Development Diary XI – The Smell of Napalm in the Morning
Welcome, friends and comrades, back to TNO. I’m Grestin, and you may know me from absolutely fucking nothing, and I’m here to talk about Vietnam.
Vietnam has, almost since the beginning, been a land of changing masters. From a Chinese client state in centuries past, to colonization by the French, to eventual colonization by the Japanese, the Vietnamese state has continuously transitioned from one overlord to another. Originally part of the united French Indochinese Federation, the sleepy colony seemed like it would be affected little by the events in Europe. Though there were stirrings of concerns over the Japanese conquests of China, few seemed to think that the war would arrive in Indochina. It was the German declaration of War on Poland that would change this situation dramatically. After weeks of so-called “Phony War”, France fell in a dramatic catastrophe that shocked many of the colonial administrators. The subsequent creation of the Vichy regime, who claimed control over Indochina, did little to help matters.
Almost overnight, French Indochina, and Saigon in particular, exploded into revolutionary fervor. The formerly oppressed peoples of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam began to rise up in disorganized rebel movements. Communists, fascists, monarchists and democrats alike cooperated with the mutual goal of forcing the French out of their lands. With the French colony locked in a brutal life or death struggle, the invasion and occupation by the Japanese almost seemed like a relief. The Japanese, seeking to keep their new prize under their thumb, reorganized Indochina into loyal dominions under their respective rulers. Vietnam, in particular, came under the purview of the collaborator regime of Emperor Bao Dai. Of course, calling the man an emperor was somewhat of a misnomer, as his thuggish underlings often took their orders from the real emperor in Tokyo.
Subsequent decades would be spent reorganizing Vietnam around the principles and needs of the Japanese Empire. Former peasant lands were seized in many regions and sold to the Zaibatsus for preferential rates. In many cases, Vietnamese peasants lost family farms as the Japanese tried to settle veterans of their conquests in the region. Japanization became the great project of the Bao Dai regime and their overlords, who attempted to effectively stamp out any semblance of Vietnamese cultural identity, supplanting it with Japanese culture. Vietnamese history and language was de-emphasized for the few that could afford education, and the Japanese settlers began to see the Vietnamese as little more than glorified serfs. This situation was, naturally, untenable for many.
In the years since Vietnam became a Japanese client state, a myriad of insurgent movements have popped up, representing nearly every ideology beneath the rising sun. The most notable of these groups is the Vietcong, lead by the enigmatic Ho Chi Minh. Minh, a French educated communist, returned to his homeland to find it changed almost entirely. The violence and repression of the Japanization attempts convinced him to pursue a guerilla war that continues even into 1962. It is with Minh that we arrive at the start of the game, and the beginning of the situation for Vietnam.
At the start of the game, Vietnam’s political situation leaves something to be desired. The current regime, still headed by Bao Dai, is dealing with an increasing number of problems. The current Prime Minister, Dr. Phan Huy Quat, oversees an increasingly impoverished, angry, starving nation on the brink of exploding.
The Vietcong operate with near impunity in the jungles of the nation, striking key infrastructure and slowly turning the populace to their Grand Leader’s ideals. This guerilla war cannot be allowed to continue, but thanks to Japanese military treaties, Quat’s hands are tied. Unable to field anything larger than a small force to supplement the token Japanese forces, Quat’s Vietnam is toothless to fight the Vietcong forces. The longer they are allowed to function with impunity, the more the public turns to their side. The slow growth of communist ideals is not helped by subsequent systemic problems throughout the Vietnamese nation.
Vietnam is, as expected from a former colony, populated by a largely illiterate population of former peasants. The French dedicated many resources to extracting Vietnamese rubber, and few to teaching the Vietnamese to self-govern. The Japanese are no different. Thanks to this situation, educating the Vietnamese population has proven a major project for reformists, many of whom have had their proposals blocked by the Quat government.
Tying into the former issue, Vietnam’s economy is barely industrialized, if at all. Though the Japanese have made many efforts to extract rubber and cash crops, little effort has been put into developing local industries. Because of this, the ability to construct new factories, arms factories and dockyards is dramatically reduced, and will continue to be so until Vietnam is sufficiently developed.
Rubber is the principle export of Vietnam, and it has lead to the small nation being the major rubber exporter of the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Much of this rubber comes from Japanese owned plantations, preventing even closely tied Vietnamese businesses from enjoying the fruits of their labor. Rectifying this situation is going to be a key factor in any kind of major reforms for Vietnam.
One of the largest things affecting Vietnam are restrictions placed on it by the Japanese. Seeing the tiny nation as a boiling pot of nationalism, the Japanese have prevented the creation of any new Vietnamese armed forces. This has created a twofold problem, as it has forced the Vietnamese to become reliant on the Japanese for military assistance, and it has lead to the Vietnamese government being unable to exert any greater control over the countryside. Given that the countryside is largely where the Vietcong operate, these restrictions have effectively neutered the ability to fight the Vietcong in any meaningful capacity.
