In view of this situation, why is the Vietnamese people’s struggle against the American imperialists for national salvation at present bound to be long and hard but finally victorious? Why will the Vietnamese people not only certainly win but also gain time and secure even greater victories? Through a scientific analysis, the article supplies this key problem with an answer:
The U.S. imperialists are the international gendarme, the topmost imperialists, with the most powerful economic and military potential of all the imperialists. By taking a direct part in the aggressive war they hope to rely on their material strength to overcome all difficulties in manpower and politics, thereby to retrieve their predicament in the south. With a sizable expeditionary corps, which is to be eventually increased, they hope to give themselves new vantage grounds on the battlefield.
First, to strengthen their military force in general, especially their strategic mobile force, thereby tilting the balance of forces in their favor; second, to control important strategic areas and set up firm bases as springboards, to launch raids or attacks against the liberated areas; third, to build up their air force, develop their superiority in this arm to decimate our forces, and to strike deep into the liberated areas.
Their scheme is to prevent the collapse of the puppet army and administration, to launch offensives aimed at wiping out the southern revolutionary forces, to strive to consolidate the areas still under their control and gradually to carry out a pacification of key areas, to attack the liberated areas and to wrest back some of the lost areas, to seek every means to encircle and isolate the southern battlefield; meanwhile, to intensify the war of destruction against the north and carry on their deceptive peace negotiations campaign.
Banking upon a force of more than 700,000 men to be eventually increased, the American imperialists hope to realize their scheme by means of more radical and efficacious measures. They reckon that they can gradually win military and political successes, secure a position of strength to end the war with a solution favorable to them, or to prolong or expand the aggressive war when necessary.
The U.S. imperialists’ design is very ambitious, their scheme most perfidious, and their military and political maneuvers extremely cruel and cunning. However, beside their definite strong points in material strength the American imperialists have most fundamental weak points in political and military fields, in both strategy and tactics.
First of all, the U.S. imperialists are the enemy, not only of the Vietnamese people but also of the progressive people throughout the world. In the present situation as the socialist camp is growing, the national liberation movement surging, the workers movement in the capitalist countries, the movement for peace and democracy developing, and as on the other hand, the forces of imperialism are declining, the correlation of forces in the world shows that the American imperialists are not in a strong position but in a weak position and have to scatter their forces to cope with attacks from all quarters. That is precisely why they cannot send to the south whatever number of troops they like without reckoning with their difficulties in every field in the world or even in the U.S.A. and on the Vietnam battlefield.
The dispatch of an expeditionary corps for a direct invasion or our country is itself afflicted with most fundamental weak points they cannot overcome.
First, the sending or their troops directly to invade our country exposes all the clearer the U.S. imperialists’ true colors as aggressors and their lackeys as traitors, whereby the contradiction between the American imperialists and our nation becomes all the sharper and fiercer. Stirred by their hatred for the aggressors, our entire people (?are) broadly and firmly united within the national united front against the U.S. imperialists and their stooges. All patriotic forces are determined to fight for national salvation. Moreover, many Vietnamese in the enemy’s temporarily controlled area, even in the puppet army and administration, in the parties and organizations under the sway of the U.S. puppets, so far unaware of the nature and scheme of the American imperialists and their minions, now begin to see the latter’s true nature as aggressors and traitors.
Second, due to U.S. imperialists’ dispatching of their troops to invade our country in the conditions when the strategy of their “special war” has fundamentally gone bankrupt while our people’s patriotic war has developed with a very powerful mettle, the liberation armed forces have grown up and the liberated areas have included the major part of the southern population and territory. Though they may bring in hundreds of thousands of troops, they cannot avoid being driven into passivity in strategy, compelled to scatter their forces in the defensive as well as in the offensive, and cannot easily wrest back the initiative as they wish but instead face increasing failures and predicament.
Third, due to their above-mentioned loss of political and military initiative, no matter how modern its equipment, the American expeditionary corps cannot bring into full play its combativeness, and cannot escape the inevitable defeat which is likely to befall any aggressive army . . . facing a whole nation resolute to resist them. Due to the unjust character of its war, the U.S. expeditionary corps, deprived of an ideal to fight for, is possessed of a low morale. On the southern battlefield it has to cope with a people’s war; its strategy and tactics based on the bourgeois military outlook are of no use. The organization, composition, and training of the American army in general are not fit to tackle our entire people’s revolutionary war, aside from the great difficulties they meet with in a strange terrain and climate, and their very considerable needs in supply and logistics.
Fourth, the purpose of the U.S. imperialists’ introduction of troops into the south is to prevent the collapse of the puppet army and administration and create new conditions to consolidate and strengthen the puppet forces; the U.S. imperialists directly invade the south of our country at a moment when the puppet army and administration are seriously weakening. In this situation the more direct the Americans’ aggression, the more isolated and differentiated the puppet army and administration are, the greater the contradiction between the U.S. imperialists and their henchmen, the more conscious those who have any national feeling among the puppet army and administration become, and the more numerous those who cross over to the people’s side.
Consequently, American military buildup not only cannot retrieve the predicament of the puppet army and administration but instead speeds up the latter’s collapse in the face of our people’s resistance. When the American imperialists’ crack troops are defeated by our people the disintegration and collapse of the puppet army and administration will be all the more inevitable.
Fifth, the U.S. imperialists, having started the war in the south, are more and more sternly condemned by the peace-loving people in the world. Now that they openly sent their troops for direct aggression against the south and use their air force to strike at the north, an independent and sovereign socialist state, they are meeting with increasing energetic opposition from the people or the socialist countries and the world’s progressive people, including the American people.
The strong points of the U.S. imperialists are limited, whereas their weak points are basic ones. In the process of development of the aggressive war, the latter will become more and more visible and aggravated and will surely lead the American imperialists to ignominious failure.
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