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Strategic Hamlet Program

The Strategic Hamlet Program was a plan during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency in rural South Vietnam. It involved forcibly relocating villagers into fortified new villages where they would be isolated from communist influence and protected by local militias. The program was inspired by a similar French effort during the First Indochina War but had limited success due to poor execution and the inability of the South Vietnamese government to reform. While the program aimed to secure the rural population, it ultimately failed to defeat the communist insurgency.

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172 views10 pages

Strategic Hamlet Program

The Strategic Hamlet Program was a plan during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency in rural South Vietnam. It involved forcibly relocating villagers into fortified new villages where they would be isolated from communist influence and protected by local militias. The program was inspired by a similar French effort during the First Indochina War but had limited success due to poor execution and the inability of the South Vietnamese government to reform. While the program aimed to secure the rural population, it ultimately failed to defeat the communist insurgency.

Uploaded by

Tudor Cotta
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Strategic

Hamlet Program
(Vietnam War)
Sd. Cap. Florea Marius-Marian
Introduction
The Strategic Hamlet Program was a plan by the
governments of South Vietnam and the United
States during the Vietnam War to combat the
communist insurgency by pacifying the
countryside and reducing the influence of the
communists among the rural population.
• In 1952, during the First Indochina War  French
commander François de Linares, in Tonkin began
the construction of "protected villages," which
the French later named agrovilles. By constructing
quasi-urban amenities, the French designed the

Background
agrovilles to attract peasants away from their
villages. This policy was known as "pacification by
prosperity." In addition to offering social and
and precursor economic benefits, the French also encouraged
villagers to develop their own militias, which the
program French trained and armed. "Pacification by
Prosperity" had some success, but it was never
decisive, because the settlers felt insecure, a
feeling which the numerous French guard posts
along the perimeter could do little to dispel so
long as the Việt Minh operated at night,
anonymously, and intimidated or gained the
support of village authorities.
• Between 1952 and 1954, French officials transplanted approximately 3 million Vietnamese into agrovilles,
but the project was costly. To help offset the cost, the French relied partially on American financial support,
which was "one of the earliest objects of American aid to France after the outbreak of the Korean War."
According to a private Vietnamese source, the U.S. spent about "200,000 dollars on the 'show' agroville at
Dong Quan." After visiting the villages of Khoi Loc in Quảng Yên Province and Đông Quan in Ha Dong
Province, noted Vietnam War correspondent Bernard Fall stated that, "the French strategic hamlets
resembled British prototypes line for line." However, in contrast to the British, the French were reluctant to
grant Vietnam its independence, or allow the Vietnamese a voice in government affairs; therefore, the
agroville program had little effect.
Concept

• In late 1961, President Kennedy sent Roger Hilsman, then director of the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research, to assess the situation in Vietnam. There Hilsman met Sir Robert Thompson,
head of the British Advisory Mission to South Vietnam (BRIAM). Thompson was a veteran of the Malayan
counter-insurgency effort and a counter-insurgency advisor to the Diem government.Thompson shared his
revised system of resettlement and population security, a system he had proposed to Diem that would
eventually become the Strategic Hamlet Program. Thompson's proposal, adopted by Diem, advocated a
priority on winning control of the South Vietnamese rural population rather than killing insurgents. The
police and local security forces would play an important role coupled with anti-insurgent sweeps by
the South Vietnamese army (ARVN)
After his meetings with Thompson, on 2 February 1962 Hilsman described his
concepts of a Strategic Hamlet Program in a policy document entitled "A Strategic
Concept for South Vietnam", which President Kennedy read and endorsed Hilsman
proposed heavily fortified strategic hamlets. "Each strategic village will be protected
by a ditch and a fence of barbed wire. It will include one or more observation
towers...the area immediately around the village will be cleared for fields of fire and
the area approaching the clearing, including the ditch, will be strewn with booby-
traps...and other personal obstacles.[9] The Strategic Hamlet Program "aimed to
condense South Vietnam’s roughly 16 000 hamlets (each estimated to have a
population of slightly less than 1000) into about 12000 strategic hamlets
Conclusion

• In conclusion, while the abortive Strategic Hamlet Program of 1961-1963 may teach one
something, the available record does not permit one to conclude either that the program fell
because of the failure of a given phase or that other phases were, in fact, adequate to the
challenge. One may say that the program was doomed by poor execution and by the inability
of the Ngo family to reform coupled with the inability of the U.S. to induce them to reform.
The evidence does not warrant one to proceed further.
Bibliography

https://books.google.ro/books?id=f-VEAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA7-PA36&lpg=RA7-PA36&dq=concl
usion+about+strategic+hamlet+program&source=bl&ots=lRyH0Chcb_&sig=ACfU3a
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Programorg/w

amhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Hamlet_Program

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