The Red Queen’s Race: Operation Washington Green and Pacification in Binh Dinh Province, 1969–70

Reviewed by: Australian Military Operations in Vietnam, and: The Western Desert Campaign 1940-41 Allan Converse Australian Military Operations in Vietnam. Includes CD-Rom. By Albert Palazzo . Canberra, Australia: Army History Unit, 2006. ISBN 1-876439-10-6. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 173. $62.85. The Western Desert Campaign 1940-41. Includes CD-Rom. By Glenn Wahlert . Canberra, Australia: Army History Unit, 2006. ISBN 0-975766-9-2-9. Maps. Photographs. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. Pp. 96. $56.56. Though regarded with some disdain by professional military men and military historians, the increase in popular war gaming and war modeling is beginning to have some impact on contemporary military history. Many historical guides for war gamers and modelers have appeared in recent years, [End Page 294] and the best of these are also useful to scholars. The Australian Army Campaigns Series, a new offering from the Australian Army History Unit, is aimed simultaneously at the professional military, scholarly, and gaming/modeling audiences. These are serious works, written by leading Australian historians. The two volumes reviewed here differ considerably, not only in focus and approach but in quality as well. Glenn Wahlert is best known for The Other Enemy?, his pioneering (and highly valuable) study of Australian military police work in the world wars. The Western Desert Campaign 1940-41 describes a relatively brief but important campaign, the first British Commonwealth offensive against the Italians in North Africa, concentrating on the role of the 6th Australian Division. Wahlert provides few new insights, but his narrative of the campaign is concise, straightforward, well-written, and reliable. He is at his best with the controversial question of discipline in the 6th Division, a subject he knows well. Wahlert goes astray slightly on some other matters, however. He gives excessive praise to Sir Archibald Wavell, the British theatre commander at the time, at the expense of the much more aggressive and energetic Sir Richard O'Connor, GOC of Western Desert Force and the real mastermind of the offensive. Wahlert rightly acknowledges that the many older soldiers in the Second AIF served as examples for the younger men, but he does not point out that older soldiers were much more prone to both physical and mental breakdown under the strain of field service. The illustrations in this book vary in quality. The paintings by Mark Wahlert are the best of the lot. Unfortunately, there are some serious errors in the captions identifying vehicles and aircraft. An image of an A15 Crusader cruiser tank is misidentified as an A13, while a Blenheim Mark IV bomber is incorrectly captioned as a Mark I. Modelers will be quick to spot such errors, and they should be corrected in future printings. Albert Palazzo's book on the Australian army in Vietnam is an altogether superior work. In only 173 pages, Palazzo gives a fine capsule history of the Australian experience in that conflict. He covers every major aspect of the army's work, illustrating general points with detailed accounts of individual actions. This book is more than just a history; it is also a useful learning tool. Palazzo is at his best in the little "lessons" notes scattered through the book. Here, Palazzo illustrates general tactical and operational points by citing specific actions and decisions. While Palazzo pays due tribute to the dedication, bravery, and skill of the Australian forces in Vietnam, his book shows that such qualities are not enough when troops have to operate with an inappropriate doctrine and an incoherent strategy. Australian troops excelled at patrolling and small-unit tactics, but their success in Phuoc Tuy province was only superficial. The Viet Cong soon stopped challenging Australian firepower and simply went to ground, content to exercise silent political control from their bases. Despite repeated attempts, Australian troops never really managed to disrupt those bases for more than brief periods. Australian manpower was never sufficient to do the job, mainly for domestic political reasons. [End Page 295] Palazzo highlights many weaknesses, both large and small, in Australian operations: inadequate cooperation with Americans and South Vietnamese, misdirected civic action programs, excessive command turnover and frequent changes in tactical policy, and failure to appreciate the role of armor...

