Ever since World War II, and especially after their defeats in China, Korea, Indochina, and Cuba, the U.S. imperialists have sensed the inferiority of the imperialist camp and their own inferiority in the balance of power in the world. The imperialist camp, led by the U.S. imperialists, has been forced to take a passive and defensive position in the face of the growth of the socialist camp, of the seething and mounting national liberation movement, and of the continuous offensive posture of the revolutionary movement in the world.
The U.S. imperialists have had to give up their massive retaliation strategy and adopt the flexible response strategy. They maintain that the flexible response strategy, which includes three forms of war--special war, local war, and total war--is the most suitable strategy that may help them find a way out of their passiveness when they are not in a position to prosecute a nuclear war. They add that it is the most positive strategy for implementing their aggressive policy and performing their function as an international gendarme so as to cope with the national liberation movement, which is rising like a storm throughout the world, and to prepare for aggression against socialist countries. They call the special war and the local war a sharp sword that cuts into the national liberation movement, creating favorable conditions for them to prepare for a world war.
In the south of our country, the U.S. imperialists resorted to the special war and failed. They had to hastily and defensively shift to the local war strategy to cope with their dangerous situation. This act not only reflected their failure, but also laid bare their obdurate, aggressive, and warlike nature.
What is the U.S. imperialists’ local war strategy? According to their views, local war is one of the three forms of their aggressive war. It is an actual war for the Americans, but with limitations as far as size and scope are concerned. Differing from special war mainly waged by local lackey troops, the local war (?of) the U.S. imperialists is directly waged by U.S. troops.
But the general aggressive policy of the U.S. imperialists is aimed at achieving neocolonialism. Thus, when they wage local war in order to repress the national liberation movement, they must brazenly use local lackey troops and the puppet authorities to wage war along with U.S. troops. They regard the puppet troops and authorities as an important political buttress.
In the U.S. imperialists’ local wars aimed at achieving their aggressive neocolonialist policy, the final goal that the war must achieve is: consolidating the puppet army and government and turning them into effective tools for the achievement of neocolonialism. The main military goal of the local war strategy is: annihilating the enemy’s military forces. The philosophy of this strategy is: attacking, and attacking quickly in order to solve the war quickly.
The prominent characteristic of the local war strategy is: using U.S. troops in direct aggression, but limiting the war scope; winning military victory in the shortest possible time; and creating conditions for achieving the enslaving domination of neocolonialism.
Limiting the number of U.S. troops means using only a certain part of the military forces of the U.S. infantry, air force, and navy in the local war. The U.S. imperialists must restrict the U.S. forces participating in a local war, because without this restriction, their global strategy will encounter difficulties and their influence over the world will be affected. They must achieve this restriction to avoid upsetting political, economic, and social life in the United States. This means that although they wage the war, they do not have to mobilize their forces and they continue to carry out their economic and social programs in the United States.
They impose this restriction because they are convinced that they can achieve victory even if they use only a restricted number of U.S. troops to directly participate in a local war aimed at repressing the national liberation movement in any given country in Asia, Africa, or Latin America.
Having to restrict the number of U.S. troops, the U.S. imperialists pay special attention to consolidating and using the forces of the local lackeys. They believe that if they use a restricted number of U.S. troops as a core for local lackey troops, equipped with modern weapons, to wage a local aggressive war in the countries where the economy is relatively backward or newly developed, they will be able to repress their adversaries, thanks to their superiority in military force and firepower, and will be victorious in a short time. Restricting the strategic goals means restricting the political goals of the war and, in the military field, concentrating forces to quickly annihilate the adversaries’ military forces--especially their regulars. They must do this so that they can avoid having to disperse their troops to different targets and so that they can fight and solve the war quickly.
They believe that the adversaries’ backbone is their armed forces, and that if they can defeat these armed forces, they can end the war, but that if they cannot do so, the war will last a long time and they will be defeated. They must win, because they want to create favorable conditions for the lackey forces to fulfill the tasks following victory, thus allowing the imperialists to bring their troops home quickly but still maintain political conditions to achieve neocolonialism.
