Vietnam War 3: The Lessons of the Vietnam War for the Vietnamese Communists

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Vietnam War 3 The Lessons of the Vietnam War for
the Vietnamese Communists
Global

• 2005 by Dr. Philip Ernest Schoenberg

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Thanks

• It was my privilege and honor to be part of a
  remarkable group of scholars that studied the
  Vietnam War assembled under the direction and
  guidance of Professor Emeritus of History
  Charles Neu, formerly of Brown University, at the
  University of Miami during the summer of 2005.
• I like to thank my colleagues who provided
  insight through our discussion of the vast
  literature on the subject and their varied points
  of view
• Eugenie Blang, professor of political science at
  Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia.
  
• Myra Mendible, professor of American Studies at
  Florida Gulf Coast University in Forty Myers,
  Florida.
  
• Russell Brooker, professor of political science,
  marketing, and statistics from Alverno College in
  Milkwaukee, Wisconsin.
  
• David Esposito, profess or of history at Penn
  State University in University Park,
  Pennsylvania.
  
• Nancy Esposito, professor of English and creative
  writing at Bentley College in Waltham, MA.
  
• Tom Grassey, professor of philosophy and ethics
  at the U. S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. 
  
• Kim Heikkila, professor of history at Anokoa
  Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids, MN.
  
• Theodore Hitchcock, professor of history at the
  New Mexico Military Institute at Roswell, NM..
  
• David McCarthy, professor of art at Rhodes
  College in Memphis, Tennessee.  
  
• Robert Topmiller, professor of history at Eastern
  Kentucky University at Richmond, KY.  

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Introduction

• The Communists of Vietnam won. Why?
• What lessons did they learn?
• And we can apply also?

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1. Have Objectives.

• According to Phillip B. Davidson in Vietnam at
  War, North Vietnam had a grand national strategy
  and we did not.
  
• They defined their national interest and we did
  not.
  
• They had a goal--the unification of Vietnam under
  Communism
  
• and the means to achieve it -- through guerilla
  and conventional warfare.

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Not Just North Vietnam

• The Communist leadership came from all parts of
  Vietnam.
  
• Even today, the President, the Prime Minister,
  and the Party Secretary come respectively from
  the northern, central, and southern sections of
  the country.

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2. Have Inspirational Leaders.

• Ho Chi Minh, the president of the
  Democratic Republic of Vietnam
  (DRV or North Vietnam, looked like a
  Confucian scholar and lived in a grass hut
  outside the presidential palace in Hanoi.
• The Communists propagandized him as Uncle Ho
  married to the Vietnamese Revolution.
  
• Ky Nguyen Cao, the premier (1965-1967)
  and the vice president (1967-1971) of
  South Vietnam, dressed in gaudy uniforms and flew
  by helicopter to visit his mistresses.
• The Communists also assassinated their opponents
  which might have removed a potentially
  inspirational non-Communist leader.

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3. Take achievable steps.

• You have to break these down into attainable
  steps.
  
• According to Davidson, the VLA (Vietnamese
  Liberation Army) planned to go from guerilla
  warfare to small unit attacks to large unit
  attacks.
• This they pursued in their warfare against the
  French, the South Vietnamese, and the Americans.

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4. Concentrate on what has to be done.

• After the French left Vietnam in 1954, the
  Communists concentrated on reconstructing their
  part of Vietnam in the Communist image.
  
• It was an expensive endeavor that cost many
  lives.
  
• Ho Chi Minh was the bloody George Washington of
  his country.

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5. Pick your targets.

• The Viet Cong concentrated on building up a
  following in the countryside where most of the
  people lived.
  
• In the Tet offensive, the VLA struck at the ARVN
  (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), not the
  American troops, as the easier targets.

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6. Trust no one.

• Not even your allies.
• The Communist Chinese and the Soviet Russians
  betrayed the Communist Vietnamese at the 1954
  Geneva Conference and at other times in pursuit
  of their national self-interests.
• In 1979, the Peoples Republic of China attempted
  to punish Vietnam for invading Cambodia by a
  launching a punitive military expedition but
  suffered deadly losses..

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7. Be self-sufficient.

• The VLA did not need as much technology as the
  French, the South Vietnamese, or the Americans to
  battle or to survive.
  
• They used their resources more efficiently than
  the South Vietnamese.
  
• Nevertheless, outside or international aid from
  the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of
  China was invaluable.
  

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8. Have a system to train people.

• The VLA developed a system where people were
  trained to become guerilla fighters, to large to
  regional units, and then promoted to regular
  front-line units.
• Eventually, these units were regularized with
  up-to-date uniform equipment.
  
• The ARVN simply didnt have a real system to
  train its troops or to the flexibility to move
  them.

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9. Be ready to take risks.

• Take a chance.
• Van Giap often took foolish chances but more
  often than not he emerged a winner.
  
• Ironically, he conducted both the Tet and Easter
  offensives against his own advice.

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10. Be a fish among the people.

• The Viet Cong, the southern guerillas, were
  always a potential to help the VLA.
  
• True, the North Vietnamese counted on a general
  uprising in the 1968 Tet Offensive and in the
  1972 Easter uprising which failed to materialize
  but then in the long run their opponents did
  nothing to help themselves.
• The ROV did much to antagonize its population.

