Document created: 24 August 04
Air University Review,
July-August
1970
When Can We Win in Vietnam? appeared in the summer of 1968, the
political climate was not ripe for its suggestions of alternative strategies.
Today, a new administration has begun to reduce our military commitment in
Vietnam. A different strategy necessarily will follow—the current watchword is “Vietnamization”
of the war. Those formulating new programs should carefully examine the work of Herman Kahn and his Hudson Institute colleagues.1 They offer a
number of suggestions which may help stabilize the situation in South Vietnam.
Without stability, the future could be difficult. General Giap warned recently
that America’s Dien Bien Phu was yet to come.2
Every officer who considers himself a professional should examine Can We Win in Vietnam?* In the context of a debate over whether we can win, Kahn, Frank Armbruster, and Raymond Gastil for the affirmative and William Pfaff and Edmund Stillman for the negative argue almost every serious issue of strategy and tactics and almost every scheme that has been proposed over the years for winning the war. Until the definitive history of the Vietnam conflict is written—and this will be a long time coming—there is no better textbook for the professional concerned with strategy and tactics.
The book is disjointed and repetitive, obviously drawing heavily on studies done earlier by the Hudson Institute. Kahn’s sections read like transcripts from his notorious marathon lectures, replete with cascading charts, lists, and scenarios. Nevertheless, this collective product is superior to other collections of articles on Vietnam because all the authors at least address the same question—Can we win? Furthermore, the debate is not slanted. I found myself in agreement with points made by both teams.
I suggest that the book is particularly necessary for those who are positive that we can win (or could have won) providing we do this or that, and for those who are positive that we cannot win no matter what we do. The authors question almost every generalization that has been made about Vietnam—and there have been more generalizations based on less empirical evidence about this conflict than about any other war in the twentieth century. They raise legitimate doubts, for example, in regard to assertions that successful guerrilla actions indicate widespread discontent with the legitimate government; that South Vietnam can never attain a viable government; that American aid always strengthens the “legitimate” government in a developing country; that the United States became involved in Vietnam by accident; that Vietnam is a major juncture in world history, or a crucial testing ground for Communist strategy in the developing countries.
I especially commend this Hudson Institute book to those members of the military who officially or unofficially are now analyzing the success or failure of various strategies used in Vietnam. It is vital that our historical analyses be placed in the broadest possible perspective and that they indicate a decent respect for scholarship.
We in the military need to demonstrate that we have a sophisticated appreciation of the political; psychological, and military complexities and uncertainties of counterinsurgency warfare. We must indicate understanding that foreign policy—including defense policy—cannot be separated from domestic policy and domestic politics.3 The success of our escalation strategy in Vietnam (in Kahnian terminology, the “attrition-pressure-ouch” strategy) depended, for instance, on Hanoi’s view of the total will of American society to persevere. Kahn notes:
. . . escalation pressure is likely to be less effective if it is a gradual and tightly controlled response by an opponent who cannot look like a “force of nature” but instead shows signs of internal disunities, anxiety, uncertainty, and other human and exploitable characteristics. Thus, when one examines our escalation in Vietnam, one finds a list of characteristics virtually designed to increase the opponent’s resistance. I should add to this that it was and currently is inconceivable that the United States could bomb the kind of resource and demographic targets it attacked in World War II, given the political and moral situation in America. (pp. 194-95)
If our analyses show political savvy, they may be accepted by persons in authority. Our strategy may be more in line with the broad guidelines set by a democratic society. If we do not indicate an appreciation of the total problem, we will be ignored by the very persons whom we hope to influence.
Regardless of the current attitude toward the military, we need to be more aware of the subtleties of combating “national liberation wars.” (The Marxist-Leninists have scored in getting us to accept this euphemism for what is often a Communist-directed takeover.) As professionals, we have not done our duty in developing a counterinsurgency strategy that is both politically and militarily acceptable. Lacking clearly defined goals and tactics, we have tended to emphasize the traditional American solution for the use of force in the twentieth century: superior technology, backed up by the world’s paramount industrial base, and, until the spring of 1968, more and more men.