Restricting the scope of the war means waging war only in a certain country or area, thus preventing it from ravaging other countries or areas. They believe that if they cannot restrict the scope of the war, they will become more defensive and face greater defeats, because bigger countries will be forced to join the war. As of now they have not finished making preparations for a new world war.
The U.S. imperialists can restrict the local war to a certain country or area, depending upon concrete conditions. But no matter what the scope is, their objective continues to be to annihilate quickly the revolutionary forces and pursue the achievement of neocolonialism.
Having in mind the above-mentioned views about the local war strategy of the U.S. imperialists, we note that the local war which the U.S. imperialists are waging in South Vietnam has exceeded the original restrictions as far as scope is concerned. The U.S. forces have far exceeded the limitation that each local war may mobilize only between three and six divisions. The U.S. and satellite forces now in South Vietnam equal 11 divisions, of which nine are American and South Korean.
The U.S. troops’ strategic objectives on the southern battlefield are not restricted to annihilating the Liberation Armed Forces, but have included the pacification task. As far as the scope of the war is concerned, the U.S. imperialists have initially exceeded the restriction of limiting the war to South Vietnam. They have been using their air force and navy to wage a war of destruction against North Vietnam; they are continuing to intervene increasingly strongly in the Laotian kingdom and brazenly provoke the Cambodian kingdom and they are planning to expand the war to the entire Indochinese peninsula in order to extricate themselves from their dangerous situation in South Vietnam.
In the south of our country, when the U.S. imperialists shifted to the local war strategy, they obviously pursued the achievement of neocolonialism. Therefore, although they have sent hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to the south, they still have had to strive to consolidate the puppet army and administration as a necessary political and military support for their neocolonialist war of aggression. They still capitalize on the name of the puppet administration and strive to consolidate the puppet army.
Along with the military tricks of the war of aggression, they have feverishly carried out the political tricks of neocolonialism. Therefore, the nature of the U.S. imperialists’ war is still aggressive and is aimed at achieving the political objectives of neocolonialism; it is a neocolonialist war of aggression. The limited-war strategy in particular and the flexible reaction strategy in general are products of the U.S. imperialists’ bourgeois military thinking which have come into existence under circumstances under which imperialism has become increasingly depressed, defeated, and passive in the face of a situation in which the balance of power in the world is not favorable for them.
Like their neocolonialist policy of aggression, and U.S. imperialists’ limited-war strategy is full of contradictions and insurmountable basic weaknesses. In essence, the contradictions and basic weaknesses of the limited-war strategy are the inherent contradictions and weaknesses of an unjust war of aggression. In the southern part of our country, these contradictions and weaknesses have increasingly worsened and have revealed themselves clearly in the process of development of the U.S. imperialists’ war of aggression and of our people’s anti-U.S. national salvation resistance.
Since they started the limited war and began to send U.S. troops to wage direct aggression against the south and to use their air force and navy to stage raids against the north, the U.S. imperialists have brazenly revealed their cruel aggressive face and have made the contradictions between themselves and their lackeys and all the Vietnamese people increasingly acute on a national scale. The contradictions between the Vietnamese people and the U.S. imperialists and their lackeys are the main contradictions which will determine the failure of the U.S. imperialists’ war of aggression.
The U.S. imperialists have encountered the resistance of an entire people who are courageous, undaunted, full of fighting experiences, and united as one. The south and the north have unanimously taken up arms and have fought shoulder to shoulder for the just cause and for the complete independence and freedom of the fatherland.
In sending U.S. troops to South Vietnam, the U.S. imperialists have encountered a people’s war which has developed to a high degree and is in an offensive position. This people’s war has successfully developed the people’s strength, has succeeded in mobilizing all the people to fight the aggressors military and politically under all forms and with all kinds of weapons--from primitive to modern weapons--and has created a very great combined strength.
