Hello everyone! I'm a historian with the Films Team at Army University Press. I'm here to chat about my new book Clear, Hold, and Destroy: Pacification in Phú Yên and the American War in Vietnam.
What I cover in the book:
By the end of the American War in Vietnam, the coastal province of Phú Yên was one of the least-secure provinces in the Republic of Vietnam. It was also a prominent target of the American strategy of pacification—an effort, purportedly separate and distinct from conventional warfare, to win the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese. In Robert J. Thompson III’s analysis, the consistent, and consistently unsuccessful, struggle to place Phú Yên under Saigon’s banner makes the province particularly fertile ground for studying how the Americans advanced pacification and why this effort ultimately failed.
In March 1970 a disastrous military engagement began in Phú Yên, revealing the enemy’s continued presence after more than three years of pacification. Clear, Hold, and Destroy provides a fresh perspective on the war across multiple levels, from those making and implementing policy to those affected by it. Most pointedly, Thompson contends that pacification, far from existing apart from conventional warfare, actu- ally depended on conventional military forces for its application. His study reaches back into Phú Yên’s storied history with pacification before and during the French colonial period, then focuses on the province from the onset of the American War in 1965 to its conclusion in 1975.
A sharply focused, fine-grained analysis of one critical province during the Vietnam War, Thompson’s work demonstrates how pacification is better understood as the foundation of U.S. fighting in Vietnam.
I'll start responding to questions at 10am EST. I look forward to answering your questions related to the book!
What was the most unexpected thing you learned in going through the archives?
Thank you so much for joining us for an AMA!
I might be starting with the obvious soft-ball, but what what factors existed to make Phú Yên province one of the least-secure at that point in the conflict?
Drilling down a bit more specific though on the central topic here, in the fight for 'hearts and minds', how did the various forces differ in their approaches to that goal? Did the Americans and the ARVN have similar methods? What about in comparison to the PAVN or PLAF?
Finally though, getting the Kindle version now that it is out, but any chance there is an Audiobook on the near horizon? If not, consider this one vote in favor!
What do you make of the majority of Vietnam films?
Thank you for coming on to do this AMA with us!
I guess my main question is half historiography, half terminology: I notice you called it 'the American War in Vietnam' as opposed to the more popularly used 'Vietnam War'. Has there been a trend in scholarship towards using this new terminology? And what has/have the reason(s) behind that shift been? Not at all to suggest it shouldn't happen of course, as I understand it, it is closer to how the war is called in Vietnam itself – just interested as to how these shifts are happening. Of course, if you'd prefer to say something a bit broader about recent Vietnam historiography, I'd be no less interested in that!
Hi Dr Thompson! Thank you for doing this AMA!
What was the relationship between conventional military forces and pacification in Phú Yên? Was there an attempt to embed soldiers into local communities as static units? On a doctrinal level, was political warfare and conventional warfare seen as two separate spheres, or were they deemed to be intrinsically linked? Were there efforts to, in the words of David Galula, "Build a political machine from the population upward," or did pacification efforts never reach this advanced stage?
Sorry for the many questions, but I figured they are all interlinked to a certain degree!
Thank you for doing this AMA Dr Thompson!
Is it possible to draw critical comparisons between Commonwealth successes in the 'Malayan Emergency' and US failures in Vietnam, or are the situations too different for any meaningful comparison?
What tactics did the Americans try to win the "hearts and minds" (as you say) of the Vietnamese? Did they target particular groups (demographic, political, etc...) of interest?
How did this experience shape future US policy in similar efforts where the US was trying to gain goodwill with the population (e.g. Iraq or Afghanistan)?
Hello Dr. Thompson! It's wonderful to have you here and I can not wait to get my hands on your book. While there already plenty of fantastic questions regarding your book and research, I thought I'd ask about your position as an historian with the Films Team at Army University Press. What does it entail to be a historian with the Films Team? Can you tell us something about the work you have done with the team and what advice do you have for the many aspiring historians who are reading this thread?
You have said elsewhere that you greatly benefited from online digital archives. Which of these did you find most illuminating? Are there any strategies you can share for how to best explore these resources?
Thank you so much for your time today!
Phú Yên, a coastal province not touching Cambodia and not particularly far north, doesn't seem like it would be the most likely location for NVA incursions or influence. Was the opposition to Saigon/US influence based in NLF activities? If so, why was it a hotbed of NLF activities? If not, in what was the opposition based and why?
You note a stated difference between pacification and conventional warfare, but argue that "pacification, far from existing apart from conventional warfare, actually depended on conventional military forces for its application." Does this mean that "pacification" using conventional forces doesn't work because of the posture of conventional forces?
Thanks!
