Malayan strategy in Vietnam

[Dupplin Muir]

LegionoftheUnitedStates wrote:

Exactly. Center mass is the North Vietnamese Army. as long as it is a viable fighting force, the South is under threat. Force it, or a large portion thereof into open battle, on US terms, and you can destroy it.

i have always thought (admittedly without detailed knowledge of the NVA forces involved) that a good US strategy would be to park two US divisions on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This WILL disrupt supplies going South and get the NVA's attention. Then a multi-division attack on the NVA force in Cambodia with the goal of surrounding and destroying it. (To quote Colin Powell "first we're going to cut it off, and then we're going to kill it".)

This was actually tried, and was one of the major reasons for the US defeat. For most of the time there were relatively few North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam - the great majority of combatants were locally recruited.

The US Army leadership - notably William Westmoreland - came in hoping to refight WWII, so there was an institutional bias in favour of massive sweeps through the jungle, with lots of air and artillery support. This led to a complete neglect of pacification, to the point that, whenever anyone started to make progress in winning hearts and minds, someone was bound to come along and ruin it. The VC leadership appreciated this, and would carry out audacious attacks on US bases in order to provoke such sweeps. While the American troops were slogging through the backwoods, the war was being lost in the villages.

 

[GarethC]

I have read my comment over and over, and I simply cannot find the semantic error in 'Malay insurgents' ...

Malay is an adjective describing ethnicity, though 'ethnicity' in turn is a somewhat nebulous term at best, but let's not get tied up in that for the moment.

Malayan is the adjective for nationality that would have applied pre-independence, which has been replaced by Malaysian now that the country is a country and not British.

Malay <> Malayan. The two terms are not normally understood to be interchangeable, applying to two orthogonal axes of demographics.

The semantic error is that 'Malay insurgents' indicated people who are ethnically Malay (but could be from anywhere - if you got a bunch of Australian nationals who happened to be of Balinese descent fighting in Perth to overthrow the Oz government, that would be an entirely correct descriptor), whereas you meant 'insurgents from Malay(si)a', for which it conveys an inaccurate meaning.

 

[SeanPdineen]

hold thre post office

My doctoral stuides comparing Vietnam and Malaysia, have shown the british australians and New Zealanders had a very effective modality.
Sir Robert Thompson, the chief apostle of that victory advised the best among us stragists, John Paul Vann, Willam Colby, in the effectiveness of clear and hold as opposed to search and destroy. By 1972, the method was working, but the American people had had enough

 

[gigalocus]

Malay is an adjective describing ethnicity, though 'ethnicity' in turn is a somewhat nebulous term at best, but let's not get tied up in that for the moment.

Malayan is the adjective for nationality that would have applied pre-independence, which has been replaced by Malaysian now that the country is a country and not British.

Malay <> Malayan. The two terms are not normally understood to be interchangeable, applying to two orthogonal axes of demographics.

The semantic error is that 'Malay insurgents' indicated people who are ethnically Malay (but could be from anywhere - if you got a bunch of Australian nationals who happened to be of Balinese descent fighting in Perth to overthrow the Oz government, that would be an entirely correct descriptor), whereas you meant 'insurgents from Malay(si)a', for which it conveys an inaccurate meaning.

That is true, but, has already been risen, 100% of the insurgents were not ethnically Chinese, so had I written 'Chinese' I still too, would have been wrong.

'Malay Insurgents' is wrong, yes, but not totally, as some insurgents were in fact Malay. I should have written Malayan insurgents yes, but does it really require so much attention?

The point I'm making, is my post was not so wrong that it warranted such a reply pointing out how wrong my sentence was, when his 'correction' was the whole purpose of my post?

 

[Kishan]

The Malayan strategy was a failure in Vietnam because the situations in the two countries were fundamentally different. For any rebellion to succeed the support of the people is essential. In Malaysia the Communist insurgents were mostly from the Chinese minority and hence had no support of the Malay majority. On the other hand, the Viet Cong fighters were supported by the common people. Ho Chi Min was more a nationalist than a communist. The Vietnamese Communists also had several advantages like the aid of foreign powers like Soviet Union and China and safe havens in the neutral countries like Laos and Cambodia, not to mention North Vietnam itself.The Malayan Communists did not have similar facilities. Mao has once said that the revolutionaries must act among people like fish in water. The communists in Vietnam were fish in water while their counterparts in Malaya were fish out of water!

 

[Rich Rostrom]

In addition to this, the British authorities addressed the concerns of the Malayan people, fighting a propaganda war to claim their hearts and minds.

If the US authorities had followed a pattern something like this might they have been able to win in Vietnam or were the two situations too different?

The two conflicts were different in many fundamental ways.

1) Malaya was a British colony, with Britain exercising complete sovereign authority over its administration. South Vietnam was an independent sovereign state, with the US limited to giving advice to Vietnamese officials.

