"James Willbanks, a veteran of the Vietnam War and of the American advisory effort, reminds us of the importance of southeastern Laos to the Vietnam War in this carefully researched and clearly argued study. A Raid Too Far  is richly rewarding for anyone interested in Operation Lam Son 719 and the later stages of the Vietnam War. Willbanks reveals the flaws in US and South Vietnamese strategy, the complexity of command, planning, and combat operations in an unequal coalition, and the heavy pressure of domestic politics on war fighting. A successful attack on the Ho Chi Minh Trail could have severely hurt the North Vietnamese war effort. But in the context of Vietnamization, the Nixon administration and the Pentagon pushed for an operation that was limited in nature yet still exceeded the capacity of the South Vietnamese army. Willbanks shows that by forcing ARVN units to operate without their US advisors, critical functions such as fire support could not be met adequately. Add to that difficult terrain, fissures within South Vietnamese command, and an enemy determined to fight and able to reinforce at critical points and the defeat of the South Vietnamese offensive appears predetermined. Remarkably, after the withdrawal from Laos, Nixon and Thieu publicly claimed success.

In reality, Lam Son 719 deepened doubts among South Vietnamese leaders about the reliability of the US, and the campaign destroyed the confidence and morale of South Vietnam's soldiers."--Ingo Trauschweizer, author, The Cold War U.S. Army.