substantial south vietnamese forces. you've got on the communist side in particular, the coalitional aspect is very important for their success. you know, ho chi minh says that himself. so you've got support from communist china and from the soviet union as well. so keep that in mind here when we look at this war because you have these various different aspects of it. and you've got to deal with the various different aspects, these various different wars in some respects in a different matter. now, also, what is important to point out here before we go into this lecture, you can see from the time line that it covers an enormous, you know, amount of time. 30 years. obviously, we're going to leave a couple things out and just hit the high points. what is important to think about is, the primary means, the primary elements of strategy that the north vietnamese used to prosecute the war against us, when the united states comes into the war, these have already been developed before our entry into the war in a significant fashion.

the tenets are there. they modify them to address us. that's one of the reasons we're going to spend a lot of time on the development of their ideas and the developments or the methods for prosecuting this war before our presence. is really a significant factor. or a dramatic factor in it. now, of course, start first with a little bit of background. a little bit of theoretical background and historical background. we always give you some theory. and one of the important addition to the theory we've been doing this they were is the addition of what becomes modern guerrilla warfare from mao tse-tung, chinese communist leader, famous for uniting china. now, mao from fighting the japanese and then fighting the nationalists in the chinese civil war, he derived his own particular theory of guerrilla strugg struggle. he's very good at blending and taking and modifying their ideas. but he's also very good at developing his own in the process.

he famously writes a small book called "on guerrilla war." in 1938 he writes "on protracted war." this was basically his scheme or his outline for how the chinese communists could take control of china, how to defeat the nationalists and also defeat the japanese as well. and his model of these three stages here that we'll talk about here in just a moment, it becomes the model for a lot of other insurgencies, particularly communist insurgencies in other parts of the world. and it also becomes for good or ill, it becomes the way we often evaluate insurgencies to see how far they've developed. again, can you see that's good or not, you can argue that, but it becomes becomes a tool for t. so what was mao thinking about? what does he mean? first of all, he had what we would call phase one, the strategic defensive. sometimes it's called the organization or consolidation phase. and here during this phase, the communists being weak, they would act primarily on the defensive. they would build up the party organization. they would build the basic structures. they needed later on.

they would try to adopt popular measures to win over parts of the people, win over the pezzants in particular, the farmers by giving them land. they would use terror against their opponents. and they would do this to try to undermine the authority of governments and create an atmosphere of fear and instability which they could step up to fill this gap. you recruit and try to win over the people. as you get stronger, you move to phase two, sometimes called the stalemate phase or expansion phase, equilibrium phase. at this point once the communists thought themselves strong enough to start fighting the state with rough equality, they would begin to do so. po used, but guerrilla warfare, guerrilla fighting that was attritional in nature would start to take on an increasingly

larger role. the guerrillas would build more bases, increase their recruiting. and as they got stronger, they would begin to convert the guerrilla forces into a regular army. also at the same time, they would start building their own governmental structures. kind of a shadow government to kind of supplant themselves. suppla warfare, expand the base areas and begin building a regular army. then when you become strong enough, you move to phase three. the strategic offensive phase or decision of the destruction of the enemy phase. now, in this phase the guerrillas decide they're strong enough to fight the government they're trying to overthrow toe to toe. your guerrilla forces are being transferred -- transformed into a conventional army. you'll still carry on guerrilla warfare, you know, but if it's necessary and if you need to, it's certainly part of it, and also ideally, this preparation in mao's mind, if you do everything right, you might get lucky and you might be able to even phase three might not be even necessary. but it's probably going to be. now, this is his model again something that's important. he's not putting this model forward for every guerrilla insurgency.

when he writes his on protracted war, he is specifically addressing the situation of china. but this is something that's taken up by other people, by the vietnamese communists. it becomes a model in some respects or as a foundational element for what they tried to do as well. now, some historical background. a little bit before we get into the vietnamese strategy. there's a little bit of historical background about french indochina. the french in 1858, they left

to control internal affairs. in 1919, the paris peace conference, ho chi minh, the famous communist leader of vietnam, he went to the paris peace conference. he tried to get vietnamese independents here is. he was rebuffed by it. he turns to communism. 1920, he founds -- he becomes one of the founding members of the french c communists as well.

