To: michael97123 who wrote (86904 ) 3/27/2003 8:01:07 PM From: Hawkmoon Respond to Its a war that could not be won fought against a nationalism we just did not understand being blinded by an anti-communism that did not take into account local dynamics. airpower.maxwell.af.mil amazon.com "Three recent books argue variations of these themes. Norman B. Hannah, a retired foreign service officer, develops the territorial theme in The Key to Failure: Laos and the Vietnam War.4 Hannah argues that the Ho Chi Minh Trail was the tactical linchpin in North Vietnam's strategy and that when United States signed the Declaration and Protocol on the Neutrality of Laos on 23 July 1962, it foreclosed on its chances for victory in South Vietnam by predestining itself to strategic failure. Laos was supposed to be neutralized by these accords, and all outside parties were to withdraw their forces. Hannah makes the point that, while most American advisers and military personnel assigned to Laos (over 650) left, thousands of North Vietnamese troops remained in eastern Laos to develop and maintain the Ho Chi Minh Trail. By not objecting, Washington tacitly agreed to this violation, and covert operations--which from 1962 until 1965 dominated the United States' tactical approach to the trail--amounted to little more than harassment. In effect, the Geneva agreements of 1962 provided Hanoi with a free hand to develop a valuable logistical pipeline to the South while putting Washington at a strategic disadvantage, in that South Vietnam was laid open, as Hannah states, "to a slow invasion masked as an insurrection."5
