Indochina Conflict Research Articles

ACTIONS OF THE US AND SOUTH VIETNAM SPECIAL DIVISIONS ON THE "HO CHI MINA TRAIL" IN 1961-1967. BASED ON THE MEMOIRS OF AMERICAN WAR PARTICIPANTS

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.

MILITARY INTERVENTION OF THE USA AND SOUTH VIETNAM IN LAOS IN JANUARY-APRIL 1971 ACCORDING TO THE MEMOIRS OF THE VIETNAM AND AMERICAN PARTICIPANTS OF THE WAR

The article is devoted to the history of the planning and making of intervention of USA and South Vietnam into Laos in February-April 1971. The operation was named «Lam Son 719». The invasion group was to destroy the infrastructure of material support of People‟s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) – «Ho Chi Minh Trail». The work is built with the assistance of a memoir – translations memories combatants in Laos, soldiers and commanders of Army of United States America, South Vietnam and Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The materials housed in the monographs of American and Vietnam researchers of the Indochina conflict, 1960–1970-s.In 1971 amid the withdrawal of US troops from Indochina, American administration made a decision to invade Laos. The main target of the intervention was destroying the objects of «Ho Chi Minh Trail» in the southeastern regions of the kingdom. With a success of ARVN in Laos, the PAVNs combat effectiveness is seriously reduced. This operation was critical test of Vietnamization. «Lam Son 719» had to demonstrate high combat capability of ARVN. The victory was supposed to strengthen international credibility of USA. In 8 February 1971, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) invaded into kingdom. The command of PAVN, having guessed the enemy's plan, pulled together large forces in Lower Laos. Supported by U.S. artillery, helicopters, fightersbombers and B-52s, South Vietnamese troops advanced fought heavy battles with the enemy. The author paid attention to some military and political aspects of intervention into Laos. The article deals with the problems of South Vietnamese troops. Special attention is paid by the author to the analysis of the morale and combat effectiveness units of ARVN during invasion into Laos. The author concluded, that the intervention of ARVN and U.S. Army ended in complete failure. The main objectives of the invasion were not achieved.

HMONG. THE SECRET ARMY

This article aims to analyze the role of the Hmong population in the Indochina conflict. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower considered Laos a buffer state according to theDominion Theory and as such much more strategically important than Vietnam. To avoid the fall of Laos under communism and thus the spread of communism in the region, Eisenhower turned to the services of the C.I.A., because he could not intervene officially in Laos without violating the Geneva Convention.Keywords: Indochina; Laos; Vietnam; war; United States of America; Hmong, Central Intelligence Agency.

The Colombo Powers: crafting diplomacy in the Third World and launching Afro-Asia at Bandung

ABSTRACTUsing documentary evidence from China, France, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this paper develops a history of the Third World through historical inquiry into the origins and activities of the Colombo Powers. As the five host nations of the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, the Colombo Powers worked to realise a new vision of Asia that integrated the outer reaches of the mainland on the basis of ancient geographical ties and a cosmopolitan international order. Most importantly, they sought to reclaim Asian agency in the international negotiations on the Korean and Indochina conflict and spread resistance to collective security pacts in Asia.

Canada, grand strategy and the Asia-Pacific: Past lessons, future directions

Canada pursued a consistent and relatively successful grand strategy towards the United States for much of the post-war period. It was designed to ensure greater adaptability to strategic shifts in American security policy and any bilateral disagreements that consequently emerged. Without the capacity to shape the international system, Canadian grand strategy was largely confined to managing strategic relations with its superpower patron in North America and the NATO alliance. Yet this article argues that Canada has a much more modest capacity when it comes to independently shaping and engaging in the Asia-Pacific as a relevant political and economic player. As it will reveal, Canada had twice before applied strategic principles towards the Asia-Pacific – first as a direct participant in the Korean War and later with a more arms-length approach to the Indochina conflict. These episodes provide important clues on the trends, patterns, and limits to any purported Canadian grand strategy for the Asia-Pacific, which must adapt to a shifting world order defined by Asian dynamism and European (and possibly American) decline. The article will conclude with some thoughts on how Canada's strategic choices might evolve towards the region.

