off balance, trying to impact american passification. trying to break the south vietnamese army. they suffer a lot of casualties doing this. it isn't going to have the effect it has. they think they'll break the american and the south vietnamese will and it's not happening. by the end of 1967 the north in a lot of ways, a lot of the leadership is becoming disillusioned. they have to replace all of their losses by sending troops from the north. they're seeing alienation in the south among the southern supporters of the war because they look at the north vietnamese forces coming down. they say, this is the north taking over. plus the leadership in the south begins to fray. they're taking a lot of casualties and are not seeing a lot of success. in may of 1967 general tan, he looks at the situation. he thinks the u.s. is weak. he thinks they're unable to protect the south vietnamese army. he thinks they can't protect the passification efforts and so what you will get out of this is a decision once again by the north to go to phase 3. he wants to launch these coordinated attacks all a