Kevin M. Boylan. Losing Binh Dinh

Generalizing about the kaleidoscopic war in Vietnam is, regrettably, as common as it is ill considered. One American general, struggling to classify this “unusual” conflict, portrayed a “different kind of war in each of South Vietnam’s forty-four provinces” (Donn A. Starry, Mounted Combat in Vietnam [2002], 14). Over the years, more perceptive scholars have tended to agree. In studies concentrating on individual provinces—An Lộc, Hậu Nghĩa, or Định Tường—analysts like Jeffrey Race, Eric M. Bergerud, and David W. P. Elliott examined the political and military struggle in some of South Vietnam’s key locales. In doing so, they have offered discerning insights into the failures of American nation-building efforts in Southeast Asia. Kevin M. Boylan’s latest work, Losing Binh Dinh: The Failure of Pacification and Vietnamization, 1969–1971, is a welcome addition to this body of scholarship. Following a “key province” approach, Boylan delves into one of the Vietnam War’s most hotly contested areas, questioning revisionist claims that American forces and their South Vietnamese allies had won the war by the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Long an insurgent stronghold, Bình Định province proved far more resistant to government control than revisionist historians would have us believe. In fact, Boylan persuasively shows how the allied pacification program, aiming to link the rural population to the Saigon government (GVN), fell short. Moreover, the American plan of transferring responsibilities to the South Vietnamese—dubbed “Vietnamization”—equally failed in its goals. To Boylan, no war had been won by 1973.

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