they have their first bases on the border region. during the second world war, ho is involved in some guerrilla activities. some say he's one of the more effective anti-japanese guerrillas. some argue he doesn't do very much. he develops credibility in vietnam as an anti-french factor, as baldi, he abdicates in favor of ho chi minh. this is important politically because it gives ho credibility in this respect. now, particularly in the eyes of the vietnamese people. in september of 1945, ho chi minh declares independence. now, there would be a problem with that. now, the leaders of the communist movement, important for our purposes here, there's obviously a lot more. ho chi minh who we've talked about you can see on the slide. but these other three men here, particularly for our lecture and for your class, they're critical for us. you have the general on the far left there. he's much of the war minister of defense, runs the military committee, basically chief of the army. he has particular views on how to fight the war. on the other side, you have the party secretary, basically the second in command to ho chi minh. in the political realm. and then you have general tan who emerges as the commander of the vietnamese forces fighting in south vietnam. now, you will have a rivalry between jiap on one hand and another on the other hand as this develops. and how it used to be

prosecuting this war in the south. against south vietnam and against the united states. we'll see that here in a few minutes. sometimes the north vietnamese communists in the literature are depicted as super men and do everything right. you'll see they do a lot of things wrong. they're not all on the same page about what should be done either. so the first indochina war. they declared independence in 1945. but declaring independence is one thing. getting it is something completely different. in february of 1946, the french return. they want to reassert control over their former colonies. in december of 1946, the viet men, they staged their first attacks against the french. and this launches an eight-year war. the communists are driven out of hanoi in the initial fighting. and then the communists withdraw into the mountainous region north of hanoi. in october of 1947, the french launched an extremely large

operation called "operation lea." and they're trying to clean the communists out of this area. they hammer the communists really hard, but they have bases to fall back on and they have in some respects sanctuaries in china certainly to draw support from. in february of 1950, the head of the vietnamese communist military force, general jiap, he

bien ffu opini. the north vietnamese, they fight with the french, they move from being a guerrilla army, a light, small guerrilla force to being a conventional force that's able to defeat a great power on the field. now, it's a very -- it's in many ways a very stunning achievement. the geneva courts in 1954 will and you see a massive transfer of populations from the north and the south.

particularly catholics leaving north vietnam and going to south vietnam. now, the north vietnamese regime at this point will enter a period of consolidation in some respects. now, from 1954 to 1959, the north concentrated on building its structures and building the regime of north vietnam. but ho does some very typical way that the communists dist la

reform. now, the communists at the same time they're doing this, they never abandon the struggle against south vietnam because, you know, again, this is the first step. you've got north vietnam, yes, but you haven't gotten -- the communists have not gotten what they really want. one of the primary ways they carry out their war during this later to be expanded into cambodia as well. and this is something that's very, very significant to the communist war effort in south vietnam, pivotal, pivotal for much -- for all of their war effort here once they really lunch the military struggle. now, the importance is critical here for supplies, logistics, for manpower and so on. so it's a very significant investment. 2 million people used the trail during the course of the war. and peak traffic was 20,000 tons a month. they moved every possible thing can you imagine. but the primary means of actually moving the supplies, the bulk of them come 100-pound packs on somebody's back down the tra destabilize the south. but the president of south vietnam is a man named zem. he knows -- obviously they know what the north is trying to do. and he actually begins to mount a fairly effective campaign of suppression of the communist insurgents in south vietnam. this, by 1960, is worrying the north vietnamese because what they saw is their cadres be the vietnamese to make this regime collapse if ies too clear that we're making it collapse, maybe we'll provoke the americans into becoming bigger and stronger and then this will make it more difficult to make the regime collapse. but at the same time, we've dot to put pressure on it to win it. so what do we do? so it's a difficult thing for them. and eventually it will be their military efforts and their pressure that will help convince them to support south vietnam more strongly.

now, importantly, the north also in 1961 decided that this would probably be a long war. that it would be a protracted struggle and they needed to keep that in mind and they would have to at the same time be patient and still have to worry about the american intervention, too. in december of 1962 after a failed attempt to negotiate a coalition government with the u.s. and with the south, the communists decided that, well, they really had to intensify military action. that was going to be the primary route for doing this. and they began concentrating in the central highlands of south vietnam building base areas, building this as a base area for also fighting the war in the south. now, this action, certainly what they're doing, it provokes a response from the kennedy administration. and the kennedy administration replies with some fairly -- in some respects, a fairly successful methods. again, there's in argument about this. they reply primarily with a strategic program. this was an effort basically to consolidate populations in rural areas of vietnam. and in some areas it's successful, in some it isn't.

