http://www.insurgencywatch.com/2009/07/17/it-was-always-a-bad-year-to-get-out-of-vietnam/ Reports from the front line of the global insurgency Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:44:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1-alpha http://www.insurgencywatch.com/2009/07/17/it-was-always-a-bad-year-to-get-out-of-vietnam/comment-page-1/#comment-252 Jon Ant Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:31:40 +0000 http://www.insurgencywatch.com/?p=2231#comment-252 I personally prefer not to compare one insurgency to another, especially when they're in two such different parts of the world. In Vietnam there was one dominant ethnic group (albeit with other groups that were involved in the fighting), one main resistance front, and the population seems to have suffered more under the Southern regime than under guerrilla authority. To contrast in Afghanistan, there are many different ethnic groups all of whom are capable of destabilizing the region, multiple different factions (though I admit that the Taleban and related groups appear to be the strongest and most unified), and the population did not really prosper after the Taleban took most of the nation. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite with things getting worse. That doesn't mean that we can't learn anything about counterinsurgency from Vietnam, but an honest analyst would be hesitant to take that route too far. I personally prefer not to compare one insurgency to another, especially when they’re in two such different parts of the world. In Vietnam there was one dominant ethnic group (albeit with other groups that were involved in the fighting), one main resistance front, and the population seems to have suffered more under the Southern regime than under guerrilla authority. To contrast in Afghanistan, there are many different ethnic groups all of whom are capable of destabilizing the region, multiple different factions (though I admit that the Taleban and related groups appear to be the strongest and most unified), and the population did not really prosper after the Taleban took most of the nation. In fact it seems to be quite the opposite with things getting worse. That doesn’t mean that we can’t learn anything about counterinsurgency from Vietnam, but an honest analyst would be hesitant to take that route too far.

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