In South Central Coastal Vietnam, on-farm research and farmer experience demonstrated the benefits of growing improved forages as a means of improving the year-round quantity and quality of feed available for smallholder beef cattle production. In Binh Dinh, Phu Yen and Ninh Thuan provinces, 5 new forage species ( Panicum maximum cv. TD58 , Brachiaria hybrid cv. Mulato II, Pennisetum purpureum cv. VA06, Paspalum atratum cv. Terenos and Stylosanthes guianensis cv. CIAT 184) were evaluated for yield and crude protein concentration. There was no consistent yield difference between locations for the forage grasses, but in Binh Dinh province P. maximum TD58 produced the highest yield. The grasses were comparable in crude protein concentration. Stylo CIAT 184 produced much less forage than the grasses but had a much higher crude protein concentration. All species have potential use, depending on the circumstances and site factors such as fertility, drainage and availability of irrigation. This work was expanded to a total of 45 farmers to gain feedback on farmer experience in growing different forages. The percentage of farmers who “liked” the introduced forages was Mulato II, 92%; TD58, 85%; VA06, 82%; Paspalum, 46%; and Stylo, 36%. By far the most important early socio-economic impact of developing perennial forage plots close to households was an average 50% reduction in the amount of labor and time that farmers spend supplying cut-and-carry forage to their animals. In addition, the growing of forages can meaningfully reduce the grazing pressure on common grazing lands, thereby lowering the potential for environmental degradation.

The Unfinished War Charles E. Neu (bio) Sam Adams. War of Numbers: An Intelligence Memoir. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, 1994. xxx 210 pp. Appendix, sources and notes, and index. $22.00. David M. Barrett. Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. xii 194 pp. Appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00. George C. Herring. LBJ and Vietnam: A Different Kind of War. Austin: University Press of Texas, 1994. xiv 186 pp. Notes and index. $29.95. Deborah Shapley. Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. xvii 615 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. $29.95. Peter Macdonald. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam. New York: Norton, 1993. 346 pp. Illustrations, epilogue, and bibliography. $25.00. Michael Lee Lanning and Dan Cragg. Inside the VC and the NVA: The Real Story of North Vietnam’s Armed Forces. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992. xiii 260 pp. Illustrations, appendixes, source notes, bibliography, and index. $20.00. On many levels and in many different ways, the process of coming to terms with the Vietnam War continues to unfold. As Morley Safer writes, each witness to that conflict is “still imprisoned, to one extent or another, by that place and that time.” 1 Memories of the conflict remain vivid among many Americans, who are still trying to understand why we fought so long and so hard in such a distant place, and why, in the end, we and our allies in Saigon suffered such a humiliating defeat. Recent literature has given us a better sense of the evolution of American policy, of how decisions were made within the American government, and of how these decisions were carried out in the field. Many aspects of American policy, however, remain obscure, while we [End Page 144] have only begun to learn about the calculations of communist revolutionaries in Vietnam. These six books, written by scholars, journalists, and participants, are only a small part of what is a fascinating effort to fit together all of the pieces of the Vietnamese puzzle. Sam Adams was one of those witnesses to the war, a young CIA analyst whose study of the Vietcong became first a great adventure, then a compelling cause until his untimely death in 1988. In August 1965 Adams was transferred to the Southeast Asian Branch of the CIA’s Deputy Directorate of Intelligence, where he was given the task of studying Vietcong morale. He was the first person in Washington to give the enemy in South Vietnam his undivided attention. Poring over captured enemy documents, POW interrogations, and interviews with defectors, Adams concluded that the war was far larger than the Military Assistant Command Vietnam realized and that all the calculations of the American government about the numbers of troops needed and the time it would take to win were inaccurate. One captured document, on Vietcong strength in Binh Dinh province, listed 50,255 enemy soldiers, while MACV’s figure was only 4,668. Adams gradually realized that the Vietcong consisted of a vast, intricate organization, most of which was hidden from view. General William Westmoreland’s command was concerned with Vietcong main force units, but it failed to realize that these well-armed soldiers were only the tip of a large funnel that ran all the way down to the village level, and that main force units were augmented by many specialized units, such as sappers, secret police, service troops, and political cadre. The result was a resilient organization that could replace its losses quickly. Adams’s passionate curiosity about the Vietcong resulted in a series of superb, detailed studies, but it also brought an unwillingness to appreciate the dilemma CIA Director Richard Helms eventually confronted. Burdened with a White House that wanted only good news, and challenging the military’s figures in the middle of a major war, Helms felt that he could only push so far. Or as he explained to Adams, “You don’t know what it’s like in this town. I could have told the White House there were a million more Vietcong out there, and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference in our policy...