This great people’s war has gloriously defeated the U.S. imperialists’ special war and is on an irreversible trend of vigorous development. Events have proved that from the time they began to send U.S. troops to wage direct aggression in the south, the U.S. imperialists have been defeated. They are being compelled to scatter their forces and are in a passive position on all battlefields. In waging the war of aggression against the north, the U.S. imperialists have knocked their hands against a firm steel bastion.
To protect the north, liberate the south, and proceed toward reunifying the country, the northern armed forces and people have stepped up and are stepping up the violent people’s war against the U.S. aggressors’ war of destruction. The northern armed forces and people have developed their revolutionary heroism to a high degree, have defeated the U.S. imperialists’ war of destruction, and have fulfilled wholeheartedly and to the best of their ability the obligation of the large rear base toward the large frontline.
By sending U.S. troops to wage direct aggression in South Vietnam, and by using their air force to stage raids against the north, which is an independent and sovereign country and a component of the socialist camp, the U.S. imperialists have made more acute their contradictions with the socialist camp, the national liberation movement, and the progressive people in the world. The more the U.S. imperialists step up their war of aggression in Vietnam, the more resolutely they make the socialist countries oppose them and more positively help the Vietnamese people in order to protect a member country of the socialist camp and an outpost of socialism, and to fulfill the socialist countries’ glorious obligation toward the national liberation movement.
The progressive people of the world have supported more and more vigorously the Vietnamese people’s struggle against the U.S. aggressors and are attacking them everywhere in the world. The U.S. imperialists are meeting with vigorous protests from the progressive people in the world, including the American people.
The U.S. imperialists have pursued a policy of neocolonialist aggression. Yet they have had to send U.S. troops to wage direct aggression in South Vietnam. This has worsened the contradictions between their aim of imposing neocolonialism and their trick of using U.S. troops to prosecute the war. By sending U.S. troops to wage direct aggression in the south, the U.S. imperialists have clearly revealed their brazen aggressive face, which they cannot cover. These contradictions have deepened the basic political weaknesses of neocolonialism and led the U.S. imperialists toward many difficulties and defeats.
The U.S. imperialists’ introduction of troops into the south has been aimed at preventing the collapse of the puppet army and administration and creating new conditions for consolidating and strengthening the puppet forces.
Yet the more the war of aggression is Americanized, the more disintegrated the puppet Saigon army and administration becomes. The traitorous and country-selling nature of the leaders of the puppet army and administration has been exposed. They have been cursed by all our people.
Furthermore, the internal contradictions of the puppet army and administration and the contradictions between the U.S. imperialists and the puppet army and administration have increasingly developed. Those in the puppet army and administration who still have some national spirit have become gradually enlightened. More and more of them have returned to the people. Faced with the towering crimes of the U.S. aggressors and the country-selling traitors, the southern people have become more full of hatred, have tightened their solidarity, and have fought valiantly and resolutely for final victory under the NFLSV’s anti-U.S. national salvation banner.
The more they increase the number of their troops in the south and the more they extend the fighting, the more the U.S. imperialists deepen the contradictions between their limited war strategy and their global strategy. The more the limited war in the south is stepped up, the more adversely it will affect the other positions of the U.S. imperialists around the world--especially when they have had to mobilize forces for a limited war which has far exceeded their estimates. As a result, the contradictions between their limited-war strategy and their global strategy have become acute.
The world revolutionary people can take advantage of this situation to step up their attacks against the U.S. imperialists, with a view to repulsing them step by step and eliminating them part by part. The U.S. imperialists’ allies can also take advantage of this situation to wrangle for their own interests, thus creating difficulties for the U.S. imperialists.
In the southern part of our country, during the past two years the U.S. imperialists’ limited-war strategy has revealed many basic weaknesses. First of all, the U.S. imperialists’ limited-war strategy was adopted on the basis of the defeat of the special-war strategy--the U.S. imperialists have sent U.S. troops to the south in a passive and defeated position and in a situation in which the puppet army and administration have been on the decline. As a result, from the outset their limited-war strategy has become a passive strategy and had to accept a very unfavorable strategic position.
