CORDS and the Vietnam Experience: An Interagency Organization for Counterinsurgency and Pacification
INTRODUCTION:
After
two failed attempts at interagency coordination during the Vietnam War,
President Lyndon Johnson decided to intervene directly to improve the
management of U.S. support to pacification in South Vietnam. The
resulting initiative, known as CORDS (Civil Operations and
Revolutionary Support), created an interagency headquarters that
streamlined U.S. efforts in support of the South Vietnamese government
and the fight against Viet Cong insurgents. The case of CORDS is
critical to the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) as it
exemplifies an interagency structure that effectively integrated
elements of national power in pursuit of U.S. counter-insurgency,
nation-building, and governmental capacity building efforts in South
Vietnam.
STRATEGY:
Prior to the
inception of CORDS, the U.S. pacification assistance mission in South
Vietnam was run by the United States Mission offices in Saigon. The
State Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID), U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), and the U.S. Information Service (USIS) all were responsible
for various aspects of this mission. The military advisory effort was
run by Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV); however, military
assets were outside the direct purview of the embassy. The U.S.
Government created CORDS to overcome these organizational and
administrative problems and better focus U.S. interagency support
behind South Vietnamese efforts at pacification.
INTEGRATED ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL POWER:
CORDS was unique in that it placed nearly all civilian and military
interagency assets involved in the pacification struggle under one
civilian manager—and then subordinated that individual to the military
hierarchy as a Deputy Commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam.
This innovative structure provided the pacification effort nearly
unfettered access to enormous military and civilian resources. By
centralizing planning and management in one headquarters, and
subsequently replicating the identical management structure at every
level of the South Vietnamese government (military region, province,
and district), CORDS established an effective interagency body. It
blended civilian and military personnel and improved U.S. pacification
support to all levels of the South Vietnamese government.
EVALUATION:
One variable
that explains CORDS’ ultimate success at mitigating interagency tension
was the decision to put military commanders in charge of civilians and
vice versa. This innovative mixed structure demonstrated to CORDS staff
that agencies would reward personnel based on their skills, abilities,
and mission performance and not on previous agency loyalty.
Furthermore, CORDS was comparatively well-resourced, allowing its
elements to accomplish objectives quickly and completely. Finally,
CORDS emphasized creating a working relationship with the South
Vietnamese to generate more comprehensive pacification plans that would
ensure U.S. and Vietnamese military and civilian resources worked
together. The Vietnamese pacification planning apparatus would grow in
size and capacity as it slowly came to embrace all aspects of its
mission.
RESULTS:
CORDS was, on the
whole, effective in establishing viable military and civilian aid
initiatives in conjunction with the South Vietnamese, efficiently
managing those programs and measurably improving the effectiveness of
the South Vietnamese security forces in the countryside. However,
CORDS’ major, if inherent, weakness was that the organization had to
partner with the deeply flawed South Vietnamese government. Although
CORDS mobilized and integrated U.S. military and civilian pacification
initiatives in support of South Vietnam, it could only achieve a
limited success in that, by itself, it could not ensure the viability
of an independent South Vietnam.
CONCLUSION:
CORDS assisted the American pacification effort in South Vietnam
by reducing interagency bickering, creating a unified pacification
effort under a single manager, placing that manager’s headquarters
inside the military structure, and thereby allowing it to gain access
to vast human, financial and organizational resources in implementing
an integrated program at the provincial, district, hamlet, and village
level. Despite these achievements, which required the allocation of
enormous resources, the effort proved insufficient in itself to sustain
the South Vietnamese government against its numerous internal problems
and foreign enemies.
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