I did'nt question U.S. forces, however, do question the resolve of the South Vietnamese Army and the civilian population of South Vietnam. It's nothing personal, but there is no way that we could inflict such a high rate of casualties without ending the conflict. This points to the significant corruption that ran rampant throughout the South Vietnamese army in addition to the significant portion of the South Vietnamese civilian population willing to help Ho Chi Minh's forces. Braddock, Your Vietnam revisionism is inherently flawed. 1. You still ascribe to the theory that all we needed to do to win was to stack enough bodies when you talk about that being the elusive goal. This is why we ultimately lost in Vietnam; we pissed away three years in search of solely attrition while Americanizing the war effort, and even in the post-Tet era, body counts still poisoned many of our efforts. 2. This Americanization helped sow the seeds of Vietnamese dependence - while the ARVN certainly did bleed during this time, they were relegated to what the US considered the "JV" effort and supplied and trained accordingly. 3. Corruption was a problem and certainly one of the reasons why the South Vietnamese government never attained the legitimacy required to be successful in the end. However, it is because of American shortsightedness, the same flawed thinking that you exhibit over three decades later, that military action was the solution. It is certainly a tool in the kit bag, but if all you want to see are military problems, then that's the only tool you're going to use! 4. Why do you think that segments of the South Vietnamese population supported the North? I am really curious to see your answer here, as it should expose the dichotomy of your thinking, where you want to discuss solutions for Vietnam in a military context when it was the political context that we failed to grasp for almost a decade, starting with our ramped up advisory effort in 1960. One parting comment - you still haven't answered my question as to what vital interests were in Vietnam or in Indochina, for that matter. The only thing you've mentioned is the domino theory, and yet, when Indochina did fall like a domino to communism during the 70s, the domino trail was broken there. There wasn't a continuous advance of the red threat beyond Indochina in the region, which begs the question as to why the domino theory became such a "vital interest" as you want to proclaim it.

Braddock, "The ARVN suffered 5x the casualties that the US did - 223K x KIA and 1,169K x WIA. What ratio would meet your significant reciprocity formula? " I did'nt question U.S. forces, however, do question the resolve of the South Vietnamese Army and the civilian population of South Vietnam. It's nothing personal, but there is no way that we could inflict such a high rate of casualties without ending the conflict. This points to the significant corruption that ran rampant throughout the South Vietnamese army in addition to the significant portion of the South Vietnamese civilian population willing to help Ho Chi Minh's forces. In regards to reciprocity, I was pointing out that Vietnam did not benefit from our intended strategy of tandem force continuity between our forces and the South Vietnamese army forces. *Note My reciprocity formula requires that a given nation's military forces that are working in tandem with U.S. forces be able to inflict casualties on enemy forces at a near parallel ratio to American forces given their knowledge of their regional terrain and use of American forces to neutralize enemy advances and strongholds at strategic points of intervention. This would allow them to use their forces in precision strikes against an enemy that would be weakened and on the run if the casualty rate inflicted on the enemy in Vietnam by American forces was the same. It all reverts to training and societal compliance factors concerning a significant portion of ARVN forces and the civilian population of South Vietnam.

Braddock, "Your Vietnam revisionism is inherently flawed." 1. You still ascribe to the theory that all we needed to do to win was to stack enough bodies when you talk about that being the elusive goal. This is why we ultimately lost in Vietnam; we pissed away three years in search of solely attrition while Americanizing the war effort, and even in the post-Tet era, body counts still poisoned many of our efforts. 2. This Americanization helped sow the seeds of Vietnamese dependence - while the ARVN certainly did bleed during this time, they were relegated to what the US considered the "JV" effort and supplied and trained accordingly. 3. Corruption was a problem and certainly one of the reasons why the South Vietnamese government never attained the legitimacy required to be successful in the end. However, it is because of American shortsightedness, the same flawed thinking that you exhibit over three decades later, that military action was the solution. It is certainly a tool in the kit bag, but if all you want to see are military problems, then that's the only tool you're going to use! 4. Why do you think that segments of the South Vietnamese population supported the North? I am really curious to see your answer here, as it should expose the dichotomy of your thinking, where you want to discuss solutions for Vietnam in a military context when it was the political context that we failed to grasp for almost a decade, starting with our ramped up advisory effort in 1960. One parting comment - you still haven't answered my question as to what vital interests were in Vietnam or in Indochina, for that matter. The only thing you've mentioned is the domino theory, and yet, when Indochina did fall like a domino to communism during the 70s, the domino trail was broken there. There wasn't a continuous advance of the red threat beyond Indochina in the region, which begs the question as to why the domino theory became such a "vital interest" as you want to proclaim it. Shek In the morning.

