Back to Guerrilla Warfare

When it is necessary, we must change in time outdated forms of warfare, taking new ones more appropriate.

--General Vo Nguyen Giap December 1969

When North Viet Nam's chief strategist made that statement in a Hanoi speech, U.S. intelligence had a pretty good idea about what Giap had in mind. The 1968 Tet offensive exploded U.S. generals' assurances that the war was all but over and proved that the enemy could still hit anywhere seemingly at will. On the other hand, the Tet attackers were unable to hold any South Vietnamese cities--a failure that fairly stunned the planners in Hanoi. The logical move for Giap & Co. would be reversion to guerrilla and terror tactics. In recent weeks it has become increasingly clear that this is precisely the strategy they are following.

In some ways, the fighting in South Viet Nam has almost faded away. American casualty rates are at the lowest level in four years. A huge sweep by 6,500 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops in the Que Son Valley near Danang has turned up almost no enemy forces in an area that has long been a center of Communist activity. But in cities and hamlets throughout the country, a war of terror is rapidly heating up. The number of murders, kidnapings and other terrorist incidents has risen from 654 in January to 1,094 last month. The incidents last week ranged from the shooting of a 47-year-old woman in Saigon by two thugs on a motor bike to a rocket attack on a military prison in Hue that killed 14 soldiers and wounded another 63.

Three-Sided Strategy. A Communist document, captured several months ago but released only last week by the U.S. command in Saigon, indicates that the enemy plans to scale down its battlefield activities and place "particular importance" on low-budget guerrilla warfare. According to Mao's classic terms, the Vietnamese Communists are at least partially reverting from Stage 2 (main-force military combat) to Stage 1 (grassroots organization). The 26-page document, known as COSVN (Central Office for South Viet Nam) Resolution 14, reflects Giap's thinking. Henceforth, says the resolution, Communist cadres are to organize and prepare for the time when U.S. forces leave and Communist troops can once again operate freely in South Viet Nam. Among other things, the order calls for a step-up in terror and sapper attacks; it also urges guerrillas to form secret three-to five-man cells that can operate "legally" in towns and hamlets. They will be poised to help Communist assault forces and thus correct the failures of the 1968 Tet campaign.

In recent weeks the Communists have had to make new adjustments to support even the guerrilla-style operations in South Viet Nam. Largely because of the Cambodian incursions, which upset the supply routes through the sanctuaries, the guerrilla effort that the Communists had once planned now requires a complex, three-sided strategy encompassing most of Indochina.

BUILDING NEW SANCTUARIES. To replace their lost rest-and-resupply havens along the South Vietnamese border, the Communists have been carving a huge new sanctuary area out of the midsection of Indochina. They have taken control of Cambodia's four northeastern provinces and the Bolovens Plateau in the southern Laotian panhandle. In the process, the Communists have gained access to large supplies of rice, fish and cattle, and last week's attacks on Kompong Thom and Skoun, two strategic cities north of Phnom-Penh, showed that they are intent on securing continued control of these new havens. They also now command a riverine supply route on the Mekong that stretches all the way through Laos and Cambodia to the South Vietnamese border.

SPREADING THE ALLIES THIN. The Communists have lately stepped up infiltration into I Corps, South Viet Nam's northernmost military region. Four divisions are in the area and three more remain poised just above the Demilitarized Zone. Their chief mission is to entice main-force U.S. and ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam) units into the north, which would allow Communist guerrillas more freedom to maneuver in the rest of the country.

UNDERMINING PACIFICATION. The Communists are especially anxious to collapse South Vietnam's local volunteer units, such as the Regional Forces, the Popular Forces and the People's Self-Defense Forces. They were organized after the 1968 Tet offensive to provide local security, which is essential to the pacification program. These irregulars have never been known to fight well when U.S. or ARVN regulars were not around to bolster their confidence, but lately they have been holding their own in the face of Communist attacks.

For the moment, U.S. commanders are most concerned about stopping Hanoi's efforts to restock its forces in Indochina. Supplies shipped south via the new infiltration routes in Laos and Northern Cambodia should start showing up in South Viet Nam in October, when the rainy season ends. The U.S. has already stepped up B-52 raids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Last week there were reports that a sizable force of ARVN troops and U.S. helicopters had been assembled near Kham Duc, a long-abandoned Special Forces camp near the Laotian border. But U.S. commanders insist that there are no plans for a Cambodia-style lunge into Laos. For one thing, negotiations are now under way between the Vientiane government and the Communist Pathet Lao, and a thrust into Laos could shatter whatever fragile chances exist for a truce ending the seesawing conflict in that country.

Semantic Exercise. In any case, the most serious threat is still in Cambodia. Partly because the Lon Nol government has not even attempted to establish a presence much beyond Phnom-Penh, Communist recruitment efforts in the countryside are thought to be going very well. Substantial aid from Thailand has yet to materialize, and Cambodian officials warn that their government could fall within six months without more U.S. support.

The Nixon Administration has pledged not to send U.S. ground troops into Cambodia again, and the Cooper-Church Amendment, which passed the Senate in June, would specifically prohibit direct U.S. air support to Cambodian troops. But near the embattled town of Skoun last week, an Associated Press reporter watched a Cambodian officer request--and get--an air strike by American F-100s, whose bombs landed a scant 300 yds. from the Cambodian positions. In Washington, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird parried the inevitable inquiries about the U.S. air support with an exercise in semantics. The U.S. pilots were not providing "air support" to the Cambodians, Laird said. They were only "interdicting" supplies headed for South Viet Nam. But in a private conversation, an Air Force officer was more direct. "Hell," he said, "if you see one V.C. carrying a bag of rice or some ammunition, that calls for interdiction no matter how close he is standing to Cambodian troops."

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