Question

How were strategic hamlets and kennedy's addition of thousands of us military personnel to south vietnam similar?

Answer 1

Both programs were unpopular and unsuccessful.

The troop increases by the Kennedy administration from a few thousand to around 16,000 by the end of 1963 did little to help the Diem regime in South Vietnam.  Continued troop increases over succeeding years by the Johnson administration, up to 500,000 by 1967, still could not win the war and generated increasing protests at home.

The Strategic Hamlet Program by the South Vietnamese government (advised and funded by the US), begun in 1962, was an attempt to protect the rural Vietnamese from the influence of the communist Viet Cong.  They would build protected communities where villagers could be safeguarded and their loyalty to the South Vietnamese government be enhanced.  But the villagers themselves were not eager for these relocation plans, and the program was cancelled after the Diem regime was overthrown in 1963.