Chapter 6 assesses the impact of US air power as the ARVN shifted its offensive into southern Laos in 1971. After the Cambodian incursion, a Democratic Party-led Congress voted the Cooper–Church amendment into law, forbidding US ground troops beyond South Vietnamese borders. The ARVN objective in Laos was to achieve what US air power alone during Commando Hunt was unable to do: close off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Instead, the ill-fated Lam Son 719 raid revealed significant shortcomings in allied air–ground coordination. The South Vietnamese, minus their US military advisors and tactical air controllers, could not take advantage of the available air power to prevent the NVA from driving the ARVN from Laos. After the NVA’s victory, the North Vietnamese gambled with another general offensive.

Detailing the US intervention in Vietnam this chapter provides a list of policy requests from the USA to Vietnamese partners and the rate of Vietnamese compliance from 1964 to 1973. Providing a summary of the US-Vietnam counterinsurgency partnership, this chapter discusses several distinctive components of the Vietnamese-US alliance, including detailing how the shock of the 1968 Tet Offensive led to a sharp increase in local compliance, suggesting that significant enemy activity can motivate clients to cooperate with the demands of intervening patrons. Overall, similar to other interventions, local compliance was affected by the convergence or divergence of US and Vietnamese interests, interacting with US dependency on Saigon to implement particular reforms. There are 105 US policy requests identified and detailed, including pacification, reconciliation and development programs.