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Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - 6:23 AM
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I don't always agree with guest columns I run on this blog, and this (below) is an example. I disagree with the thesis Col. Daddis offers, mainly on Clausewitzian grounds. The Prussian teaches us not that war is complex, but that it is simple -- yet so difficult that even the simplest tasks become hard to execute.
Likewise, strategy is difficult to formulate well -- but if formulated successfully, its results tend to be reducible to a something easily understood. So, in World War II: "Europe first." Two words with enormous implications. I think writing a top 10 list tends to focus the mind, to force the writer to prioritize and make choices, to distinguish between the essential and the merely important -- and this is the essence of strategy.
This all brings to mind the conclusion of a memo Eisenhower and an aide sent to Marshall in March 1942. The three primary goals of the global war, they wrote, had to be "the security of England, the retention of Russia in the war as an active war ally, and the defense of the Middle East." (P. 205, Chandler, Papers of Eisenhower, The War Years.) (Holding the Mideast prevented the linkup of Germany and Japan and also kept open the supply line to Russia, at a time when keeping Russia in the war was essential.) Everything else, including the defense of Australia, was secondary, they noted, in a classic summary of the nature of strategic decision-making: "All other operations must be considered highly desirable rather than in the mandatory class."
And also, as Col. Daddis observes, a top 10 list certainly can provoke a good discussion. So here he is:
By Col. Gregory A. Daddis
Best Defense guest respondent
Based solely on the responses to Lewis Sorley's Oct. 11 posting on this blog ("The top ten reasons Gen. Westmoreland lost the war in Vietnam") one reasonably could conclude that the Vietnam War continues to incite informative discussion, even passionate debate. These are positive signs for a war which has so much to offer historians, policy makers, and general readers. If there is anything good that can come from war-likely a point in itself worth debating-Vietnam suggests that a reflective reading of the history of armed conflict provides insights for those looking to the future, a place in which war undoubtedly will reside.
Perhaps that is what is so troubling by Lewis Sorley's posting and his larger biography of William C. Westmoreland. If anyone is truly to profit from the study of the Vietnam War, they must embrace the complexity of that conflict. By reducing the outcome of the war to one man's failure, and by reducing that failure to a "top ten" list of mistakes, such commentary oversimplifies an amazingly complex war. Certainly, it is the historian's task to disentangle the past, but not to the point of elementariness. If one accepts the unsophisticated thesis that Westmoreland singlehandedly lost the war in Vietnam, he or she is adopting the same flawed methodology for which Sorley maligns his target-turning one's back on the war's complexities, disavowing alternate possibilities, and underestimating the difficulties of a long and unpopular war.
In truth, most all contemporary officers and civilian leaders understood that the Vietnam War presented unique problems for a nation so imbued with conventional approaches to warfare. Westmoreland, like all of the US Army's officers, obviously was a product of his time. To argue, however, that neither the general nor his peers in uniform understood the war's intricacies is disingenuous and not supported by the historical record. An examination of professional journals in the 1960s such as Military Review reveals an officer corps willing to learn about and experiment with a form of warfare in which they had little experience. Doctrinal concepts mirrored the complexities being discussed in the armed forces' professional journals. (Those questioning the army's understanding of counterinsurgency would be well served by reading the 1967 version of FM 31-16, Counterguerrilla Operations.) More to the point, a review of Westmoreland's own concepts of operations and command guidance similarly exposes a commander who recognized that Vietnam would not be won by military operations alone. In June 1965, as an example, Westmoreland outlined his operational concept which noted clearly that the "insurgency in South Vietnam must eventually be defeated among the people in the hamlets and towns."
Nor should Westmoreland's use of the word attrition validate assertions that the American campaign strategy in Vietnam was singularly focused. In fact, it seems plausible to argue that MACV's commander formulated a "one war" approach without using the label later popularized by his successor. Creighton W. Abrams understood the political-military interrelationships of the war in Vietnam, but so too did Westmoreland. "Probably the fundamental issue is the question of the coordination of mission activities in Saigon," the MACV commander opined in early 1966. "It is abundantly clear that all political, military, economic, and security (police) programs must be completely integrated in order to attain any kind of success in a country which has been greatly weakened by prolonged conflict and is under increasing pressure by large military and subversive forces." Far from being an officer unwilling to learn about unconventional warfare, Westmoreland considered the issues of land reform, improving the South Vietnamese armed forces, limiting civilian casualties, and facilitating population security in the countryside.