My reciprocity formula requires that a given nation's military forces that are working in tandem with U.S. forces be able to inflict casualties on enemy forces at a near parallel ratio to American forces given their knowledge of their regional terrain and use of American forces to neutralize enemy advances and strongholds at strategic points of intervention. This would allow them to use their forces in precision strikes against an enemy that would be weakened and on the run if the casualty rate inflicted on the enemy in Vietnam by American forces was the same. It all reverts to training and societal compliance factors concerning a significant portion of ARVN forces and the civilian population of South Vietnam. Braddock, Who was training the ARVN? How were they organized? How were they equipped? What was the incentive for advisers? What was the priority given to this mission? What do you think of this effort? How would you compare it to the training and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces today? What are the similarities and what are the differences? I think that if you honestly answer the above questions honestly, you'll find them quite illuminating and find out why your constant revisionism about Vietnam rings hollow.

"My reciprocity formula requires that a given nation's military forces that are working in tandem with U.S. forces be able to inflict casualties on enemy forces at a near parallel ratio to American forces given their knowledge of their regional terrain and use of American forces to neutralize enemy advances and strongholds at strategic points of intervention. This would allow them to use their forces in precision strikes against an enemy that would be weakened and on the run if the casualty rate inflicted on the enemy in Vietnam by American forces was the same. It all reverts to training and societal compliance factors concerning a significant portion of ARVN forces and the civilian population of South Vietnam. Braddock, Who was training the ARVN? How were they organized? How were they equipped? What was the incentive for advisers? What was the priority given to this mission? What do you think of this effort? How would you compare it to the training and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces today? What are the similarities and what are the differences?' "I think that if you honestly answer the above questions honestly, you'll find them quite illuminating and find out why your constant revisionism about Vietnam rings hollow." Shek Let me take a stab at it.

Braddock, Check out the reading list below that is influencing current COIN doctrine development and operations in Iraq. Looks like exactly the recommended reading list I gave you many months back . . .

