Insurgency in North Vietnam

Most people thinking of the Vietnam War will use Vietcong as a blanket term for all Communist forces, including the NVA. Which makes sense considering the Indochina War was a war against an insurgency rather than a traditional conflict.

Obviously the VC were only Viet insurgents in South Vietnam, supporting the NVA regulars (or was it the other way around?), and they wernt the entirety of America's enemies during the war. They were still a major threat to US objectives.

While South Vietnam had to deal with this large scale people's insurgency, North Vietnam didnt have a resistance of its own to deal with (or not a very large one in anycase). Well there was an insurgency in Laos they had to fight but thats not Vietnamese soil.

So WI North Vietnam had to deal with a large VC style insurgency of pro-south (or at least anti communist) forces during the Vietnamese Civil War?
 
After the end of the first Indochinese conflict, the French sponsored Maquis had their support withdrawn. In some cases prior to reaching safety in the South or Laos. These units were primarily hill people / montangnards / Hmong and from 1955 - 1960 the NVA annihilated them.

As for a thriving counter insurgency in North Vietnam is can be done, but it has a low probability of success. In OTL the North has (like all communist dictatorships) an excellent counter intelligence directorate that was able to discover the sympathisers. To have a functioning rebel network you would need the French to organise the cells as a fallback option in the event of defeat. These personnel would need to be trained without knowledge of the Viet Minh during the last stages of French rule and then be able to be supplied by the French / CIA after the establishment of North Vietnam. Which requires a sanctuary in Northern / Eastern Laos, the same place the PLA and the NVA will be infiltrating as well. So it is possible but it is difficult to execute.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
After the end of the first Indochinese conflict, the French sponsored Maquis had their support withdrawn. In some cases prior to reaching safety in the South or Laos. These units were primarily hill people / montangnards / Hmong and from 1955 - 1960 the NVA annihilated them.

As for a thriving counter insurgency in North Vietnam is can be done, but it has a low probability of success. In OTL the North has (like all communist dictatorships) an excellent counter intelligence directorate that was able to discover the sympathisers. To have a functioning rebel network you would need the French to organise the cells as a fallback option in the event of defeat. These personnel would need to be trained without knowledge of the Viet Minh during the last stages of French rule and then be able to be supplied by the French / CIA after the establishment of North Vietnam. Which requires a sanctuary in Northern / Eastern Laos, the same place the PLA and the NVA will be infiltrating as well. So it is possible but it is difficult to execute.
Even trying to insert agents into North Vietnam was difficult. SOG tried to insert scores of them. They were all caught and/or turned.

Any insurgency in the north is going to have to be something cultural that has or had popular support.
 
As for a thriving counter insurgency in North Vietnam is can be done, but it has a low probability of success. In OTL the North has (like all communist dictatorships) an excellent counter intelligence directorate that was able to discover the sympathisers. To have a functioning rebel network you would need the French to organise the cells as a fallback option in the event of defeat. These personnel would need to be trained without knowledge of the Viet Minh during the last stages of French rule and then be able to be supplied by the French / CIA after the establishment of North Vietnam. Which requires a sanctuary in Northern / Eastern Laos, the same place the PLA and the NVA will be infiltrating as well. So it is possible but it is difficult to execute.
They kinda did that irl if i recall correctly. I think that for a while the French maintained enough intelligence contacts in Vietnam to engage in a little 'shadow war' with the CIA over influence in South Vietnam.

Damn, i cant remember where i read that from now though. Im sure someone made a thread about it here. :\
 
It would be difficult, not only because of the somewhat excellent efforts of whatever the NVA had for a counterintelligence crew, but also because of a cultural aspect. Much of North Vietnam readily associated Communism with nationalism, given that Ho Chi Minh and his communists have been staging most of their pre-war anti-French rebellions in the north. In short, communist action in Vietnam was mainly concentrated in the north. This allowed them to gain the popular support of most of the Vietnamese in the north. Any support for anything other than communism would be minimal because of the fact that extensive communist action in the north would have won the hearts and minds of most Vietnamese in the north.
 
Maybe if the Catholics didn't leave the North, they could create a small-to-medium sized insurgency at the time of war.
 
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