Vietnam wars

Template:TOC-right While the Vietnam War involving the United States is most familiar, there have been two millenia of conflict in Southeast Asia, or especially the area now called Vietnam.Beginning with the Trung Sisters' revolt against China in the first century CE, this area of Southeast Asia has seen civil wars (during the creation of the Nguyen Dynasty in 1789-1802), resistance to the French colonization (beginning in 1858), and several, savage 20th-century wars. The latter conflicts began with nationalist resistance to the French, and continued through the events of the Second World War, that became the Indochinese revolution or the First Indochina War (1946-1954) against the French, low-level civil war between the two Vietnams after the Geneva Accords (1954-1962), the widespread devastation during the deployment of American forces in the Vietnam War (1962-1975), and what has been called the Third Indochina War (1978-1999), involving Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and Thailand.

There were at least two periods of hot modern war, first the Indochinese revolution, starting with guerilla resistance before the Second World War and ending in a 1954 Geneva treaty that partitioned the country into the Communist North (NVN) (Democratic Republic of Vietnam, DRV) and non-Communist South (SVN) (Republic of Vietnam, RVN). A referendum on reunification had been scheduled for 1956, but never took place. Nevertheless, a complex and powerful United States Mission to the Republic of Vietnam was always present after the French had left and the Republic of Vietnam established.

This article is about how these wars affected Vietnam and the Vietnamese.

The most famous of the conflicts, the Vietnam War had several phases, beginning with the North Vietnam's attempt to oust the French colonial government after World War II. After the First Indochinese War, North Vietnam made the policy decision to invade the South and began, surreptitiously to prepare. U.S. advisers had been present in the South since 1955, but they began to accompany South Vietnamese combat troops in 1962. The U.S.A. became more and more involved in South Vietnam, with the advisory buildup (1962-1964), the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964, the U.S. ground combat involvement (1964-1972), South Vietnam fighting its own ground war (1972-1975) until the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.

After the U.S. withdrawal, South Vietnam collapsed after being invaded by the DRV in 1975, and the two halves were united. The televised images of the T-54 tanks that broke down the gates of the Presidential Palace in the southern capital, Saigon, broadcast around the world, seemed to announce the defeat of American military might. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam replaced North and South Vietnam. But although Vietnam was now unified under a Communist government, this did not end the fighting. After small-scale fighting since 1973, Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978, was twice invaded by China in 1979 and 1984, and with the last Cambodian resistance ending in 1999. "Vietnam" has become synonymous with long conflicts; some cynics have called the Cambodian involvement "Vietnam's Vietnam."

While the country remains officially Communist, in 1986, the Vietnamese introduced market reforms and began to participate in the international economic system, under a system called doi moi.

Geostrategic Background

Andrew Wiest points out that the conflicts in Vietnam can be viewed at multiple levels: as ideological struggles, civil war, regional conflict within either Indochina or the broader Southeast Asian region, or as a part of the Cold War In reality they were a combination of all of these.

In the West, the 1962-1975 "Vietnam War" is primarily considered as a part of the Cold War. Before that, there were wars of colonialism and nationalist resistance to it. Colonialism was not limited to the Third French Republic, but to a long history of Chinese attempts to control the region. Vietnamese nationalism is not something new, but unfortunately this was often not realized in other countries.

While Vietnamese Communists had long had aims to control the whole of Vietnam, the specific decision to conquer the South was made, by the Northern leadership, in May 1959. The Communist side had clearly defined political objectives, and a grand strategy to achieve them; there was a clear relationship between long-term goals and short-term actions, within their strategic theory of dau trinh. Some of their actions may seem to be from Maoist and other models, but they have some unique concepts that are not always obvious.

