The purpose of this monograph is to evaluate the Civil Operations, Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program determining whether it represents a viable operational approach to counterinsurgency warfare. The study specifically seeks to understand whether the counter-insurgency concepts espoused by the CORDS program contained major operations which were sequenced combining tactical means to achieve political ends. The study begins with a brief overview of today's political realities influencing U.S. responses in the Third World. Next, it examines the CORDS program's historical development, organization, and implementation. The monograph concludes by finding several operational characteristics in the program's approach to the counterinsurgency it conducted in Vietnam between 1967 and 1972. These operational issues include: (a) the presence of an operational leader in the form of Ambassador Komer; (b) an operational planning process that balanced ends, ways, means and risk; and (c) an operationally executed campaign that sequenced its major operations.

ADA 215720 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)