Vietnamization was a policy enacted in early 1969 by the Richard Nixon administration aimed at ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War by expanding, equipping, and training the South Vietnamese armed forces (ARVN) and increasing their combat role, while at the same reducing involvement of U.S. combat troops. The policy of Vietnamization, despite its successful execution, was ultimately a failure as the improved ARVN forces were unable to stop North Vietnam and its People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). The South Vietnamese government collapsed with the fall of Saigon in April 1975 and north and south Vietnam were subsequently unified under communism as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The policy of Vietnamization was brought on by North Vietnam's Tet Offensive in early 1968 which had led to increasing opposition among the American public to continued involvement in the war. This continued to increase following other events such as the 1968 My Lai massacre, the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, and the 1971 leaking of the Pentagon Papers. The term "Vietnamization" originated from a meeting on January 28, 1969, of the National Security Council. General Andrew Goodpaster, commander of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, stated that the ARVN had been improving to the point that the war could be "de-Americanized". Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird agreed but suggested using the term "Vietnamizing" instead.
Vietnamization also fit into the broader détente policy of the Nixon administration, in which the United States moved away from a strategy of containment of communism to a more cooperative strategy with other world powers, including the Soviet Union and China. Nixon ordered negotiations with the Soviets and opened high-level contact with China. Improving relations with these countries was of higher priority than South Vietnam.
Vietnamization had two components. The first was "strengthening the armed force of the South Vietnamese in numbers, equipment, leadership and combat skills", while the second was "the extension of the pacification program [i.e. military aid to civilians] in South Vietnam". U.S. helicopters would continue to fly in support while South Vietnamese candidates were trained to eventually take over operations. The policy reduced the involvement of U.S. combat troops specifically in the ground combat roles, but did not initially reduce operations by the U.S. Air Force, as well as the support to South Vietnam, consistent with the policies of U.S. foreign military assistance organizations.
Precedent: French jaunissement in Indochina War
From 1950, after several years of the First Indochina War, French commanders adopted a policy they called "yellowing" (jaunissement), expressly to minimize White casualties. This change, at the time, was mostly due to a deficit of troops in the FTEO, the Far-East segment of the French army. Vietnamese soldiers were progressively integrated in battalions. As part of decolonization process, after recognizing Vietnamese independence within the French Union in 1949, France allowed Vietnam to establish its own army (Vietnamese National Army) on 8 December 1950, this army then worked side by side with the French army (French Union Army) to fight against the communist Viet Minh rebels. U.S. critics of the war compared Vietnamization to jaunissement. This Vietnamese army would become the ARVN.
Lyndon Johnson's major political interests were domestic; the war interfered with his domestic focus, and he was eager to end the war in a way that he considered politically acceptable. In 1967, Kissinger attended a Pugwash Conference of scientists interested in nuclear disarmament. This was the first contact between Ho Chi Minh and Kissinger, who was then an adviser to Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York and a presidential candidate. Two participants approached Kissinger and offered a disavowable means of communication between the U.S. and the communist leadership. In particular, Raymond Aubrac, an official of the World Health Organization, knew Ho Chi Minh and agreed to carry a message.
After discussing the matter with Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a message was sent. Ho said he would be willing to negotiate if the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam under Operation Rolling Thunder ceased. Mai Van Bo, Hanoi's diplomatic representative in Paris, was named a point of contact. Since Hanoi would not communicate with an American official without a bombing halt, Kissinger served as an intermediary. Johnson made a speech in San Antonio on September 29, offering the possibility of talks. They were rejected, although brought up again in 1967.
The departure of Lyndon B. Johnson did not end the war; rather, it spread throughout Southeast Asia. The Tet Offensive (1968) was a political and media disaster. Newsman Walter Cronkite announced that he saw a stalemate as the best case scenario for the Tet Offensive. Other members of the press added to the call to retrench (reduce costs and spending). President Johnson's popularity plummeted and he announced a bombing halt on March 31, simultaneously announcing he would not run for re-election. Though he had low expectations, on May 10, 1968, Johnson began peace talks between U.S. and North Vietnamese in Paris. The war, however, continued.
Nixon Administration analysis of options
Under the Nixon administration, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's chief adviser, asked the Rand Corporation to provide a list of policy options, prepared by Daniel Ellsberg. On receiving the report, Kissinger and Schelling asked Ellsberg about the apparent absence of a victory option; Ellsberg said "I don't believe there is a win option in Vietnam." While Ellsberg eventually did send a withdrawal option, Kissinger would not circulate something that could be perceived as defeat, though privately, he realized the United States was in a difficult position and priorities needed to be set.
According to a record, prepared by Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoliy Dobrynin, of discussions between Dobrynin and Kissinger, the crux of the U.S. position, was progress still must be made at the Paris talks and, for domestic political reasons, Nixon "simply cannot wait a year for Hanoi to decide to take some new step and take a more flexible position". Dobrynin expressed the Soviet position that the U.S. needed to stop trying to divide the Paris Peace Talks into two parts:
discussion of military issues between the U.S. and the DRV
resolution of political issues by placing them, "for all practical purposes, entirely in the hands of Saigon, which does not want to resolve them and is unable to do so, since it is unable to soberly assess the situation and the alignment of forces in South Vietnam".
Dobrynin, however, misunderstood the extent to which the U.S. was willing to apply military force not involving ground troops, culminating in Operation Linebacker II.
The process of Vietnamization was partly influenced by Nixon’s delicate political position on a domestic level. He had been elected with 43.4% of the votes, and Laird was concerned with his support at home. Indeed, he could sense the impatience of the American public regarding the war. Nixon himself believed American casualties reduced the support for the war. For members of his administration, a campaign of attrition was useless against an Asian power, because they were able to tolerate a greater number of casualties compared to a Western power.
On the left, Senator Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, feared Vietnamization would not be enough to reduce the numbers of casualties:My fear is that the current policy will keep the US bogged down in Vietnam – with the killing and cost continuing indefinitely.
Nixon directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to prepare a six-step withdrawal plan. The Commandant of the Marine Corps General Leonard F. Chapman Jr. remembered, "I felt, and I think that most Marines felt, that the time had come to get out of Vietnam." Leading the ground force withdrawals, Marine redeployments started in mid-1969, and by the end of the year the entire 3rd Marine Division had departed.