Targeted Political Killings are Tools in the Book of War

President Biden’s support for the Ukraine war enabled a total of approximately 15,000+ civilians to be killed in the conflict by continuing a conflict that should have ended several years ago. Each day about 1200 Russians and 600 Ukrainian soldiers die. This is a different era than during Vietnam conflict though. L.B.J.’s war set the groundwork for about a half million Vietnamese civilians to be killed by American military power. The Northern communists also may have killed a quarter million. The communists did use targeted political killings- a phenomenon largely absent from the Ukraine War except for a rare use when the Ukraine secret military police target Russian Generals in Moscow with terrorist bombings.

President Trump and other Republican leaders in recent years have been occasional targets of Democrat fellow traveling would be assassins. Part of the mass killings of protestors in Iran this year may have been an effort to degrade domestic political opposition. Because targeted political killings as a tool of war are a little known phenomenon in most modern conflicts- albeit perhaps practiced widely by repressive regimes and select revolutionaries to take out political opposition, I asked A.I. to recap the history and effectiveness of the communist political cleansing movement to expedite victory in the Vietnam war.

AI-Historical consensus attributes 250,000 to 400,000 civilian deaths to the actions of the United States and its allies, while attributing 164,000 to 227,000 civilian deaths to the targeted actions, purges, and terror tactics of the NVA and Viet Cong. 

If you would like to explore this topic further, I can provide more details on the methods historians use to calculate these numbers or break down specific events like the Hue Massacre or Operation Rolling Thunder. Let me know what you prefer! 

Gary-Were the targeted political killing helpful to the communists?

AI-Yes, historians and military analysts generally agree that the targeted political killings were highly effective and helpful to the communist war effort.

While these actions were violent and constituted terrorism, they served a calculated, rationalized political strategy rather than random malice. The assassination campaign helped the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) achieve their goals through several distinct mechanisms:

1. Collapsing Local Government Infrastructure [1]

The South Vietnamese government in Saigon struggled to project authority into rural provinces. By systematically assassinating village chiefs, police officers, tax collectors, and mail carriers, the VC effectively severed the link between the central government and the rural population.

• When a village chief was killed or kidnapped, the Saigon government struggled to find replacements willing to take the job.
• This created a “shadow government” or political vacuum, allowing the VC to step in, govern, and control the villages.

2. Elimination of Competent Leaders

Declassified intelligence reports, including historical studies by the RAND Corporation, revealed that the VC did not target people at random. They intentionally targeted two types of local officials: [1, 2, 3]

• The Highly Corrupt/Unpopular: Killing a corrupt local tyrant made the VC look like liberating heroes to the exploited peasants.
• The Highly Competent/Well-Liked: Killing capable, honest government reformers was a priority because those officials threatened to win the genuine loyalty of the people for the Saigon government.

3. Coerced Compliance and Resource Extraction

The primary goal of guerrilla warfare is to control the population to secure food, taxes, and new recruits. 

• High-profile assassinations created an environment of fear where the rural population realized the South Vietnamese military could not protect them.
• As a result, even villagers who did not ideologically support communism complied with VC demands for rice, taxes, shelter, and information to avoid being labeled “traitors” and executed. [

4. Forcing Heavy-Handed U.S. and ARVN Responses [1]

By blinding American and South Vietnamese intelligence networks at the village level, the communists forced their enemies to rely on indiscriminate conventional military force (like heavy artillery and B-52 bombing raids) to root out hidden insurgents. 

• When these massive military responses accidentally killed innocent civilians or destroyed villages, it deeply angered the peasantry.
• This resentment drove thousands of surviving rural Vietnamese directly into the arms of the Viet Cong, helping the communists recruit new soldiers.

The Limits of the Strategy

While the strategy was highly effective at disrupting the South Vietnamese state, it occasionally backfired when the violence became too widespread. For example, the Massacre at Huế during the 1968 Tet Offensive—where communist forces executed thousands of civilians, teachers, and religious figures—deeply alienated urban populations and hardened domestic resistance against the NVA. 

Ultimately, however, the targeted killing campaign was a structural pillar of Hanoi’s hybrid warfare strategy. It successfully prevented South Vietnam from ever building a stable, secure, and cohesive nation-state.