Pacification

Includes over 30 maps and illustrations

This monograph forms part of the Indochina Monograph series written by senior military personnel from the former Army of the Republic of Vietnam who served against the northern communist invasion.

Pacification is the military, political, economic, and social process of establishing or re-establishing local government responsive to and involving the participation of the people. It includes the provision of sustained, credible territorial security, the destruction of the enemy’s underground government, the assertion or re-assertion of political control and involvement of the people in government, and the initiation of economic and social activity capable of self-sustenance and expansion.

Defined as such, pacification is a broad and complex strategic concept which encompasses many fields of national endeavor. As a program implemented jointly with the U.S. military effort in South Vietnam, pacification appears to have involved every American serviceman and civilian who served there, many of whom indeed participated in conceiving the idea and helping put it to work.

In the attempt to present every relevant aspect of the GVN pacification effort, I have mostly relied on my personal experience as one of the many architects who helped draw part of the blueprint and oversaw its progress, and complemented it by conducting interviews with responsible officials and studying available documentation.