The Phoenix Program is perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of the American effort during the Vietnam War. To someone well versed in counterinsurgency in practice, theory and historical example, Operation Phoenix doesn't seem completely out of the ordinary. The elimination of the insurgents infrastructure is truly amongst the most basic tricks when it comes to defeating an insurgency. In the case of the Vietnam War, this was carried out in its most excessive form, as laid out in the article written above: ranging from assassination to torture to the capture of suspected VC. Beyond the aforementioned goal of eliminating the VC infrastructure, another goal was to gain intelligence since without intelligence there is no way to find insurgents. Intelligence in this case could be derived through torture or other forms of interrogation.

As horrible as it might sound, the use of assassination and torture to gain intelligence and to eliminate the infrastructure of an insurgency isn't something new nor exclusive to the US. The French had made widespread use of torture to gain intelligence during the Algerian War and the Phoenix Program itself isn't too different from what the US carried out in the Philippines during the American-Philippine War (1899-1902). No matter how atrocious this might seem, these awful methods did lead to valuable results at times. However, abuse of the program was common and some South Vietnamese used it for their own personal goals to eradicate rivals or other corrupt reasons. For bad or good, the Phoenix Program left its mark on the VC - even though the morality of those involved in the program was perhaps thrown out of the window.

During World War II, US Navy intelligence learned that Japanese admiral Yamamoto was planning a tour of inspection to Rabaul and Bouganville island. The US Navy shared this information with the 13th US Army Air Force and an ambush was plotted. The book "Get Yamamoto" by Burke Davis provides all of the details.
The idea on undertaking a punitive military expedition to punish an enemy of the state predates the United States. In 1756, the colony of Pennsylvania sent Colonel John Armstrong deep into western Pennsylvania, specifically to kill two different Lene Lanape war leaders, Shingas and Captain Jacobs. On September 8th, 1756 an early morning attack on the village of Kittaning succeeded in killing Captain Jacobs. Shingas was able to escape, along with many of the captives the Lene Lanape had taken in their raids in eastern Pennsylvania, in the wake of the defeat of General Braddock's army.