By waging a limited war, the U.S. imperialists have hoped to ward off the decline of the puppet army and administration, so that they could use them to support politically and militarily their neocolonialist war of aggression. Yet, in the southern part of our country, the puppet army and administration have become impotent and increasingly weakened.
The introduction of U.S. expeditionary troops into the south has been aimed at providing military support for the puppet army. Yet the U.S. troops have sustained continuous defeats and serious losses. The U.S. and puppet troops have not been able to rely upon each other, support each other, or coordinate with each other. As a result, their strategic effect has been reduced. The U.S. imperialists have developed their limited-war strategy in an extremely passive situation. The puppet army and administration have become impotent.
Moreover, the U.S. imperialists have encountered the Vietnamese people who have a determination to fight and win a great people’s war, and who have developed to a high degree creative strategy and tactics, and an invincible strength. Therefore, the serious defeats sustained by the U.S. troops have been inevitable.
In the unjust war of aggression in the south, the U.S. expeditionary troops have been fighting without an ideal and, as a result, their morale has been very low. The more they are defeated, the worse this basic weakness becomes. Furthermore, although they are numerous and equipped with modern armaments, they have encountered very great difficulties: topography, climate, [words indistinct] and training which is not suitable to the Vietnamese battlefield. Unaccustomed to the topography and climate, U.S. troops have encountered very great difficulties.
How has the U.S. imperialists’ strategic defeat developed during the past two years, during which they have waged a limited war in South Vietnam? As we all know, when they introduced U.S. troops into the south, the U.S. imperialists wanted to use their great military supremacy, concentrate their military forces, and launch an offensive in an attempt to annihilate the Liberation Armed Forces and regain the initiative. Yet, although they have more than l million troops at their disposal, the U.S. imperialists so far have not been able to realize this strategic design. Although they wanted to concentrate their forces, they have had to scatter their forces in many theaters and assign them many tasks. From the time they were introduced into the south until the end of 1966, the U.S. expeditionary troops were compelled to scatter in three major theaters--eastern Nam Bo, the highlands, and central Trung Bo--to cope with the vigorously developing people’s war.
Recently, U.S. troops have been scattered in another theater: the Quang Tri-Thua Thien theater. Generally speaking, on the southern battlefield U.S. forces have been scattered almost equally in these four theaters.
This scattered deployment of strategic forces runs counter to the U.S. military leaders’ plans. It is bitter for the U.S. imperialists to realize that in each of these four theaters, U.S. troops have been thinly scattered.
In the First Army Corps area, U.S. Marines have been scattered over an area of approximately 500 to 600 kilometers. In the highlands, U.S. forces, which are not large, have been scattered over a 200-kilometer area. In eastern Nam Bo, U.S. troops have had to spread out on many fronts and have found it necessary to defend all areas. As a result, large U.S. forces have become small and have failed to yield adequate strength.
The U.S. and puppet troops have not only been scattered in many theaters, but have been also assigned many tasks. It has been the U.S. imperialists’ intention to concentrate U.S. and puppet forces on annihilating the Liberation Armed Forces and, thereby, rapidly settling the war. Yet, faced with the southern people’s mounting military and political struggle from the rural areas to the cities, the U.S. imperialists have had to assign U.S. and puppet troops to pacification. The assignment of the bulk of the regular units of the puppet army to pacification is a strategic setback. The assignment of U.S. and satellite troops to pacification will certainly lead the U.S. imperialists to greater political and military setbacks.
Although the U.S. imperialists wanted to launch an offensive, they have fallen into a defensive position. It is an extremely dangerous thing for any aggressive army to have forces scattered, and to remain on the defensive is even more dangerous.
At present, about 70 percent of the U.S. troops perform defensive tasks in South Vietnam. According to the Pentagon’s calculations, at least 200,000 troops are needed to defend U.S. bases of various sizes in South Vietnam. To defend the Da Nang airbase alone, the U.S. imperialists have mobilized one division of U.S. troops and deployed them over a 25-kilometer perimeter. Recently, the U.S. imperialists estimated that only one out of eight U.S. servicemen in South Vietnam is engaged in mobile combat. McNamara admitted that the combat efficiency of U.S. troops is very low. He found that of the nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam, only 70,000 are directly engaged in combat.