Apart from its internal problems, South Vietnam faced difficult military challenges. On the one hand, there was a threat of a conventional, cross-border strike from the North, reminiscent of the Korean War. In the 1950s, the U.S. advisors focused on building a "mirror image" of the U.S. Army, designed to meet and defeat a conventional invasion. Ironically, while the lack of counterguerilla forces threatened the South for many years, the last two blows were Korea-style invasions. With U.S. air support, the South were able to largely repel a conventional invasion by North Vietnam. The 1975 invasion which defeated the South was not opposed by U.S. forces.

French Indochina Background

See also: Vietnam, pre-colonial history

French missionaries had been active in Vietnam since at least 1802, helping Emperor Gia Long reestablish the Nguyen Dynasty. In 1858, France invaded the region, and the Nguyen Emperor accepted protectorate status for the four parts of what is now Vietnam:

• Cochin China in the south, including the Mekong Delta and what was variously named Gia Dinh, Saigon, and Ho Chi Minh City
• Annam in the center, with the cultural capital of Hue;
• the mountainous Central Highlands, the home of the Montagnard peoples
• Tonkin in the North, including the Red River Delta, Hanoi, and Haiphong.

By June 1867, the French seized the last provinces of Cochin China, and in that July, the government of neighboring Siam (now Thailand) accepted the Cambodian protectorate in return for the two Cambodian provinces of Angkor and Battambang; Siam iself never came under French rule. In 1870, after the Emperor Napoleon III fell from power, French colonial officers intensified their focus on Indochina.

In the 1920s and 1930s, both non-Communist and Communist nationalist groups were developing. As the Japanese expansion in China became evident, France began to suppress resistance to French rule within IndoChina, to prepare the way to oppose further Japanese expansion.

Indochina and the Second World War

However, during World War II, France was swiftly defeated by Nazi Germany, and colonial administration of French Indochina passed to the Vichy French government. The Vichy government ceded control of Hanoi and Saigon in 1940 to Japan, and in 1941, Japan extended its control over the whole of French Indochina. The U.S.A., concerned by this expansion, put embargos on exports of steel and oil to Japan. The desire to escape from these embargos and become resource self-sufficient ultimately led to Japan's decision to attack Western countries in December 1941; see Vietnam, war, and the United States .

Vietnam

Indochinese Communists had set up hidden headquarters in 1941, but most of the Vietnamese resistance to Japan, France or both, including both communist and non-communist groups, remained based over the border, in China. As part of the Allied fighting against the Japanese, the Chinese formed a nationalist resistance movement, the Dong Minh Hoi (DMH); this included Communists, but which not was not controlled by them. When this did not provide the desired intelligence data, they released Ho Chi Minh from jail, and he returned to lead an underground centered around the Communist Viet Minh. This mission was assisted by Western intelligence agencies, including the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Free French intelligence also tried to affect developments in the Vichy-Japanese collaboration.

In March 1945, the Japanese imprisoned the Vichy French and took direct control of Vietnam until they were defeated by the Allies in August. At that point, there was an attempt to form a Provisional Government, but the French took back control of the country in 1946.

Nationalist attempts at Indochinese revolution, accelerating with a declaration of independence in September 1946. There were several nationalist movements, both non-Communist (e.g., Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang) and Communist (e.g., Indochinese Communist Party; the Viet Minh became the dominant revolutionary force. From 1946 to 1948, the French reestablished control, but, in 1948, began to explore a provisional government. A serious nationalist movement was clearly underway by 1948.

Indochinese revolution

While there is no universally agreed name for this period in the history of Vietnam, it is the period between the formation of a quasi-autonomous government within the French Union, and the the eventual armed defeat of the French colonial forces by the Viet Minh. That defeat led to the 1954 Geneva accords that split Vietnam into North and South.

The French first created a provisional government under the last Nguyen Emperor, Bao Dai, then recognized Vietnam as a state within the French Union. In such a status, France would still control the foreign and military policy of Vietnam, which was unacceptable to both Communist and non-Communist nationalists.

