Governmental Re-organization in Counterinsurgency Context: Foreign Policy Program Transfer and Operation Switchback in South Vietnam

Foreign policy program transfer, the shifting of implementation responsibility for a foreign policy program from one organization to another, is a ubiquitous, yet under-studied, counterinsurgency phenomenon. This article conceptually develops program transfer as an important object of study; analyzes, using archival sources, an empirical case of program transfer, Operation Switchback, drawn from US counterinsurgency practice in South Vietnam; and formulates two preliminary theoretical claims related to program transfer: (1) transferred programs will tend to be altered in accordance with the characteristics of the gaining organization, and (2) program transfer may act as a signal or early-warning indicator of foreign policy change.