ABSTRACT
General Taylor’s recommendations in the wake of his October 1961 visit to South Vietnam insisted that Americanmilitary force was the critical catalyst for successful resistance to the insurgency. The Hilsman position almost diametrically opposed Taylor’s thesis, locating the fulcrum of success at rice-roots levels, the lever pushing local security forces. Mobilization efforts among the Montagnards, begun at that same time by serendipity, support the latter thesis. Historical and cultural contexts shaped American doctrine and predilections. Despite a long history of fighting American Indians, policing the frontier, and serving as imperial infantry, the US Army was not ready intellectually, or equipped with doctrine, to train or advise the ARVN to fight insurgents. The tumultuous history of the US Army in the 1950s and early 1960s further confused efforts to recognize contemporary battlefield challenges posed by insurgents around the world. The cumulative weight of these contexts, doctrine, and discontinuities, coupled with the outcomes of other measures like the Strategic Hamlet Program and the advisory efforts, led to erosion of Special Forces’ successes, at least in the war against the insurgents. Continuities existed that Special Forces soldiers and Montagnards exploited for mutual benefit, beginning in 1961. Despite its long history with small wars, the larger US Army shaped its doctrine and practice in accordance with more contemporary events and cultural biases. Army efforts took place in a contested intellectual and institutional space, further complicating debates and decisions. Memories of small wars’ lessons would go unheeded as vociferous inter-service rivalries raged.