Vietnamese-Chinese Relations in Southern Vietnam during the First Indochina Conflict

During the First Indochina War, the Chinese population of southern Vietnam played an important role in trade between the zones occupied by French and rival military forces, and with the wider region. So flourishing did this illicit trade become that it forced the main contenders in the war to change their economic policies. Chinese Nationalist and communist organizations were implicated in this trade along with individual merchants. Exploring this chapter in the history of the Chinese in Vietnam complicates depictions of the Chinese as profiteers of questionable loyalty, or as inevitably in conflict with the dominant power of the day.

Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1945–1963

October 01 2006 Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1945–1963 Lorenz M. Lüthi Lorenz M. Lüthi Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Lorenz M. Lüthi Online Issn: 1531-3298 Print Issn: 1520-3972 © 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2006 Journal of Cold War Studies (2006) 8 (4): 164–165. https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2006.8.4.164 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Lorenz M. Lüthi; Ilya V. Gaiduk, Confronting Vietnam: Soviet Policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1945–1963. Journal of Cold War Studies 2006; 8 (4): 164–165. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws.2006.8.4.164 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAll JournalsJournal of Cold War Studies Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2006 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Confronting Vietnam: Soviet policy toward the Indochina Conflict, 1954-1963

Based on extensive research in the Russian archives, this book examines the Soviet approach to the Vietnam conflict between the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina and late 1963, when the overthrow of the South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and the assassination of John F. Kennedy radically transformed the conflict. The author finds that the USSR attributed no geostrategic importance to Indochina and did not want the crisis there to disrupt detente. The Russians had high hopes that the Geneva accords would bring years of peace in the region. Gradually disillusioned, they tried to strengthen North Vietnam, but would not support unification of North and South. By the early 1960s, however, they felt obliged to counter the American embrace of an aggressively anti-Communist regime in South Vietnam and the hostility of its former ally, the People's Republic of China. Finally, Moscow decided to disengage from Vietnam, disappointed that its efforts to avert an international crisis there had failed.

Security, Development and Political Participation in Thailand: Alternative Currencies of Legitimacy

Introduction In October 1997, faced with huge economic crisis that had brought Thailand to its knees, elected premier Chavalit Yongchaiyudh sought meeting with military chiefs in an apparent bid to stage coup against himself. Chavalit -- himself former army commander -- appears to have hoped that the military would support him in declaring state of emergency. (1) Instead, the military chiefs told him to forget it. Chavalit was ousted by parliamentary means shortly afterwards, and replaced as prime minister by Democrat Party leader Chuan Leekpai. A few years earlier, no military commander could have resisted the opportunity to impose security clampdown on behalf of an ex-military prime minister. This remarkable episode testified to the transformations which Thai politics had undergone during the 1990s: between the coup of 1991 and the non-coup of 1997, the security card had been significantly devalued. This article explores the contrasting discourses of security, development, and political participation in Thailand. These three terms will be viewed essentially as constructions by the Thai elite, reflecting the experiences of state that enjoyed an important strategic position during the Cold War, especially in the context of Vietnam. Elites have successfully traded in these three different in order to legitimate their rule and preserve their power. most successful elements of the Thai elite are those who have most successfully traded the appropriate currencies at key political junctures. By examining the transformations and adaptations of the three forms of power during the recent decades, the dynamics of social and political change in Thailand are assessed and reviewed. Security Defining security in the Thai context is highly contentious. Despite the powerful role played by the military in the Thai political order since 1932, security (as conventionally understood) has never been the central task of the military in Thailand. military is first and foremost an armed bureaucracy, which does not fight wars. Unlike other powerful militaries in the region (such as those of Myanmar, Indonesia, or South Korea), it has not fought an independence struggle or defended national sovereignty. As one commentator wrote in 1982: The army showed that it remains politicized, factionalized, and is of doubtful value as military force. (2) Ben Anderson memorably described the Thai military as a cluster of self-absorbed, status conscious, privileged bureaucratic factions. (3) Thai military has often appeared to shun potentially dangerous situations. Instead, military officers have preferred to devote their energies to the more interesting and satisfying professions of business and politics. T heir core businesses have been smuggling, logging, and profiting from the country's natural resources. In politics, they have consistently claimed for themselves high political office (many of Thailand's prime ministers have had military background), and share in the running of the country. pursuit of security, as understood from the perspective of the Thai military, has sometimes amounted to finding strategies to avoid having to fight anyone. There is no doubt that there were some areas of considerable professionalism within the Thai military during the Indochina conflict. This was especially the case in technical fields such as artillery, where Thai forces benefited from U.S. technology and training. By the 1980s, the Thai military had developed much more effective methods of combating insurgencies than previously. Yet, the most successful anticommunist strategy of the Thai military was its amnesty policy for communist insurgents, which yielded dramatic results in the early 1980s. Rather than fight communism in the jungles, the military decided to wait for the radicals to emerge from the jungle of their own accord. …

