The Viet Cong Soldier: His Strengths, Weaknesses and Vulnerabilities.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the regular force Viet Cong soldier and the effects of his organization, training, and leadership on his combat capability. As a part of this examination the relationship between the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army will also be studied. From this examination strengths and exploitable weaknesses will be evaluated. No attempt is made to compare Viet Cong methods with those of the South Vietnamese army. The primary sources for this thesis are Viet Cong documents and prisoner of war interrogation reports. The Viet cong soldier is a strong, resourceful. His strength is derived from an effective organization, strict discipline, and the ability of his organization to effectively integrate a wide variety of activities, and focus them upon clearly defined goals. However, they have weaknesses which can be exploited if the military planner realizes that the Viet Cong soldier is not the result of an ideological myth but merely the product of good, sound, tactical planning which emphasizes leadership by example, training, and command supervision.