Communist Revolutionary Warfare

This volume in the Praeger Security International (PSI) series Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era was among the first major published analyses by an American expert on the insurgency in Indochina. In addition to tracing the Chinese influence on the Vietminh cadres and the French military response, the book describes the organization, logistics, and tactics of the communist movement. The author, George Tanham, managed the U.S. rural development program in South Vietnam and later served as special assistant for counterinsurgency at the U.S. Embassy in Thailand during the mid-1960s. With a new foreword by Richard A. Shultz Jr.

GEORGE K. TANHAM (1922-2003) graduated from Princeton, served as an artillery officer in Europe during World War II, and then earned a doctorate in history and political science at Stanford. He taught military history at the California Institute of Technology where became a tenured professor and master of student houses. Dr. Tanham spent most of his career with the RAND Corporation, serving as the corporate vice president in charge of the Washington office. He managed rural development efforts in Vietnam for the U.S. Agency for International Development, a program designed to pacify the countryside. Afterward he was special assistant for counterinsurgency at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, coordinating a campaign to defeat Chinese-inspired guerrillas in Thailand, an experience he recounted in Trial in Thailand. Among his other books are Securing India: Strategic Thought and Practice and Islam and Conflict Resolution: Theories and Practice.