The U.S. imperialists have had to commit their combat forces to the defense of their bases, cities, military lines of communications, and even the puppet army, which is being shaken, depressed, and disintegrated. As a result, although U.S. troops are very numerous, they are thinly scattered and lack offensive strength.
The U.S. imperialists wanted to annihilate the Liberation Armed Forces, but they have been seriously annihilated. During the past two years on the southern battlefield, the U.S. imperialists have feverishly concentrated efforts on trying to extricate themselves from their scattered and defensive position. They have continuously increased the number of their troops, and their troops have conducted offensive operations. Yet they have failed. They sustained very serious defeats in the two “dry-season strategic counteroffensives.”
Why do the U.S. and puppet troops not have strategic effect and combat efficiency, although they have conducted many battalion-size, division-size, and even multidivision-size search-and-destroy operations?
To annihilate the enemy it is necessary, first of all, to concentrate forces. The U.S. troops have been scattered to cope with the comprehensive and powerful people’s war. They have not only failed to concentrate their offensive forces, but have also been compelled to fight according to the will of the southern Liberation Armed Forces. In actual combat, in most of the battles, U.S. troops have failed to find their targets, not because the U.S. imperialists lack modern reconnaissance instruments, but because in the people’s war in South Vietnam which had developed to a high degree, targets and battlefronts exist everywhere, yet do not exist anywhere.
The prevalent phenomenon emerging from the war in South Vietnam is that U.S. troops have always been surprised, caught in the Liberation Armed Forces’ traps, and annihilated. U.S. troops have not been able to annihilate the Liberation Armed Forces; on the contrary, they have been seriously annihilated, although they are very numerous and have continuously conducted search-and-destroy operations. This is a strategic and tactical defeat sustained by U.S. troops on the southern battlefield.
The U.S. imperialists wanted to regain the initiative. Yet they have fallen deeper and deeper into a passive position. As everyone knows, initiative on the battlefield is manifested by the facts that one can act freely and at will, that one is fully free to choose the place and time for launching attacks, and that one can maneuver the enemy and compel him to adopt the fighting methods one selects. The most important factor is that one must succeed in annihilating the enemy.
On the southern battlefield during the past two years, U.S. troops have not had freedom of action, have been compelled to fight on the terms of the southern armed forces and people, and have not been able to annihilate any section of the Liberation Armed Forces. How can they regain the initiative on the battlefields?
During the past two years, U.S. troops have been very eager to annihilate the Liberation Armed Forces in eastern Nam Bo, in the highlands, in the delta of the Fifth Zone, and in the Tri-Thien region. Yet it is in these areas that the U.S. expeditionary troops have sustained serious annihilating blows. The Americans have not yet been able to carry out their plan to introduce U.S. troops into the Mekong Delta.
During the past two years, U.S. troops have exerted extensive efforts and conducted thousands of operations of various sizes. Yet they have failed to regain the initiative.
It may seem that U.S. troops have taken the initiative in conducting these operations, which appeared to have an offensive character. Yet, in essence they have had neither combat efficiency nor strategic effect. Therefore, U.S. troops have fallen deeper and deeper into a passive position.
Wanting to engage in a blitzkrieg, the U.S. imperialists have been forced to fight a protracted war. The leading strategic idea of the imperialists’ aggressive war is to fight quickly in order to solve the war quickly. Waging the local aggressive war in South Vietnam under the present situation in the world and the United States, the U.S. imperialists want to fight quickly. But they have been forced to fight a protracted war, although they have boosted the aggressive war to a large scale. They have encountered an adversary--the southern army and people--who is both resolute and clever and who has successively thwarted their blitzkrieg plots since the day they started implementing their special-war strategy. They could not fight quickly because they did not know their adversary and because they overestimated their own strongpoints in the fields of numerical strength and modern weapons.