Vietnamese Communists' Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1956–1962. By Ang Cheng Guan. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 1997. Pp. ix, 321. Bibliography, Index.

Vietnamese Communists' Relations with China and the Second Indochina Conflict, 1956–1962. By Ang Cheng Guan. Jefferson: McFarland and Company, 1997. Pp. ix, 321. Bibliography, Index.

Vietnamese communists' relations with China and the second Indochina conflict, 1956-1962

This thesis attempts to study the relationship between the Vietnamese communists and China between January 1956 and Summer 1962. It is the first book-length study of Sino-Vietnamese relations during those years. Its principle contribution will be to reconstruct the events as they unfolded in IndoChina and to provide a glimpse of the patterns of decision-making on the communist side of the Vietnam War. Every effort is made to keep in perspective the constant interaction of domestic politics, the role of individual leaders and political factions in both Hanoi and Beijing, and the changing international conditions which impinged on both countries. 1956 was the beginning of a new stage of the Vietnamese struggle for the unification of the country. The years from 1956 to 1962 saw the progression of the Vietnamese communists' struggle from one which was essentially political in nature to one which incorporated armed struggle, and finally in 1959 when armed struggle began to take on a more predominant role. By the summer of 1962, the Chinese were committed to assisting the Vietnamese communists' struggle in the South. This study makes use of Vietnamese, Chinese, British and American sources, many of which were then either not available or have not yet been fully exploited by the earlier scholars. These comprise new Vietnamese source materials and in particular, the second volume of the Lich Su Quan Doi Nhan Dan Viet Nam ([Official] History of the Vietnamese People's Army (VPA)); newly available Chinese source materials; first-person accounts and memoirs of those who in one way or another had been involved in the diplomacy of the 50s and 60s; communist sources monitored and translated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) known as the Summary of world Broadcasts (SUB); the British Foreign Office General Political Correspondence (FO 371); the Confidential United States State Department Central Files; the United States State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series; and United States intelligence reports and captured communist documents.

A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975 (review)