it's not managed as well as it could. this is something that for our purposes this frightens the north vietnamese. they see in this areas it's successful from separating them from the guerrillas, and they dislike this a lot. the other counterinsurgency things that the kennedy administration and other administrations are doing, these are things that worry the north vietnamese immensely. now, they also worry that as american involvement is increasing, that they're going to get a war with the u.s. just like they got with the french. now, but the kennedy administration in 1962, they decided to basically neutralize laos and negotiate about it. and this gave the north vietnamese hope that they could convince the u.s. to withdraw their support from south vietnam. now, in december of 1963, excuse me, in late 1963, this gentleman here will be killed in a coup. and this -- when this happens, this is very helpful to the north vietnamese.

they look at this now as being a great opportunity because there's a power vacuum that emerges in south vietnam. and the north now decides that really military effort probably would be their primary tool that could be used for taking over south vietnam. now, to do this, to fight this war, of course, they can't do it on their own. particularly the military resources they need to do it. that north vietnamese do not have the ability to produce them. and so again, we talked about in the beginning how there's a coalitional aspect to the struggle. here's where it comes in, the aid from china and soviet union. the communist regime in china is particularly helpful. and ho made a good effort to cultivate a special relationship with mao tse-tung, and he usually consulted the chinese about every major decision having to do with the war. now, the chinese, they didn't

want to see the u.s. establish in south vietnam either. they looked at vietnam in many respects like they did korea. to them, south korea was a place for american bases. well, north korea -- excuse me, south vietnam was in their mind as well. it's like taiwan where the americans, maybe they could build bases. they didn't like that. north vietnam in the late '60s, the chinese gave lots of help to the north vietnamese. for example, this were 80,000 chinese workers that were building roads and railroads in north vietnam during rolling thunder. and this was pivotal because the north, this chinese help is pivotal. the north has little help of convincing the u.s. to negotiate or u.s. to leave just with its own resources. by the mid-1960s, the chin knees lead chinese leaders are worried there's going to be fight with the americans just like in

korea. after 1964 during the gulf of tonkin, as the professor will talk about where you have the first of the shooting between north vietnam and the american navy. this convinces the chinese that they had to commit troops to north vietnam as well. and they have to do this because they're afraid, well, maybe the americans might come into north vietnam. but for chinese troops there, probably they won't. the chinese also started making preparations to fight the americans if they had to. when the u.s. sent major combat units into vietnam in april of 1965, the north vietnamese leaders also feared that they might get an intervention in north vietnam. again, they're looking at korea. the ghost of korea hangs over both sides here in thinking about what to do. and so in april 1965, the chinese give the order to send troops to north vietnam. and between 1965 and 1969, there are 320,000 chinese troops that serve in north vietnam. at one time there's as many as 170,000. this is critical in many ways. to the north, they want these

chinese troops because the more chinese troops there are in north vietnam, that's two things. one, it acts as a trigger. if the americans come north, there will be a war with the chinese. and this is helpful to the north vietnamese. plus, if there are chinese troops in north vietnam, the north vietnamese can infiltrate more of their regular units into the south or cambodia or laos. when you think about american options next week, think about american options for dealing with this war, keep in mind the chinese presence here and the factor that that brings to the table. now, in 1964, the north decided that they would consolidate their control over the central highlands and they would extend into other parts of lowland areas of vietnam. and they're thinking that now they're getting prepared for what they think is going to be a final offensive against the south. and after the gulf of tonkin incident and the fact that they couldn't negotiated a

settlement, the north decided at this point they really had to start committing regular north vietnamese army units to the south because they're fearful the americans are going to come in. they fear they have to match any escalation that's going to happen in the south. they also try to think, well, if we act quickly enough is what they're thinking, maybe we can push the south vietnamese regime over the top before the americans are able to get enough stuff in here to prop it up. it doesn't work quite the way that they planned. but that's certainly what they're thinking. at the same time, they'r