Landscapes of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam's Ben Tre Province, 1940-1975

FAIN: FT-229574-15

Edward Garvey Miller
Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH 03755-1808)

Summer research and writing on East Asian History, Military and U.S. History.

This project challenges existing interpretations of insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare during the Vietnam War. It does so by examining the war in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre. Instead of focusing solely on the military theories and strategies employed by U.S. commanders in Ben Tre, this project considers American military operations in the province in conjunction with the actions, decisions, and perspectives of various Vietnamese actors (both communists and non-communists). This project also employs an ecological approach to demonstrate the ways in which Ben Tre's diverse landscapes shaped the wartime activities and experiences of both Americans and Vietnamese. This project will incorporate research in Vietnamese archives and libraries in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as field research in Ben Tre.

Associated Products

Development, Space and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam's Ben Tre Province, 1954-1960 (Book Section)
Title: Development, Space and Counterinsurgency in Vietnam's Ben Tre Province, 1954-1960
Author: Edward Miller
Editor: Erez Manela
Editor: Stephen Macekura
Abstract: This chapter examines the phenomenon of counterinsurgency as a form of militarized development. It is particularly interested in the social and spatial dimensions of counterinsurgency, and in the ways in which counterinsurgency theorists and practitioners seek to construct, manipulate and control populations and spaces. It considers these practices in a particular historical context: the province of B?n Tre in South Vietnam, in the years leading up to a famous uprising organized by communist partisans in 1960. The evidence presented here—drawn from South Vietnamese government records and communist accounts—shows that the government’s initial apparent successes in pacification in B?n Tre and its subsequent failure to anticipate or prevent the 1960 uprising turned mainly on its development schemes, such as its ill-fated Agroville Program, launched in 1959. By analyzing space and spatial practices as foundational elements of counterinsurgency, historians can better understand the ways in which counterinsurgency wars often combine ever more ambitious development schemes with increasingly destructive uses of military force.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1316515885
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Book Title: The Development Century: A Global History
ISBN: 9781316515884

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