The merits of Westmoreland's generalship will long be debated, as well they should. We all can profit from reading about how a senior officer in the United States Army during the 1960s approached a political-military revolutionary war that at once could be considered a civil war, a proxy war in the larger Cold War, and a war of northern aggression. Still, we should debate Westmoreland's merits from a position which embraces complexity. Carl von Clausewitz understood this better than most and we should turn to the Prussian theorist as we consider how to approach a study of the Vietnam War-or any war for that matter. Clausewitz warned that relying on mathematical factors to understand war is a problematic endeavor. "From the very start," he cautioned, "there is an interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good luck and bad that weaves its way throughout the length and breadth of the tapestry." War is not a simple affair and in the end "top ten" lists do little to further our understanding of a complex human phenomenon.
Gregory A. Daddis is an Academy Professor at West Point and author of No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Eisenhower might have sent memos to his boss Marshall on strategic themes but those memos basically were merely reinforcements to concepts that Ike knew Marshall already favored and likely had discussed with others in the office of the Chief of Staff. It would not be like Eisenhower to oppose the point of view of his boss and mentor Marshall. Ike may not have been a field commander but he was very astute when it came to office politics.
As I recall, Eisenhower was all for ‘Roundup’ and ‘Sledgehammer’ when he knew these were operations Marshall supported. The fact that a mere corporal would know they made virtually no operational sense and would have invariably led to disaster didn’t deter him from supporting his chief. This is another reason why we were fortunate at the time to have a political genius in the White House who was able to look beyond the selfish parochial and career interests of the armed services and also keep in mind that we were part of a grand coalition.
Daddis and Gentile probably share a cubical. Just saying.
Yes the title is inflammatory, and the thesis is somewhat limp, but there's lots of interesting stuff in that book too.
58,000 Americans missing from perfesser Daddis's view
After a Super Bowl victory some seasons ago, the Letterman team's top ten explanations supposedly from the losers included "the other guys were pushing us." This, with longer words, seems the substance of the Daddis commentary. Evidently, he's right when he says that no one American general lost the Vietnam War. The French lost it, too, and so did the Vietnamese -- about two and a half million of them died because of it. Appalling.
At the heart of the Westmoreland controversy and many other military studies there seems little examination of when and how commanding generals should offer "No mas", and perhaps a resigned commission, to the nation's civilian leadership. They seem reluctant to do it even today.
Mr Daddis is right when he says general Westmoreland wasn't peculiar or unique in his military leadership. I respectfully assert that he's wrong when he says the Vietnamese war was a valuable training ground for the US military. In support of this position, I present the US military's need for a steep learning curve about Vietnam-style issues in Afghanistan; and its domestic battle against the civilian administration in Washington to be allowed to keep the campaign there up even beyond the current 2014 deadline.
That battle suggests that the military has moved beyond "can do" to the currently fashionable and often sighted "double down". Where does the national interest fit in this?
____________________________
Current military command notes: The Tacoma News Tribune story by Adam Ashton, cited by TR a few days ago, points out that the troubled 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was sent to Afghanistan freshly equipped with knowledge of the Arabic language, little spoken in that nation. The controversial platoon throughout its entire "combat" posting saw a total of five Afghan dead, one already lying on the ground when they first arrived. Three of the remaining four died in circumstances now the ground for courts martial. Remarkable.
Remarkable also, for the military command to place the 320th Military Police Battalion in charge of Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad completely without training in how to run a prison. As military hero Antonio Taguba later pointed out, the army had three different ways to train units in running prisons. but none were forced on the 320th. They had to make do with their own in-house sociopathic sergeant as their guide. For his truthfulness in examining this matter, General Tagubs was punished. Why should any general do the right thing?
