HNN Poll: Did Historians Rush to Judgment?

HNN Quiz

Read the excerpts below and then answer the following question:

"In the second week of the war, when events did not go as the Pentagon had planned, some historians chastised the administration for failing to heed the 'lessons of history.' Did historians rush to judgment?"

EXCERPTS

Martin Stuart-Fox, Professor of History at the University of Queensland, commenting in the Australian Financial Review (April 4, 2003):

What is remarkable about the extent of Iraqi opposition is not that it is happening, but that this should occasion some surprise. After all, this is a regime with its back to the wall and no alternative but to fight. Since it is massively outgunned, it must resort to whatever tactics will even the balance. If the American leadership did not expect such resistance, why not? Is the experience of Vietnam so distant that the US army failed to take account of the possibility of guerrilla warfare? This seems incredible, now that the first flush of naive optimism has passed, and as the spectre of Vietnam begins to loom over Iraq.

The US took certain lessons from Vietnam, which Colin Powell applied in the First Gulf War. These were, from a military point of view: to amass an overwhelming force and unleash it without political restrictions; to keep US casualties to a minimum; and to limit adverse press reporting. Two corollaries of these lessons were: the value of maximising international support to share the burden of war, both military and financial; and the importance of propaganda in an age of global communications. And the recipe worked so well that the defeat in Vietnam could be laid to rest.

There were, however, two other lessons that should have been learned from the Vietnam experience, but which did not affect the First Gulf War. These were that nationalism, not communism, provided the most powerful political motivation for the Vietcong; and that, in the face of superior military force, guerrilla warfare was the most effective response. Incredibly, these lessons of Vietnam, both military and political, are precisely the ones that the Bush administration has failed to heed.

Let us look again at the lessons of Vietnam for the Second Gulf War in the light of the First, beginning with political considerations. The Vietnam, or Second Indochina, War was fought in the international context of the Cold War, as a war to contain communism. Yet the US was able to convince remarkably few nations to join it. Apart from Australia and New Zealand, all were client Asian states (South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines). Among the states that refused to join the US, the most significant were Britain and France, both fellow members with America of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. Both had fought communist movements in Asia (in the Malayan Emergency and the First Indochina War respectively), and so should have been America's most experienced allies.

What the British and the French clearly understood, and what the US did not appreciate (though it should have, in the light of its own history), was that the wars in Indochina were fought in the name not of communism, but of anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism. Communists might be leading that fight, but they did so in the name of nationalism. This the French knew at their cost. Yet the French experience was of slight interest to the American military, for, as one US officer put it, the French had lost.

The lack of international consensus and support from its closest allies weakened the American position in Vietnam. Yet those same allies were steadfast in their support for the US in the Cold War. In retrospect, the US lost the battle in Vietnam, but won the Cold War, in which it led a much broader international coalition....

In the street fighting that lies ahead as coalition forces drive into Baghdad, most of their opponents will not be in army uniforms. The more resolute will fight street by street; the more fanatical will adopt the suicide tactics that have already claimed several Americans and one Australian. The result will inevitably be more coalition and civilian casualties. The Iraqis are keeping a count of their "martyrs". Perhaps we shall end up compiling daily body counts in a war of urban attrition. For even after Baghdad is taken, guerrilla activity is likely to continue.

If the spectre of Vietnam begins once again to haunt America, it will be because, as George Santayana reminded us, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Even if Saddam is killed and his regime overthrown, opposition to American control of the Arab heartland is unlikely to evaporate, any more than Palestinian opposition has in response to the Israeli seizure of Arab land. Even Iraqi opponents of Saddam have made it clear they will also oppose any attempt by the US to remain in control of Iraq. And the Shia will not look kindly on infidel occupation of their shrines in Karbala and Najaf. Pacification, as opposed to regime change, may yet prove as elusive for the US in Iraq as it was in Vietnam.

Norman Davies, author of Europe : A History, commenting in the Independent (London) (April 4, 2003):

The Battle for Baghdad is about to begin (is beginning/has begun). Everyone asks whether it will bring a swift end to the conflict. The answer, almost certainly, is "no".

When Saddam Hussein was first transformed from a useful client into an evil dictator, the western media was eager to call him a new Hitler. More recently, he is thought to be more like Stalin. (Even his moustache is more like Stalin's than Hitler's.) This should cause no surprise. Saddam's regime was not set up in an advanced industrial country like Germany, but in a traditional Arab society which he set out to modernise, secularise and militarise by brute force. Saddam's Baath Party, which stands for "Renewal", boasts a heady brand of so-called Arab socialism where extreme nationalism is fused with communist-style party control. Most importantly, since Saddam's military and security systems were largely designed by Soviet advisers, the tentacles of the ruling party penetrate into every corner of every state institution, ensuring that embedded political officers give all the orders at all times and at all levels. If this calculation is correct, the generals do not command the army. They defer to political colleagues, who may be dressed up as generals and sit in on staff meetings, but who do not answer to the army command. One may be equally sure that the military/security forces form an elaborate chain of interlocking services where every watchdog organisation is itself watched over by another watchdog. The regular army is kept in check by the Revolutionary Guard. The Revolutionary Guard is guarded by a Special Revolutionary Guard. And the Special Revolutionary Guard is run by high-ranking officers from the Security Department, whose agents will oversee every other unit.

In addition, the ruling party will have organised its own armed services. There will be "blocking regiments" to shoot any soldier who thinks of retreating. (There will also be blockers of the blocking regiments.) There will be assorted militias and specialised corps of bodyguards, frontier troops, desert rangers, prison guards, and internal troops, each positioned to crush the least sign of dissent. By now, there must be a specialised corps of suicide bombers.

Washington's idea that it can swiftly "decapitate" this sort of hydra by removing Saddam, by rounding up the "death squads", or by replacing a few ministers is unconvincing.

In the short term, however, the most urgent question concerns the dictator's ability to persuade his troops to fight. Some American analysts think that armies ruled by fear will melt away when attacked. One cannot be so sure. Indeed, if Stalin be the model for this war-game, the conclusions must be rather worrying. By 1941, Stalin had already killed many millions of his own subjects. Yet, when the Soviet Union was attacked, the Red Army put up a heroic fight that surpassed all expectations. To the amazement of the German invaders, who had been told they were removing a wicked regime, Soviet troops contested every inch of land, irrespective of losses. Anyone who imagines lack of democracy means lack of fighting spirit needs to think again.

The simple fact is that the soldier defending his native soil will fight better than an invader. But other psychological and cultural factors are at work. On Stalin's eastern front, for example, observers noted something akin to "the bravado of desperation". Soldiers who had been maltreated at home, who had seen their relatives tortured or cast into the Gulag, but who were powerless to protest, had nothing to lose. So they charged at the enemy with the Motherland on their lips in the one last act that could restore their pride and dignity.

Of course, when tested, Saddam's troops may not die willingly. In that case, one might argue that Saddamism, unlike Stalinism, was not brutal enough.