The fact that the U.S. imperialists have been forced to fight a protracted war is a big defeat for them. The more protracted the war is, the more fierce will be the basic contradictions and weaknesses of the aggressive war of the U.S. imperialists in South Vietnam--contradictions and weakness which will lead them to increasingly big defeats.
The U.S. imperialists have been unable to pacify the countryside and stabilize the situation in the cities. They have used the majority of the puppet troops and a part of the U.S. forces to fulfill the pacification task, but they have failed ignominiously. The pacification plan has not made any progress, and the situation in the cities has become increasingly more troubled. They have bitterly admitted that “the history of South Vietnam pacification is a list of plans which have collapsed and of talented advisers’ boundless efforts which have been reduced to ashes.” (AP, 6 January 1967)
The ultimate goal of the local aggressive war of the U.S. imperialists in South Vietnam is to consolidate the puppet army and government and to bring about neocolonialism. However, faced with the fierce contradictions between the U.S. imperialists and lackeys and all our people, and faced with the increasingly strong resistance of the southern people, the internal contradictions of the puppet army and government have developed day by day.
The puppet army and government have declined day by day, and will surely arrive at complete disintegration and collapse, this actually has happened and is happening in the south of our country. This proves that the U.S. imperialists have sustained heavy defeats on the path leading to the ultimate goal of their neocolonialist aggressive war.
Thus, the U.S. imperialists have been drafted [sic – defeated?] strategically. What about their tactics? It can be said that after waging the local war for two years, the U.S. imperialists have encountered more and more crises and increasingly greater deadlock in the tactical field. All their offensive and defensive tactics, as well as all private tactics of each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, have not achieved the expected results.
All forms of tactics--from the search-and-destroy tactic, mopup operations, pacification measures, and rescuing operations to police and security operations, attacks with firepower, chemical poison spraying, and so forth--have proved to be inefficient. The Van Tuong, Cu Chi, and Plei Me battles as well as the search-and-destroy and mopup operations during the major campaigns--Five Arrows, Attleboro, Cedar Falls, Junction City, Highway 9, and so forth--have demonstrated the deadlock and failure of these forms of tactics. Modern military bases such as Da Nang and Chu Lai, and logistic bases such as Long Binh, Bien Hoa, and so forth, have been threatened permanently and attacked repeatedly, and have suffered heavy losses.
The private tactics of each military branch of the U.S. Armed Forces have also been defeated.
Based on the support of armored vehicles, artillery, and aviation, the motorized infantry tactics of the First Division has proved inefficient. Faced with the clever tactics of the liberation troops, this tactic of the First Division has shown many major weaknesses: one is not free to achieve one’s own intention, but must comply with the conditions and tactics of the enemy. The Bau Ban, Cam Xe, Nha Do, Bong Trang, and other battles were bitter defeats for this division.
The Air Cavalry Division’s massive heliborne tactics have been aimed at staging surprise raids and swiftly annihilating the enemy. Yet, it has never been able to achieve the surprise factor or to annihilate any section of the Liberation Armed Forces. Troops of the Air Cavalry Division are even weaker than ordinary U.S. infantry troops, because they lack the support mechanized and artillery units. Units of the Air Cavalry Division have been battered by the Liberation Armed Forces in Plei Me, Binh Dinh, and other localities.
The U.S. Marines’ tactics of blocking defense combine with conducting mopup operations aimed at pacifying the areas surrounding the military bases has revealed many weaknesses. The U.S. Marine bases at Da Nang and Chu Lai are like isolated islands in the open sea of people’s war. The Marines, who belong to one of the armed branches regarded by the U.S. imperialists as the most seasoned, have been most frequently and most seriously defeated, and are being stretched as taut as a bowstring over hundreds of kilometers in the Tri-Thien region and along Highway 9.
The bombing and strafing tactics, which have been aimed at annihilating the Liberation Armed Forces units, destroying the resistance bases, and massacring the people, have also become ineffective because of inaccurate intelligence information and the failure to identify targets accurately. To date, U.S. Air Force bombings and strafings, including that of B-52 strategic bombers, have not been able to annihilate any Liberation Armed Forces unit, but have only, as the U.S. imperialists have often admitted, shattered trees or destroyed empty tunnels.
