After analyzing the strong points and the weak points, assessing the strength and capacities of the enemy and ourselves from the theoretical point of view, the article goes on:
The question is: Which--the U.S. imperialists who pursue an unjust aggression or our people who uphold a just cause--will win in the end? Our people or the American imperialists? Throughout the past 11 years, every time the U.S. imperialists launch a new aggressive scheme that same question is raised. The liberation struggle of the heroic southern people has supplied an eloquent answer: Whatever trick the American imperialists may resort to, they will inevitably fail in the end. And the fundamental law of (?the) great patriotic struggle of our compatriots in the south throughout the various stages is: The further the U.S. imperialists and their flunkeys engage in their scheme to enslave the south of our country, the deeper they sink in their morass and the greater their defeats; whereas the more determined the Vietnamese people’s struggle, the greater their victories.
Today the question as to which will win in the south is more pressing than ever, for at the present juncture there has emerged a new factor: the introduction by the American imperialists of hundreds of thousands of troops. Can these massive reinforcements reverse the situation? Can the Vietnamese people, who have recorded many great successes in their just struggle, win new victories in the face of direct aggression by so modern an army as the U.S. imperialists’? Can they defeat the American expeditionary corps?
. . . . If in the past when they brought Ngo Dinh Diem to power and began to realize the Collins plan or when they put forth the Staley-Taylor plan or the Johnson-McNamara plan the American imperialists had been extremely optimistic and reckoned that their dark design would be certainly achieved, today when they begin to send a huge expeditionary corps to the south they firmly believe that they could turn the tide. They were confident that within a short time, the pattern of the aggressive war would change, that with their crack divisions and brigades, their strategic and tactical air force, they were fully able to change the correlation of forces, set up solid defense positions, launch bold offensives, and push ahead their pacification with key points, thereby not only preventing the collapse of the puppet army and administration but also consolidating and strengthening their stooges, the reactionary forces. The Pentagonians hastily declared that: At the very moment when big U.S. combat units were introduced into the south and the war was intensified, there were wide prospects of a quick victory. When their first military operations did not yet meet with any retaliation to speak of, they hastened to declare out of optimism that they had shifted to the offensive and compelled the southern liberation troops to disperse their forces and undertake only small formations. They also made dramatic preparations for attacks on all fronts in the coming dry season in order to wrest back the initiative and hold it more and more firmly, and drive the southern people into an ever more serious passive position.
However, reality has fallen short of the U.S. imperialists’ expectations and purposes. From the point of view of general strategy on the southern battlefield, is the enemy applying a strategy of the offensive or that of the defensive? Is he following the strategy of lightning attack and lightning victory or that of protracted war? As regards operations on various battlefields, is he making his major efforts on the coastal battlefield where he can bring into full play the power of his technical weapons, or on the hinterland battlefield where he dreads most to face defeat?
Is he concentrating on the Nam Bo battlefield where lie great political and economic centers or on the western high plateaus regarded as an important strategic position? As regards coordination with the puppet troops, is he concentrating on independent operations, or on joint operations? Those are several strategic questions to which the enemy himself cannot give clear-cut answers, for the American expeditionary corps is embarking in a blind tunnel.
The most outstanding feature of the military situation (?over the) past months is that not (?only have the) southern liberation armed forces kept on stepping up guerrilla warfare, but they have also developed large-unit actions. If in the whole of 1965 they wiped out over (?200,000) enemy troops, including over 50 battalions neatly destroyed, in the last five months, as large U.S. contingents landed in South Vietnam, the enemy casualties ran to more than 100,000 men, among them about 25 battalions put out of action wholesale, including five American infantry battalions and several American armored units.
This hard fact shows that despite the introduction of hundreds of thousands of troops, the U.S. imperialists cannot reverse the situation. In the face of the widespread and powerful development of the people’s war, they have no other alternative than to spread thin their forces over all battlefields, cannot avoid being driven into the defensive, and find themselves unable to wrest back the initiative and bring into full play their troops’ combativeness. The outstanding feature of the military situation on the southern battlefield is that not only have the southern Liberation Armed Forces successfully turned to account their (?position) in which they can take the offensive since the Binh Gia victory (late December 1964-early 1965), but right after a big U.S. expeditionary corps has been introduced, the southern liberation armed forces are still holding the initiative and promoting their vantage-ground on an ever larger scale.
No wonder that McNamara and the American brasshats have expressed concern in the face of the heavy setbacks suffered by the expeditionary corps and now have declared that the war in Vietnam will be long, or that in case the U.S. Army attacks at all, it is only in sheer defense. This is not to mention the moral crisis of their army, which fears hand-to-hand fighting, leaves the wounded and the dead to their fate when hard pressed, throws away weapons and munitions when withdrawing; is afraid of the dense forest, of sun, of wind, of malaria, especially of the liberation fighters, and even of ordinary Vietnamese, including old women or children, so much so that an American general, speaking of the U.S. expeditionary corps, said that its upkeep was expensive but its combativeness poor. This is not to mention their great difficulties in logistics and supply, causing the American press to write: When the first combat units began to land in South Vietnam according to U.S. President Johnson’s (?new) plan, signs of serious confusion in logistics also appeared. This daily growing confusion certainly aggravates U.S. economic and financial difficulties, the U.S. gold hemorrhage, and the effects of foreign competition in the world market.
At present it is evident that the American imperialists are at sea as far as military strategy is concerned. But what about tactics? Though the U.S. expeditionary corps has been fighting the liberation armed forces for only a short length of time, the latter have proved able to best their enemy’s tactics.