Opisthorchis viverrini infection in the snail and fish intermediate hosts in Central Vietnam

Over the course of the prolonged US war in Vietnam, the bloodiest one after World War II, it became obvious that there was no alternative to a negotiation process. Important reasons were the impossibility for Washington to win the battlefield and the rise of anti-war sentiment in the United States. The author tried to show how certain psychological characteristics of US leaders led to the war and then eventually to negotiations. When started negotiations were accompanied by military action. The course of the war and negotiations was influenced by Soviet military assistance to the DRV, as well as by relations in the triangle of the USSR - USA - China. The time of detente between the USSR and the USA coincided with war in Vietnam, which influenced the behavior of the Soviet leaders, as evidenced by the recollections of the USSR ambassador to the United States A. Dobrynin.The Politburo of the Central Committee had disagreements regarding Vietnam and detente with the United States. But the war weakened US international stance and contributed to the achievement of strategic agreements with the USSR.The main objectives of the DRV in the negotiations were to stop US bombings and then withdrawal of US troops. The United States sought to maintain the Saigon puppet regime for some time after the withdrawal of its troops from South Vietnam. Washington’s main goal was to “save its face”, declaring defeat a “victory”. To achieve this goal the war and negotiations dragged on for years, and on the eve of the signing of the agreements, the most fierce bombing of the DRV was carried out.Thanks to the powerful air defense created with the help of the USSR, the DRV won the “air Dien Bien Fu”.The United States was forced to sign a peace agreement, which provided for the complete cessation of all US military operations in Vietnam, the withdrawal of all American troops, but left the North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam together with the armed forces of the National Liberation Front along with the decaying and doomed to death Saigon regime. In 1975 its army was defeated the regime capitulated, which ensured the subsequent reunification of South and North Vietnam.The Vietnamese people defeated the American colossus, having suffered terrible sacrifices themselves, but achieved the national goal - the withdrawal of the Americans and the unification of the country. The full support of Vietnam can be seen as a successes story of Soviet foreign policy.

: This monograph analyzes the synchronization of field force operations in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967. Although the terminology of operational art did not yet exist in doctrine, operations during the period of rapid force escalation demonstrate the success at which MACV and the field force headquarters and commanders coordinated and synchronized actions in time, space and purpose. This synchronized coordination did not occur without challenges. As Carl von Clausewitz described through his paradoxical trinity, the necessary link between a clearly defined political endstate and a military strategy was absent. To highlight this tension from the US field force perspective, this monograph is divided into four parts. First, the introduction includes a literature review of impactful Vietnam War works accumulated and analyzed over time. The second part describes the national narrative leading up to and during the rapid force escalation period. The second part further provides a contemporary definition of the term strategy in the proper doctrinal context to ensure a common understanding. The third part is a campaign analysis that depicts the field force commanders, the command and control situation, and in depth views of four specific major operations. Although the period of rapid force escalation in South Vietnam is historically considered a campaign, in reality this period was a series of major operations that did not achieve the political endstate. This monograph concludes with an assessment of the degree to which the failures to synchronize a total campaign was the key problem for the US in Vietnam.

: This CHECO study deals extensively with military efforts made in the latter part of 1966 to pacify northern Binh Dinh Province, one of the most populated and heavily-contested areas of the country. The struggle for Binh Dinh Province began seriously in December 1964, when the Viet Cong made battalion-sized attacks for the first time. They moved into the An Lao Valley, captured two Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) fortified positions, and remained despite extensive air attacks and counter-operations. This enemy initiative, an escalation in fact, which was later revealed as part of a plan to cut South Vietnam in half along Highway 19, played a major part in the United States' decision to raise its level of participation in the year. Some two and a half years later, the struggle. for control of this area is continuing with definite signs of progress as indicated in this report. Nevertheless, the fact that this important area, where the U.S. has launched a major military effort, still is not secure, underscores the painstaking military approach required in the unique fighting of Vietnam. airpower is an essential element of this approach and was used extensively, but, it, too, cannot be expected to produce sudden, dramatic, finite results any more than the search-and-clear ground operations they support. This hard reality, the recognition of a long and difficult military task against a resilient and determined enemy, must be kept in mind in reading this study. This study has greater detail than previous battle studies to provide a more complete environmental background in which the air role can be placed in perspective. This same treatment will be given in later studies to extended operations in other geographic areas.

