I didn’t read the article closely but I believe it is touched on fact that there were significant differences between the Malaysian communists - that were essentially of Chinese ethnic extract and a separate and distinct culture from the Malaysian people, making them easy to isolate the population from IIRC. In Vietnam, most of the NLF/VC were southerners and the Vietnamese were deeply tied to their ancestral lands and resented being hauled off into guarded camps far away from their dead ancestors. The camps also made easy targets for underfunded, poorly armed garrisons that were undermanned and easily overwhelmed by VC attacks. It was so bad by the end that many of the South Vietnamese militia were either terrorized strawmen that would melt under any assault, or were bought off into handing over excess ammunition and weapons to the VC. In some cases the SVN militia were basically thinly veiled-Viet Cong/National Liberation Front members being armed (but not paid much, if at all) by the Saigon graft gov’t. It should also be noted that well into the 1960’s, many on the South saw the Viet Minh as the liberators of the French colonial yoke and even ARVN troops referred to the VC as “Viet Minh”…
Correct.
However, there was a chance for the same principles to apply in Vietnam, if they had been applied with the same energy and rigour as they were in Malaya. But they weren’t, not least because the US didn’t support the program properly. Some years ago I read an excellent book by an American soldier (?Lt?) who with a few other American troops was plonked into a village to try to win over the local area. They weren’t supported by the Army and duly failed. Can’t recall the author or the title, and I think I lent it to a mate who still has it.
IIRC, there was a marked difference between USMC and US Army approaches and results in Vietnam, with the Marines focusing with some success (outside main battles) on their version of the Malayan approach while the Army went for a more armed conflict approach at all levels, which further alienated the locals
A favourite tv show starting now. More later.
Searched forum as I thought I’d mentioned it before (maybe a couple of years ago rather seven years ago as it turns out, but that’s how old age goes), and here is the book I couldn’t recall above.
If you haven’t already read it, you might find David Donovan’s (it’s not his real name) Once a Warrior King interesting. Summary and reviews here.
http://www.amazon.com/Once-Warrior-King-David-Donovan/dp/0345333160
I read it a few months ago. He makes the point strongly that he feels the US could have done a lot better if it had provided more support to the small teams like his living in the villages as this would have increased effective grass roots opposition to the VC.
His account shows that teams like his were given grossly inadequate support, at all levels.
It’s illustrated by a petty event when his team was told they could have a hot meal choppered in for Thanksgiving (or maybe Christmas - I can’t remember) as it’s apparently traditional in the US Army for the men to get a hot roast dinner on that day. He accepted the offer and was then told that he and his men had to pay for the meal. He told HQ to shove their dinner.
http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-10060.html
All true.
Some of the important differences between Malaya and Vietnam were:
- Scale of conflict. Malaya was a small scale guerrilla war with no regular, let alone enemy forces able to engage British Commonwealth forces in even battalion or upwards scale battles.
- In Malaya there was a single British Commonwealth military / political command without the corruption and duplicity of the SVN forces and government.
- In Malaya the British Commonwealth forces had no territorial restrictions preventing them from going into the enemy’s territory and fighting him there and depriving him of food and logisitical support streaming southwards because SVN and its allies wouldn’t cross the DMZ to take the steps necessary to win the war. Also, in Malaya the British Commonwealth forces didn’t have much to deal with in the way of troops or supplies coming south from Thailand.
- In Malaya, the British Commonwealth forces could bring much greater forces to suppress the enemy than the enemy had any hope of bringing against the Brits, so the Brits could deny the enemy ground, food, etc. This was much the same as the tactics applied in Vietnam, but against a much more fluid enemy with much greater local support (whether voluntary or by extortion) which was continually supplied from NVN.
Be all that as it may, the failure of village protection / segregation in Vietnam was essentially a failure of will, commitment and resources by SVN and the US which allowed the VC to terrorise some villagers and thereby to encourage others at least to do nothing to obstruct the VC / NVA and at worst to aid them. However, that is all against a background of corrupt and duplicitous SVN government and armed force people, mostly at senior levels, who undermined their own country to the extent that it was impossible for anything like the unified British Commonwealth effort in Malaya to succeed in Vietnam.
The problem wasn’t with the Malayan strategy but in trying to implement it in circumstances where it had little chance of success because of the local background and the lack of necessary commitment by relevant authorities.
Then there is the simple fact, generally ignored by the US and its allies including my country and most other countries (notably post WWII France, USSR / Russia, UK), that nobody likes outsiders sending soldiers into their country or otherwise jerking their country around to suit the invader and riding roughshod over the locals.
If Indonesia invaded Australia, does anyone think it’s softest and cuddliest soldiers could make me well-disposed towards them while they’re imposing their military rule and culture on me?
Yet major nations all seem to think they can win the hearts and minds of people in the lands they invade for their own purposes, which almost never align with the purposes or benefits of the locals.
Have you ever read The Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan? Long but excellent read about a very proficient and competent, but deeply flawed, US Army turned civilian pacification officer named John Paul Vann. He basically became a civilian “general” commanding US and ARVN troops in the field towards the very end…
I came away from it with the thoughts that the “Strategic Hamlet Program” was deeply mislaid culturally, and the US strategy of Attrition and Search and Destroy were deeply asinine as well…
IIRC, there was a marked difference between USMC and US Army approaches and results in Vietnam, with the Marines focusing with some success (outside main battles) on their version of the Malayan approach while the Army went for a more armed conflict approach at all levels, which further alienated the locals
Sheehan goes into this in some detail. I believe the Marine General was Krulak (IIRC). Initially he hates Vann, but essentially believed the same ideal of pacification through “Clear and Hold” while isolating large units of NVA rather than directly engaging them, because it was usually on the NVA terms when the US infantry went in. Krulak came to despise Westmorland and his crony attrition strategists…
No, but as you recommend it I’ll order it online soon.
For an outside view of pacification, anti-guerrilla warfare etc by a long serving Australian adviser in Vietnam, you might be interested in Ted Serong’s experience.
http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/1996_Symposium/96papers/tenyears.php