Pike Douglas. PAVN - People’s Army of Vietnam

Presidio Press, 1986. — 384 p.Traces the history of Vietnam's Army, the largest per capita in the world, explains why it has been so successful, and examines its role in Vietnam's future. Pike, whose scholarly works on the Vietcong (History of Vietnamese Communism, etc.) are widely admired, describes the creation of the People's Army of Vietnam as "probably the most astounding military phenomenon of our lifetime." Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, PAVN has quadrupled in size and is today the third largest military force in the world, bigger than the U.S. Army. In this study, the first major work on the subject, Pike addresses in detail the question of how a small, underdeveloped, poverty-ridden country could create such an impressive military machine. He discusses too how the Vietnamese Communists developed a new kind of war with an underlying strategy "for which there is no known countermeasure. This expert scholarly analysis has been written as an aid to drawing conclusions from the Vietnam War. It is the story of how a small country, starting with a tiny cadre, has developed, according to Pike, the third largest armed force in the world (he counts not only standing army but a paramilitary force of some 2 million). Pike details the militaristic nature of Vietnamese society, describes the organization and functioning of the military forces, and places them in political context. There is little coverage of specific military events, with the emphasis given to Vietnamese strategic thinking.