The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) had its beginning in 1930, in a mountain cave near the China border, with Vo Nguyen Giap and thirty-three others. Giap, with Ho Chi Minh's help, built up this minuscule army from a semi-guerrilla status into a force numbering over one million in the regular army and another three million in paramilitary elements. Pike discusses in depth the relationship of this small, underdeveloped country to Russia, to Marxist-Leninist doctrine, to China. He also accounts for Hanoi's victory in the Vietnam War and discusses the North Vietnam strategy that has proved so successful against three of the world's greatest powers.

The first English-language translation of the definitive chronicle of the Vietnamese military's view of the Vietnam War, published for the first time in the United States.

What was for the United States a struggle against creeping Communism in Southeast Asia was for the people of North Vietnam a "great patriotic war" that saw its eventual victory against a military Goliath. The story of that conflict as seen through the eyes--and the ideology--of the North Vietnamese military offers readers a view of that era never before seen. Victory in Vietnam is the People's Army of Vietnam's own account of two decades of struggle, now available for the first time in English. It is a definitive statement of the Vietnamese point of view concerning foreign intrusion in their country since before American involvement—and it reveals that many of the accepted truths in our own histories of the war are simply wrong. This detailed account describes the ebb and flow of the war as seen from Hanoi. It discloses particularly difficult times in the PAVN's struggle: 1955-59, when Diem almost destroyed the Communist movement in the South; 1961-62, when American helicopter assaults and M-113 armored personnel carriers inflicted serious losses on their forces; and 1966, when U.S. troop strength and air power increased dramatically. It also elaborates on the role of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Communist effort, confirming its crucial importance and telling how the United States came close to shutting the supply line down on several occasions. The book confirms the extent to which the North orchestrated events in the South and also reveals much about Communist infiltration—accompanied by statistics—from 1959 until the end of the war. While many Americans believed that North Vietnam only began sending regular units south after the U.S. commitment of ground forces in 1965, this account reveals that by the time Marines landed in Da Nang in April 1965 there were already at least four North Vietnamese regiments in the South. Translator Merle Pribbenow, who spent several years in Saigon during the war, has sought to render as accurately as possible the voice of the PAVN authors, retaining much of the triumphant flavor of the text in order to provide an uncensored feel for the Vietnamese viewpoint. A foreword by William J. Duiker, author of Ho Chi Minh: A Life and other books on Vietnam, puts both the tone and content of the text in historical perspective.

First major study of the Vietnamese military establishment since the adoption of domestic reforms in 1986. Presents a comprehensive review of the impact of doi moi on the armed forces, the military's changing role in society, & the adoption of a new defense doctrine. New data is presented on Vietnam's program of strategic readjustment, national defense expenditure, threat perceptions, plans for modernization, the political influence of the military & Vietnam's evolving military relations with regional states.

This collection includes the major writings of General Giap, who, on the evidence of his record as well as his theoretical work, has long been recognized as one of the military geniuses of modern times. The book includes writings from the 1940s to the end of the 1960s.