The Two Vietnams after Geneva

See also: Government of the Republic of Vietnam

This period began with the military defeat of the French in 1954, and a subsequent meeting at Geneva that partitioned Vietnam into two countries - North and South. (The French defeat occurred in many places, but is best known by the name of the most famous battleplace - Dien Bien Phu.) Two of the provisions of the Geneva agreement were never fulfilled: the agreement proposed that a referendum on unification should be held in 1956, and also banned foreign military support and intervention. Neither the Communist side nor the Diem government wanted the referendum. It is sometimes called the beginning of the Second Indochinese War, although others use that term to describe the start of U.S. combat involvement.

Between the 1954 Geneva accords and 1956, the two countries were still forming, under the influence of major powers, especially France and the U.S.A., and to a lesser extent China and the Soviet Union. In the south, the Diem government was unpopular, but there was no obvious alternative that would rise above factionalism, and also gain external support. Anti-Diem movements were not always Communist, although some were. Diem had his own authoritarian philosophy with mixed Confucian, French, and Vietnamese roots, and was not open to the idea of an opposition. Ho probably would have won an election, but free elections were alien concepts, and they wanted to keep control, not throw the dice on the reaction of the people. By 1955, the bulk of Diem's military advice and funding was coming from the U.S.A., which justified its involvement as part of the containment policy of Communism. There was concern that the Chinese might intervene as they had done in the Korean War.

The situation reflected not only 'jockeying for power', but also the fact that the province chief had security authority that could conflict with that of tactical military operations in progress, but also had responsibility for the civil administration of the province. That civil administration function became more and more intertwined, starting in 1964 and accelerating in 1966, with the "other war" of rural development.

The North was exploring its policy choices, both in terms of the South, and its relations with China and the Soviet Union. The priorities of the latter were not necessarily those of Ho, just as U.S. and French priorities were not necessarily those of Diem.

In 1957-1958 there was a guerilla movement against the Diem government, involving assassinations, expropriations, recruiting, shadow government, and other things characteristic of Mao's Phase I; see Vietnamese Communist strategic theory (temporary note: parts are in dau trinh and General Offensive-General Uprising, as well as much more general material in Insurgency#Political rhetoric, myths and models). These insurgents were primarily native to the south or had been there for some time. While there was communication with, and perhaps arms supply from, the north, there is little evidence that there were any Northern units in the South, although some organizers may have infiltrated. In 1959, North Vietnam decided to overthrow the South by military means. Originally, the military means were guerilla warfare, carried out by the Viet Cong, or the military arm of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF). While the eventual fall of South Vietnam would be due to conventional rather than guerilla warfare, some authors, such as Bui Tin, assert that the NLF was never an indigenous Southern force but always under the control of the North.

Pacification

After partition, there was a continuing struggle for security of the rural population, and to win their support for the government. A convenient general term for the many programs involved is pacification in South Vietnam. It has also been called the "Other War" or "Second War" to differentiate it from direct combat with Communist military forces in the South, although some refer to a "Third War" against Communists outside the South.

Some kind of Viet Minh-derived organization remained in the South betweeen 1954 and 1960, but it is unclear that they were directed to take over action until 1957 or later. Before then, they were recruiting and building infrastructure, a basic first step in a Maoist protracted war mode.

While the visible guerilla incidents increased gradually, the key policy decisions by the North were made in 1959. Early in this period, there was more conflict in Laos than in South Vietnam. U.S. combat involvement was, at first, greater in Laos, but the activity of advisors, and increasingly U.S. direct support to South Vietnamese soldiers, increased, under U.S. military authority, in late 1959 and early 1960. Communications intercepts in 1959, for example, confirmed the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail and other preparation for large-scale fighting.

Specific programs included the Strategic Hamlet Program, Revolutionary Development, the U.S. Marine Combined Action Platoon program, and others.

U.S. support to South Vietnam before Gulf of Tonkin

See also: United States Mission to the Republic of Vietnam

U.S. involvement in the region began with intelligence collection in the Second World War. There was great internal argument, within the United States Government, between 1945 and 1950, about the appropriate role of the U.S. in the area. Certainly, American aid began in 1950, and increased significantly in 1955, when the U.S. took over the previous French role of training the now-South Vietnamese military.