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11. Self-Criticism

• According to Eric M. Bergerud, The Dynamics of
  Defeat The Vietnam War in Hau Nghia Province,
  the Communists were always engaging in procedures
  on how they could do things better.

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12. Take Responsibility

• When a villager got hurt or killed in the
  crossfire or a landmine, someone from the NLF
  would try to visit him to apologize and explain
  that this would a sacrifice made necessary for
  the revolution.
• -- Eric M. Bergerud
• The Dynamics of Defeat
• The Vietnam War in Hau
• Nghia Province

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13. Forgive the common people but set a higher
standard for yourself.

• Deserters and defectors from the ranks were
  common place from both sides but the Communists
  would not forgive the leading comrades who had
  left them.

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14. Motivate! Motivate!

• The VLA was always motivating its troops.
• Their counterparts suffered from lack of
  solidarity and corruption.
  
• The VLA was more ready to die for their cause.
• Ideology sometimes got in the way that the VLA
  would be optimistic that the people of the ROV
  was ready to rise up to greet them.
  
• President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam lived
  in an unreal world that people really supported
  him.
  
• ROV failed to capitalize on peoples support in
  1968 or 1972 to build a true nation.

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Who had the better motivation

• Have you ever heard the story of the chicken and
  the pig? Next time you sit down to a breakfast of
  eggs and bacon think of this. . . .
  
• Which one was committed to your breakfast? The
  chicken or the pig? The chicken donated a couple
  eggs for you to enjoy. But the pig gave up its
  life so you could enjoy the bacon with your eggs.
  He was committed to that breakfast and the
  chicken was just involved.
• The United States was the chicken, North Vietnam
  was the pig, and South Vietnam was the waffles.
  
• The American military rotated its service men out
  in one year and its officers even more often.
  The good intention was to give its officers
  experience in this little war in preparation
  for the big one in reality, the men in the field
  were bereft of experienced leadership and new
  service men coming in had to learn all over
  again.
• The Vietnamese Liberation Army and the Vietcong
  guerillas were there for
  the duration.
  
• The motivation of the South Vietnamese varied
  from the best to the worst.

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15. Never underestimate the power of nationalism!

• America did. The Communists did not. Raising the
  flag on Fall of Saigon Iwo Jima by
  the USA to the VLA

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16. Be willing to bear the cost

• There is no doubt that the VLA and the Vietcong
  were took tremendous casualties and endured
  tremendous suffering.
  
• The human toll was horrendous. An estimated 3
  million North and South Vietnamese soldiers and
  civilians died.
  
• In the end, it was the Americans who blinked.
• Over 58,000 Americans died.
• In 1945, as war with the French loomed, Ho Chi
  Minh cautioned them, "You can kill 10 of my men
  for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those
  odds, you will lose and I will win."

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17. Be flexible and determined.

• Go hand in hand.
• You have to know when to
  persist but at the same time
  when to make a change.
  
• NVA and Vietcong were willing to change their
  tactics.
  
• Supplies were moved down the Ho Chi Minh trail by
  bicycle later by truck.

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18. Dissimulation

• The Communists practiced the Leninist tactic of
  dissimulation.
  
• They organized the Vietminh front to fight for
  Vietnamese independence in 1945 and the National
  Liberation Front in 1960 to get non-Communists to
  create a united front.

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19. Get the word out.

• The Communists were always propagandizing that
  they were patriots
  resisting imperialism
  
• and the Republic of Vietnam was the tool of the
  imperialists doomed to failure so there was no
  use to resisting them.
  
• Of course, they were peace-lovers.
• And the USA was insincere in its intentions.

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20. Consolidate your power.

• The Communists recruited non-Communists into
  their coalition government whom they eventually
  eliminated.
  
• Non-Communist officials in South Vietnam were
  targeted for assassination.
  
• Dissenters in their own ranks in North Vietnam
  were eventually eliminated.

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21. Take advantage of your opportunities.

• The Tet offensive was an utter military disaster
  for the Vietnamese Liberation Army (VLA) but they
  were ready to unanticipated harvest of public
  opinion in America.
• Furthermore, the American enemy had tipped its
  hand by indicating its willingness to leave as
  indicated by the words of Lyndon Johnson and
  Richard Nixon.

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22.Time

• Above all, Communists had patience and time on
  their side.

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23. Be lucky!

• Through the accident of history, the Americans
  were not willing to make the same commitment that
  they would make to make to ROK (Republic of
  Korea) and ROC (Republic of China) to support or
  to stay.
• The USA rushed 7th Fleet to protect ROC on Taiwan
  following the Communist invasion of South Korea
  instead of simply letting the Chinese Communists
  take it over.
• South Koreas economic takeoff was encouraged by
  American aid bribing South Korea to send its
  troops to South Vietnam.
  
• The tactical disaster of Tet turned out to be a
  strategic victory by causing Americans to be
  impatient for leave
  at any cost
• And eliminating the southern
  Vietnamese from future power
  in a unified
  Vietnam.

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Conversation in Hanoi, April 1975

• You know you never defeated us on the
  battlefield, said the American colonel.
  
• The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this
  remark. That may be so, he replied, but it
  is also irrelevant.

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