2) Malaya was physically isolated from any source of support for the guerrillas; the only fighters they had were local recruits and the only weapons they had were captured or smuggled in. South Vietnam had long borders with countries which allowed hundreds of thousands of troops and thousands of tons of weapons to flow to the guerrillas. (There was a perid in the early 1960s when Indonesia supported guerrilla operations in Sarawak, but this ended with the overthrow of Sukarno in 1966.)

3) The Malayan guerrillas were drawn from an ethnic minority; most of the population never even considered supporting them. The Vietnamese guerrillas were drawn from the main (90%) ethnic group.

4) The Vietnamese guerrillas had the explicit support of a neighboring country, which for geostrategic reasons had been declared off-limits to US and Allied ground forces; that country was supplied with enormous amounts of arms by a superpower.

It should be noted that even with all these disadvantages, the Malayan guerrillas remained in the field into the 1970s. The last of them were not suppressed till about 1975.

 

[Dan]

I think this is trying to compare Apples to Oranges.
The Malaya or Borneo approaches would not have worked in Vietnam. Elements of it could have if done properly - strategic Hamlets for example, and by an large the use of Special Forces by the US and Australians was done well.

I think the biggest problem wasn't in the field but back home.
If Vietnam were to happen today, (in some cases you could draw a parralel with Iraq or Afghanistan), with press management being more advanced, I don't think you'd have the same issues in the US you dd then and support wouldn't have waned like it did.

 

[Francisco Cojuanco]

Wasn't the MPLA predominantly Chinese? This suggests another reason the Malayan strategy may not work in Vietnam.

Edit: As you said. Apologies.

One of the thigns I find weird about these debates is that it ignores that the US spent enormous amounts of money and lost sixty thousand men. North Vietnam lost far more men. This suggests changing the outcome isn't as simple as flicking some on off switch on the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Well, it is evident that part of the problem was decreasing support for any American involvement. Perhaps it is an actual case of a stab in the back by antiwar elements at home?

 

[Totara Flat Rifles]

1989

In 1989 the last of the CT elements were dealt with. Malayasians are very proud of the fact that they did not have to ask for outside help at that time. Commomwealth forces played a very important part in surrounding corrdons and isolating the CT forces while Commonwealth SAS and Malayasian Ranger elements dealt the the CT. The local populace had the rule of law and Dr M as well as each states Royal families that Malays liked. Templars fortified Kampongs were only part of the process, the Feild Force ethnic Malay police defended those villages. It is to there credit that with reserves 25 battalions of RMR could be called upon today and Malayasia still values the 5 power defence agreement. Vietnam comparisions would only work if the administration was less corrupt and there was a rule of law!

 

[Riain]

I've just finished read about the Battle of Coral, the largest battle fought by Australians in Vietnam. On the first night of the month long campaign the NVA actually overran a mortar position and captured a howitzer for several hours, this howitzer is on display at the Australian War Memorial. The situation was so intense that Australian tanks were deployed in battle for the first time since WW2 and the US Corps artillery was firing on the orders of 161 New Zealand battery. One US 8" battery rang 1ATF HQ at about 4am the first night and reported that they alone had already fired 300 rounds in support of the 2 battalions, and that there was plenty more where that came from.

I defy anyone to find an incident in the Malayan Emergency or Indonesian Confrontation which required tanks to assault bunker complexes or Corps meduim and heavy artillery batteries firing hundreds of rounds in a single night. If anyone can then we can learn a lesson by comparing the two wars, but if we can't then they are chalk and cheese.

 

[Totara Flat Rifles]

The Battle of Long Tran

161 battery was issuing divisional fire missions and also accounted for every round from its battery cost accounted for and paid for by the NZ taxpayer (they did not have to pay for the divisional fire mission a least!) Also the NVA didn't attck the ATF after that with regimental units as they were aware of what the units arty could do (Danger Fire Close)

 

[Riain]

At Long Tan the arty observer with D coy was a Kiwi, 1ATF arty was firing regimental missions and fired over 3000 rounds that afternoon, as well as directing divisional fire.

Its an interesting point you raise about NZ paying for their own war. As I understand it Australia and New Zealand were unique among the Allies in Vietnam in that we paid for our own contribution to the war.

 

[Totara Flat Rifles]

ANZAC Message

Anytime anywhere anyhow don't tangle with mates

 

[elkarlo]

The real British success in the Malayan emergency was preventing the situation from escalating to an all out war, keeping it to an annoying insurgency. It took the Brits years but they graduly squeezed the life out of the enemy. The British tactics helped ensure that the communist guerilla's were never more than small groups of activists and this stopped them growing in strength.

By the time the US entered the Vietnam war, the Viet Cong were already launching battalion sized attacks against targets, the conflict had already escalated beyond a Malayan type situation, and Malayan type tactics were no use in this "war zone"

This, as well as the fact hat Malaysia can be easily isolated from resupply, while Vietnam can not be. The French never could, and in fact they basically didnt control the border with China at all after 1949.