Laos: The Forgotten War Widens

Abstract

In 1969, the most significant change in Laos was the widening of the forgotten war, notre guerre oubliee, as Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma calls it. Both the Royal Lao Government (RIG) and the Pathet Lao (PL) expanded their military operations, each attempting to influence the internal power balance as well as the external forces, so important to the future of the country. The prevailing ground rules, established when government and Communist forces resumed fighting in 1963, were that the Communist forcesNorth Vietnamese and Pathet Lao-take the initiative during the dry season (generally October to May), followed by ripostes during the wet season by RLG forces, with U.S. air support. The war in Laos was not on the scale of the larger, grinding war in South Vietnam, but rather consisted largely of small unit attacks on isolated positions, struggles for certain tactical mountain-top and road control positions in sparsely populated highland areas, ambushes, and hit and run encounters in some valley sites. The RLG retained control over the Mekong Valley regions, where the bulk of the lowland Lao live, and they held certain adjacent mountain areas and a few scattered sites within enemy territory which they could reach only by aircraft. The Communist forces controlled the northern and eastern segments of the country, including all territory which borders on Communist China and North Vietnam, covering regions inhabited largely by highland minorities. The widened war in 1969 made it clear that these ground rules of engagement had been significantly altered.