The strategy of General Giap
VIETNAM
General Yo Nguyen Clap, the North Viet- namese Defence Minister and victor of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, has taken personal comnzand of the communist offensive at Khe San/i. His strategic thinking, which has dictated the whole pattern of the communist campaign in the Viet- nam war, was set out in his book 'People's War, People's Army,'* from which the following ex- tracts are taken. Although written seven years ago, we believe that these provide an essential element in any appreciation of the present military situation in Vietnam.
Realising clearly the enemy's strong and weak points and ours to cope with the enemy's strategic scheme, our Party set forth the guid- ing principle of a long-term Resistance War. Facing an enemy who temporarily had the upper hand, our people was not able to strike swiftly and win swiftly but needed time to over- come its shortcomings and increase the enemy's weak points. Time was needed to mobilise, or- ganise and foster the forces of Resistance, to wear out the enemy forces, gradually reverse the balance of forces, turning our weakness into strength and concurrently availing ourselves of the changes in the international situation which was growing more and more advantageous to our Resistance, eventually to triumph over the enemy.
Our strategy was . . . to wage a long-lasting battle. A war of this nature in general entails several phases; in principle, starting from a stage of contention, it goes through a period of equilibrium before arriving at a counter- offensive.
The enemy wanted to concentrate their forces. We compelled them to disperse. By succes- sively launching strong offensives on the points they had left relatively unprotected, we obliged them to scatter their troops all over the place in order to ward off our blows, and thus created favourable conditions for the attack at Dien Bien Phu, the most powerful entrenched camp in Indochina, considered invulnerable by the Franco-American general staff.
Dien Bien Phu being the keystone of the Navarre plan, we considered that it should be wiped out if the Franco-American imperialist plot of protracting and expanding it was to be smashed. However, the importance of Dien Bien Phu could not be regarded as a decisive factor in our decision to attack it. In the rela- tion of forces at that time, could we destroy the fortified entrenched camp of Dien Bien Phu? Could we be certain of victory in attacking it? Our decision had to depend on this con- sideration alone.
Dien Bien Phu was a very strongly fortified entrenched camp. But on the other hand, it was set up in a mountainous region, on ground which was advantageous to us, and decidedly disadvantageous to the enemy. Dien Bien Phu was, moreover, a completely isolated position,
* These extracts are from the English language edition published in 1962 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., of New York and London.
far away from all the enemy's bases. The only means of supplying Dien Bien Phu was by air. These circumstances could easily deprive the enemy of all initiative and force him on to the defensive if attacked.
The Dien Bien Phu campaign was regarded not as a large-scale attack on fortresses carried out over a short period, but as a large-scale cam- paign carried out over a fairly long period, through a series of successive attacks on forti- fied positions until the enemy was destroyed. In the campaign as a whole we already had numerical superiority over the enemy. But in each attack or each wave of attacks, we had the possibility of achieving absolute supremacy and ensuring the success of each operation and consequently total victory in the campaign.
From the strategic point of view, guerrilla warfare, causing many difficulties and losses to the enemy, wears him out. To annihilate big enemy manpower and liberate land, guerrilla warfare has to move gradually to mobile war- fare. . . . Mobile warfare is the fighting way of concentrated troops, of the regular army in which relatively big forces are regrouped and operating on a relatively vast battlefield, attack- ing the enemy where he is relatively exposed with a view to annihilating enemy manpower, advancing very deeply then withdrawing very swiftly, possessing tO the extreme, dynamism, initiative, mobility and rapidity of decision in face of new situations.
To cope with our ever-expanding guerrilla activities, great efforts were made by the enemy to launch repeated mopping-up operations with ever-bigger armed forces. The aim of these operations was to annihilate our guerrilla units, destroy our political bases and crops, and plunder our property, hoping to crush our re- sistance forces and 'pacify' his rear. That is why mopping-up operation and counter mop- ping-up operation became the chief form of guerrilla war in the enemy's rear line.
The enemy found himself face to face with a contradiction : without scattering his forces it was impossible for him to occupy the invaded territory; in scattering his forces, he put him- self in difficulties. His scattered units would fall easy prey to our troops, his mobile forces would be more and more reduced and the shortage of troops would be all the more acute. On the other hand, if he concentrated his forces to move from the defensive position and cope with us with more initiative, the occupation forces would be weakened and it would be difficult for him to hold the invaded territory. Now, if the enemy gives up occupied territory, the very aim of the war of re-conquest is defeated.
Concentration of troops to realise an over- whelming superiority over the enemy where he is sufficiently exposed in order to destroy his manpower; initiative, suppleness, rapidity, sur- prise, suddenness in attack and retreat. As long as the strategic balance of forces remains dis- advantageous, resolutely to muster troops to obtain absolute superiority in combat in a given place, and at a given time. To exhaust the enemy forces little by little by small vic- tories and at the same time to maintain and increase ours. In these concrete conditions it proves absolutely necessary not to lose sight of the main objective of the fighting: that is, the destruction of the enemy manpower. There-
fore losses must be avoided even at the cost of losing ground. And that for the purpose of recovering, later on, the occupied territories and completely liberating the country.
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