Persuasion and coercion in counterinsurgency warfare

Military Review, July-August, 2008 by Andrew J. Birtle

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Military victories over enemy forces in 1968 finally gave the allies the opportunity they needed to make headway on pacification. Aided by a revitalized effort on the part of the South Vietnamese government, an improved system of politico-military coordination through the recently created office of Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development (CORDS), and a major military and paramilitary buildup fueled by importing vast quantities of additional war materiel, the allies were able to make significant gains in spreading their influence over the countryside. Programs of persuasion, development, and political mobilization played a role, but as a National Security Council study group concluded in 1970, public "support tends to follow rather than lead control. Most rural people have no strong commitment to either side, and they accept the governance of whichever side appears to be winning." (18) (Emphasis added.)

While political progress was both desirable and necessary to solidify the government's gains, the group acknowledged that improvement had come only after "the allies were able clearly to gain the upper hand in the main force war, destroying, dispersing, or pushing back the enemy main force units." (19) This was no surprise to CORDS, which devoted the lion's share of its personnel, activities, and funds to security and intelligence efforts to protect and control the population rather than to socio-economic betterment programs. Population resettlement and police measures to restrict the movement of people and goods likewise contributed to weakening the Viet Cong.

The South Vietnamese government would have been far stronger had it been able to win the support of its people more through persuasion than by coercion, but political, social, and security conditions in the country made such an achievement problematic. Still, enough progress occurred that the South could have survived the insurgency had it not been for North Vietnam's immutable determination to conquer the South. Given the North's attitude, South Vietnam was always going to live or die by the sword. Even if it had been entirely successful in winning the support of its people, South Vietnam could only have survived if it had had sufficient military power of its own or the direct military backing of the United States. Without these, it fell easily to North Vietnam in 1975.

Carrots and Sticks

This brief review of America's experience in waging internal conflicts has demonstrated that the U.S. government and its Army have always used a combination of positive and negative measures to suppress rebellions. Much to the frustration of theorist and practitioner alike, history has shown that there is no simple formula for combining these two essential yet volatile ingredients. Rather, counterinsurgency warfare has proved to be more alchemy than science, with each situation requiring a different proportion of ingredients, depending upon the social, political, cultural, and military nature of the conflict.