The Cords Pacification Program: An Operational Level Campaign Plan in Low Intensity Conflict
Abstract
This paper evaluates the Civil Operations, Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program determining whether it represents a viable operational approach to counterinsurgency warfare. The study specifically seeks to understand whether the counterinsurgency concepts espoused by the CORDS program contained major operations which were sequenced combining tactical means to achieve political ends. The study begins with a brief overview of today's political realities influencing U.S. responses in the Third World. Next, it examines the CORDS program's historical development, organization, and implementation. The report concludes by finding several operational characteristics in the program's approach to the counterinsurgency it conducted in Vietnam between 1967 and 1972. These operational issues include: (a) the presence of an operational leader in the form of Ambassador Komer; (b) an operational planning process that balanced ends, ways, means and risk; and (c) an operationally executed campaign that sequenced its major operations. Keywords: Operational art; Civilian population. (edc)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 05, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA215720
Entities
People
- Richard J. Macak Jr.
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College