Communism has been called a "secular religion", and the North Vietnamese officials responsible for psychological warfare, as well as military operations, were part of a system of dau trinh or "struggle" doctrine. Communism, for its converts, was an organizing belief system that had no equivalent in the South. At best, the southern leadership wanted a prosperous nation, but too often they were focused on personal prosperity. Their Communist counterparts, however, had a mission of conversion by the sword — or the AK-47 assault rifle.

Traditional ethnic geography of Vietnam

Guerilla attacks increased in the early 1960s, at the same time as the new John F. Kennedy administration made Presidential decisions to increase its influence. Diem, as other powers were deciding their policies, was facing disorganized attacks and internal political dissent. There were conflicts between the government, dominated by minority Northern Catholics, and both the majority Buddhists and minorities such as the Montagnards, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao. These conflicts were exploited, initially at the level of propaganda and recruiting, by stay-behind Viet Minh receiving orders from the North.

Gulf of Tonkin incident

President Johnson asked for, and received, Congressional authority to use military force in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was described as a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. warships. After much declassification and study, much of the incident remains shrouded in what Clausewitz has called the "fog of war", but questions have been raised about whether the North Vietnamese believed they were under attack, about who fired the first shots, and, indeed, if there was a true attack. Congress did not 'declare war', which is its responsibility in the Constitution of the U.S.A.; nevertheless, it launched what effectively was the longest war in U.S. history -- and even longer if the covert actions before the August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin situation are included.

The Gulf of Tonkin resolution, although later revoked, was considered, by Lyndon Johnson, as his basic authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia. It was another example of how declarations of war have become extremely rare since the Second World War.

South Vietnamese government

After the French colonial authority ended, Vietnam was ruled by a nominally civilian government, led by first Bao Dai and then, from 1954, by Ngo Dinh Diem; neither were elected. In November 1963, Diem was killed in a military coup and he was replaced by a nominal civilian government really under military control, which was overthrown by yet another military coup (involving some of the same generals) in January 1964. After a period of overt military government, there was a gradual transition to at least the appearance of democratic government, but South Vietnam neither developed a true popular government, nor rooted out the corruption that caused a lack of support.

Between 1964 and 1967 there was a constant struggle for power in South Vietnem, and not just from within the military. Several Buddhist and other factions often derived from religious sects, which became involved in the jockeying for political power, such as the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao. Even the Vietnamese Buddhists were not monolithic, and had their own internal struggles. At varying times, sects, organized crime such as the Binh Xuyen, and individual provincial leaders had paramilitary groups that affected the political process; while the Montagnard ethnic groups wanted autonomy for their region. William Colby (then chief of the Central Intelligence Agency Far Eastern Division) observed that civilian politicians "divided and sub-divided into a tangle of contesting ambititions and claims and claims to power and participation in the government." Some of these factions sought political power or wealth, while others sought to avoid domination by other groups (Catholic vs Buddhist in the Diem Coup).

Vietnamese and U.S. goals were also not always in complete agreement. Until 1969, the U.S.A. was generally anything opposed to any policy, nationalist or not, which might lead to the South Vietnamese becoming neutralist rather than anticommunist. The Cold War containment policy was in force through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Administrations, while the Nixon administration supported a more multipolar model of detente.

While there were still power struggles and internal corruption, there was much more stability between 1967 and 1975. Still, the South Vietnamese government did not enjoy either widespread popular support, or even an enforced social model of a Communist state. It is much easier to disrupt a state without common popular or decisionmaker goals.

U.S. policy and combat involvement

See also: MACV-SOG

See also: CIA activities in Vietnam

As opposed to training and technical support, the first covert action teams including U.S. military to take to the field, in the region, were in Laos. There had been a CIA program to put Vietnamese guerillas in the north during partition. Other than those, U.S. advisers started to go on combat missions in 1962, during the Kennedy Administration. The bulk of combat activity was under Lyndon Johnson, while the U.S. combat role ended under Nixon.