I GUESS IF YOU WORK AT WEST POINT
you have to believe that the Theater Commander is important and either responsible for victory or defeat. Vietnam's history is far more complex than that. If you read the Pentagon Papers - the version declassified this year (2011) it is obvious that Washington figures in OSD and State managed the war with little knowledge of this type of warfare or even functioning in a foreign country as most of them were bright appointees from academia. While they played with strategic bombing and troop levels, Westmoreland proceeded to attempt to kill his way to success. While both he and these Washington figures realized that success hinged upon the viability of the South Vietnamese government, they just kept doing what they had been doing regardless of the performance of that same government. While the CIA and others said that we could not out-kill the North Vietnamese birth rate and that we couldn't deploy more battalions than they could, they let Westmoreland ignore these factors.
17 days before Tet, COMUSMACV submitted an annual status report saying that we had control of the countryside and that the VC/NVN could not mass large formations of troops. Real progress. Although we beat them in their Tet Offensive, they were demonstrating the fiction of that estimate as they proceeded to refill their ranks with fresh troops from the North and VC recruits. Westmoreland's response was to request 206,000 more troops to regain the initiative and do more of the same.
Washington played with troop numbers but did not respond to LBJ's request for a new strategy. Sound familiar? Is that Westmoreland's fault? There were a few in Washington who clearly stated that this wasn't going to work. But those appraisals never got to the White House. Still, LBJ was in direct charge of the war and as bright as he was, he did not know what he was doing. But he had his general and was satisfied with him.
Neither Westmoreland nor Washington could acknowledge the futility of persisting and they persisted. Abrams did the same thing. Meanwhile, Kissinger sought a diplomatic way out that didn't *look* too bad. And the price of this result was 58,000 dead, a demoralized Army, a divided nation which has never healed, and a duplicitous but predictable end delivered by North Vietnam.
And now we are doing the exact same thing in Afghanistan with nobody in DC with the balls to pull-out. Madness.
RVN SF VET, I congratulate you for a thoughtful piece of writing. I would only add that George W. Ball did have access to both the Kennedy and Johnson White House’s and tried to sound the alarm about our involvement in Vietnam but was basically shouted down as crazy (Kennedy) or a defeatist (LBJ). To me he is similar to France’s Georges Mandel the despised lonely voice in the forest arguing against appeasing Hitler. Ball's cogent and well-argued advice was at odds with the war fever rampant both in the Pentagon and Bundy’s drum beaters in the national security apparatus. And sadly, neither Kennedy nor Johnson had the balls and brains combination necessary to avoid a national tragedy.
I admire greatly your obvious academic expertise in the areas covered by this blog, and find your entries very informative, but would you please, please tape over your apostrophe key? Your contsant misuse of the possessive really takes away from your contributions.
I admire greatly your obvious academic expertise in the areas covered by this blog, and find your entries very informative, but would you please, please tape over your apostrophe key? Your contsant misuse of the possessive really takes away from your contributions.
constant
Ah hell, we might as well say that Walter Cronkite lost the war for us when after being told by Gen. Abrams, "we cannot win this Goddamned war, and we ought to find a dignified way out," Uncle Walter returned to the U.S. and prepared an editorial for the nightly news, bu much more eloquently stated that much.
Watching that editorial was the U.S. president who had escalated the war, and been content with Westmoreland up until then, whereupon shortly thereafter, LBJ announcedd he would not seek reelection.
If N. Viet-Nam didn’t know it before, they knew they had us then, because unlike LBJ and Westmoreland, Hanoi always understood Clausewitz’s axiom about not divorcing military action from its political roots. . .”And that’s the way it is.”
VN war aim: contain communism, avoid a larger (nuclear) war
At that point in the Cold War, when LBJ reversed the late JFK's pullout decision, we had no pretensions of 'liberating' Hanoi, let alone rolling back Mao's regime. So three US Presidents lost, in VN, Cambodia and Laos.
