NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
flict which might embroil them in general war. In any event, the Europeans would not necessarily conclude that the US would fail to resist Communist aggression in Western Europe. Middle East defense arrangements might become more difficult because of a loss of confidence in US commitments.
IV. CONSEQUENCES OF A FAILURE OF THE US TO INTERVENE AGAINST AN OPEN VIET MINH ATTACK WITHOUT HAVING PREVIOUSLY MADE INTENTIONS CLEARER THAN THEY ARE AT PRESENT
10. The local reactions to the US failure to intervene, under these conditions would be virtually the same in Southeast Asia ,as they would be under the conditions discussed in Section III above. It is widely believed in Southeast Asia that the US is already committed through the Manila Pact to the defense of South Vietnam and that it has strong moral obligations to the Diem government. However, if the US had made its intentions no clearer than at present, the Communists would be less inclined to believe that the US failure to intervene indicated that the US would not resist Communist aggression elsewhere. The Communists might therefore proceed more cautiously in their efforts to exploit the situation created by the fall of South Vietnam. Outside Southeast Asia, the damage to US prestige and the decline in the will to resist Communist pressure would be less than under the conditions discussed in Section III above.
V. CONSEQUENCES Of US ARMED INTERVENTION IF THE US (a) STATED ITS OBJECTIVE WAS LIMITED TO RESTORING THE STATUS-QUO AT THE 17th PARALLEL, OR (b) STATED ITS OBJECTIVE WAS TO DESTROY THE VIET MINH REGIME AND EXTEND NON-COMMUNIST CONTROL TO ALL VIETNAM
11. Asian and European approval of US armed intervention against clearly recognizable Communist aggression would be tempered in varying degrees by the fear that the fighting could not be limited to Vietnam. Our NATO allies and Japan would exert pressure on the US to limit its objective to restoring the status-quo and to keep its military actions clearly consonant with that objective. They would be deeply concerned if the US declared its objective to be the destruction of the Viet Minh regime, or carried the fighting beyond Vietnam. India and other neutrals would exert every effort to bring the fighting to an end.
12. The other nations of mainland Southeast Asia would be encouraged in their efforts to resist Communist pressure by US intervention. They too, however, would fear that the fighting could not be limited to Vietnam and that they would become embroiled in general war in the Far East. Only Nationalist China, the ROK, and possibly Thailand and the Philippines, would give unqualified support to a US declaration that its objective was to destroy the Viet Minh regime and extend non-Communist control to all Vietnam.
13. The Communist reactions to US intervention would probably depend on the course of US military actions rather than on any statements of US objectives.
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