J. Robert Smith: How the GOP Can Learn from General Giap to Rout the Democrats

[J. Robert Smith is a contributor to American Thinker. He is a public affairs consultant with a practice in Alexandria, Virginia.]

Here’s an unconventional tip for the GOP. Learn some valuable lessons from Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap about how to win political campaigns via the lessons of war.

But from a communist and an old enemy, you say? Well, yes, as a matter of fact. To put a stop to the madness of Obama, the GOP needs to gobble up as many congressional seats as possible this November. House Minority Leader John Boehner said recently that there are possibly one hundred seats in play in Congress’ lower chamber. Not all are top-tier opportunities for Republicans. Many are marginally good opportunities against well-entrenched incumbent Democrats. Whatever the GOP can learn and employ to give its second-tier challengers a fighting chance is worth examining.

So let’s give Giap a chance to help conservatives and Republicans reclaim a fuller measure of American liberty.

Giap and the Communists were underdogs not once but twice, first against the French and then against the United States.  The wily old general knows something about beating superior forces. Giap’s lessons, properly adapted, may prove a boon to Republicans.

An avid student of Sun Tzu, Giap would undoubtedly first counsel Republican challengers to:

[K]now your enemies and know yourself, [so] you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

Translated to politics, that means that GOP challengers need to make frank assessments of their strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of their Democratic opponents, and plan scrupulously based on those facts. That extends to the election environment — national and local — in which campaigns are taking place.  And that would also mean avoiding one big complacency-inducing assumption: weaker Republican challengers need only wait for a November electoral wave to sweep them into office....

Another of Giap’s precepts was that wars are won by changing and commanding perceptions. While the communist Vietnamese never won key battles against the United States, Giap’s aim wasn’t always battlefield victories. His aim, in large part, was to impress upon stateside Americans that their perceptions of U.S. military dominance in Vietnam were false. The Tet Offensive was Giap’s tool for upsetting and changing American perceptions.

The Tet Offensive was, of course, a decisive military victory for the United States and the South Vietnamese, but it was a propaganda coup for the communists: the perception of American invincibility had been mortally wounded.

In campaign politics, an opportunity — a la Tet — to dramatically change voters’ perceptions of an incumbent’s invincibility is remote. Rare is the silver bullet in the perceptions game. Instead, finding many ways — often small — to demonstrate audacity and to publicize an incumbent’s contradictions and failures is what is needed. Changing voters’ perceptions cumulatively until reaching a critical mass is the goal....

As Giap might concede, there are no guarantees of victory, despite the best efforts by challengers. But by demonstrating the will to win, planning shrewdly, executing effectively, and adapting swiftly to changing circumstances, challengers can increase the chances of victory — in war and politics.