Search and Destroy: American Combat Strategy in the Jungles of Vietnam

The humid morning of February 22, 1967, found Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Haig standing in a helicopter above the dense jungle canopy of Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam. Below him, elements of the 1st Infantry Division were about to launch Operation Junction City, one of the largest search and destroy missions of the Vietnam War. As Haig surveyed the terrain through his binoculars, he embodied the confidence of American military leadership in a strategy that promised to bring victory through superior firepower and mobility. What he could not foresee was that this very strategy would become both the defining characteristic and ultimate failure of America's longest war.

Search and destroy emerged not from military academies or strategic planning committees, but from the fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict in Vietnam. When the first American combat troops landed at Da Nang in March 1965, they brought with them a doctrine forged in the conventional battles of World War II and Korea. The concept was deceptively simple: locate enemy forces, engage them with overwhelming firepower, and destroy their capacity to fight. In the context of Vietnam, this translated into aggressive patrolling, rapid response to intelligence reports, and the liberal use of artillery and air support to eliminate Communist forces.