Fidel Castro and Gen Giap
The brilliant military strategist of Vietnam who caused the defeat of France at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the withdrawal of US from Vietnam, Gen Vo Nguyen Giap, recently died at age of 102.
For the battle of Dien Bien Phu, he prepared to ambush the French by having cadres drag howitzers piece by piece up the mountain overlooking the French camp. Who would think, as (Hannibal did that he would attack Rome from the Alps) that he would do that? And to overcome the air superiority of Franch (with the Mirage bombers) he hid the guns in the caves.
For the defeat of Americans, he masterminded the network of tunnels to negate the superiority of air power the napalm and the carpet bombing of B-52. It is worth noting so that the spy plane and satellites would not detect their supply chain: he made sure that bridges were under water (the river) and underneath the canopy of trees and rain forest. Thus the supply chain was (and we know that military runs on a strong supply train as MacArthur, Eishenhower, and Schwarschopff have advocated, was intact most of the time.
He was also known for his famous Tet offensive vs US troops
But Giap did not have formal military training. (An equivalent of a successful entrepreneur who is college drop out - Mark Zuckerberg perhaps?)
They also made sure that political offensive was carried out in Washington. The protracted war caused many widows and orphans to dislike the war and thus Washington was left with no choice but to leave the SV allies
Do you think that he is a really brilliant strategist?
Does his work clarify the meaning of strategy?
From NBC news
