page_title: NLF and PAVN strategy, organization and structure
section_title: Pacification versus 'Search and Destroy' against the NLF/PAVN
hierarchical_section_title: NLF and PAVN strategy, organization and structure / NLF and PAVN strategy / American counter-strategy / Pacification versus 'Search and Destroy' against the NLF/PAVN
caption_attribution_description: English: NORTH VIETNAMESE T59 TANK captured by South Vietnamese 20th Tank Regiment south of Dong Ha.
context_page_description: During the Second Indochina War, better known as the Vietnam War, a distinctive land warfare strategy and organization was used by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam or better known as the Viet Cong in the West, and the People's Army of Vietnam or North Vietnamese Army to defeat their American and South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam opponents. These methods involved closely integrated political and military strategy – what was called dau tranh. The National Liberation Front, was an umbrella of front groups, sympathizers and allies set up by the rulers of North Vietnam to conduct the insurgency in South Vietnam. The NLF also included fully armed formations- regional and local guerrillas, and the People's Liberation Armed Forces. The PLAF was the "Main Force" – the Chu Luc or full-time soldiers of the NLF's military wing. Many histories lump both the NLF and the armed formations under the term "Viet Cong" or "VC" in common usage. Both were tightly interwoven and were in turn controlled by the North. Others consider the Viet Cong or "VC" to primarily refer to the armed elements.
context_section_description: Lively debate still surrounds the "search and destroy" attrition strategy of US General William Westmoreland in the early years of American involvement.
  The pacification-first approach. Supporters of the "pacification-first" approach argue that more focus on uprooting the local Communist infrastructure, and cleaning up internal problems would have denied the enemy their key population base, reduced the destructiveness of US operations, strengthened the Southern regime, and yielded better overall results. Since 90% of the population resided on the coastal plain and in the Delta, massive sweeps into thinly populated areas like the Highlands, or remote border jungle, were deemed counterproductive. Resources were better spent securing key rice-producing villages under pressure by VC operatives, or training ARVN forces to be more effective. Such critics point to the success sometimes achieved by the US Marines in their I Corps zone of operations, and the US Special Forces in organizing large areas of tribal peoples before the 1965 intervention. Both these alternative approaches however were marginalized or sidetracked by the main-unit war.
  The search and destroy approach. Defenders of "search and destroy" maintain that the Communist shift to Phase 3 warfare required "big battalion" activity to remove the most pressing conventional threats to the Saigon regime. They maintain that since Westmoreland was forbidden from striking with ground forces at Communist concentrations and supply routes in the three countries surrounding the battle zone (Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam), his attritional strategy within the confines of South Vietnam was the only realistic option against an enemy that had the weak Saigon government on the ropes by 1964. Other analysts however, such as Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., (The Army and Vietnam), maintain that there were equal or better alternatives available at the time besides large-scale attrition operations. In between are any number of variants on these themes.
  Uneven progress of US pacification effort. The American pacification effort was also ineffective over several critical years, hampered by bureaucratic rivalries between competing agencies, a focus on big-unit operations, and lack of coordination between South Vietnamese civil agencies concerned with pacification, and the US military. The success of pacification efforts were closely linked to security and security and ARVN performance improved in the Creighton Abrams era after 1968's Tet battles. Some resources were shifted away from attrition towards counterinsurgency/pacification, and progress was made on the population base issue. However these reforms were haltingly implemented, and US forces largely continued to operate in the same way – seeking body counts and other attritional indicators, against an enemy that could always up the ante indefinitely by introducing more troops.
  Phases of the war and the conflicting US approaches. Some writers have attempted to reconcile the different schools of thought by linking activity to a particular phase of the conflict. Thus Phase 2 guerrilla assaults might well be met by a pacification focus, while Phase 3 conventional attacks required major counter-force, not police squad or small-patrol activity. The early 1965 stabilization battles such as the Ia Drang, the 1967 border battles, and the 1968 Tet Offensive, are examples of the efficacy of big-unit warfare. Nevertheless, weaknesses were manifest in both areas. Some writers have questioned whether either pacification or "search and destroy" would have made any difference given dwindling American resolve, the big unit focus, other American and South Vietnamese weaknesses noted above, and the Communist strategy of attritional, protracted war.
caption: PAVN T59 TANK captured by South Vietnamese 20th Tank Regiment, south of Dong Ha.
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