Kahn pleads for “a generally accepted and reasonably valid theory of insurgency war or even ‘theory of victory.’ ” He adds:
It is not necessary that such a theory be entirely accurate. Much can be accomplished if a theory merely is widely shared and understood and not wildly misleading. For at least one has a framework in which information, arguments, and issues can be placed, and communication difficulties are minimized. . . . Most important, it would focus attention priorities and direct efforts toward obtaining evaluating, and transmitting certain kinds information—thus substituting an orderly effort fitful starts and stops and an almost indiscriminate spreading of energies. (p. 181)
In respect to technology, Kahn charges:
. . . probably the largest single U.S. military problem in Vietnam, at least in the beginning was an almost complete inability to use modern equipment to supplement, complement, and decisively improve the efficiency of counterinsurgency operations. . . . Americans have developed an almost compulsive addiction to the technologically advanced and often find nearly inconceivable to use sober, older, a less fashionable equipment (or tactics) –particularly equipment that seems obsolete even though it may also be inexpensive, easy to acquire and maintain, and suited for its intended use and operational environment. (p. 309)
I like Kahn’s homely example of the “civi1 servant” who turned down lightweight polyurethane-coated ponchos for Vietnam because they wouldn’t launder. A Hudson staff member later asked if any soldier ever sent his poncho to the laundry. The answer: “No, bit may happen,”
As might be expected, the three Hudson optimists are not deterred from giving advice by the lack of an acceptable general strategy. Armbruster develops the argument that the long-range factor which dominates the entire situation in South Vietnam is the continue existence of the Communists’ guerrilla and cadre small-war tactics, in spite of our outstanding conventional battle successes, which undoubtedly have hurt Viet Cong (and certainly North Vietnamese) morale. The main requirement is to provide security for the countryside, and only a government that provides security is likely to be acceptable to the people. Kahn, Armbruster, and Gastil suggest that we develop an overall plan to clear and hold “gradually increasing areas within which organized police and constabulary action, perhaps with some military support, can provide general security.” (p. 341)
Kahn says that this concept may be “superficially” similar to standard military tactics now being used in Vietnam, but claims that it embodies “some profoundly different basic concepts and emphases that up to now have not been thoroughly studied, understood, or evaluated.” (p. 342) Specifically, the pacification plan involves the establishment of frontiers behind which intensive police operations can be carried on. The basic concept is that successful police operations should be the chief short-range object of our military effort --in addition, of course, to preventing direct invasion of the country or the seizure of territory. (Sir Robert Thompson notes in his review of Can We Win in Vietnam? [Survival, November 1968] that he would have to agree with this proposal because it so closely conforms to much of the advice tendered earlier by the British Advisory Mission.)
Stillman and Pfaff, the resident pessimists, believe that Vietnam is in a stage of “cultural chaos” and the Vietnamese people are intractable, making it enormously difficult, if not impossible, for a white, technologically advanced, and implacably pragmatic people (meaning us) to deal with the issues. They believe that the National Liberation Front is dedicated, disciplined, competent, and to some degree a genuinely indigenous and “modern” movement with a nationwide base and appeal. They find few of these qualities in the government of South Vietnam. In contrast to the optimists, Stillman and Pfaff see no changes to our present strategy which might make a decisive impact on the outcome of the conflict.
The pessimists make a good case. Their analysis is far more sophisticated and relevant than most of the criticism now appearing in influential journals. Stillman’s section, “The Political Issues: Facts and Fantasies,” should be read by all administration speech writers. He raises serious difficulties inherent in various reasons which have been advanced for our involvement: namely, that American intervention is necessary to contain Communist China; to contain Communism; to contain the tactic of wars of national liberation; and to contain the very practice of aggression.
Stillman’s critical analysis of the third given reason for our presence in Vietnam is particularly well taken. He does not believe that there is any clearly defined or coordinated Communist program for the instigation of successive wars of national liberation around the globe. I agree. The Soviets and Chinese often have published broad analyses of the world situation and suggested general tactics for local revolutionary parties. But there appears never to have been a “master plan,” a concept which would be inoperable today in any case because of the Sino-Soviet dispute.