Wall Street Journal March 20, 2006 Pg. 1 As Iraq War Rages, Army Re-Examines Lessons Of Vietnam Recent Books Pan Doctrine Of Overwhelming Power When Fighting Guerrillas; A Gift for Donald Rumsfeld By Greg Jaffe The last time Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Baghdad, back in December, the top U.S. military commander there gave him an unusual gift. Gen. George Casey passed him a copy of "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam," written by Lt. Col. John Nagl. Initially published in 2002, the book is brutal in its criticism of the Vietnam-era Army as an organization that failed to learn from its mistakes and tried vainly to fight guerrilla insurgents the same way it fought World War II. In the book, Col. Nagl, who served a year in Iraq, contrasts the U.S. Army's failure with the British experience in Malaya in the 1950s. The difference: The British, who eventually prevailed, quickly saw the folly of using massive force to annihilate a shadowy communist enemy. "The British Army was a learning institution, and the U.S. Army was not," Col. Nagl writes. Col. Nagl's book is one of a half dozen Vietnam histories -- most of them highly critical of the U.S. military in Vietnam -- that are changing the military's views on how to fight guerrilla wars. Two other books that have also become must-reading among senior Army officers are retired Col. Lewis Sorley's "A Better War," which chronicles the last years of the Vietnam War, and Col. H.R. McMaster's "Dereliction of Duty," which focuses on the early years. The embrace of these Vietnam histories reflects an emerging consensus in the Army that in order to move forward in Iraq, it must better understand the mistakes of Vietnam. In the past, it was commonly held in military circles that the Army failed in Vietnam because civilian leaders forced it to fight a limited war instead of the all-out assault it longed to wage. That belief helped shape the doctrine espoused in the 1980s by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Colin Powell. They argued that the military should fight only wars in which it could apply quick, overwhelming force to destroy the enemy. The newer analyses of Vietnam are now supplanting that theory -- and changing the way the Army fights. The argument that the military must exercise restraint is a central point of the Army's new counterinsurgency doctrine. The doctrine, which runs about 120 pages and is still in draft form, is a handbook on how to wage guerrilla wars. It offers Army and Marine Corps officers advice on everything from strategy development to intelligence gathering. Col. Nagl is among the four primary authors of the doctrine. Conrad Crane, a historian at the U.S. Army War College, is overseeing the effort. One of the doctrine's primary goals is to shatter the conventional wisdom that defined the post-Vietnam Army. "We are at a turning point in the Army's institutional history," Col. Nagl and his co-authors write in a forthcoming essay in "Military Review," an Army journal. The doctrine's biggest emphasis is on the need to curb the military's use of firepower, which created thousands of refugees and horrific collateral damage in Vietnam. "The more force you use when battling insurgents, the less effective you are," the draft states. The Army is also using its Vietnam experience to highlight the importance and difficulty of building local security forces that can carry on independently after U.S. forces go home. For most of the Vietnam War, the U.S. gave spotty attention to South Vietnamese forces. Without U.S. air support and artillery they quickly crumbled. Drawing on its frustrating struggle to prop up a corrupt government in Saigon, the Army in its new blueprint counsels soldiers that anti-guerrilla operations must be focused on building a government that is seen as legitimate in the eyes of the locals. "Military actions conducted without analysis of their political effectiveness will be at best ineffective and at worst help the enemy," the draft doctrine states. Within the Bush administration, there's broad support for the Army's new direction. It matches President Bush's own shift away from a pre-9/11 aversion to nation-building and guerrilla wars. The current national-security strategy seeks to spread freedom and democracy -- even if it means committing troops to guerrilla fights in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. For most of the 1980s and 1990s the Army's understanding of what went wrong in Vietnam was dominated by retired Col. Harry Summers's history "On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War." That account argued Viet Cong guerrillas were used by the comm

Who was training the ARVN? How were they organized? How were they equipped? What was the incentive for advisers? What was the priority given to this mission? What do you think of this effort? How would you compare it to the training and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces today? What are the similarities and what are the differences? Braddock, Here are my answers to the questions I posed: Who was training the ARVN? The US had advisors in South Vietnam starting in 1954. How were they organized? How were they equipped? They were organized using Vietnamese translations of US MTOEs - the thought process was that the ARVN needed to be organized so as to repel an external invasion a la the Korea model. They were not organized to fight a counterinsurgency, except along the flawed lines of thinking that airmobile operations was one and the same as COIN operations. What was the incentive for advisers? There wasn't much incentive for advisers as evidenced by the low remarks during several surveys as to how advisory duty OERs stacked up when a person's records went before promotion boards. This helped to dilute the quality of advisory effort because officers who wanted the "proper" tickets to be punched avoided such duty. What was the priority given to this mission? Until General Abrams focus on "one war" and "Vietnamization," if it didn't contribute to search and destroy, then it received lower priority and funding. Americanization was the main effort. What do you think of this effort? I find the whole attrition strategy and the big Army's desire to make Vietnam fit into a conventional war problem a giant failure. How would you compare it to the training and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces today? What are the similarities and what are the differences? Our initial efforts in Iraq were a failure. It took the large scale desertion of Iraqi forces during the first battle of Fallujah to realize that the Iraqis needed a dedicated effort. What took over a decade in Vietnam to realize luckily only took a little over a year in Iraq to realize - making the Iraqi Army to look like us wasn't what Iraq needed. It needed security forces (both military and police) that were capable of fighting the insurgency that they had, and not some future external threat that would be a moot point if the counterinsurgency battle was lost. So, when comparing the US advisory effort in Iraq versus Vietnam should give plenty of hope, as it shows that we were willing to adapt to the circumstances that we had, as opposed to the circumstances that we wanted. None of this is to try and diminish the efforts of the advisors that did serve in Vietnam. The reason that David Halberstram become a famous author is because he befriended many of these advisors in the early years of our major advisory effort, and he became a conduit for the advisors to report what was really happening in Vietnam and how we were failing. This happened because the military brass refused to listen to their subordinates and make the recommended policy changes that were being requested from the field. If you wish to read the sources where I drew this information from, the primary source is Krepinevich's "The Army and Vietnam" and Sorely's "A Better War."