Dr. Thompson,
As a novice, there is this image of Saigon as this monolithic entity that was corrupt, difficult to coordinate, control and guide, and that was very out of touch with the rural/regional areas of South Vietnam. How accurate is that portrayal and how much of the insurgency issues (only term that comes to mind) were a result of Saigon issues? To rephrase the latter part, would operations have been MORE successful with a more adept government (if that was the case) in Saigon?
Based on your research and knowledge what would you consider the two or three most effective counter-insurgency techniques that don't involve war crimes or genocide ? So many "successful" counter-insurgencies have relied on those illegal and immoral techniques; e.g. the Americans in the Philippines, the Brits in the Boer War. Is there anything that seems to work without crossing the accepted ethical boundaries of the Geneva Conventions?
Hi, probably too late for this, but such specificity I have to try. My partner's family is from here, and the stories they tell are pretty unsettling, specifically about retribution (in their stories, by the communists, but there was the implication it was bad for all involved) against collaborators with the Americans. Is there any documentation about the scope and scale of these retributive acts? Any numbers of how many were killed in the internecine fighting? Were these anecdotal stories typical, or among the few extreme outliers of violence during pacification? It's so sparsely populated even now, and it's appalling to imagine all these individuals working out petty disagreements against the background of an invading army; I can't judge the level of animosity still present (or at least early 2000s when I went), but it would be great to know if there were any accurate censuses prior to the Americans, or even during the French occupation
Yo Doc congrats on the publication!
Was there any consideration given to the Australian Counter Insurgency doctrine (of the time) within the American pacification strategy? Adding onto that, did this pacification program include any form of civic action i.e. health care to civilians or repairs to infrastructure?
What are some of the new questions that arose for you in the course of researching your book? Are there any particular areas that you'd like to explore, but were out of scope for your immediate work?
Do you think "pacification" is also used as a PR word to make the war more agreeable to the US public?
What happened to the area after the war?
What was the local perception of the American hearts and minds strategy?
Thank you for this fascinating ama! Pretty much all media focuses on Americas role in the Vietnam War (for obvious reasons of course), but were many other nations involved Phú Yên in any capacity?
Bit of a stretch here but because vietnam and Afghanistan are both COIN (although idk what they called it in vietnam) I was wondering what similarities do you see between Afghanistan and vietnam? Furthermore do you think Phu Yen is somewhat comparable to modern Helmand province?
I'm sorry if these questions are too far a stretch. I am just curious in the parallels between 50 years ago and today.
Hello Dr. Thompson! Thank you for the AMA!
A couple of questions here if you don't mind.
1: How effective was the attempt of the US (and in addition to its allies If possible) in pacification and as well search and destroy operations against the Viet Cong?
2: What were the right and wrong things in terms of military effectiveness the US did in its pacification and clear, hold and destroy operations?
3: How were US pacification operations were perceived by Vietnamese civilians? Did they help in the image of the US and its troops and minimalizing potential VC recruitment?
The 4th is more of a personal one: What exactly motivated you to write this particular topic of the Vietnam War and where did your interest in this topic start?
Did you interview any surviving Vietnamese civilians from the Era? If so, did their perspective of the events align with the archival information?
Is it true that the Vietnamese view the First Indochina war with France as more important than the American War?
Hello Dr. Thompson and thank you so much for the AMA!
Do you see any similarities in the war effort in Vietnam compared to the war effort in the Global War on Terror? My understanding is many of the lessons learned in Vietnam have been forgotten by US Military leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How do you feel about the graphic novel "The Best We Could Do"? It, along with dating a native Vietnamese woman, has really changed my view on the war. I used to think that we just shouldn't have been there and while I think that the top down reasoning for our involvement was wrong and we definitely committed a lot of atrocities there, it was a horrific civil war and I wish we could have helped the south vietnamese maintain their freedom.
if you haven't read it, its a very good graphic memoir a vietnamese escapee from the war relives through asking her parents about their lives and their escape with her and her siblings. Highly recommend.
How would you describe the daily interactions between Vietnamese citizens and U.S. soldiers in the province?
Thank you for this AMA, Dr.Thompson. I have question about the ARVN, how competence were they during the war from 1968 ‘til the end of it? I asked this because i read that some people on history forums said the ARVN was underrated, and similiar to the case of Italy in WW2
I've always wondered if the Viet Nam war had the unintended effect of improving race relations. I know that soldiers tend to bond in war and in foxholes, and that there were a lot of black American soldiers in the platoons with white American soldiers. Is there any evidence that white American soldiers had befriended them and in turn improved race relations as a whole? Or any anecdotal evidence regarding that?
Thanks for coming here Doctor. I saw you've already touched on the Malaysian Emergency, but did the military have any other events in mind to try and guide them through pacification? I assume the situation in Europe and Japan after WWII would be totally different but perhaps other insurgent based fights?
