in july 1965, jiap launches an operation trying to cut south vietnam in half. north vietnamese defeat at the hands of the american 1st cavalry division. they reassess. they said perhaps phase three isn't the right thing to did here now. they back away from phase three from conventional warfare. and they decide for a while jiap wins the internal debate about how to prosecute this war. as u.s. troop strength rises in decide, okay, we'll go back to protracting the war. well, concentrate our attacks and yes, we'll fight the u.s. some, but primarily we'll just fight on the periphery. we're not going to go for the big battle, the big blow. this only lasts a while. the north vietnamese reassess. when they're assessing, they do a very good job of identifying what we planned to do. they really assess the united states strategy very, very well. in 1965 they predict the u.s. will build up its forces there, protect its bases in the population centers, try to build up the south vietnamese army and south vietnamese government. and at the same time, they believed that the u.s

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 cl