The Failure of Vietnamisation
History: Cambridge International GCSE The Twentieth Century (Option B), topic 5.3.13
Reasons for the Failure of Vietnamisation
The reasons vietnamisation failed include fragging, drug use, harvest season, and corruption/theft.
Fragging
- US soldiers didn’t want to fight any more if they knew they were going home.
- Officers who tried to force soldiers to fight were killed by their own men in a practice called ‘fragging’.
- There were 209 cases of fragging in 1970.
Drug use
- Drug use also became a huge problem, with 35,000 soldiers apparently addicted to heroin and marijuana.
Harvest season
- The ARVN simply didn’t have enough soldiers, and then about 150,500 of them deserted (although 24,000 returned after the harvest season).
Corruption and theft
- Officers didn’t want to lead their inexperienced troops into battle, or they were corrupt so took bribes or lied about their troop numbers.
- Supplies and equipment were also stolen regularly.
Reasons for the Failure of Vietnamisation
Other reasons for the failure of vietnamisation were funding reductions, bad training and unpopularity of the government.
Funding
- Congress restricted the amount of funding given.
Bad training
- Training for officers was rushed and instructions for how to use the equipment was in English, so the ARVN troops couldn’t read them.
- The ARVN simply couldn’t continue the fighting without US support.
The unpopularity of the government
- The South Vietnamese government was hated by the South Vietnamese people.
- They saw their government as a puppet of the US and also corrupt.
- The South Vietnamese government did not think it could survive without the financial backing of the US.
Test yourself on The Failure of Vietnamisation
Why was training so bad?