Book Reviews 133 A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975. By Robert D. Schulzinger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; pp. xiii + 397. $35.00. Robert D. Schulzinger's work is a welcome addition to general histories of America's involvement in the Indochina conflict in the tradition of Stanley Karnow's Vietnam: A History (rev. 1991) and George C. Herring's America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 (3rd ed., 1996). Frequent updates of the history of the Indochina conflict are necessary as more information continues to be made available. The recent opening of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidential tapes, and Michael Beschloss's resultant volume—Taking Charge: The fohnson White House Tapes, 1963-64(1997)—illustrate the process's continuity. Moreover, the agonizingly slow release of material from the Richard M. Nixon presidential papers ensures that the final chapter of the Vietnam era is far from complete. Schulzinger successfully meets his stated goal of providing a "compendium of the current state of scholarship of the Vietnam War" (x). But he accomplishes more than simply summarizing the existing state of Vietnam scholarship. Schulzinger adds to an increasingly rich resource with his meticulous use of both primary and secondary source material. Besides culling data from presidential libraries, he employs papers from more than a dozen members of Congress. These papers, he writes, "enriched my understanding of the domestic politics of the Vietnam era" (x). Because congressional documents are so widely scattered, scholars are often unable to invest the time, travel, and finances necessary to explore them. Schulzinger's project is inestimably richer for his wülingness and ability to make the necessary investment . He also uses Canadian and British records, the best-known secondary works on the war, and a number of lesser-known but valuable secondary sources. And he attends carefully and thoroughly to contemporary newspaper and periodical accounts of critical junctures of the war. Schulzinger's determination to exhaust every available resource leads to the discovery of a number of little-known but noteworthy facts. Examples include Representative Edna F. Kelly's (D-NY) attempt in 1951 to block aid to Vietnam (53), Senator Mike Mansfield's (D-MT) careless and uncharacteristic suggestion in 1955 that the United States supply South Vietnam with nuclear weapons (87-88), U.S. Socialist Party Leader Norman Thomas's 1957 letter to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles complaining about South Vietnam leader Ngo Dinh Diem's tactics (93), and a brief discussion of the domestic impact from conservative commentator Paul Harvey's turn against the war in 1970 (286-87). Schulzinger's thorough primary research makes his book not only an essential text for the lay reader, but also a productive resource for scholars of the Indochina conflict. 134 Rhetoric & Public Affairs Schulzinger, professor of history and director of the International Affairs Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is no revisionist. Readers of A Time for War will not find a radical departure from the conclusions of mainstream historians. They will find instead a well-written and articulately argued treatise. Schulzinger answers his own questions as to whether the war was worthwhile with a resounding "no" (327). Yet he sees both good and bad in America's legacy from Vietnam (336-36). He argues that once the nation committed to supporting a separate South Vietnam, disengagement became unlikely as U.S. leaders became increasingly convinced that American credibility was tied to a successful military outcome. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not want to return Indochina to French rule (13-15) but with FDR's death, the Truman administration "took fateful steps toward involvement" (43). When Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Truman and decided to support Diem, few Americans "questioned the principal flaw in the U.S. strategy of nation-buüding: the United States had embarked on the impossible task of creating a separate state and society in the southern part of a single land" (96). Once that commitment was made, presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford all feared the loss of American credibility should the United States withdraw and South Vietnam fall to the Communists. Schulzinger dismisses Oliver Stone's view as...

W. AVERELL HARRIMAN, HENRY CABOT LODGE, AND THE QUEST FOR PEACE IN VIETNAM

America's search for a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War began in 1962 and continued until the signing of the Paris accords in 1973. The twilight period in the careers of two of America's most prominent statesmen became intertwined with this quest. Despite the respective tenures of W. Averell Harriman and Henry Cabot Lodge as ambassadors in charge of negotiations, both failed to achieve a peace agreement. However, they did try, against incredible odds, to succeed. This article surveys the personal papers of both these men to ascertain their involvement with Vietnam. Until very recently untapped by scholars, these document collections shed new light on the process that terminated the Indochina conflict.

Khmer-Viet relations and the Third Indochina conflict

Khmer-Viet relations and the Third Indochina conflict

The Evolution of Modern Land Warfare: Theory and Practice.

1. Vietnam: The Background to War 2. The First Indochina Conflict and the United States' Drift to War 3. Lyndon B. Johnson and the Tragedy of Vietnam 4. Negotiations 1964-73 5. The War at Home 6. Politics, Economics and Religion: A Revolution in Vietnamese Society 7. People's Revolutionary War 8. America's War: The Strategy and Tactics of the United States' Military in Vietnam 9. Pacification and the Attempt to Build a Viable South Vietnamese State 10. The War in Five Capitals - The International Context of the Vietnam War 11. The End of the War and Its Aftermath

Strategic Implications of the Indochina Conflict

In the past eight years one of the most observable trends in international affairs has been the hardening of the schism between the then five countries that made up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand (Brunei joined in early 1984, thus becoming the sixth member)-on the one hand, and Vietnam on the other. There seems to be little doubt that from the very beginning the ASEAN states regarded as developments dangerous to themselves the victory of North Vietnam over the South in 1975 and the subsequent reunification of the country in 1976, taking place as they did in the context of the diminishing U.S. role and guarantees in the region. It is significant that within two days of the fall of Saigon, Singapore Premier Lee Kuan Yew visited Bangkok for consultations with his Thai counterpart, Kukrit Pramoj, about the new security situation and thereby started what turned out to be regularized process of visits and discussions which not only injected some vitality into the life and limbs of ASEAN for the first time, but also opened up new horizons of political and diplomatic cooperation for the organization, as witnessed at the February 1976 Bali summit and beyond. Clearly, the possibility of Vietnam's becoming, as termed by one veteran observer of regional affairs, a twentieth-century Prussia in Southeast Asia' was much feared.