Braddock, Here are my answers to the questions I posed: "Who was training the ARVN?" "The US had advisors in South Vietnam starting in 1954." "How were they organized? How were they equipped? They were organized using Vietnamese translations of US MTOEs - the thought process was that the ARVN needed to be organized so as to repel an external invasion a la the Korea model. They were not organized to fight a counterinsurgency, except along the flawed lines of thinking that airmobile operations was one and the same as COIN operations." "What was the incentive for advisers?" "There wasn't much incentive for advisers as evidenced by the low remarks during several surveys as to how advisory duty OERs stacked up when a person's records went before promotion boards. This helped to dilute the quality of advisory effort because officers who wanted the "proper" tickets to be punched avoided such duty." "What was the priority given to this mission?" "Until General Abrams focus on "one war" and "Vietnamization," if it didn't contribute to search and destroy, then it received lower priority and funding. Americanization was the main effort." "What do you think of this effort?" "I find the whole attrition strategy and the big Army's desire to make Vietnam fit into a conventional war problem a giant failure." "How would you compare it to the training and equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces today? What are the similarities and what are the differences?" "Our initial efforts in Iraq were a failure. It took the large scale desertion of Iraqi forces during the first battle of Fallujah to realize that the Iraqis needed a dedicated effort. What took over a decade in Vietnam to realize luckily only took a little over a year in Iraq to realize - making the Iraqi Army to look like us wasn't what Iraq needed. It needed security forces (both military and police) that were capable of fighting the insurgency that they had, and not some future external threat that would be a moot point if the counterinsurgency battle was lost. So, when comparing the US advisory effort in Iraq versus Vietnam should give plenty of hope, as it shows that we were willing to adapt to the circumstances that we had, as opposed to the circumstances that we wanted." "None of this is to try and diminish the efforts of the advisors that did serve in Vietnam. The reason that David Halberstram become a famous author is because he befriended many of these advisors in the early years of our major advisory effort, and he became a conduit for the advisors to report what was really happening in Vietnam and how we were failing. This happened because the military brass refused to listen to their subordinates and make the recommended policy changes that were being requested from the field." If you wish to read the sources where I drew this information from, the primary source is Krepinevich's "The Army and Vietnam" and Sorely's "A Better War." Shek Contrary to what you may think, this is not news to me and in no way is indicative of the inner circle thinking of the Pentagon leadership during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Therefore, your questions omit key events and variables that were action predictive concerning IMOS implementation during this time period in addition to adaptive paradigm shifts due to theatre occurrences. You should not assume that just because a book is on the COS reading list, he has closed the door on any and all meticulous critiques and analysis of them in order to prevent catastrophes in the future. I know for a fact that while he has his preferences, he does not allow them to stifle his growth and ascertainment of the realities of combat. In fact, he has been quoted as saying that in the special forces community, one has to stay relevant or leave the sf community.

Braddock, Neither of these two books are on the CSA reading list.

"The newer analyses of Vietnam are now supplanting that theory -- and changing the way the Army fights. The argument that the military must exercise restraint is a central point of the Army's new counterinsurgency doctrine. The doctrine, which runs about 120 pages and is still in draft form, is a handbook on how to wage guerrilla wars." "It offers Army and Marine Corps officers advice on everything from strategy development to intelligence gathering." Shek I know this is going to bake your noodle but the above facts sound a lot like "American Warfare 2: The Counter Terror Primer" in theory and page count. I am sure noone will disagree that I was the first to deal with all of the counnter insurgency threats in the form of a primer sized book format, as "American Warfare: Merging Dominant Warfare" dealt with the same issues as well. A lot of lives could have been saved had some of the people on this thread exercised an open mind to possible solutions. Time has proven the content of these books to be relevant and correct in every sense of the word. My intentions were to save lives. Hopefully the books will do that in the future.