Two major figures have emerged out of the Quat administration, seeking to reform Vietnam along their particular ideas. Nguyen Ton Hoan, a rising reformist politician and devout Catholic, has expressed a deep interest in reforming Vietnam into a truly democratic state. Ngo Dinh Diem, on the other hand, is the right hand of the Quat regime. A brutal, even more deeply devout Catholic, Diem has expressed an interest in building Vietnam in the same mold as nations like the German Reich or Italy. Espousing ideals like National Socialism with Vietnamese characteristics, many fear the prospect of Diem assuming power.
These fears culminate in the assassination of Quat in early 1962. With his death comes a dramatic increase in Vietcong activity, and the need for a successor. Bao Dai is presented with the two possible candidates, and must decide. In most cases, Hoan will assume the position of Prime Minister, and will begin working to reform Vietnam along democratic ideals. The path to this will be difficult, though, and before he can even secure his position, Hoan is faced with fighting the Vietcong insurgency.
The first major issue, regardless of who takes control, is the Vietcong. This is demonstrated in game via both party popularity and a series of decisions that must be taken to slowly reduce communist influence. Communist influence represents the general metric of public support for the Vietcong insurgency, and these decisions must be taken to keep the communist popularity in check while taking focuses to eventually mitigate it entirely.
The Vietcong War is a major part of the early game for Vietnam. The decisions are mainly focused on slowly reducing the malus induced by higher communist popularity. Allowing communist popularity to get above 50% will lead to the Vietcong attempting to take control over the nation directly, which can result in utter catastrophe. The simplest method, albeit the least effective, is to launch a propaganda campaign to reduce communist popularity. The method with the most risk, and the one that Hoan is forced to use in lieu of more extreme methods, is Search and Destroy.
Search and destroy missions are, as anyone with any knowledge of the OTL Vietnam War knows, are missions to search out and eliminate enemy positions then leaving. For Hoan’s Vietnam, with more extreme (and potentially more effective methods) unavailable, he is forced to run Search and Destroy raids against Vietcong outposts. These raids can vary in effectiveness, with success drastically reducing communist support and failure dramatically increasing it. At the same time, Hoan must begin pushing reforms to try and get communist popularity under control.
The Strategic Hamlets Initiative, inspired by Spanish and British counter-insurgency tactics in the early 20th century, is one of many plans to fight the Vietcong support network. By moving villagers into strategically defensible positions, the Vietnamese can isolate them from the Vietcong, and can eliminate a major source of intelligence and support.
The Chieu Hoi Program, on the other hand, works to try and encourage the communist partisans to defect to the loyalist government, with varying success. More defectors means more vital intelligence being passed on to Hoan’s government. More intelligence means better methods of rooting out and defeating the Vietcong.
Additionally, Hoan can meet with local leadership to try and root out potential communist sympathizers. This can manifest in everything from allowing some minor communist reforms, to outright “soft purges” of village leadership to reduce communist influence. The latter can, of course, potentially backfire if the purged leaders join the opposing side.
Much like our timeline’s Vietnam War, Hoan must earn the hearts and minds of his people. Propaganda can only go so far, naturally. Hoan must work to sell his reforms to the people by any means necessary, and attempting to effectively “out-bid” the communists in regards to reforms to try and maintain power.
The conclusion of these efforts is making a direct meeting with the Grand Leader, Ho Chi Minh. Minh is a paranoid man, and the meeting is conducted in a similarly paranoid manner. It is via this meeting that Hoan can have Minh arrested, though this can fail and require Hoan to destroy the Vietcong entirely. On the other hand, successfully arresting Minh can lead to reaching a peaceful compromise to the Vietcong War, and avoiding a major potential crisis.
The more peaceful part of Hoan’s initial reforms is trying to shift Vietnam from an uneducated, agrarian and undemocratic society to a beacon of democracy in a region sorely lacking such. The first of these three reforms is the creation of a national education ministry, which will begin to reduce the malus inflicted by Vietnam’s crippling illiteracy. The second is to begin shifting Vietnam from an agrarian to an industrial economy, which will lessen the malus induced by the Agrarian economy spirit. The third is to begin preparing Vietnam for democratic elections, which largely manifests through voter registration drives alongside the education reforms.
Most Vietnamese peasants barely understand how to write, let alone vote based on policy, so Hoan must take up the task of developing a democratic apparatus for the future. Among his first initial reforms is the creation of the first major university in Saigon, inviting educators from Japan and throughout the Co-Prosperity Sphere to begin working on creating an educated class of citizens for the nation. Another issue that needs to be resolved is creating a bilingual state for Vietnam, allowing for the use of both Japanese and Vietnamese in everything from road signs to curriculums.
