effectiveness of the military forces and the political infrastructure
 will continue to decline.
 D. The Communist leadership is already having problems in
 ??ining morale and quality. These problems have not yet
 impaired overall military effectiveness, but they are likely to
 become more difficult.
 2. Difficulties in internal distribution will continue to
 cause local shortages and interfere with Communist operations
 from time to time. But we believe that under existing conditions
 the Communists will be able to continue to meet the essential
 supply requirement for their forces in South Vietnam.
 F. Communist strategy is to sustain s protracted war of
 attrition and to persuade the US that it must pull out or settle
 on Banoi's terms. Our judgment is that the Communists still
 retain adequate capabilities to support this strategy for at
 least another year. Whether or not Hanoi does in fact persist
 with this strategy depends not only on its capabilities to do so,
 but on a number of political and international considerations not
 treated in this estimate.
 -3-
 
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