Anti-communism
In spite of his autocracy and iron rule, Cẩn earned praise from Huế-based US officials for his relatively high levels of success against the Việt Cộng insurgency. Cẩn's central region was much more peaceful than the restive areas near Saigon and the Mekong Delta. Cẩn created the Popular Force organisation to operate in central Vietnam. The Popular Force was an alternative to the Strategic Hamlet Program which was used on a much larger scale in the south by Nhu, who moved peasants into fortified camps in an attempt to isolate Vietcong cadres from accessing the rural populace and intimidating or otherwise gaining their support. Cẩn assumed a third or so of the rural peasantry were Việt Cộng sympathisers, significant enough to render the hamlets ineffective by intimidating other villagers from within. Cẩn's Popular Force were a group of volunteers who underwent rigorous training similar to United States Marine Corps Recruit Training. Those who passed the training were put into units of 150 men and assigned to live and work in the villages by day. At night, they did defense patrols, using hit and run tactics against the Việt Cộng. According to the report by US officials in central Vietnam, the program aroused popular support because of the integration of the Popular Force's personnel into the daily life of the village and the sense of security that the force provided. The units were generally regarded as being successful in their six month deployments, allowing them to be deployed to the next trouble spot. Officials in Washington disagreed with the assessment of their subordinates in central Vietnam, alleging that Cẩn was mainly using the Popular Force for repressing dissidents.
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