Brendan Miniter: How to avoid a repeat of Vietnam, and why it's crucial to do so
[Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. ]
Sometime in the next few weeks President Bush is expected to unveil a new strategy for moving forward in Iraq. Let's hope he first takes a serious look at the missteps that tripped up this nation in its last drawn out, intractable war: Vietnam.
It's startling that today there are few parallels being drawn between Iraq and the conflict that ended in Southeast Asia some three decades ago. When President Bush moved to topple Saddam Hussein, comparisons to Vietnam never seemed far from the surface. The media were looking for the first sign that the war had become a quagmire; and antiwar activists, this time with graying ponytails and faded peace signs, gathered in public squares to protest the "pre-emptive" war. But now, just as the conflict is in danger of becoming another Vietnam, few are willing to sound notes of caution of how to avoid it.
And it's becoming increasingly clear that some policy makers in Washington would lead us down a similar road to defeat. Richard Nixon was sworn into office in 1969 promising to end the war in Vietnam, and he asked senior military personnel for their recommendations. He soon learned that there wasn't a consensus on how to achieve victory, so he settled on finding an exit. He called it "peace with honor" and began instituting a policy of "Vietnamization," substituting South Vietnam's soldiers for Americans on the battlefield while executing a staged withdrawal from the country. The difference today is that we've had a policy of Iraqification before the White House followed up with a group study. We'll have to wait and see if this results in a different outcome.
In his book "Abandoning Vietnam," James Willbanks, a historian at the Combat Studies Institute at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., digs through the Nixon administration's series of decisions that finally resulted in the fall of Saigon in 1975. Mr. Willbanks, a military veteran who saw combat as an infantrymen during North Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive, shows that the Nixon administration was focused more on ending the war than on winning it and a that the U.S. came a lot closer to winning than many people believe today.
One reason for broad military offensives from the North is that the U.S. policy of pacifying the countryside had largely worked, and that after the Tet Offensive in 1968, indigenous insurgents in the South were largely destroyed as an effective fighting force. In a conversation recently, Mr. Willbanks cautiously offered that with a little more help the South Vietnamese would have had a much better chance of holding on. At the end, the North was reduced to waging the very type of war the U.S. military was geared to fight: intensive, heavy infantry battles. But by then the war had been lost at home.
Mr. Willbanks noted that in defeating insurgencies, it takes a long time to build up indigenous forces capable of holding their own against a determined enemy. He also noted that successfully fighting off insurgents once isn't proof that a new army is capable of bearing the full burden of a nation's defense, and that it takes a lot more than handing over modern equipment to build a modern army. When South Vietnam fell, he noted, the North captured a treasure trove of American tanks, trucks and other equipment sitting in warehouses. American soldiers enjoy the most modern tools of war, but their real strength comes in the tactics and training needed to use those tools successfully.
Another lesson from Vietnam is that the real damage in withdrawing too early could come not in a far-off battlefield, but in Washington. Rep. John Kline, a former Marine and Minnesota Republican, is one policy maker who is cognizant of the effect losing a war can have on the home front. After flying helicopter combat missions in Vietnam, he spent several years serving in Washington, including carrying the nuclear "football" for President Reagan. In reading through President Ford's obituaries this past week, many Americans may remember the Vietnamese boat people Ford allowed to settle in the U.S.
But what Mr. Kline mentioned in our conversation is that while the nation was on the retreat in Southeast Asia, disdain for American military power abroad trickled down to disdain for American military personnel at home. And it wasn't only antiwar protestors. In the wake of Vietnam, military personnel were discouraged from wearing uniforms while off duty within the city limits, and the feeling in the ranks was that even senior officials in the government viewed the military as an embarrassment. Morale was predictably low. ...
Read entire article at WSJ
Sometime in the next few weeks President Bush is expected to unveil a new strategy for moving forward in Iraq. Let's hope he first takes a serious look at the missteps that tripped up this nation in its last drawn out, intractable war: Vietnam.
It's startling that today there are few parallels being drawn between Iraq and the conflict that ended in Southeast Asia some three decades ago. When President Bush moved to topple Saddam Hussein, comparisons to Vietnam never seemed far from the surface. The media were looking for the first sign that the war had become a quagmire; and antiwar activists, this time with graying ponytails and faded peace signs, gathered in public squares to protest the "pre-emptive" war. But now, just as the conflict is in danger of becoming another Vietnam, few are willing to sound notes of caution of how to avoid it.
And it's becoming increasingly clear that some policy makers in Washington would lead us down a similar road to defeat. Richard Nixon was sworn into office in 1969 promising to end the war in Vietnam, and he asked senior military personnel for their recommendations. He soon learned that there wasn't a consensus on how to achieve victory, so he settled on finding an exit. He called it "peace with honor" and began instituting a policy of "Vietnamization," substituting South Vietnam's soldiers for Americans on the battlefield while executing a staged withdrawal from the country. The difference today is that we've had a policy of Iraqification before the White House followed up with a group study. We'll have to wait and see if this results in a different outcome.
In his book "Abandoning Vietnam," James Willbanks, a historian at the Combat Studies Institute at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., digs through the Nixon administration's series of decisions that finally resulted in the fall of Saigon in 1975. Mr. Willbanks, a military veteran who saw combat as an infantrymen during North Vietnam's 1972 Easter Offensive, shows that the Nixon administration was focused more on ending the war than on winning it and a that the U.S. came a lot closer to winning than many people believe today.
One reason for broad military offensives from the North is that the U.S. policy of pacifying the countryside had largely worked, and that after the Tet Offensive in 1968, indigenous insurgents in the South were largely destroyed as an effective fighting force. In a conversation recently, Mr. Willbanks cautiously offered that with a little more help the South Vietnamese would have had a much better chance of holding on. At the end, the North was reduced to waging the very type of war the U.S. military was geared to fight: intensive, heavy infantry battles. But by then the war had been lost at home.
Mr. Willbanks noted that in defeating insurgencies, it takes a long time to build up indigenous forces capable of holding their own against a determined enemy. He also noted that successfully fighting off insurgents once isn't proof that a new army is capable of bearing the full burden of a nation's defense, and that it takes a lot more than handing over modern equipment to build a modern army. When South Vietnam fell, he noted, the North captured a treasure trove of American tanks, trucks and other equipment sitting in warehouses. American soldiers enjoy the most modern tools of war, but their real strength comes in the tactics and training needed to use those tools successfully.
Another lesson from Vietnam is that the real damage in withdrawing too early could come not in a far-off battlefield, but in Washington. Rep. John Kline, a former Marine and Minnesota Republican, is one policy maker who is cognizant of the effect losing a war can have on the home front. After flying helicopter combat missions in Vietnam, he spent several years serving in Washington, including carrying the nuclear "football" for President Reagan. In reading through President Ford's obituaries this past week, many Americans may remember the Vietnamese boat people Ford allowed to settle in the U.S.
But what Mr. Kline mentioned in our conversation is that while the nation was on the retreat in Southeast Asia, disdain for American military power abroad trickled down to disdain for American military personnel at home. And it wasn't only antiwar protestors. In the wake of Vietnam, military personnel were discouraged from wearing uniforms while off duty within the city limits, and the feeling in the ranks was that even senior officials in the government viewed the military as an embarrassment. Morale was predictably low. ...