Simon Toner offers a reinterpretation of the final years of the American War in Vietnam. Between 1968-1975, the United States and its South Vietnamese ally deployed development projects to shore up the Saigon regime’s authoritarian rule, and to foster an anti-Communist community in preparation for political competition with the Vietnamese Communists. In doing so, U.S. and South Vietnamese officials drew on the development experiences of anti-Communist regimes throughout Asia. The failure of these projects, more so than military setbacks, accounts for the collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975.