Why have the various tactics adopted by U.S. troops been ineffective? As everyone knows, tactics are inseparable from strategy. If strategy becomes passive and stalemated, it will vigorously and adversely affect tactics. The reason for the failure and stalemate of the various tactics adopted by U.S. troops also lies in their erroneous tactical thinking. The U.S. troops’ tactics have been based solely upon the power of weapons and upon the assumption that firepower is their soul. Therefore, when these bases--weapons and firepower--are restricted or fail to develop their effectiveness, the U.S. troops’ tactics become ineffective and are defeated.
The tactics adopted by the U.S. troops in South Vietnam are undergoing a crisis and are stalemated, not because they are the outmoded tactics of a bourgeois military science, but mainly because they cannot match the creative and flexible tactics of the people’s war of the heroic, intelligent, valiant, and skillful southern armed forces and people. If U.S. troops were free to fight according to their tactics against an enemy who does not possess fighting experiences, their tactics might develop and have a certain effectiveness. Yet, faced with the strength of the people’s war and the skillful strategy and tactics of the southern armed forces and people, U.S. troops have had no freedom of action and, as a result, all their tactics have been ineffective.
The New York TIMES on 28 February 1967 correctly admitted: How can they--that is, the U.S. troops--win decisive victories over the South Vietnamese people’s armed forces, who cannot be defeated? These armed forces have come from the people and are fighting in areas which are very familiar to them. They know how to apply expertly the art and experiences of the war which they have waged for one quarter of this century.
The defeat of the U.S. imperialists’ tactics and strategies during the past two years on the southern battlefields was very heavy. Although they have poured in more and more troops to step up their local aggressive war, the U.S. imperialists not only have not achieved their strategic schemes, but also have failed to achieve all their strategic goals.
During the past two years, the U.S. imperialists have expanded the war with the aim of discovering a turning point toward victory; but this turning point has eluded them more and more. Moreover, the turning point toward defeat is drawing increasingly nearer for them. Their aggressive war in the south has exceeded the limitations of a local war. Yet the U.S. imperialists are still unable to find a way out. Johnson continues to find that this war is bloody and stalemated. McNamara and Westmoreland are becoming confused and are quarreling with each other about the problems of increasing U.S. strength or of increasing the U.S. troops’ fighting efficiency. All the big shots at the White House and Pentagon have admitted that they cannot defeat the adversary. The WALL STREET JOURNAL on 20 May 1967 said: “In Vietnam, the Americans have thrust themselves into a horrible, issueless, eight-diagram battle scheme. It is time to admit that Vietnam has become an incurable disease for the Americans.”
The experiences drawn from the Vietnam war during the past two years have exposed the fallacy of a series of military views of the U.S. imperialists, as well as of bourgeois military science in general.
The U.S. imperialists maintain that they will surely win if they wage local war with a large army equipped with modern weapons and supported by the air force and navy. The realities on the Vietnamese battlefield have caused this view to go bankrupt, along with the local war theory of the U.S. imperialist aggressors.
First of all, the U.S. imperialists’ view that the number of troops decides victory on the battlefield has lost all meaning during the special war as well as the local war. The Americans and their lackeys have continually had more troops than the southern Liberation Armed Forces, but they have never won victory. Facts prove that the U.S. imperialists have been losing on the southern battlefield not because they have lacked troops, and not because their troops have been less numerous than the Liberation troops, but because they have encountered an entire nation which has risen up to resist them resolutely, which has had a strongly developed people’s war, and which has had a powerful and inexhaustible political force and Liberation Armed Forces having a high fighting power and clever tactics.
From the purely numerical viewpoint, it is obvious that over a million U.S., puppet, and satellite troops constitute a large force--especially as this force is carrying out aggression on a battleground of only 170,000 square kilometers. But to have numerous troops does not necessarily mean to have powerful and efficient fighting power, since their aggressive war is unjust and since they have no fighting spirit and no appropriate tactics and are in a defensive strategic state. The over l million U.S., puppet, and satellite troops do not have the hoped-for fighting power.
