During 1965 and 1966, despite pronounced disadvantages in firepower and mobility, the Communist Vietnamese endeavored to crush South Vietnam and expel the American military with a strategy predicated on "big unit" combat, not guerilla warfare. Orchestrated by militant hardliners in Hanoi, the big-unit war was designed to yield a quick and decisive victory over South Vietnam. Exploiting an extensive array of Communist Vietnamese sources, "Grab Their Belts to Fight Them" details the formation, development, and participation of the Viet Cong in the opening stanza of the Communist war against the Americans, and how the ultimate failure of that war profoundly influenced the decision to launch the Tet Offensive. Unlike most books on the Vietnam War, this one draws on a wealth of Communist sources about the conflict to craft an authentic and accurate account of the conflict from the enemy perspective. Communist memoirs, unit histories, and battlefield studies were extensively consulted to reconstruct the formation and deployment of major VC/NVA military units, battles, and campaigns, and the overarching strategic debates that informed the big-unit war. Additionally, the book recounts how the Communist strategy reflected the desire to crush South Vietnam quickly and decisively.

Part I. The Viet Cong. Origins, infrastructure, and organization -- On the field of battle -- Generating friction / Part II. The big-unit war: 1965. Strategic debates and decisions -- Van Tuong -- An Ninh and the Ia Drang Valley -- The B2 front -- Cong Truong 9 enters the fray -- The die is cast / Part III. The big-unit war: 1966. An inauspicious beginning -- Winter-spring battles: region 5 -- Winter-spring battles: the B2 front / Part IV. Epilogue. The big-unit war and the road to Tet -- Attitudes and adversaries.