George Kennan, considered a consummate diplomat and diplomatic theorist, observed that American leaders, starting with the 1899-1900 "Open Door" policy to China, have a

neurotic self-consciousness and introversion, the tendency to make statements and take actions with regard not to their effect on the international scene byt rather to their effect on those echelons of American opinion, congressional opinion first and foremost, to which the respect statesmen are anxious to appeal. The question became not: How effective is what I am doing in terms of the impact it makes on our world environment? but rather: how do I look, in the mirror of American domestic opinon, as I do it?

Even when leaders' goals are sincere, the need to be seen as doing the popular thing can become counterproductive. There were many times, in the seemingly inexorable advance of decades of American involvement in Southeast Asia, where reflection might have led to caution. Instead, the need to be seen as active, as well as the clashes of strong egos, separate the needs of policy from the dictates of politics.

The greatest U.S. involvement was from mid-1964 through 1972, with some activity on both ends. So, much of the detailed U.S. political action with other countries will be in Joint warfare in South Vietnam 1964-1968, Vietnamization, and air operations against North Vietnam. It is not practical to draw a hard-and-fast line. Many, but by no means all, of the key political decisions were under Johnson, but Presidents from Truman through Ford all had roles.

In brief form, U.S. involvement came through the French. U.S. embargoes on shipments to Japan were conditional on Japan withdrawing from French Indochina; Japanese unwillingness to do so led fairly directly to attacking Pearl Harbor.

During the Second World War, the U.S. primarily observed from the China-Burma-India theater. After the Japanese surrender, while British forces released French forces from Japanese prisons, enabling them to take control, the U.S. involvement stayed on a diplomatic and intelligence level until 1950.

As soon as the Second World War ended, Harry S. Truman was under great pressure to return the country to normal civilian conditions, and he demobilised rapidly to release funds for domestic spending. There were no such pressures to demobilize, however, on Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. Truman has been blamed for "losing" Eastern Europe and China, but it is less clear what could have been done to stop it. The decision to cut military commitment came home to roost in the Korean War, when Truman had few forces to dispatch.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded Truman as President in 1952, after a campaign that had attacked Truman's "weaknesses" against communism and in Korea, he formulated a strong policy of containing Communism, but his administration did not regard Southeast Asia as critical. Eisenhower personally rejected the proposal, from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Operation VULTURE proposal to give air support to the French at Dien Bien Phu.

JFK and his key staff, came from a different elite than that which had spawned John Foster Dulles, but, while the form was different, a militant anti-Communism was underneath many of the Kennedy Administration policies. Its rougher operatives had a different style than Joe McCarthy, but it is sometimes forgotten that Robert Kennedy (RFK) had been on McCarthy's staff. Where Republicans during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations blamed Democrats who had "lost China", the Kennedy Administration was not out to lose anything; there was no major commitment to Southeast Asia.

Johnson's motives were different from Kennedy's, just as Nixon's motivations would be different from Johnson's. Of the three, Johnson was most concerned with U.S. domestic policy, with protecting his 'domestic legacy'. Karnow quotes his comment to his biographer, Doris Kearns, as

"I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved. If I left the woman I really loved — the Great Society — in order to get invoved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then i would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to feed the hungry and shelter the homeess. All my dreams to provide education and medical care to the browns and the blacks and the lame and the poor. But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, I would be seen as a coward and my nation seen as an apeaser, and we would both find it impossible to accomplish anything for anybody anywhere on the entire globe."

He judged actions in Vietnam not only on their own merits, but how they would be perceived in the U.S. political system. To Johnson, Vietnam was a "political war" only in the sense of U.S. domestic politics, not a political settlement for the Vietnamese. He also saw it political in the sense of both his personal, and the U.S., position vis-a-vis the reso of the world.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who had been appointed by Kennedy, became Johnson's principal adviser, and continued to push an economic and signaling grand strategy. Johnson and McNamara, although it would be hard to find two men of more different personality, formed a quick bond. McNamara appeared more impressed by economics and Schelling's compellence theory than by Johnson's liberalism or Senate-style deal-making, but they agreed in broad policy.

