HO CHI MINH’S ART OF WAR

The leadership of North Vietnam’s revolutionary premier succeeded in defeating the colonial French state, and later South Vietnam and its Western allies

- VIRGINIA MORRIS

Ho Chi Minh is credited as being the political leader who liberated Vietnam. He achieved this by first ending French colonial rule in 1954, then his strategies led to victory in the Vietnam War against the Americans and South Vietnamese in 1975. When he was born in 1890, French Indochina had just formed from Cambodia and Vietnam; Lao was added later. Many Vietnamese leaders looked for ways to end colonialism but none had made substantial progress. From observing previous methods, Ho designed his All-People’s War model.

Ho’s model comprised the three strategic fronts of political, propaganda and the military, linked by the Revolutionary Infrastructure. This infrastructure generally included ‘Communist Party cells’, which were then linked together by advanced ‘couriers’ using courier corridors, and ‘guards’. This covert administration became a comprehensive shadow government with all the associated services there to support, control and expand a ‘shadow nation’.

The objective was to fight a protracted war of attrition. Nevertheless, Ho knew that total victory could only be achieved through conventional units with symmetry on the battlefield with his enemy. To establish these conditions, the model was used to build Ho’s fighting units and diminish the strength of the opposing army. Then, at a strategic moment, his military leaders could inflict one swift death blow on the conventional units of his enemy, so forcing them into unconditional surrender.