The establishment of a strongpoint in northwestern Tonkin was advantageous for a third reason: It would provide crucial assistance to the Tai and Hmong tribal partisans who had operated with success against Viet Minh forces for some years. Navarre held a romantic attachment to this tribal “resistance,” likening it to the activities of the French Resistance against the Germans in occupied France, and he argued that strengthening the tribes militarily could free up regular troops for mobile operations. Herein lay also a fourth consideration: The tribes were a source of opium, which was important
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