They directed a plan for South Vietnam that they believed would end the war quickly. Note that the initiative was coming from Washington; the unstable South Vietnamese government was not part of defining their national destiny. The plan selected was from GEN William Westmoreland, the field commander in Vietnam. Opposition against Johnson peaked in 1968; see Tet Offensive. On March 31, 1968, Johnson said on national television,

"I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president"

In March, Johnson had also announced a bombing halt, in the interests of starting talks. The first discussions were limited to starting broader talks, as a quid-pro-quo for a bombing halt.:

During the 1968 Presidential campaign, a random wire service story headlined that Nixon had a "secret plan for ending the war, but, in reality, Nixon was only considering alternatives at this point. He remembered how Eisenhower had deliberately leaked, to the Communist side in the Korean War, that he might be considering using nuclear weapons to break the deadlock. Nixon adapted this into what he termed the "Madman Strategy".

After the election of Richard M. Nixon, a review of U.S. policy in Vietnam was the first item on the national security agenda. Henry Kissinger, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, asked all relevant agencies to respond with their assessment, which they did on March 14, 1969.

While Nixon hesitated to authorize a military request to bomb Cambodian sanctuaries, which civilian analysts considered less important than Laos, he authorized, in March, bombing of Cambodia as a signal to the North Vietnamese. While direct attack against North Vietnam, as was later done in Operation LINEBACKER I, might be more effective, he authorized the Operation MENU bombing of Cambodia, starting on March 17.

U.S. policy changed to one of turning ground combat over to South Vietnam, a process called Vietnamization, a term coined in Janaury 1969. Nixon, in contrast, saw resolution not just in Indochina, in a wider scope. He sought Soviet support, saying that if the Soviet Union helped bring the war to an honorable conclusion, the U.S. would "do something dramatic" to improve U.S.-Soviet relations. In worldwide terms, Vietnamization replaced the earlier containment policy with detente.

Allied ground troops depart

In the transition to full "Vietnamization," U.S. and third country ground troops turned ground combat responsibility to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Air and naval combat, combat support, and combat service support from the U.S. continued. While the ARVN improved in local security and small operations, Operation Lam Son 719, in February 1971, the first large operation with only ARVN ground forces, they took casualties that the South Vietnamese leadership considered unacceptable, and withdrew. This operation still had U.S. helicopters lifting the crews, and U.S. intelligence and artillery support.

They did much better against the 1972 Eastertide invasion, but this still involved extensive U.S. air support. To stop the logistical support of the Eastertide invasion, Nixon launched Operation LINEBACKER I, with the operational goal of disabling the infrastructure of infiltration. One of the problems of the Republic of Vietnam's Air Force is that it never operated under central control, even for a specific maximum-effort air offensive. South Vietnamese aircraft always were controlled by regional corps commanders, so never developed skills in deep battlefield air interdiction.

When the North refused to return to negotiations in late 1972, Nixon, in mid-December, ordered bombing at an unprecedented level of intensity, Operation LINEBACKER II. This was at the strategic and grand strategic levels, attacking not so much the infiltration infrastructure, but North Vietnam's ability to import supplies, its internal transportation and logistics, command and control, and integrated air defense system. Within a month of the start of the operation, a peace agreement was signed.

Peace accords and forcible unification, 1973-75

Peace accords were finally signed on 27 January 1973, in Paris. U.S combat troops immediately began withdrawal, and prisoners of war were repatriated. U.S. supplies and limited advise could continue. In theory, North Vietnam would not reinforce its troops in the south.

