US Internal Security Assistance to South Vietnam: Insurgency, Subversion and Public Order

At the height of the Cold War, the United States used foreign police and paramilitary assistance to combat the spread of communist revolution in the developing world. Support to the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam became the single largest internal security programme during the 1955-1963 period. Yet despite presidential attention and a sustained campaign to transform Diem's police and paramilitary forces into modern, professional forces, the United States failed to achieve its objectives. Using recently declassified government records, this book offers the first full-length assessment of America's struggle to remake Diem's internal security forces into "mirror images" of US police institutions. Operating at the zenith of America's national self-confidence, policymakers in Washington and police advisers on the ground in South East Asia were convinced that exporting US law enforcement techniques and values to Vietnam would help establish that country as a secure, progressive, and pro-Westernnation. Analyzing how and why the US campaign in South Vietnam failed, this volume sheds new light on the broader US programme of assistance to 'free world' internal security forces during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. Today, as the United States and its allies confront insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the global threat posed by al-Qa'ida, the challenge of building foreign internal security forces, and the demands of 'nation-building', have again become urgent priorities. The US experience in Vietnam serves as a cautionary tale and highlights the perils of imposing American notions about public order. This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, Intelligence Studies, Cold War studies, the Vietnam War and Security Studies in general.

William Rosenau is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation's Washington Office, and an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University.