USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Search and destroy, seek and destroy, or simply S&D is a military strategy best known for its employment in the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War. The strategy consists of inserting ground forces into hostile territory, searching out the enemy, destroying them, and withdrawing immediately afterward.

Detailed explanation-2: -The U.S. would wage a war of attrition, a military tactic through which a long series of small-scale attacks gradually wears down the enemy. The goal was to inflict heavy damage on North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, so much damage in fact, that it would be impossible for them to recover and keep fighting.

Detailed explanation-3: -NARRATOR: In Vietnam, General Westmoreland’s strategy was to fight a war of attrition. He called it “search and destroy.” American forces would search out the enemy, make contact, and then, with superior numbers and firepower, destroy him.

Detailed explanation-4: -Best known and most misunderstood was search and destroy. Search and destroy operations began in 1964, before U.S. ground forces were committed. These operations were conducted to locate the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong main force units in and around their base areas and to attack them by fire and maneuver.