The North, badly damaged by the bombings of 1972, recovered quickly and remained committed to the destruction of its rival. There was little U.S. popular support for new combat involvement, and no Congressional authorizations to expend funds to do so. When Gerald Ford, Nixon's final vice-president, succeeded Nixon, most major policies had been set by the time he took office. He was under a firm Congressional and public mandate to withdraw.North Vietnam launched a new conventional invasion in 1975 and seized Saigon on April 30.

Final U.S. evacuation

No American combat units were present until the final days, when Operation FREQUENT WIND was launched to evacuate Americans and 5600 senior Vietnamese government and military officials, and employees of the U.S. The 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade, under the tactical commmand of Alfred M. Gray, Jr., would enter Saigon to evacuate the last Americans from the American Embassy to ships of the Seventh Fleet. Ambassador Graham Martin was among the last civilians to leave. In parallel, Operation EAGLE PULL evacuated U.S. and friendly personnel from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 12, 1975, under the protection of the 31st Marine Amphibious Unit, part of III MAF.

Vietnam was unified under Communist rule, as nearly a million refugees escaped by boat. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

A new perspective for the PAVN

The People's Army of Viet Nam captured much of the equipment of the ARVN, and was now among the most experienced armies in the world. While its operations in 1975 did not show mastery of high-technology combined arms warfare, it became a very credible opponent, in direct combat, for forces lower in technology than the Warsaw Pact or NATO. While many of the personnel of the ARVN were purged or imprisoned, others eventually joined the new forces, bringing their expertise.

The PAVN had been growing for 40 years, and indeed reached its greatest size in 1976. PAVN infantry divisions were increased from 27 to 61 (48 regular infantry divisions and 13 smaller economic construction divisions), and military corps from six to 14. The Vietnamese Air Force was raised from three to five Air Divisions including one helicopter division. The Vietnamese Navy doubled the number of its combat vessels. According to Pike, in late 1990 about 500,000 had been demobilized from the PAVN (apparently to about 800,000 regulars and 1.6 million militia).

Third Indochina War (1978-1999)

A series of conflicts directly involving Vietnam, Cambodia, and China began to flare in 1978, which waxed and waned until a treaty in 1991, with small-scale actions until 1999. These have been called the Third Indochina War. Given the Vietnamese invaded with relatively high technology, were frustrated by guerillas who had sanctuaries into which they could retreat, and that it seemed an endless war, cynics have called it "Vietnam's Vietnam". The action was "deplored" by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, (ASEAN) with a statement from the then-chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee, Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mochtar Kusumaatmadja; this became the ASEAN position. ASEAN members brought the matter to the United Nations Security Council.

In this situation, Thailand, an ASEAN member, was the "frontline state". ASEAN faced a problem of showing support for Thailand but Indonesia decided that the apparent strategy of prolonging the war and "bleeding Vietnam white", was not in the interest of Southeast Asia as a whole. It was believed that Thailand was providing sanctuaty to the Khmer Rouge, frustrating the Vietnamese generals who were forbidden to pursue into Thailand, much as the Americans were not allowed to pursue the Viet Cong into Laos and Cambodia. While always insisting on the central demand of Vietnamese withdrawal and Khmer self-determination, Indonesia encouraged the Khmers and Vietnamese and their external sponsors to a more stable settlement. Negotiations for such a settlement began in 1982, and ended with the Final Act of the Paris International Conference on Cambodia on October 23, 1991. Mochtar and the next Indonesian foreign minister, were key in these negotiations.

The Paris Peace Accords mandated elections and a ceasefire, which was not fully respected by the Khmer Rouge, and UN-sponsored elections in 1993 helped restore some semblance of normalcy under a coalition government. Factional fighting in 1997 ended the first coalition government, but a second round of national elections in 1998 led to the formation of another coalition government and renewed political stability. The remaining elements of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in early 1999.

