text: Chapter 12
  categories. Some of the MACV reports and nearly all of the Secretary of Defense’s
  reports relied heavily on aggregated quantitative data and pattern and trend analysis.
  In some cases, data collection requirements were developed to meet perceived
  operational or strategic needs; in other cases, they were specifically designed to
  provide data that would show some kind of progress without context. For example, in
  1968, MACV reported the number of cakes of soap it had issued to Vietnamese
  villagers in 1967 (572,121), an irrelevant input metric. More famous (or infamous) is
  the use of “body counts” as a primary progress metric. Not only were body counts a
  poor proxy for progress driven by an untenable assumption about adversary attrition,
  but data collected were wildly inaccurate because of the adversary emphasis on
  reclaiming bodies, difficult terrain, duplicate reporting, and the temptation to
  exaggerate, among other reasons.
  Assessment of the Vietnam War was haphazard before MACV became a
  theater combat command in the early 1960s. Between the mid-1960s and the early
  1970s, MACV and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (with Central Intelligence
  Agency assistance) created the single largest and most comprehensive military
  counterinsurgency assessment apparatus in the history of warfare. It involved the
  efforts of hundreds of thousands of military personnel, civilians, Vietnamese
  nationals, intelligence experts, and analysts over the course of several years. These
  contributors produced hundreds of millions of data items (in Department of Defense
  [DOD] parlance), tens of thousands of tactical and operational analytic reports, and
  hundreds of comprehensive assessments that addressed nearly every aspect of the
  war. Data flowed up from the hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground,
  province advisors, military advisors to Republic of Vietnam units, U.S. civilian
  officials, and U.S. intelligence officers, as well as Republic of Vietnam military units,
  government agencies, and civilian development teams. These data points were then
  fed into catalogs and computer databases, including the Hamlet Evaluation System,
  the Terrorist Incident Reporting System, the Territorial Forces Effectiveness System,
  the Pacification Attitude Analysis System, the Situation Reports Army File, and many
  others. “Data” could mean anything from a simple number (for example, rounds fired
  in a single artillery attack) to a more complex set of ostensibly correlated survey data
  (for example, hamlet evaluation data).
  Assessment in Vietnam was non-trivial: A July 26, 1970, U.S. military
  intelligence briefing listed 44 provinces, 257 districts, 2,464 villages, 11,729 hamlets,
  and 1,500 miles of coastline from the demilitarized zone with North Vietnam to the
  border with Cambodia in the Gulf of Siam. The challenges of assessment in Vietnam
  are the same challenges faced in any counterinsurgency: How should policymakers
  determine progress and decide strategy if all they have to choose from is inaccurate,
  decontextualized, and aggregated numbers or thousands of pages of lengthy
  narrative?
  While it is not possible to state that poor assessment led to the loss of the
  Vietnam War, the war was distinguished by internal confusion, poor decisionmaking,
  and, ultimately, strategic defeat. It is apparent from analyzing the way in which
  assessments were presented and used that they contributed to many of the poor
  decisions that led to this defeat.
  BROAD INDICATORS OF PROGRESS
  12-28. Numerical and statistical indicators have limits when measuring social environments. For example,
  in South Vietnam U.S. forces used the body count to evaluate success or failure of combat operations. Yet,
  the body count only communicated a small part of the information commanders needed to assess their
  operations. It was therefore misleading. Body counts can be a partial, effective indicator only when
  adversaries and their identities can be verified. (Normally, this identification is determined through a
  uniform or possession of an insurgent identification card.) Additionally, an accurate appreciation of what
  insurgent casualty numbers might indicate regarding enemy strength or capability requires knowing the
  exact number of insurgent armed fighters initially present. In addition, this indicator does not measure