But in that messy process, as Saigon fell and Cambodia bled, we rounded an emergent nuclear China into line with our containment of the USSR, the only power posing an existential nuclear threat to me in my bed in San Diego. We lost relatively small and won big, without starting WW3, or 4, depending on how you reckon. And that's not nothin, however I may mistrust Dr. K.
Must have sucked to be an American legionaire, fighting for such limited glory and dubious honors in SE Asia. The locals paid a terrible price, while the diplomats dithered and the generals tallied. But US national strategic goals were achieved, after a fashion, for a time.
As another commented in those days, "so it goes."
So, to corrupt some scripture a bit, you are saying chance came into play by our involvement in S.E. Asia, along with the probability within, which allowed some. . .albeit. . .limited creative spirit free to roam, and that is what brought about U.S. national strategic goals?
Well rat's spit, because then we should believe what Westmoreland believed: that he'd found a grand tactic in search and destroy that would either defeat N. Viet-Nam or force it into serious negotiations. . .And eventually N. Viet-Nam did negotiate, but it ain't our fault that the S. Vietnamese Army, who we trained in our image, weren't able in the end, to defend their country?
Odd the South couldn't, because, "All else being equal, the course of war will tend to favor the party with the stronger emotional and political motivations, but especially the defender?"
Sorry, I've been up all night tending my smoker. . .and getting a bit smoked in the process, and what I said, makes about as much sense as what I can make out of what you said Double W. : }
"Weren't able to defend their country."?
The US Congress cut off aid, we withdrew our air support, and their government hadn't won the support of the people in rural areas.
We bugged-out of a losing situation and left the South in the lurch. We should have done that in 1966 or 1967. The result woulds have been the same except for the many Vietnamese and American lives saved. You cannot transplant fire into someone's belly. They either have the passion or they don't. The North had it.
We were not being threatened by a nuclear China! We did believe that if we didn't fight in South Vietnam; Cambodia, Laos, and maybe Thailand would fall into the Communist orbit. This was the "domino theory." Heck, I believed that one. But please, do not suggest that our turning tail under the guise of a peace treaty fooled anyone. The USSR and CHINA knew who had won. The world learned that the most powerful nation on earth could not beat a committed guerrilla force with an unlimited supply of men and material. Why do you think that Saddam planned for such a post-conventional fight? Why are we fighting these wars the world over? Because they are cheap and we can't win them where there is no viable partner government. Even a ruthless Soviet Union lost without the pretense of real nation-building. We found that it was cheap to oppose them with some conventional small arms and some Stingers and our friends, the Pakistani ISI.
We did permanent harm to our nation from which we have yet to recover.
a parody. . .a metaphoric trope (whatever the hell a trope is). : )
... defined even in cheap dictionaries. Been in the language since 1533. Look it up.
It wasn't Giap and Ho that we sought to contain in the VN war...
Red China and Russia were our bitter strategic enemies in 1950-70. US success in containing those empires dictates the post-VN strategic score in favor of US interests. Not the betrayal of our allies in SVN, and the moral conundrum Dr. Kissinger left us with there.
As JFK's green admin struggled for a containment strategy in Latin America, the Luce-warped US view saw Eurasia falling like dominos, to a monolithic Russian-Chinese communism. Kissinger writes about his own 'aha' moment- in the commie-on-commie fighting up on the Siberian border; his epiphany was that the Red and Yellow perils were natural blood rivals, not allies.
Nixon understood 'We can play the China card agin Moscow, if Viet Nam can be sorted out.'
As the SE asian war-cookie crumbled to ashes for US arms, a militarized and unified VN became a Soviet containment force against China (defeating their Pol Pot proxy), and a China freed from fear of US attack was reinforced by the Nixon-Kissinger doctrine of a strategic US nuclear pact to defend Peking. Whether by design or luck, it was a decisive geo-strategic victory for the US, snatched from the very jaws of defeat.
Certainly it was not clear, in the defeatism of 1975-80, that Nixon-Kisinger's geopolitical gambit would pay off big by 1990. 'So it goes' is an existential Kurt Vonnegut line, a Bokononist saying from "Cat's Cradle", I think.
