the ownership of surplus land. Land was distributed conditionally. Peasants were expected to support the Front with taxes, with member ship in mass organizations, or, if necessary, militarily. If a peasant refused to do so, his land could be lost. Obviously, all the advantages gained by Front reforms would be lost if the GVN prevailed. Thus, the land reform program [by the Front] was more than a strategy to gain popularity. Above all, it was aimed at gaining peasant commitment to the Front” (59). A second incentive structure was the use by the Front of female cadres to try and recruit members (61). I know that we’ve had discussions on the board about the importance of the fairer sex in influencing a war.
Here are two maps that will help orient folks to the location of Hau Nghia. The first map shows Operation Cedar Falls in the Iron Triangle, located immediately to the northof the province. The second map (I left a link because it skews the width of the post due to its size) shows the Cambodian incursion along with the location of Hau Nghia in relation to both Saigon and Cambodia (there was a major sanctuary inside the Parrot’s Beak). Cu Chi is one of the cities in the northern portion of the province.
http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web...20map%2031.htm
This book, written by Eric M. Bergerud, a professor of military and American history at Lincoln University in San Francisco, covers the path of the Vietnam War in a single province. Hau Nghia Province, just west of Saigon, played an important part of the war, with its western border along the “Parrot’s Beak” of Cambodia.
The story covers mainly from 1963, when the province was created by Diem, through 1973, when the last Americans left the province. Professor Bergerud originally undertook the research for the book to find out how the United States could have taken a different road to have come up with victory, but instead, wound up becoming convinced that the war could not have been won since the South Vietnamese were not prepared to undertake the sacrifices needed to win. Essentially, the ruling elites that were supported by the United States wanted to win with the social structure of South Vietnam intact; however, without social change that would empower the rural population (while at the same time eroding the status of the elites), it was not possible to win the hearts and minds of the rural population.
He chronicles the military successes of US forces in the province (manned by the 25th Infantry Division) and how the Tet Offensive and its aftermath severely weakened the National Liberation Front; however, despite low morale and numbers by the high tide of 1970, the “Front” continued to have its political apparatus spread out across the province and the fear imposed by its targeting of defectors and competent prevented stronger progress by those who might have decided to support the Thieu government. He shows that the Phoenix Program was a resounding failure in the province, with a Vietnamese structural deficiency due to either corruption or fear of retaliation by the Front. In the end, the combination of the government never being able establish legitimacy among the rural population combined with the psychological edge held by the Front created the conditions such that Vietnam was not winnable.
In terms of the author’s thesis, he does a good job at looking at three main groups of arguments on where the US went wrong:
1. The end of support in 1973 was the cause of failure, a la Nixon, Kissinger, Westmoreland
2. The flexible (read: piecemeal) response that was further inhibited by the inability to target the Ho Chi Minh trail and sanctuaries along with North Vietnam a la Summers
3. The focus on the “big war” instead of the “village war” a la Colby, Komer, Lewy, Krepinevich, Vann
I think his arguments for the most part do a good job in addressing the fact that there was a structural issue with the Southern ruling elites such that fixing any of the above wasn’t a sufficient condition to have allowed the US to have found victory.
I do think that there are deficiencies in his thesis such that he doesn’t address the success of Marine CAPs (he presents the argument that American soldiers simply couldn’t fight a village war and win hearts and minds, but the successes of some Marine CAPs put this thesis to question). While his single province approach allows for some great micro-level insights, his evidence of there being too large of a cultural barrier to overcome uses weak evidence that is endogenous (i.e., because a true village war wasn’t fought, the outcome of distrust was partly due to that fact). While I don’t know to whether the Marine CAP strategy was scalable enough (especially given the deterioration of the quality of soldiers post-1968) to allow for the same level of success seen in its smaller application, it is an issue avoided by Bergerud. Also, he doesn’t explore whether a hybrid strategy using combination of the above three could have found more success. Finally, because Hau Nghia province was such an active Front province, I worry about the bias created in readers by not exploring a counterexample, i.e., a province where Vietnamization found great success.
Nonetheless, I think it is a great book to read. I especially enjoyed the discussion from the perspective of Front successes in building their political apparatus as well as looking at whether the Front saw the same action in a similar or different manner as the official 25th Infantry Division reports. It gave much more balance to the account than other books that often spend more time on the American perspective. Also, there were a few interesting insights that I gleaned as I was reading through the book (I can’t promise that you’ll find them interesting, though).
For example, there was a quote from a high-level defector from the Front that addressed the question as to when the NLF should switch from political agitation to armed struggle, and he cites a saying from Mao: “A firefly can set a whole field ablaze” (page 21). I thought it to be a brilliant analogy to frame the decision. Also, as an economist, I like to look at incentive structures and found the NLF’s taxation and land policy to be brilliant. The Front “introduced a policy of progressive taxation that both lowered most peasants’ tax bills considerably and discouraged the ownership of surplus land. Land was distributed conditionally. Peasants were expected to support the Front with taxes, with member ship in mass organizations, or, if necessary, militarily. If a peasant refused to do so, his land could be lost. Obviously, all the advantages gained by Front reforms would be lost if the GVN prevailed. Thus, the land reform program [by the Front] was more than a strategy to gain popularity. Above all, it was aimed at gaining peasant commitment to the Front” (59). A second incentive structure was the use by the Front of female cadres to try and recruit members (61). I know that we’ve had discussions on the board about the importance of the fairer sex in influencing a war.
Here are two maps that will help orient folks to the location of Hau Nghia. The first map shows Operation Cedar Falls in the Iron Triangle, located immediately to the northof the province. The second map (I left a link because it skews the width of the post due to its size) shows the Cambodian incursion along with the location of Hau Nghia in relation to both Saigon and Cambodia (there was a major sanctuary inside the Parrot’s Beak). Cu Chi is one of the cities in the northern portion of the province.
http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web...20map%2031.htm
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