Where they have attempted to stimulate or direct specific revolutions from afar, Soviet and Chinese leaders usually have failed miserably. With the notable exception of East Europe, Communist parties have succeeded where capable local leaders have exploited a revolutionary climate. The Soviets, if not the Chinese, seem to have learned this lesson: there are increasingly fewer examples of Soviet dabbling in revolutionary planning abroad. Even Soviet aid to promising insurgents appears now to be generated primarily by the Sino-Soviet competition for leadership of the socialist camp.
The critical question is what impact the outcome of the Vietnam conflict will have on individual would-be revolutionary leaders around the globe. I suspect that the outcome, whatever it may be, will have little impact. Such leaders appear to evaluate their chances of success primarily in terms of the internal political situation in their own country, not in terms of what the major powers may do.
Stillman also strikes home when he criticizes our lack of ability as a
people to comprehend the inner life of alien societies or the “nonreasonable”
elements in such societies. Our tendency has been to convert “strange” issues
into ones which we can understand. He claims that this has happened in spite of
the “vast professional literature” devoted to area studies since World War II.
I suggest that there has never been enough of this literature.How many experts on Vietnam did we have in the United States in 1960?
Furthermore, the knowledge of the area specialists who do exist has not been
fully utilized in the decision-making process. 4
In spite of the trenchant criticisms of the pessimists, I suspect that most of us in the military will line up with Kahn, Armbruster, and Gastil. American participation in the Vietnam war obviously has had an impact, and we would like to think that the impact has been in line with what we intended. Other strategies might have been more appropriate, but the military situation certainly is not as desperate as it was in 1965. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong are at the conference table in Paris precisely because they finally despaired of achieving their goals by force.
The political situation in South Vietnam is far from hopeless. Even Saigon’s severest critics, notes Armbruster, “would have to concede that much less sophisticated countries without the talent or economic potential of South Vietnam have succeeded in developing home rule.” (p. 123) These critics also cannot point to a single Communist-ruled country that has held elections with the degree of freedom which was given to the South Vietnamese in 1967.
The gains may be less than we or the government of South Vietnam would have desired. But should we have expected this poor, beleaguered nation to become a full-blown democracy with a thriving economic system in the midst of a disastrous war? It took the newborn United States, with all its many advantages, decades to attain that goal—and it had been left in relative peace.
*Frank E. Armbruster, Raymond D. Gastil, Herman Kahn, William Pfaff, and Edmund Stillman, Can We Win in Vietnam? (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968, $7.95), xiv and 427 pp.
Gerrards Cross, England
Notes
1. The New York Times reported on 27 June 1969 that the Hudson Institute’s proposal for a modified strategy in Vietnam was circulating at high levels in the Nixon administration.
2. From the interview of General Giap by Oriana Fallaci for L’Europeo, reprinted in the Washington Post, 6 April 1969.
3. A good case could be made that the Soviet leaders, in spite of their stranglehold on the decision-making process, are even more concerned about the interrelationship between foreign and domestic policy and domestic politics.
4. I argued in the November-December 1968 issue of this journal the special need for military area specialists to give us a better appreciation of the problems mentioned by Stillman.
Colonel Richard F. Rosser (M.P.A. and Ph.D., Syracuse University) is on sabbatical leave from his position as Permanent Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science, USAF Academy, on assignment in the USAF-RAF Exchange Program. He has served as Chairman of Instruction for courses in political theory and as Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs. Before joining the Academy faculty in 1959, he had been a communications intelligence officer and Russian linguist with the USAF Security Service. Colonel Rosser is a frequent guest lecturer on Soviet foreign policy and is author of An Introduction to Soviet Foreign Policy (1969). His articles have been published in Russian Review, Series Studies in Social and Economic Sciences, and Air University Review.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this
document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression,
academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official
position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air
Force or the Air University.
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