The prospects of combined action: Lessons from Vietnam

Yoav Gortzak

Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2014, vol. 25, issue 1, 137-160

Abstract: Military commanders, policymakers, and analysts have recently embraced the concept of combined action as a powerful tool to improve the effectiveness of Afghan security forces in the fight against the Taliban. In doing so, they explicitly draw inspiration from the Combined Action Program employed by US Marines during the Vietnam War. This program is widely considered to have greatly improved the effectiveness of South Vietnamese government forces and contributed to increased population security in its area of operations and is considered a model worthy of emulation. This study finds that the success of the Vietnam-era Combined Action Program was more qualified than contemporary proponents argue. It argues that successes were tempered, and conditioned, by the choice of junior commanders, the level of operational control enjoyed by the US Marines, and the way the local forces were recruited and deployed. These conditions offer valuable lessons for those seeking to employ combined action not only in present-day Afghanistan, but also in future counterinsurgency campaigns.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09592318.2014.893971 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:fswixx:v:25:y:2014:i:1:p:137-160

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/fswi20

DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2014.893971

Access Statistics for this article

Small Wars and Insurgencies is currently edited by Paul Rich

More articles in Small Wars and Insurgencies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().