South Vietnamese troops assume responsibility for guarding border

As part of the Vietnamization effort, South Vietnamese troops relieve U.S. units of their responsibility for guarding the Cambodian and Laotian borders along almost the entire South Vietnamese frontier. Nixon’s strategy in Vietnam was to improve the fighting capability of the South Vietnamese forces so that they could assume the responsibility for the war and, allowing for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. The assumption of the responsibility for the border areas was significant because those areas had previously required the presence of large U.S. combat formations.