The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and America's Vietnam War (review)

John Shaw's The Cambodian Campaign details the US Army's cross-border operations in Cambodia north of Saigon during May and June of 1970. The author's investigation into the primary sources of this campaign—including many documents prepared by this reviewer at the time—has been exhaustive and is supplemented by an impressive array of interviews with key participants. The results encompass the actions of both George Casey's (his father is the Army's current Chief of Staff) 1st Cavalry Division and Edward Bautz's 25th Infantry Division along and across South Vietnam's long border with neutral Cambodia. Based on his presentation and analyses, Shaw contends that the incursion was the pivotal American ground operation of the war, one that allowed the subsequent US troop withdrawals and the parallel Vietnamization effort to take place with little enemy threat to the Saigon capital area, the heart of the southern republic.

The work is short, with only 170 pages of text (and another 30 of endnotes), and pays scant attention to other incursions north and south of the main effort. Nor does it address the long South Vietnamese occupation that followed the American pull-out on 30 June because of domestic political considerations. But those efforts are not central to his thesis that the supply caches captured or destroyed in these sanctuaries crippled Communist military operations in the region for the next two years. The author's case might have been stronger had he been able to estimate the percentage of enemy supplies and equipment lost rather than just presenting their admittedly impressive totals. Unfortunately, too little is still known about the opposition's capabilities and intentions here and elsewhere during the war—and there is also relatively little on the Cambodian side of the ledger (were Americans complicit in the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk, an event that precipitated the crisis and indeed Cambodia's long nightmare?).

Shaw can be criticized for a somewhat raw organization that has much duplication (e.g., similar background materials on the MENU bombings, on key American commanders, on troop tactical movements, and on the complex Allied headquarters organizations are presented several times). In sum, the presentation throws a great deal of material at the reader without arranging it to support a cohesive narrative. On the other hand, the author is one of the few historians who has attempted, fairly successfully, to paint a comprehensive picture of the Vietnam battleground, including the interplay of logistics, fire support, intelligence, communications, engineers, medical evacuation, and the like. The result is somewhat unique. Rather than just another grunt potboiler or one more general officer apologia, we have a genuine effort to examine a slice of the Vietnam War in all its myriad complexity from a staff officer's point of view. And for this we are in Shaw's debt.