The inability to militarily contain the LTTE over the years followed by the breakdown of several negotiations and the realization that the LTTE would not settle for anything less than a separate state, caused the Government under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksha to rethink the wisdom of the strategies adopted thus far. All of this came to a head when the LTTE precipitated a humanitatian disaster at Mavil-Aru in 2006. This incident was perceived as a red line and the Government resolved to modify its strategies to defeat the LTTE militarily, thereby transforming the conflict to an armed conflict. Since the earlier objective was only to contain the LTTE while the new objective was to defeat the LTTE, the strategies previously adopted had to change. Similar transformation of strategies occurred during the Vietnam War. Since the objective of the US was to persuade the North Vietnamese to come to the negotiating table, the strategy adopted under the leadership of General Westmoreland had been to "search and destroy". This turned out to be a failure. It was only when the US realized that the North Vietnamese were out to win that the strategy was transformed to one of "clear and hold"