As the Laotian Civil War flared from 1961 onward, the CIA carried out a paramilitary program designed to foster a guerrilla army to support the Royal Lao Government (RLG). Paralleling that, the U.S. Department of Defense covertly supported the Royal Lao Army and other Lao armed forces through a sub rosa supply system, as the U.S. picked up the entire budget of Laos. The Annamese Cordillera in southern Laos became the haven for a communist logistics network, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The communist war effort in South Vietnam depended on that supply route.