Air University Review, January-February 1967
Major General Rollen H. Anthis
In a news story filed during the midst of the fighting in the
In this news story, the soldier and the correspondent reflected their inability to grasp the complexity of military operations in this era of uneasy peace in which the political and military factors are probably more closely interrelated and interwoven than at any other time in the history of our country. The soldier, evidently in his early twenties, had little idea of the broad concepts of war except for what he had absorbed from history books, television, and the newspapers. War to him apparently conjured up the image of masses of planes and ships and men struggling ashore through a holocaust of shellfire and bombs in a far distant land. The correspondent, probably another young man, had a similar image of war, otherwise he would not have thought the soldier’s observation sufficiently significant to report it and thus attempt to typify the extremely fluid and delicate politico-military situation in that island republic.
Understandably, to a degree, this account also typifies the image of war held by many of our people. We have essentially four generations of citizens with different outlooks regarding the wars and conflicts in which we have been or are engaged.
The classic and probably most widely held image of war is that of World Wars I and II. Inevitably, various scenes pass through people’s minds. The diplomat has failed to obtain peace, and the military—the regular and citizen soldiers—has been entrusted with the task of making the world safe for democracy or breaking up the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. They remember scenes of the ration lines, the war bond rallies, the “Victory” gardens, gasoline rationing, the loading of troopships, and the factories spewing forth the arms and equipment of war. Newsreels and films showed the devastation to factories, towns, and cities abroad from aerial bombardment and land warfare and the flight of civilians from their homes to escape rapid enemy advances. Only a relatively small number of our population saw at first hand the noncombatants who became the sad victims of war and involuntarily became a close part of it. Those few of our combatants who actually engaged the enemy probably had little impact in convincing the mass of our people, as they advanced in years, of the changing nature of war. War has not been the most delightful of subjects in any forum.
Within a few years the Korean War took place, and to many it was a small war in an obscure part of the world. True, there were the same scenes that one found in the other wars—the troopships, the draft, and some inconveniences. Yet there was no nationwide mobilization of the civilian sector or the manifestations of total war. The returning veterans probably said little of the new form of war that ended in a stalemate, for some were still thinking in terms of a lost military victory and little of the political nature of the conflict. Certainly they shared experiences similar to those of their fathers and older brothers. But a new term had emerged from this type of conflict: limited war. It was a mutant of the two previous conflicts, for both sides—the Free World and Communist—desired that it be limited. It was limited in political and military objectives, in geographic area of operations, in weapons, and in tactics.
This type of war required a shift in military and civilian thinking, but this fact did not emerge with considerable clarity until long after the truce had been agreed upon. This war had not been the black or white generally associated with total war; it was a shade of gray, involving in historical perspective a conflict that was neither war nor peace.
During the course of the debate on the Korean episode, when the “balance of
[nuclear] terror” became more pronounced and when many mental gears had not
shifted to face this problem, we became engaged in assisting
This thinking was best synthesized in the defense budget speech of President Kennedy when he said:
The Free World’s security can be endangered not only by a nuclear attack, but also by being slowly nibbled away at the periphery, regardless of our strategic power, by forces of subversion, infiltration. . . guerrilla warfare. . .
While this statement was a response to Premier Khrushchev’s speech in
January 1961 regarding the role of the Communists’ “wars of national
liberation,” it also asserted that action was required to develop a
We need a greater ability to deal with guerrilla forces, insurrections, and subversion.
As the tempo of war increased in
This is a different kind of war. There are no
marching armies or solemn declarations. Some citizens of
This different kind of war has caused casualties, destruction, and untold
suffering. The Vietnamese armed forces “are absorbing fatalities today at a
rate greater than we have ever absorbed in our history, twice that of World War
I, twice that of World War II, 10 or 15 times that of the Korean War. . . .”3
The Viet Cong have killed or kidnaped 1500 civic officials in the past year. If
this happened in the
So there is a new human dimension added to warfare about which a domestic debate rages in an effort to understand our national purpose, strategy, and tactics. This new dimension changes the conventional solutions and images of the past. Too often the generals have been accused of using the tactics of the last war in fighting a new war. Today this may well be applied to many of the American people who have failed to grasp one of the basic tenets of Mao Tse-tung: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
In his explanation to the nation about this war, President Johnson stated:
There is the face of armed conflict—of terror and gunfire—of bomb-heavy planes and campaign-weary soldiers. . . .
