Failure of Vietnamisation

• The reasons Vietnamisation failed were:

  • Fragging
  • Drug use
  • Harvest season
  • Corruption/theft
• Fragging:

  • 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 known as ‘fragging’
  • There were 209 cases of fragging in 1970
• Drug use:

  • 35,000 soldiers apparently became addicted to heroin and marijuana
• Harvest season:

  • The ARVN didn’t have enough soldiers, and then about 150,500 of them deserted (although 24,000 returned after the harvest season)
• Corruption/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 stolen regularly
• Funding:

  • Congress restricted the amount of funding given
• Bad training:

  • Training for officers was rushed and instructions for equipment was in English, so the ARVN troops couldn’t read them
  • The ARVN couldn’t continue the fighting without US support
• Unpopularity of government:

  • The South Vietnamese government was hated by the South Vietnamese people
  • They saw their government as a puppet of the US
  • The South Vietnamese government did not think it could survive without the financial backing of the US
• • the US withdrew troops knowing that the ARVN could not protect South Vietnam
  • this led to the fall of Saigon
  • Saigon fell because it was weak militarily and politically
  • politically, the country was run poorly as nobody was in complete power
  • militarily, the ARVN could not hold out the VC