Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0404/04044.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 33KB | 503 lines

$Unique_ID{COW04044}
$Pretitle{232}
$Title{Vietnam
Chapter 5B.   Postwar Development}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Douglass Pike}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{pavn
military
vietnam
war
economic
system
chinese
national
draft
forces}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Country:     Vietnam
Book:        Vietnam, A Country Study
Author:      Douglass Pike
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1987

Chapter 5B.   Postwar Development

     The chief changes in PAVN after April 1975 were enormous growth,
augmented by increased war-making capability and fire power, and development
away from a guerrilla-oriented infantry toward a more orthodox modern armed
force. Hanoi's public statements indicated there would be a significant
demobilization of PAVN immediately after the war and that many PAVN units
would be converted into economic development teams. Within a few weeks,
however, PAVN units were engaged in a border war in Cambodia with one-time
ally the Khmer Rouge (see Glossary) and were preparing to defend Vietnam's
northern border against China.

     Following the end of the Second Indochina War, PAVN was in worse
condition than was generally realized. Having been decimated by ten years of
combat, it was in organizational disarray, with a logistics system that was
nearly worn out. Both PAVN and the country were suffering from war weariness,
and restructuring and rebuilding were hampered in part because the war's
sudden ending had precluded planning for the postwar world. Vietnamese
military journals acknowledged at the time that the new situation required the
transformation of PAVN from an army of revolutionary soldiers fighting with
guerrilla tactics into an orthodox armed force that could defend existing
institutions and fixed installations from internal and external threats. It
was a new and broader task, and Ho Chi Minh's observation made at the end of
the First Indochina War was frequently quoted: "Before we had only the night
and the jungle. Now we have the sky and the water."

     Several problems had to be addressed. These included the dual-control
system, i.e., the ill-defined division of authority between the military
command structure and the party leadership within the armed forces, or between
the military commander and the political commissar; the lack of esprit de
corps among the rank and file, a general malaise termed "post-war mentality";
and the officer corps' inadequate military knowledge and insufficient military
technological skills for the kind of war that had emerged in the 1970s. There
were also policy conflicts over the conduct of large-scale combined or joint
military operations and the nature of future military training, a lack of
standardization of equipment, materiel shortages, administrative breakdowns,
general inefficiency and lack of performance by basic military units, and an
anachronistic party structure within PAVN stemming from an outmoded
organizational structure and inappropriate or out-of-touch political
commissars.

     By 1978 the effort to restore PAVN had developed into the Great Campaign.
This was a five-year program with five objectives: to increase the individual
soldier's sense of responsibility, discipline, dedication, attitude toward
solidarity, and mastery of weapons, equipment, and vehicles; to encourage more
frugal expenditure of fuel, supplies, and materiel; to improve PAVN's officer
corps, particularly at the basic unit level; to improve military-civilian
relations and heighten international solidarity; and to improve the
material-spiritual life of soldiers. Of these, the most important was the
program to improve the PAVN officer corps, the heart of which was a four-part
statute called the Army Officers' Service Law, drafted in 1978 and officially
promulgated in 1981. The Service Law, as it came to be called, established
systematic new criteria for the selection and training of officers; defined
PAVN officers' rights and military obligations; and overhauled, upgraded, and
formally instituted a new PAVN reserve officer system. It also set up new
regulations concerning officer promotions, assignments, and ranking systems.

     The reorganization was a deliberate effort to professionalize the PAVN
officer corps, in part by codifying the military hierarchy within PAVN, which
had never been officially approved. Previous emphasis on egalitarianism had
led to virtual denial of even the concept of rank. There were no officers,
only cadres; no enlisted personnel; only combatants. Uniforms were devoid of
insignia, and references to rank or title were avoided in conversation. With
professionalization, distinctions emerged between officers and enlisted
troops. Accompanying the basic law were directives from the Council of
Ministers that dealt with PAVN ranks, uniforms, and insignia. A thirteen-rank
officer system with appropriate titles was instituted. There were new
designations for navy flag rank, which had previously carried generals' titles
(although apparently navy officers below flag rank continued to bear army
ranks). Under the new regulations, PAVN officers were distinguished as either
line commanders, staff officers, political officers, administrative officers,
or military-police officers. The new regulations additionally stipulated the
use of unit insignia--bright red for infantry, sky blue for air force and air
defense force, dark blue for navy, green for border defense, and light gray
for specialist technicians--in all twenty-five separate services, each of
which had its own emblem (see fig. 16).

     Technological improvements for PAVN were instituted chiefly under the
Great Campaign. Intensive technical training programs were begun. Heavy
emphasis was placed on the training of surface-to-air missile (SAM) battery
commanders, advanced air defense technicians, fighter pilots, radar
technicians, communications-systems operators, and naval officers. The program
was fully supported by the Soviet Union, which provided military aid and
technical advisers and trainers. A costly developmental effort, it had not
been long under way before events began to conspire against it.

     Shortly after the Great Campaign was launched in 1978, Vietnam's disputes
with Cambodia and China sharply intensified. On March 5, 1979, the government
issued a General Mobilization Order that established three "great tasks" for
Vietnam: to enlarge the national defense structure, meaning to increase
substantially the size of PAVN; to increase agricultural and industrial
production in support of the war; and to develop better administrative systems
in the party, PAVN, and the economic sector. The emphasis was on young
Vietnamese, who were called to perform separate "great tasks," i.e.,
"annihilate the enemy, develop the paramilitary system, do productive labor,
insure internal security, and perform necessary ideological tasks." The order
required all able-bodied persons to work ten hours a day--eight hours in
productive labor and two hours in military training. It also required
universal participation in civil-defense exercises.

Conflict with Cambodia

     Serious trouble between Hanoi and the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot began at
the end of the Second Indochina War when both PAVN troops and the Khmer Rouge
engaged in "island grabbing" and seizures of each other's territory, chiefly
small areas in dispute between Vietnam and Cambodia for decades. What goaded
Hanoi to take decisive action was Pol Pot's determination to indoctrinate all
Khmer with hatred for Vietnam, thus making Hanoi's goal of eventual
Indochinese federation even more difficult to accomplish. Vietnam's Political
Bureau had several options in "solving the Pol Pot problem," as it was
officially termed. Vietnam's wartime relationship with the Khmer Rouge had
been one of domination, in which control had been maintained through the
intercession of native Khmers, numbering approximately five thousand, who had
lived and trained in North Vietnam. The Political Bureau reasoned that by
controlling the Khmer Rouge "fiv