Vietnam invades Cambodia

Since 1973 there had been skirmishes between North Vietnamese and Cambodian Communist Khmer Rouge units, both wanting the same Cambodian rice. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge captured all cities and towns, and drove the populace into the countryside, a self-genocide killing at least 1.5 million people.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, after incidents with both the Khmer Rouge and their Chinese patrons. This led to ten years of Vietnamese occupation, and almost 13 years of civil war. In Douglas Pike's opinion, the Politburo, now more accustomed to success through conventional arms, not even armed dau trinh, believed they could quickly use their military against Cambodia and get a quick result.

A 1988 estimate put the PAVN at 1.2 million in the regular "main force" and 1.7 million in the militia or "para-military" force). A demobilization program planned to send 800,000 back to civilian life, still leaving a military establishment with 1.6 million personnel. Probably in June 1988, the Vietnamese decided to accept their losses and, with great ceremony, start withdrawing ground troops to let the Cambodians fight their own civil war.

China invades Vietnam, 1979

In response to the Vietnese invasion of their client, Cambodia, China invaded Vietnam in February 1979. The Chinese People's Liberation Army sent 180,000 troops in a five-pronged attack against an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 PAVN regular and border troops, using essentially the same tactics as they had used in the Korean War. The PLA achieved tactical surprise, but did not use its manpower advantage, trade space for time, or use deception techniques. In general, the PAVN equipment, including that captured from the ARVN, was more advanced than the Chinese, especially with respect to communications. Neither side used close air support. but the PAVN did resupply its units by parachute drop. There appeared to be no Chinese equivalent to the elite PAVN sappers. The Chinese eventually seized three provincial capitals, Lao Cai City (the capital of Lao Cai Province is now Dien Bien Phu), Cao Bang and Lang Son, and withdrew a month later. after losing nearly half as many soldiers killed in action in Vietnam as the U.S. had lost in 10 years.

Chinese commanders in this war were to achieve later political prominence. Zhang Wannian commanded the 127th Division (which was transferred to the 54th Army as its parents 43rd Army and Wuhan MR were eliminated in the 1985 downsizing). Fu Quanyou commanded the 1st Army in the battle to take Mount Laoshan in 1984 during the protracted post-1979 Sino-Vietnamese border skirmishes. Both men later jointed the Central Military Committee of the Party.

Cambodia, China, Thailand and Vietnam

In the autumn of 1983, the 95th PAVN regiment conducted what were termed 'training exercises' in Cambodia. On March 24, 1984, other PAVN units attacked Khmer Rouge headquarters, while the 95th Regiment crossed into Thailand to block the Khmer Rouge retreat. China responded with heavy shelling of towns on the Sino-Vietnamese border. The PAVN withdrew from Thailand in early April, but the shelling continued, and the PAVN units in Cambodia continued until they overran the Khmer Rouge headquarters on April 15.

The Chinese then attacked toward the Laoshan hills on the border, fighting from May to July. In yet another irony, the Chinese headquarters was in Kunming, where the Viet Minh had met with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services team during the Second World War. The Laoshan area is considerably farther from Hanoi than was the 1979 attack, and the reasons for picking this site are not known. O'Dowd speculated that one reason may have been to draw PAVN troops out of Cambodia, just as the Battle of Khe Sanh may have been meant to draw U.S. troops away from the cities to be attacked in the Tet Offensive. China may also have wanted the psychological victory of capturing a provincial capital that could not easily be reinforced, Ha Giang City. The Chinese failed to take Ha Giang, and were beaten to a stalemate much as in 1979.

As an example of the conflict, Peking Daily made the claim in a story about a local war hero identified as Xu Xiaodan, a scout for artillery units near Laoshan, a frequently reported flashpoint in the six-year-old undeclared China-Vietnam border war. No exact date or Chinese casualties were given in the Associated Press report from 1985 report, which followed two days after a Vietnamese report forces killed 313 Chinese soldiers last month in repulsing land-grabbing attacks in its Ha Tuyen Province, which borders the Yunnan province of China. Smaller-scale artillery exchanges and border incidents between China and Vietnam ended in November 1991.