The article devoted to the analysis of the actions of special forces of US and South Vietnam during 1961–1967. One of the main tasks of these units during Vietnam war – destruction main objects of «Ho Chi Minh Trail» in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The work is built with the assistance of a memoir – translations memories combatants in South Vietnam and Laos, soldiers and commanders of Army of US, South Vietnam and Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). The materials housed in the monographs of American and Vietnam researchers of the Indochina conflict, 1960–1970-s.In the early 1960s, in the setting of active infiltration teams of PAVN from DRV administration of USA adopted decision to send to Indochina units of special forces (Green Berets). Many of the military personnel who served in Vietnam belonged to 5th and 7th Special Forces Groups. Some Green Berets were assigned to the U.S. Military Assistance Command’s Studies and Observation Group (SOG) for making top secret intelligence operations and helped train the South Vietnamese special forces (LLDB). The most Green Berets defended South Vietnam’s border from infiltration from DRV. Apart from Green Berets, special units of the US NAVY were also active in South Vietnam. The main task of the special forces of the NAVY was the blockade of all waterways supplying partisans from North Vietnam and Cambodia by means of ambushes, sabotage, laying of mines and raids on bases of PAVN. In 1965-1967s mixed teams of Green Berets and LLDB conducted long-range reconnaissance missions into Laos and directed air strikes against the «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The U.S. aircraft bombed the «Ho Chi Minh Trail» daily, targeting areas based on electronic detection devices and intelligence gained by covert teams that infiltrated the area. However, these efforts could not slow down the movement of troops of PAVN, supplies southward along the «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The author paid attention to the creation units of special forces as part of army units of US Army situated in South Vietnam during 1965–1967. Special attention is paid by the author to the analysis secret operations of Green Berets against «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The author concluded that the special forces of USA and South Vietnam failed to achieve the set goals.

When the Pentagon Papers first appeared in U.S. newspapers in 1969, both the most significant and widereaching revelations and the most g rotesque and ludicrous of them were seen to concern covert operations in Vietnam. The important revelations related to South Vietnam's secret maritime raids against the North, organized and supported by the United States. These raids helped to precipitate the Tonkin Gulf incident. The less momentous but more comical revelations concerned the efforts of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), just after the Geneva Conference, to make life difficult for the Communist government in Hanoi and Haiphong by contaminating the gas tanks of buses and planting small explosives, which looked like lumps of coal, in the rail yards. Those and dozens of other American covert operations are meticulously described in Spies and Commandos, an exhaustive account of American secret efforts against North Vietnam from 1954 to the fall of Saigon. The book is based on research in both Vietnamese and American sources, including the records of the U.S. Military Assistance Command Studies and Observation Group (SOG), the umbrella organization for U.S. militarysponsored unconventional warfare in Vietnam, and Hanoi's official histories of North Vietnam's counterintelligence and security operations.

An extensive rehabilitation was practiced during 2002 - 2004 in southernQui Nhon bay of coastal Binh Dinh province where coral reefs had suffered serious degradation due to coral mining, destructive fishing and overfishing. The first experiment indicated that the nearshore reefs in the western part could not be rehabilitated due to environment change during rainy season with large discharge of sediment and freshwater. Transplanted hard corals adapted well in southern part of island Hon Ngang and Hon Nhan with the techniques that used dead coral substratum, concrete plates and revered tubs as theattachments of corals. Survival rate of branch corals Acropora was quite high in dry season (85- 100%) but reduced during rainy season (60-80%). Meanwhile Porites nigrescens presented good adaptation to environment seasonal change. The corals which were fixed with steel sticks on reefplatform had low survival rate due to sediment movement in north-east monsoon. The concurrent site management with strong supports from local government and communities has brought positive effectiveness of reef rehabilitation thank to not only coraltransplantation but also natural recovery. Foliose corals belonging to Montipora,Echinopora. Pachyseris. Echinopora and branch Acropora, Porites play an important role of natural rehabilitation. The activities, however, require hard work and expensive cost as well as sympathy oflocal people.

