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Declassified per Executive Order 13526, Section 3.3 NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011 6  : and did not in any way affect the probability of success of the undertaking, were allowed to govern rather than considerations of limitations in U.S. resources and capabilities, and the basic difficulty of the task at hand. Increasingly a characteristic of U.S. decision making, such compromise maximized the probability of consistently selecting the least desirable course of action.


 * — The threat to Vietnam was perceived as constituted of the sects and the Viet Minh residue in the South, and the regular forces of the DRV in the North; although it was consistently estimated that the DRV had the capability to overrun South Vietnam, it was just as consistently estimated that the DRV neither needed nor intended to do so. Nonetheless, U.S. doctrine regarding estimates of capability as opposed to estimates of intention with its characteristic emphasis on Order of Battle data (so small a part of the real intelligence problem in counterinsurgency) led to fixation upon the more massive, but less likely, threat of overt invasion.


 * — The dual mission expected of the Vietnamese army of internal and external defense was, given resource and trained manpower limitations, internally inconsistent. Given the state of U.S. strategic thinking in the 1950's, the nature of SEATO, the withdrawal of the FEC, the pressures exerted by Diem, and the background of the U.S. MAAG, rooted in the recent Korean experience, it was virtually certain to lead to a conventional military establishment designed to counter a conventional threat. It did. In fact, given the strength of these influences and the lack of U.S. familiarity with effective counterinsurgent techniques, it is questionable whether assignment of a single mission related exclusively to internal security would have made any difference in the type of military establishment that resulted.


 * — The South Vietnamese army was in extremely poor condition in 1954; its prospects were worse, in view of the limited resources, particularly in terms of personnel, the U.S. was able to devote to its reorganization and training. In addition, as the JCS stated, "Unless the Vietnamese themselves show an inclination to make individual and collective sacrifices required to resist Communism, which they have not done to date, no amount of external pressure and assistance can long delay complete Communist victory in South Vietnam." There was no overwhelming change in the willingness to sacrifice during the late 1950's, which added to the already formidable task of creating an effective military establishment.


 * — The way in which the U.S. MAAG vent about creating an effective military establishment had four principal characteristics:

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