The second face of war in
The third face of war in Vietnam is, at once, the
most tragic and most hopeful. It is the face of human need. It is the untended
sick, the hungry family,
and the illiterate child. It is men and women, many without shelter, with rags
for clothing, struggling for survival in a very rich and very fertile land.4
It is this third face of war that captures our attention as well as that of
the enemy. It is the struggle for the population—their hearts and minds—in the
heat of the
To the military man, be he soldier, airman, sailor, or marine, the one face of war is that of armed conflict and terror. This form of conflict involves a vicious, highly motivated, and often highly disciplined enemy who moves in and out of the shadows, blending at one moment with the population of a village or a fleet of sampans, striking quickly and savagely a short time later from a well-prepared ambush. Terror also appears from the shadows. A sniper’s fire from an impenetrable green screen suddenly causes a soldier on outpost duty to collapse slowly to the ground, the victim of a well-aimed shot. Or it may be the quick throw of a fragmentation grenade from a youngster as he rides by on his bicycle.
This face of war is also a war of movement: the pursuers and the pursued. Both may be sparring on foot with slow and agonizing progress, and then suddenly the pursuer is rapidly moved by air to blocking positions. It is a contrast in mobility that we have not seen in previous wars. It is a war in which we still employ basic military techniques and a balance of old and new weapon systems. Indian stealth, a talent now buried with our previous generations, must be revived. It is a war in which the Free World military man contributes to the psychological well-being of the terrorized by affording them security and by evincing a sincere consideration of their desire for peace, prosperity, and progress.
It is a war in which civilian policy-makers and military commanders grapple
with the problems and frustrations of the same microcosm. At times, and at all
levels, from
To the experts in economic assistance—the economists, the agronomists, and
the advisers on public safety, agriculture, and medicine—it is another face of
war for them and their native counterparts to eliminate human deprivation and
suffering. The Agency for International Development (AID) representative
supports others to care for the victims of Viet Cong bombings, to foster the
education of the next generation of leaders, to introduce new and more
productive farming techniques, and to strengthen the undernourished and
debilitated. At the village and province levels particularly, these economic
warriors, like the soldiers, are in danger. In
To the diplomat, the junior political officer, and the public administrator, it is a war to establish and build a cohesive political framework that will provide stability, independence, and freedom for a beleaguered people. It is a war of patience to achieve political consciousness that would have challenged even the leaders of our own revolution; it is a war of counseling, not only horizontally between governments but also vertically from the ministers of government down to the smallest hamlet; and it is a war that requires the application of expertise at all levels of public administration. While victory begins to bud at the national level, the seeds must be planted at the “rice roots,” where village chiefs, long the object of Viet Cong and guerrilla terror, have shown the courage and determination to stay at their posts and not accede to VC demands.
To the American people, it is a war in a period of continued domestic prosperity and progress. Yet it is a war calling for the use of our private resources, industrial know-how and ingenuity, and moral support for a people fighting for freedom from totalitarian control. No rationing, no “Victory” gardens, no massive war-bond drives are required; but the same vision, the same energy, and the same enthusiasm found during World Wars I and II are needed. We need Americans with an awareness of this changing world and a sense of duty to country. We do not need the ultra sophisticates who are willing to accept the benefits of citizenship but who include the burning of draft cards and prostrations before troop trains as manifestations of their intellectual nihilism. We need sons and daughters for the increasing demands of the Peace Corps in the less developed areas, who by their altruism and demeanor portray the fiber of their people, still in the midst of revolutionary and progressive change in their society. We need industry to be alert for new breakthroughs to assist in winning the guerrilla war on all fronts, economic, social, and military. We need a coalescence of industrial effort in the less developed areas, aimed at developing greater popular support while denying to the Communist propagandists the utility of their clichés of “imperialism” and “economic intervention.” We need more alert editors and writers who are sufficiently discerning and sophisticated to recognize the broad thrust of the conflict and our objectives and who do not succumb to the repetitious claims of Communist propaganda concerning “germ warfare. . . civil war. . . and American brutality and excesses.”
In essence, the war involving Communist subversion and guerrilla warfare requires the participation and effort of everyone. It is not confined to the soldier and civilian in the combat area. It is not confined to one branch or agency of government or to one military service. It is a job for everyone.