Hello Dr. Thompson I have two Questions for you.
Thank you and have a nice day.
Did the US commit war crimes in Vietnam? Did you look into the mind control worries the CIA had when some soldiers returned home? Thanks!
Have you done any research into the Veitnamese refugees from after the war?
If not do you know any good research on the subject?
What especially interests me is the Vietnamese refugees that where invited to live in Israel by the Israeli government.
Still I find the subject as a whole interesting, hearing about their exodus and lives after in whatever country they fled to.
Thank you for joining us, doctor.
Were there any specific advocacy groups within the region that the US government aimed to influence or control during their pacification efforts? If so, what could those groups have provided the Americans, in terms of strategic resources?
What are the effects that the war had on the civilian population when the Americans came into the war? I would also like to hear your opinion on the war? How accurate do you think the information that the American population was given on the war by the U.S. government?
Hi thanks for doing an AMA I always find it fascinating when these happen.
Sorry if this is a weird question I'm not too knowledgable on the vietnam but I was thinking about how with all the new firepower at their disposal (napalm, lots of bombs, assault rifles etc) surely this would cause a lot of panic amongst soldiers. So to the point was friendly fire common during the Vietnam war and if so do we have statistics on it and were any armies better or worse at it?
Hello Dr Thompson,
How seriously was US credibility undermined by the assassination of Ngo Din Diem? I've seen this marked as a turning point in the war and would love your thoughts on Diem's popularity (or lack thereof in some circles) and how seriously we should take the claim that he was the only nationalist leader that could unite the south. Were there on the ground ramifications to his death? Thank you!
Hello Dr. Thompson, my question is, how was the "Clear, Hold, Destroy" policy similar/different (if not just in name then in implementation) to the "Clear, Hold, Build" policy later used in Iraq? Sorry if this isn't your area of expertise, the naming just got me curious.
Hi Dr Thompson,
Do you address the broader context of what brought the US into Indochina in then first place in this book?
If so, do you lean towards the view that involvement in Indochina was motivated by self-interested concerns, ie economic (fear that Indochina would fall into the Japanese system as opposed to the American one) and political (fear of a successful "socialist" independence movement that could inspire other regional powers to also pursue their own course of independent development)... Or, do you prefer the view that the war was fought to squash the threat of communism and deter Russian and Chinese expansion?
Thanks so much for your time.
Did the Korean War ending in a Stalemate effect US policymakers’ thinking in anyway?
Did you read March of Folly? Did you think think her chronology spot on?
What is your view of Central Higlands comparing to the coast in the American War in Vietnam ?
I'm unsure if you've already answered a question like this. Is there any evidence to understand the failures of US counterinsurgency strategy in context with either (1) development thinking during the JFK and LBJ administrations or (2) US wartime experiences in Korea? I suppose this is two questions in one.
The Quiet American was published in 1955, and that book was all about disparaging the foreign "expert" who ignored community development and small-scale, intimate knowledge. In what camp did most pacification efforts fall into--small-scale, community development or big, TVA-style development projects? Were there clashes of ideology in how you pacify and engender local development?
Were there US advisors who served in Korea and brought counterinsurgency experience with them? Or were most advisors and the Pentagon essentially reinventing the wheel by the time Vietnam comes around? One would think that advisory groups would have had their protocols all hammered out with the sheer number of advisors that had already been deployed around the world.
Do you like Noam Chomsky's humanist perspective on the war?
Most pointedly, Thompson contends that pacification, far from existing apart from conventional warfare, actually depended on conventional military forces for its application.
The U.S. military changed dramatically between 1940-1980. One major change was the draft, which ran between 1940 and 1973. Even before the draft was ended, the military began to change the ways in which it professionalized its new recruits and indoctrinated them into a military culture suited to the needs of then-current military objectives. Many of the newly enlisted in the 1970s would have left basic training with very different views on who they were and what their purpose was, collectively and as an individual, than those of the 1940s.
Do you think the U.S. military of the 1940s would have been better able to engage in a strategy of pacification than placing demands on those who were drafted between 1965-1973 or enlisted between 1965-1975? Did the senior officers of the early 1970s fully take into account and appreciate this wide difference for how its new recruits had been trained when developing this pacification approach? Do you think there would have been any alternate way to design the training of new recruits prior to deployment to Phú Yên that might have met the needs of the U.S. military as a whole while also training recruits to achieve outcomes outside of territorial acquisition?
When I go to book talks about the Vietnam war and veterans are there, one of them will invariably rant about the failings of MI and everyone will nod along. Do you think the intelligence was especially bad during the conflict or do you think troops just generally will always complain about the intelligence?
Was there any "lessons learned" commissions on the failure of intelligence and was there anything that should have been learned and applied to our present conflicts in the MENA conflicts?