The Indochina Conflict and the Positions of the Countries Involved

The growing conflict between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea culminated in the occupation of Cambodia by Vietnamese troops at the end of 1978/beginning of 1979 and the overthrow of the Pol Pot regime. What are the roots of this conflict and what roles did the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) play in this context? There are three major roots of the present Indochina conflict which give the events in Cambodia at the end of 1978/beginning of 1979 its historic dimension and contrast with those views which solely or mainly attribute this conflict to the influences of the Soviet Union and the PRC in Indochina.1 1. The need for rice and cultivable land and the annexation of Kampuchea Krom by Vietnam. The annexation of Kampuchea Krom ? later known as the French colony of Cochinchina ? by Vietnam (Annam) in the seven teenth and eighteenth centuries may be regarded as the starting-point of the conflict between Cambodia and Vietnam. The main reason for the Vietnamese expansion into the southern part of the Indochinese peninsula was the need for more food for the growing Annamese population and the attraction of the very fertile Cambodian Mekong Delta which offered as much land for the cultivation of rice as Annam and Tongking together. Cambodian uprisings that followed over a long period of time were suppressed and answered by forced Vietnamization which created hatred for the Vietnamese that to some extent still exists today. The search for cultivable land where rice especially could be grown seems to be one of the main reasons for Vietnamese expansion vis-a-vis Cambodia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, too.

The third Indochina conflict

The third Indochina conflict

Burma´s Foreign Relations since the Third Indochina Conflict

The principles and practices of foreign policy that allowed Burma to remain outside of the first two Indochina conflicts has also made it possible for the country to avoid embroilment in the third. However, to the degree that the third conflict has involved the extension of the Sino-Soviet dispute directly into mainland Southeast Asia, Burma has had to take account of new circumstances. Burma's policy-makers have long held that great power rivalry should be excluded from South and Southeast Asia because such rivalry can only be detrimental to regional stability and peace. For Burma, the linking during the 1970s of the Sino-Indian conflict on its west to the Sino-Soviet dispute posed problems similar to those resulting from the current Indochina problem on its east, and thus the present conflict is seen as an intensification of a familiar but seemingly intractable policy dilemma. Burma's rare public statements on world affairs between 1979 and 1982 indicated that in Rangoon's view, conflict in South and Southeast Asia had reached a new and more intense level because of further extra-regional linking of neighbouring states' bilateral conflicts to superpower rivalries. But while the Vietnamese alliance with the Soviet Union after 1978 has not, in the view of Burma, been beneficial to peace in the region, the improvement of relations to the level of an incipient informal alliance between China and the United States, coupled with their support for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has somewhat lessened Burma's security problems. These new circumstances have not, however, led to any radical rethinking of Burma's foreign policy possibilities. Because Burma lies at the divide between South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, and the government has chosen to pursue a socialist, mainly self-reliant, development strategy, Burma's foreign policy requirements have been different from those of the communist and capitalist states of Southeast Asia. Non-alignment and political, military and economic independence are principles the government has attempted to follow to their logical conclusions, and the country is free of military and political commitments to intraand extra-regional powers. In practice, Burma's foreign policy is based upon a search for friendly bilateral relations with all countries and reliance upon the United Nations for the setdement of general global issues. As the Council of Ministers reponed to the Pyithu Hluttaw (People's Assembly) in March 1982,

The Indochina Conflict from the Perspective of Singapore

standing continuity of its political leadership under Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. These factors have allowed Singapore to take more care of the regional conflict management than its neighbours who have, to a greater extent, been preoccupied with internal problems. Being the main architect of ASEAN's policy towards Indochina, Singapore has been forced into a mediating position between Thailand on the one hand and Indonesia and Malaysia on the other who differ in their assessment of the greatest threat to the peace and stability of the region.