Along with the argument on troop strength, the argument that equipment and weapons can decide victory has also been smashed.
It can be said that on the southern battlefields, those who have a great amount of up-to-date equipment and weapons are the U.S. imperialists. Except for nuclear weapons, all the most up-to-date U.S. weapons and war means have been lavishly expanded. Nevertheless, all this equipment and these weapons have been unable to help the U.S. troops protect themselves and develop their effectiveness in annihilating the southern Liberation Armed Forces.
Conversely, although they have no aircraft, armored vehicles, or warships, the Liberation Armed Forces continue to succeed in destroying U.S., puppet, and satellite troop units equipped with up-to-date equipment.
Everyone knows that armed forces must have equipment and weapons and that equipment and weapons are an important factor which creates the fighting strength of armed forces. However, it is obvious that equipment and weapons are not a factor which can decide victory. What decides victory on the battlefields is whether the armed forces have high fighting spirit and good fighting methods. Only with high fighting spirit and proper fighting methods can we develop to the fullest extent the use of equipment and weapons in order to defeat the enemy.
The arguments on the strength of the air force and on the use of the air force to decide victory on the battlefields has also gone bankrupt. In the south, the U.S. imperialists have a very great superiority in air power. They have used aircraft, including B-52 strategic bombers, to drop bombs of various types in an attempt to destroy the Liberation Armed Forces and massacre the people. However, they continue to be unable to save the U.S. infantry units from defeat and to check the ubiquitous and strong offensive thrust of the southern Liberation Armed Forces.
While it is true that the U.S. troops in the south have a considerable air force, it is obvious that the U.S. Air Force’s effect has been limited, because it must cope with the widespread people’s war of the heroic southern army and people. From Tri Thien to Ca Mau, there are thousands of targets which the Americans want to attack. Therefore, the U.S. Air Force has been forced to scatter, and, as a result, its fighting effect has not developed as desired. The failure of the U.S. Air Force, from heliborne tactics to large-scale airborne landing tactics, has demonstrated the bankruptcy of the U.S. imperialists’ argument concerning air power on the southern battlefields.
In the north, the U.S. Air Force has been dealt fierce blows. Nearly 2,300 up-to-date fighter aircraft of various types of the U.S. Air Force have been destroyed in the northern skies. The U.S. air superiority has disastrously collapsed.
U.S. aircraft, bombs, and bullets cannot intimidate our people. McNamara himself acknowledged that bombs and bullets cannot weaken North Vietnam. This is an acknowledgement of the inefficiency of the U.S. Air Force in the U.S. imperialists’ war of aggression in Vietnam.
The local-war strategy is collapsing along with the unimaginable strength of the U.S. Armed Forces. The war is not yet ended. However, it can be concluded that the U.S. local-war strategy in the south has proved inefficient and will certainly meet with complete failure. In the unjust war of aggression in Vietnam, the U.S. expeditionary troops, with nearly half a million men with up-to-date equipment, have not won any victory and are nothing but a defeated armed force.
In war, the ground forces play a decisive role on the battlefields. Nevertheless, the fighting strength of the U.S. ground forces is very poor, their morale is lower than grass, and their fighting methods are bad. The U.S. generals are subjective and haughty and have always been caught by surprise and defeated.
The U.S. imperialists have spent much effort to publicize the so-called unimaginable strength of the U.S. Armed Forces, with the aim of intimidating the world’s people-especially the people of small and weak nations. This trick has gone bankrupt. The truth is that the U.S. expeditionary troops are being defeated in the people’s war of the Vietnamese, who, although not possessing a vast territory and not having a great population, rely mainly on their own strength, and are determined to fight in order to wrest back independence and freedom.
Previous: Part I--The situation of the anti-U.S. national salvation resistance during the past two years.
Next: Part III--The people throughout the country have achieved very great victories.