Vietnamization was a failed policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnamese forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops".
U.S. citizens' mistrust of their government that had begun after the offensive worsened with the release of news about U.S. soldiers massacring civilians at My Lai (1968), the invasion of Cambodia (1970), and the leaking of the Pentagon Papers (1971).
At a January 28, 1969, meeting of the National Security Council, General Andrew Goodpaster, deputy to General Creighton Abrams and commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, stated that the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had been steadily improving, and the point at which the war could be "de-Americanized" was close.
Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird agreed with the point, but not with the language: "What we need is a term like 'Vietnamizing' to put the emphasis on the right issues.
[3] Vietnamization fit into the broader détente policy of the Nixon administration, in which the United States no longer regarded its fundamental strategy as the containment of communism but as a cooperative world order, in which Nixon and his chief adviser Henry Kissinger were focused on the broader constellation of forces[clarification needed] and the bigger world powers.
From 1950, after several years of the First Indochina War, French commanders adopted a policy they called "yellowing" (jaunissement), expressly to minimize white casualties.
This was the first contact between Ho Chi Minh and Kissinger, who was then an adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York and a presidential candidate.
In particular, Raymond Aubrac, an official of the World Health Organization, knew Ho Chi Minh and agreed to carry a message.
While Ellsberg eventually did send a withdrawal option, Kissinger would not circulate something that could be perceived as defeat, though privately, he realized the United States was in a difficult position and priorities needed to be set.
[13][14] According to a record, prepared by Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoliy Dobrynin, of discussions between Dobrynin and Kissinger, the crux of the U.S. position, was progress still must be made at the Paris talks and, for domestic political reasons, Nixon "simply cannot wait a year for Hanoi to decide to take some new step and take a more flexible position".
General Tran Van Tra of the Viet Cong forces in the South stated: We suffered large sacrifices and losses with regard to manpower and materiel, especially cadres at the various echelons, which clearly weakened us.
[19]Some ARVN units, especially that had been operating closely with U.S. troops or using facilities, could quickly move into a dominant role in their areas.
[20] At Phu Cong, Major General Nguyen Van Hieu, the 5th Division commander, was able to use a local Popular Force battalion for base security.
General Lon Nol had overthrown Prince Norodom Sihanouk in March 1970, who had presented himself as a neutralist while aware of the PAVN use of his country.
At that time, communist losses dating from the Tet Offensive numbered 75,000, and morale was faltering, even among the party leadership.
[25] The incursion prevented the immediate takeover of Cambodia by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, and cost the PAVN the supply line from the port of Sihanoukville.
The U.S. intelligence collection systems, a significant amount of which (especially the techniques) were not shared with the ARVN, and, while not fully declassified, examples have been mentioned earlier in this article.
For example, the NVA equivalent of the Defense Intelligence Agency was the Central Research Directorate (CRD) in Hanoi.
Henry Kissinger began secret talks with the North Vietnamese official, Lê Đức Thọ, in February 1970.
The Communists still controlled many remote jungle and mountain districts, especially areas that protected the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
[24] The 25,000-man ARVN force, which U.S. planners had considered half the necessary size,[31] took admitted 25% casualties, which some estimates put as high as 50%.
Politically, this allowed Nixon to negotiate with China and the Soviet Union without suggesting that he was compromising U.S. soldiers in the field.
The Armed Forces of the Republic of Vietnam had some excellent ground combat units, but still had very serious problems of command, control, and communications at division level and above.
Ground commanders also learned that armored units were not for infantry support and static defenses, but needed to be used as mobile reserves.
[35] Neither North nor South Vietnam, however, had really mastered large-scale combined arms methods, compared to a NATO or Warsaw Pact level of proficiency.