Counterinsurgency
Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War, counterinsurgency initially formed part of the earlier war as Diem had implemented the poorly-conceived Strategic Hamlet Program, a similar model to the Malayan Emergency that had the opposite effect by leading to increased recruitment to the Viet Cong. Similarly economic and rural development formed a key strategy as part of Rural Affairs development. While the earlier war was marked by considerable emphasis on counterinsurgency programs, the US Armed Forces initially relied on very little, if any, theoretical doctrine of counterinsurgency during the Ground-Intervention phase. Conventional warfare using massive firepower and the failure to implement adequate counterinsurgency had extremely negative effects, which was the strategy that the NVA adeptly used to countering by the protracted political and military warfare model. After the replacement of General William Westmoreland, newer concepts were tried including a revival of earlier COIN strategies including Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support. The US and its allies later implemented the Phoenix Program, which targeted the Viet Cong political infrastructure through capture, defection or assassination of Viet Cong members. The program was very successful at suppressing Viet Cong political and revolutionary activities.
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