The Taliban resurgence jeopardizes the United States’s ability to conduct a pacification campaign in support of a foreign government. Indeed, the 2016 uptick in Taliban movement in Afghanistan mirrored that of North Vietnamese Viet Cong Infrastructure of the 1970s. Defeating the enemy’s ability to organize and operate is fundamental to pacification. During the War on Terror and the Vietnam War, complex enemy organizations posed a serious challenge to the United States. Highlighting difficulties in pacification for both the Republic of Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War serves as a lesson underscoring the limits of American power to defeat clandestine networks.

At the core of the American War in Vietnam lay the need to control the South Vietnamese people, not the so-called winning of their hearts and minds.

At the core of the American war in Vietnam lay the need to control the South Vietnamese people, not the so-called winning of their hearts and minds. Pacification—the means of fighting the Vietnam War—included military and political methods. Both the North and South Vietnamese governments managed competing pacification programs to extend administrative capabilities to the countryside. North Vietnamese military gains in 1965 across the Republic of Vietnam meant Government of Vietnam (GVN) efforts to control the rural population required undercutting those already established by the North Vietnamese. Using a combination of conventional military might, covert activity, and propaganda, American and South Vietnamese authorities exercised considerable effort to uproot Viet Cong Infrastructure and replace it with an administrative apparatus loyal to Saigon.

The pre-existing North Vietnamese clandestine administrative apparatus in South Vietnam–Viet Cong Infrastructure as the Americans and South Vietnamese called it–functioned as a shadow government. Americans and South Vietnamese officials often employed the pejorative “Viet Cong” or simply “VC” when addressing all communist entities. Yet such a blanket term obfuscates the complex structure of Hanoi’s counter to the Government of Vietnam supported by the United States. As an extension of North Vietnam’s Lao Dong Party, Viet Cong Infrastructure contained political and military bodies to govern all communist activity in the Republic of Vietnam. Specifically, three North Vietnamese organizations—the Central Office of South Vietnam, the National Liberation Front, and the People’s Revolutionary Party—supported Viet Cong Infrastructure. United, this networked functioned as Hanoi’s anchor in the South Vietnamese population.[1]

Areas of South Vietnam existed under complete communist control. There, “VC infrastructure control[led] the local population virtually to the exclusion of the GVN: It collect[ed] taxes; it openly procure[ed] needed supplies; it force[ed] the local populace to perform labor; it administer[ed] justice; and it draft[ed] youths into the ‘Liberation Army.’”[2] In contested space, where the governments of Hanoi and Saigon challenged one another for control of the population, Viet Cong Infrastructure ran assassination, kidnapping, propaganda, and taxation efforts to gain influence with the people against the Saigon government. Viet Cong Infrastructure also interdicted Saigon’s lines of communication. These methods served to isolate a community from the government in Saigon, making Viet Cong Infrastructure the only administrative body for the affected inhabitants.

Hanoi’s administrative apparatus in South Vietnam proved to be robust. To challenge the inroads made by Viet Cong Infrastructure, Saigon used Revolutionary Development cadre with increasing frequency. Trained by the Ministry of Revolutionary Development, the men and women sent into villages brought the message of Saigon to those living in contested space. Such actions occurred at the expense of Viet Cong Infrastructure and thus resulted in the targeting of Revolutionary Development cadre by the People’s Liberation Armed Forces, the armed wing of the Central Office of South Vietnam. Consequently, the militaries of the Republic of Vietnam and the United States served as shields for Revolutionary Development cadre. While the United States employed the maneuver battalions from Military Assistance Command and made impressive security gains in 1966, Viet Cong Infrastructure remained largely intact. Although, “VC control [was] not as pervasive in contested areas as in controlled areas, it [was] a very real influence on the local inhabitants,” despite American and South Vietnamese efforts.[3]

...the head of Civil Organizing and Revolutionary Development Support...posited the destruction of Viet Cong Infrastructure as “an intelligence problem.”

Since Viet Cong Infrastructure survived the sweeping operations of American and South Vietnamese armies, more acute dismantling measures proved necessary. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam’s maneuver battalions often succeeded in separating enemy main forces from their local forces and the supporting Viet Cong Infrastructure. Still, Viet Cong Infrastructure cells remained in areas recently occupied by allied forces. The clandestine nature of Viet Cong Infrastructure meant distinguishing an agent of Hanoi from the common farmer required extensive intelligence work. American and South Vietnamese conventional military forces lacked the information necessary to identify every enemy agent. Undetected Viet Cong Infrastructure thwarted Saigon’s pacification efforts when the People’s Liberation Armed Forces assumed harassment activities in the now supposedly Government of Vietnam controlled areas.[4] For that reason, Robert Komer, the head of Civil Organizing and Revolutionary Development Support—the American agency tasked with assisting the South Vietnamese with pacification—posited the destruction of Viet Cong Infrastructure as “an intelligence problem.”[5] Exposing Viet Cong Infrastructure required detailed intelligence gathering. To that end, the Government of Vietnam devised the Phung Hoang (All-Seeing Bird), or Phoenix Program in 1967.[6]