The Southern Countryside at War: Subtexts

Race, Jeffrey. The War Comes to Long An.

( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972).

Jeffrey Race helps present an early view of the failures of the American policy in Vietnam and also shows just why the Communist were able to succeed. He attributes many of the factors of failure to the fact that Americans in the region did not fully grasp the levity of the situation. The points he raises are very interesting, but David Elliott’s book illustrates these ideas more fully. In the sense that it wasn’t necessarily a military failure of the United States, it was more of a an ideological failure in which the United States failed to realize that most people in Vietnam supported the Communists and hated the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. But, the book is a classic on the Vietnam War and any historian or interested person in the war and what some believed to be the failures, while the war was still going on, I would recommend it.

Schultz, Richard. The Limits of Terrorism in Insurgency Warfare. Polity, Vol.11 No.1.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3234249

(Palgrave Macmillian Journals, Autumn 1978)


In Richard Schultz’s article he helps to explain the limits and the advantages of employing terrorism in a military campaign. He examines the National Liberation Front’s policies of terrorism at the village level. Schultz uses many scholarly sources and other proponents of terrorism to help explain the advantages and disadvantages of a terrorist policy. The stance taken by Schultz on terrorism being secondary to the policies of the NLF is one that has been proven false. Although the article contains very pertinent and great information on how the NLF was able to align themselves with villagers, it fails to recognize the overall importance terrorism had in the NLF fighting forces. Elliott illustrates in greater detail, after years of studying and researching the topic, in a post-revisionists sense, that terrorism was extremely important and a vital necessity to the NLF forces in southern Vietnam. I would recommend this article to anyone interested in the policies of terrorism used by the NLF, but keep in mind this article was written in 1978 and there contains some biases but some of the details are quite interesting but for a more comprehensive analysis of terrorist activities used by the NLF in Vietnam I would recommend David Elliott’s The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1945.


Herring, George C. American Strategy in Vietnam: The Postwar Debate. Military Affairs, Vol. 46. No. 2.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1988113
(Society for Military History, April 1982) pp. 57-63.

Herring’s article is a very intense look at the arguments made over the failings of the Vietnam War. He looks at each failure from different perspectives, those of the hawks, or military perspective, those from the perspective of the failures of the military to conduct an effective war because they were using conventional means in an revolutionary guerrilla war and lastly he looks at the doves perspective that stated basically it was impossible for Americans to understand the workings of Vietnamese culture and thus we should not have been involved. Many interesting arguments are made from each perspective, the inability of the military to effectively wage the kind of war it needed to, weighed down ultimately by bureaucracy or the fact that the military simply didn’t adapt to the type of war being waged. All are very interesting points and I would recommend this reading anyone who is looking to see the views of several key figures in Vietnam, including General Westmoreland and others.

Tully, John. Vietnam: War and the Environment. Green Left. July 14, 1993
http://www.greenleft.org.au/1993/106/5903
Tully’s article helps explain the ongoing problems in Vietnam during this time period, or the after effects of a prolonged war. His article helps illustrate the type of warfare implemented by the US in hopes to drive villagers into the cities, diminishing the support and power of the NLF. The article is very useful in determining how the war has affected the nation of Vietnam, specifically the south in this article, since the war has ended. The first quote in the article summarizes the main idea, ‘“Not since the Romans salted the land after destroying Carthage has a nation taken such pains to visit war on future generations,’ wrote Ngo Van long of the US war against Vietnam.” The article examines the war of attrition that the United States waged on the south in the hopes of destroying the power structure of the communists in the south. It also examines the ongoing effects in Vietnam due to the war, such deforestation at a rapid rate and high levels of cancer in victims who were exposed to defoliants such as Agent Orange. Most importantly it shows that during the war rice paddies and food stores were specifically targeted to starve out the power of the communists in the south.

Moyer, Mark. Triumph Forsaken. (Cambridge University Press: October 2006). http://www.triumphforsaken.com/index.php?pr=Home_Page

Mark Moyer’s book details the Vietnam War from 1954-1965, showing many of the elements that led to the ultimate failure of the US in 1975. The book has many different perspectives, most importantly that the war could have been won in numerous ways but poor policy decisions influenced this. For any person who wishes to read a book that details the successes and failures of Americans in Vietnam this book is a must read, although it doesn’t address many of the points Elliott brings up in his book. Although some will attest to this books relevancy and interesting take on the Vietnam War it fails to address the overall feeling many Vietnamese felt toward the Southern government, which was animosity and suspiciousness. The southern people supported the communists because they could see a direct connection to the nationalists ideals of the Viet Minh decades earlier. Although Moyer uses extensive research to make his point, Elliott’s point is far more valid and intelligent and illustrates a greater problem the Americans had in winning the war in Vietnam, which was supporting a weak government that the Vietnamese people viewed as a puppet to the west. Although I find this book to be missing an overall theme and neglecting obvious facts, for any ardent supporter of revisionist history this book is a must read.