The efforts at home and abroad are showing results. We and our allies have
achieved and are achieving success in
In
We cannot, however, rest on these successes in what may be a long and
difficult period of war and reconstruction. The challenge is clear to all
sectors of our population. It applies not only to the threat in
Not long ago, I met a young American major who had just returned from a tour
as an adviser with the Royal Thai Army. Previously he had served within the
past four years as an adviser in
Since this encounter, I have met many of his breed. Their sympathy for the
plight of the Communist-oppressed in
As with the man, our tactics and our weapons are not the last word. We have progressed in our study and application of counterinsurgency techniques during the past four years. New concepts and new weapon systems have emerged. We have gained a greater appreciation of the threat and difficulties inherent in the threat. But much still needs to be done, for our Communist opponents are learning from our ripostes as we have learned from them. We must not be satisfied with our progress. We must challenge, question, argue, and define. Are our conventional weapons and tactics adequate? Are new concepts that may be more efficient being examined? Can we improve upon our advisory techniques and increase the learning capability and the ultimate efficiency of the military in the Free World areas faced with potential insurgency?
We have only scratched the surface, yet we have a growing reservoir of experience in which new ideas and concepts have been tried with success in battle on the ground, in the air, and at sea. We must not allow these lessons to be lost; we should exploit them to the fullest. Additionally, each day the scientific disciplines are producing new findings, physical and human phenomena, which have relevance for the new faces of war. We must be alert to discover, test, and apply these findings.
We need also to separate myth and reality. We cannot, for example, accept the proposition that conventional warfare techniques alone, though militarily competent, can succeed gaining the hearts and minds of a population.
New considerations must be applied to our military art. Our focus, largely on the use, force after Communist insurgency occurs, must be widened to determine how best we can assist our allies in less developed areas to prevent Communist subversion and insurgency. We have usually found that our and their attempts to stop outbreaks of insurgency rest on very slender reeds. Political, economic, and social grievances are incapable of purely military solutions. Indigenous insurgent movements are only partially visible. All too often the nation government’s efforts to stop the insurgency are characterized by poor coordination and cooperation among the intelligence, police, and military forces that must meet the threat. Intelligence about the subversive movement is poor and not integrated. A diverse view of the seriousness of the threat often exists among the national leaders. While the military has the role of making a contribution to the national effort—of contributing to nation-building tasks—to alleviate major grievances during this volatile period, it must also ready itself for outbreaks of terrorism, mob action, and guerrilla warfare. Thus, we must develop new programs and techniques to assist in maximizing efficiency during this critical period. A broad preparatory base can be established for furthering the need for counterinsurgency efforts: the integration of police-military operations centers, of police-military operations centers, of police-military quick-reaction capabilities, of communication systems, and of intelligence networks. With this integration, the response of the national government can be attuned to the degree of the threat ascertained from apprehended leaders of the movement, the conduct of raids, and, if necessary, the use of stronger military action. Prevention, then, is of inestimable value. It avoids the major expenditure of manpower and resources at a later time when they would be devoted more usefully to national progress.
While the military must rise to new challenges, the same is true for the
Foreign Service officer, the men from AID and the United States Intelligence
Agency, others representing United States technology and industry in the less
developed areas, and, last but not least, the American people. Within the next
decade more insurgencies will occur. Many will be in the interest of obtaining
freedom from totalitarian dictatorship and repression of individual freedoms.
Others, of course, will be for the imposition of totalitarian rule. To these
changes we must be ready to adapt, to assist or resist, and to be patient. As
our President has said, “We live in a rapidly moving world. There will be new
burdens and new challenges and we must respond with resourcefulness and
responsibility. . .”5
The real way to counter an insurgency is to prevent it in the first place—here an ounce of prevention is truly worth a ton of cure. The faces of the new form of war today are the faces of the people, the free and the oppressed. The latter are the target for our will, our hope, our aid, and our patience. He who wins the people wins the war. A new Twentieth Century Centurion is needed to fight the insidious tide of subversive aggression spreading through the underdeveloped parts of the world.
Headquarters Command
Notes
1. Letter from President Eisenhower to President Diem, 1 October 1954.
2. Press conference statement by President Johnson, The White House, 28 July 1965.
3. “Political and Military Aspects of
4. Address to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. The White House, 13 May 1965.
5. Remarks of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Department of State Auditorium, 5 December 1963.
Major General Rollen H. Anthis is
Commander, Headquarters Command, Bolling AFB, D.C. Commissioned from flying
training (1939), he was assigned to the 3d Attack Group,
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of
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