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What Will It Take? Tenuously supplied by low-flying C46 transports, Kong Le holds on. Last week he looked longingly at the spot on his crinkled battle map that indicated the primary Pathet Lao supply point: Muong Sen, just over the border in Communist North Viet Nam, on Route 7. "The supply dumps there would make fine targets for bombs," he said wistfully, protesting, like so many other commanders in the age of limited war, against constricting "ground rules." Since the U.S. is obviously not yet willing to hit North Vietnamese targets, Kong Le hopes at least for U.S. air strikes to cut Route 7 behind the Pathet Lao. "If the bridges on Route 7 were cut for even a little while," he says, "the Pathet Lao could not hold their positions. That road provides everything they need—food, ammo, men, even the Viet Minh."
Chances are that the tough, ingenious Pathet Lao would find ways to fight on anyway. But the questions remain: Can the U.S. afford to intervene further in the little Laotian war? On the other hand, having gone this far, can it afford not to intervene? By committing itself to a sustained air offensive on Kong Le's side, the U.S. would at best be backing a long shot. Even if the disruption of the Pathet Lao supply lines permitted Kong Le to regain the Plain, it would only buy time and return the whole Laotian equation to where it was before—admittedly with the significant difference that the U.S. would have demonstrated its readiness to take a firm stand.
But there is a growing feeling in Washington that the only way to ease the chaos in Laos must come as part of an area-wide, rather than a country-by-country, solution. This would inevitably test American willingness to carry the war to North Viet Nam. Just in case that becomes necessary, five U.S. Navy cargo ships steamed toward Thailand last week loaded with tanks, trucks, armored personnel carriers and ammunition. The troops to use them could always be airlifted in.
As Kong Le mused about the long-range prospects in his thatch-roofed headquarters at Vang Vieng, guns boomed hollowly beyond the blue volcanic peaks around him. What will it take to win his war? "More soldiers," he said, "more money to pay them with, specially that, more artillery, more rifles and machine guns and mortars, more land mines—everything, should the U.S. be willing to provide that again." He shrugged. "I suppose that depends on what the U.S. wants to do in Southeast Asia. And only the U.S. can answer that question."