Vietnam After the Cease-Fire

Abstract

THIS ARTICLE focuses on the situation in South Vietnam as of early October 1974.1 It accepts the significance of the concurrent situations in Laos and Cambodia-as a foreboding example in the former case, and as a strategic embarrassment in the latter-without further comment. It makes almost no mention of the consultative machinery established by the Peace Agreement, which is financially and functionally bankrupt. The January 1973 Cease-Fire came with Saigon advancing in strength and Hanoi's expeditionary forces shattered. Added to their defeat in the field was the domestic effect of the bombing in the HanoiHaiphong area. The terms of the Cease-Fire have provided shelter behind which Hanoi has rebuilt its forces, at home and beyond. Their unacknowledged strength in South Vietnam, variously estimated between 150,000 and 300,000, has now been increased; and they have been able for the first time to effect a personnel replacement program. My estimate of their combat strength in the South is around 250,000, with another 50,000 Viet Cong auxiliaries. They have modern field equipment, ranging through personal weapons, field and antiaircraft artillery, to tanks--of which the current count is 700. It is unusual to see a guerrilla with artillery, although some observers may read no more than a modest political/defensive purpose in its deployment. But tanks-tanks mean attack; and large numbers of tanks mean a strategic offensive. Almost any other item of the Communist inventory could be read as a defensive element; but not tanks. They are a clear and positive indicator of offensive strategic intention. Tanks are too expensive in money and effort to be a mere diversion. PAVN field leadership, the cadre system which suffered so heavily in