: On 30 March, 1972, following heavy artillery preparations, three North Vietnamese Army (NVA) divisions spearheaded by tanks crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into South Vietnam. From the north and the west, they attacked and overran the thinly defended forward outposts and fire support bases held by the 3d Infantry Division, Republic of Vietnam Army (ARVN). Three days later, further south in Military Region 3, three other NVA divisions closed in on An Loc, 60 miles north of Saigon, after taking a district town near the Cambodian border. Then, on 14 April, two NVA divisions attacked troops of the 22d ARVN Infantry Division who manned the defenses of northwestern Kontum in Military Region 2 while directly to the east, in the lowlands of Binh Dinh Province, another NVA division struck at the province's three northern district towns.

(1978). Turmoil in Indochina. Asian Affairs: An American Review: Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 245-256.

Evolutionary game theory

The lack of health data on Asian ethnic subgroups has been noted as the major setback in dispelling the myth of the model minority. Population-representative samples of this relatively low-frequency racial group still fail to yield sufficient sample size to provide disaggregated information on Asian ethnic groups. As such, health information for Asian American subgroups is often acquired from surname list-assisted sampling methods, which may be fraught with biases toward particular groups not representative of the overall population. As one of the first major surveys to use both RDD and surname list-assisted sampling methods to sample Asian subgroups, the 2001 California Health Interview Survey provides the unique opportunity to determine whether significant differences exist between the RDD sample and the list-assisted sample for South Asians, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese. For each Asian ethnic group, we performed chi-squared tests to compare the list and RDD sample proportions for several demographic health access and health status measures. We found that demographic differences in lists versus probability samples are most pronounced among South Asians and Vietnamese and to a lesser extent among Japanese, but it is less of an issue among Koreans. In addition, we found that the list and RDD samples did not deviate significantly from each other in most of the health status and health access measures. Particularly for South Asians, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese, we conclude that surname lists approximated population-based estimates of their health status and health access and surname list sampling should continue to be considered as an alternative strategy when cost constraints prohibit investment in probability-based oversamples.

A photographer for the Observer , the official newspaper of the U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), captured a shot of Nick Poulos, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, as he prepared to administer a smallpox vaccination to a Vietnamese toddler. In December 1967, the 101st Airborne dispensed immunizations to children in villages throughout South Vietnam. The picture that ran in the Observer was a close-up shot framing the faces of Poulos and the little boy. It portrayed the U.S. soldier as a tender man whose concern for children was instinctive. Poulos's eyes held a look of compassion as he, according to the photo's caption, assured the Vietnamese child that the vaccination would not hurt too much. The picture was one of many photos and articles published in the Observer depicting U.S. troops as humanitarian caregivers who healed the sick, fed the hungry, sheltered the homeless, and made children smile with gifts of candy and toys. Summing up the message behind the images, the Observer stated that, as a result of military humanitarian projects, the Vietnamese were beginning to see the U.S. serviceman as a “‘gentle warrior.’ In addition to being a fighter and protector, he is a friend, diplomat, and healer.” The article went on to explain that although “traditionally the American paratrooper has been one of the most aggressive, well-trained, and toughest soldiers in the world, the specialization of modern warfare requires that he also be versatile – a ‘man of many faces.’” The U.S. soldier could be strong and gentle, a lover and a fighter, a man for whom providing medical care and wielding weapons were not mutually exclusive responsibilities. Just as home-front gender ideology defined the roles and experiences of American and Vietnamese women, it also shaped the image of the American serviceman, who was the face of the U.S. mission in Vietnam. In the rhetoric of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the purpose of U.S. intervention was to prevent the spread of communism by offering American aid and support as a better alternative to Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong (VC). Marines and Army units, such as the 101st Airborne, dispensed that aid, assuming the role of caring father figures to ill, frightened, and orphaned Vietnamese. Even though those gestures of goodwill undoubtedly brought some form of comfort to the recipients, however, they did not alleviate the widespread suffering and destruction that U.S. troops also caused as part of the war. The central contradiction in the gentle warrior as the Observer defined him was that he was to be both a fighter and a friend, characteristics that proved irreconcilable in Vietnam.