0 - The Black Vault

THE BOM CORPORATION
After the 1973 Paris Agreements,
the key to the continued success of
Vietnamization, and for that matter the GVN's Dacification Program, was the
support promised by the USG in the form of US airpower and sustained econoinic,
materiel and technical support. When that promised support faltered,
Vietnamization and Pacification became shaky, deteriorated an, finally
collapsed under the pressure of the DRV's final offens-ve,
H. LESSONS
The
following lessons are drawn from the material ol counterinsurgency,
Pa.ificatio. and Vietnamization developed above:
* The LIS government should establish an agreed doctrine for counterinsurgency
and pacification which complements national goals,
objectives and related tasks.
* A government calling upon the United States for assistance in
maintaining power in the face of an internal threat, as did the
Vietnamese Government,
is unlikely to be efficient or effective
or to meet American ideals of democracy or probity. American
commitments to assist such governments must be made with the
recognition that our act of commitment and our advice cannot
change the nature of the client regime or the society of the host
country.
* The ability and willingness of the US to exert leverage on a
client state is inversely proportional to the perceived imoortance
of that nation to US national security interests.
0 Before committing itself to supporting an ally besieged from
within, the United States should be confident that it
knows the
composition and the motivation of the threatening forces and the
problems at issue., Only through such knowledge will we be able
to assess the dimensions of the problem we mignt confront.
Simple prudence requires that we know "n advance whether the
government's cause is dubious or its prospects hopeless.
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