The other issue that must be resolved are the Japanese military restrictions, and this can be worked on via inviting Japanese military instructors to Vietnam to oversee the creation of a new Vietnamese military. Whether Japan will be receptive to the idea or not is hard to say, but if they refuse, Vietnam can look as far as the OFN and the United States for advisors to begin training a national army.
Hoan’s other initial reforms largely focus on shifting away from agrarianism. Subsidizing Vietnamese farmers, particularly cash crops, can help to shift towards a mechanized economy. This is additionally bolstered by the importation of modern farming equipment from throughout the Japanese Empire, as well as potentially importing illegal equipment from less scrupulous nations if the Japanese prove unreceptive to Hoan’s reformism.
Another issue that needs to be resolved is the issue of the judiciary. Largely staffed by lapdogs for the emperor, they have prevented change to the Vietnamese systems for years since the first liberation, and they need to go. One of the earliest reforms Hoan can focus on is implementing a modern legal system, based to no small degree on similar systems in the United States. The issue of the Emperor must also be examined. Bao Dai ruled with near absolute power for years, and his power stands in the way of democratic progress. If Hoan wishes to shift towards democracy, the power of the emperor needs to be curbed in favor of a parliament and advisors. Lifting press restrictions is yet another long desired change that Hoan is quick to implement, much to the chagrin of many Japanese lapdogs.
Once the Vietcong are defeated and Hoan’s initial reforms are complete, he can begin working on a round of far more extensive reforms. Vietnamese democracy must be protected, naturally, and the easiest way to maintain democracy, at least to Hoan, is via prosperity. With this in mind, Hoan’s more extensive changes to Vietnam focus on refining the growing industrial and agrarian sectors into fine tuned machines, while also continuing to reform Vietnamese politics. Additionally, Hoan, along with his compatriot Diem, has two primary pet projects to focus on.
The first is examining and trying to rectify many of the racial and ethnic issues that exist within Vietnam. Rather surprisingly, there is still a small French minority within Vietnam, leftover from those not deported or purged in the ensuing years. Figuring out a place for these remnants in the new Vietnam may prove difficult, especially if Free France finds itself in a position to reclaim Vietnam from the Japanese. Deciding whether to deport or integrate the French remnants should not be taken lightly, as their presence may prove more of a curse than a blessing. The second issue is the future of the Japanese colonists. The colonists have been a major point of contention for the Vietnamese, as many see them as little better than the French. Deciding what to do about them should not be taken lightly, as taking extreme measures might invoke the ire of the Japanese. The final, and most extensive plan, is to create a unified immigration board throughout all of Indochina. The further integration of the Indochinese nations is a major goal for any Vietnamese leader.
Diem’s Vietnam is, naturally, drastically different. Initially more of a fascist, Diem is heavily inspired by the regimes of Germany and Italy. In the case of the former, this comes more from an admiration of German successes in the Second World War, rather than their miserable postwar failures. This lead to the formation of Diem’s personal ideology of “National Socialism with Vietnamese characteristics.” Under this system, Diem believes that Vietnam can be reorganized around these ideals, and will do anything in his power to meet this goal. With this in mind, destroying the Vietcong is a key factor in Diem’s initial reforms.
The decisions available in the Vietcong War are much, much more drastic under Diem. The new fascist leadership of Vietnam can establish re-concentration camps, firebomb their own people, and conduct mass executions as an example. The problem, you might imagine, is that such dramatic measures can also dramatically backfire.
Diem’s focuses in regards to the Vietcong similarly reflect his available decisions. The use of re-concentration camps, heavily inspired by those of the Spanish-American War in Cuba, can prove catastrophic if they aren’t afforded enough resources.
The firebombing raids, camps and public executions can either scare the population away from the Vietcong, or it can drive them directly into their arms. At the same time, however, Diem can use the chaos of the Vietcong War to begin eliminating political opponents and threats to his power. Many of Diem’s critics can soon find themselves imprisoned or outright killed for being “Vietcong sympathizers.”
Naturally, Diem’s authoritarianism manifests in his initial reform plans. Education reforms are thrown out the window, along with many of the educators themselves. At the same time, orphans of the Vietcong War can be brought under the wing of the Vietnamese Imperial Youth, turning then effectively into child soldiers and further supplementing the growing paramilitary force that Diem is forming.
Subsequent purges of the armed forces and the creation of a secret police force, in the form of the Ministry of State Security, allow Diem’s regime to further consolidate power. The hardcore Catholicism that Diem begins implementing alienates many Buddhists throughout the nation, who find themselves increasingly alienated by the growing power of the Diem regime. The subsequent “Night of the Truncheon”, during which hundreds of government officials are purged or arrested, ultimately culminates in Diem’s attack against the Emperor himself.
With the Emperor thrown out of power, Diem declares the National Republic of Vietnam, of course with himself in charge, and begins reforming the nation along the lines of his ideals. Much like Hoan, Diem focuses on agrarian, political and industrial reforms. Of course, Diem has a much different idea of what “reforms” mean.