Strategic Hamlet Program

The Strategic Hamlet Program (Vietnamese: Ấp Chiến lược) was a plan by the governments of South Vietnam and the United States during the Vietnam War to combat the communist insurgency by pacifying the countryside and reducing the influence of the communists among the rural population.

In 1962, the government of South Vietnam, with advice and financing from the United States, began the implementation of the Strategic Hamlet Program. The strategy was to isolate the rural population from contact with and influence by the National Liberation Front (NLF), more commonly known as the Viet Cong. The Strategic Hamlet Program, along with its predecessor, the Rural Community Development Program, played an important role in shaping of events in South Vietnam during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Both of these programs attempted to create new communities of "protected hamlets." The rural peasants would be provided protection, economic support, and aid by the government, thereby strengthening ties with the South Vietnamese government (GVN). It was hoped this would lead to increased loyalty by the peasantry towards the government.

The Strategic Hamlet Program was a failure, alienating more rural Vietnamese than it helped and contributing to the growth in influence of the Viet Cong. After President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown in a coup in November 1963, the program was cancelled. Peasants moved back into their old homes or sought refuge from the war in the cities. The failure of the Strategic Hamlet and other counterinsurgency and pacification programs were causes that led the United States to decide to intervene in South Vietnam with air strikes and ground troops.

In 1952, during the First Indochina War ( 19 December 1946 — 1 August 1954 ) French commander François de Linares, in Tonkin began the construction of "protected villages," which the French later named agrovilles. By constructing quasi-urban amenities, the French designed the agrovilles to attract peasants away from their villages. This policy was known as "pacification by prosperity." In addition to offering social and economic benefits, the French also encouraged villagers to develop their own militias, which the French trained and armed. "Pacification by Prosperity" had some success, but it was never decisive, because the settlers felt insecure, a feeling which the numerous French guard posts along the perimeter could do little to dispel so long as the Viet Minh operated at night, anonymously, and intimidated or gained the support of village authorities.

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