The Van Tuong battle (August 1965) can be considered to be an Ap Bac for the American expeditionary corps. The United States had deployed a far superior force, crack troops supported by armored units, the Air Force, and the Navy, to attack a unit of the South Vietnam Liberation Army. The result was that, far from being wiped out, the liberation troops fought most valiantly and put out of action many enemy troops. The Van Tuong battle, which the American generals think can be linked to the fiercest World War II engagements, was a great victory of the southern army and people, foreshadowing the tactical failure of the U.S. expeditionary corps.
After it came Chu Lai and Da Nang (28 October1965), Dat Choc (8 November), Bau Bang (12 November), Plei Me (19 October-l2 November), Dong Duong (8-12 December), and many other battles in which many Americans and puppets were wiped out.
These resounding and repeated victories prove that:
The United States’ most solid bases are not immune from attacks;
The American imperialists’ crack infantry units such as those belonging to the First Infantry Division can be wiped out (and wiped out at the rate of one or several battalions in a single battle!);
The U.S. imperialists’ crack air cavalry units such as those of the First Air Cavalry Division so much vaunted by the U.S. defense secretary can be put out of action;
The puppet units, though supported by the U.S. expeditionary corps, continue to be cut to pieces, not only by the battalion but by the combat groups as at Plei Me, by the whole battalions in a single battle like at Dong Duong, or by the regiment as at Dau Tieng;
U.S. troops on the defensive or on the offensive can be wiped out not only by the liberation army, but also by the local army, the militia, and guerrillas.
The splendid exploits are accomplished at a time when the enemy is actively putting into use technical weapons, including B-52 strategic plans (in more than 100 sorties), while spraying chemicals to destroy vegetation and crops and, most savage enough, resorting to poison gases against us in a certain number of battles. They are achieved at the same time as the great feats performed by the northern armymen and people in their continued efforts to bring to nought the superiority of the U.S. modern air force and defeat the U.S. war of destruction against the north of our country.
The significance of these achievements in the wiping out of the U.S. puppets is that the liberation armed forces and people of the heroic south are fully able to put out of action crack units of the U.S. expeditionary corps, maintain and promote the initiative they have taken, and step up their attacks on all battlefields to win ever greater victories.
Their purport is that the strategy and tactics of people’s war can and will certainly prevail over the strategy and tactics based on the rotten bourgeois military conception of the American troops. Their inference is that in theory as in practice, the people’s war of the heroic Vietnamese nation will certainly win over the neocolonialist aggressive war of the U.S. imperialists.
The great victories of our army and people in both zones since the American imperialists started a direct aggression against the south of our country have been mobilizing and greatly encouraging all our people and enthusiastically inspiring our friends in all continents. (Passage indistinct) U.S. imperialists are a cruel and (word indistinct) enemy with a great military potential, who is extremely obdurate and at the same time knows how to draw lessons from experience to contrive ever fiercer and ever more ruthless fighting methods. However, the living reality of the struggle against the American imperialists for national salvation during the past 11 years has brought home to our people and the people’s armed forces in both zones that we shall certainly defeat the U.S. aggressors under any circumstances.
The heavy defeats of the American expeditionary corps right in its first actions on the Vietnam battlefield are causing to the U.S. imperialists and their valets many more difficulties, not only military but also political and economic. Far from improving, the situation of the puppet army and administration instead is deteriorating as it has lost faith in its masters’ modern army. The antiwar movement in the United States is developing with (few words indistinct) internal contradictions among the Washington ruling circles are increasing.
In view of this situation, (?the) American imperialists are scheming to send more reinforcements to the south, beef up the U.S. expeditionary corps one and a half, two, or more times. They are plotting to intensify their aerial war of destruction against the north, while threatening to expand the war to neutralist Laos and Cambodia. U.S. President Johnson talks about taking hard steps in Vietnam. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk also stressed: We will not withdraw from Vietnam for the United States must keep its commitments.
The American imperialists’ familiar trick has been to couple the stepping up of their aggressive war with a ballyhoo about their good will for peace; this time, together with its preparations for new adventurist military moves, the U.S. administration opens a large-scale peace campaign. The Johnson administration’s (?“peace”) efforts are only aimed at placating public opinion at home and abroad which has been energetically protesting against its aggressive policy.
However, whatever honeyed words the American aggressors may use, they cannot deceive the Vietnamese people and the peace-loving people throughout the world. There has not been the slightest change to the original design of the U.S. aggressors. They want to cling to South Vietnam and to keep Vietnam permanently partitioned. They refuse to withdraw their troops from the south and to recognize the NFLSV as the sole genuine representative of the South Vietnamese people, they cynically arrogate to themselves the right to bomb and strafe the territory of the DRV, an independent and sovereign socialist state, and go to the length of demanding from the Vietnamese people compensation for the halt in the bombing of North Vietnam. The essence of the unconditional discussions hoax is to compel our people to accept the American aggressors’ terms.
We must further heighten our vigilance over the enemy’s perfidious scheme. We must step up our entire people’s patriotic war, resolutely fight until victory, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of troops the U.S. imperialists may dispatch to Vietnam (?and how) far they may escalate their war (?of destruction) against (?the) north. Our people are determined not to shrink from any sacrifice to bring the great struggle against the American imperialists for (?national) salvation to final victory.
In the last part the General deals with the task of the northern people:
Our fatherland, our nation must mobilize the forces of the whole country to defeat the aggressors. . . . We must do all that is necessary to bring our struggle against the American imperialists for national salvation to a successful end.
[Editor’s note: The rest of the photocopied text is unreadable.]