One War - Winning Hearts and Minds
Limiting civilian casualties was a laudable goal. Trying to win "hearts and minds" was similarly desirable. (That term is not mentioned above but captured the alleged spirit of the field manuals and operational orders.) The realities of the Westmoreland war waging methods effectively undermined both outcomes. Body counts as the governing metric and carpet bombing with dumb bombs combined to hopelessly overwhelm those aspirations. I am having a hard time swallowing Col. Daddis's argument that Westmoreland's sensitivity to politics and civilian well being was more than lip service.
Identifying and understanding the contradictions in this war and Westmoreland's responsibiity for the incongruities of Vietnam are what I hope to take from this book. How the Army, the other services, and the country learned the right lessons from our experience in Vietnam are the bigger issues we all need to to consider. Our military history and the American way of of war fighting since Vietnam have reflected the understanding of mistakes made during that war.
I agree with Col. Daddis is that no individual was entirely responsible for the Vietnam War and its outcomes but that is true of any huge endeavor. One has to place this historical figure in context. At the time, the Army as an institution and the officer corps in particular were held in the highest regard. Westmoreland was straight from central casting with the right experiences and connections to historical figures to tantalize the public. it would be the height of revisionism to downgrade his influence on the policies and public opinion during the formative years of Vietnam. That is why this book is especially important to understanding the seminal event that Vietnam was.
One War - Winning Hearts and Minds
Limiting civilian casualties was a laudable goal. Trying to win "hearts and minds" was similarly desirable. (That term is not mentioned above but captured the alleged spirit of the field manuals and operational orders.) The realities of the Westmoreland war waging methods effectively undermined both outcomes. Body counts as the governing metric and carpet bombing with dumb bombs combined to hopelessly overwhelm those aspirations. I am having a hard time swallowing Col. Daddis's argument that Westmoreland's sensitivity to politics and civilian well being was more than lip service.
Identifying and understanding the contradictions in this war and Westmoreland's responsibiity for the incongruities of Vietnam are what I hope to take from this book. How the Army, the other services, and the country learned the right lessons from our experience in Vietnam are the bigger issues we all need to to consider. Our military history and the American way of of war fighting since Vietnam have reflected the understanding of mistakes made during that war.
I agree with Col. Daddis is that no individual was entirely responsible for the Vietnam War and its outcomes but that is true of any huge endeavor. One has to place this historical figure in context. At the time, the Army as an institution and the officer corps in particular were held in the highest regard. Westmoreland was straight from central casting with the right experiences and connections to historical figures to tantalize the public. it would be the height of revisionism to downgrade his influence on the policies and public opinion during the formative years of Vietnam. That is why this book is especially important to understanding the seminal event that Vietnam was.
"Our military history and the American way of war fighting since Vietnam have reflected the understanding of mistakes made during that war."
How do you reach that conclusion? We are repeating the mistakes of Vietnam right now as if it had never happened. Hoping for a viable Afghan government with a self-sustaining Army and Police force? Fighting a counterinsurgency war with a porous border leaking guerrillas and supplies? Conducting brigade-sized "Search and Destroy" or "Sweep and Clear" operations is the height of folly against a guerrilla enemy. Just because some bright guys wrote a COIN manual reflecting tactical lessons learned does not mean that we have conventional officers executing operations in the spirit of that manual.
Even if the Army executed perfectly, where are the numerous AID development teams and the Afghan government support for the populace? We have learned nothing.
Right now you have Army generals talking about getting back to the "real mission" of conventional war. Just who is it that we will be fighting battalion on battalion? Who are these guys looking to fight with? Let's just make sure that these generals lusting for a conventional war get their asses up on the line when they find one.
As in RVN, we are just kicking the can down the road while we lose troops in a losing cause.
I will explain what i meant by that statement. The Weinberger and later the Powell Doctrines were directly developed from lessons learned from Vietnam. The use of overwhelming force not incrementally applied, clear exit strategies, and clearly defined missions explaned to the American people were all hallmarks of these principles. The current field manuals especially the counterinsurgency manual developed by General Patraeus at Fort Leavenworth stress the importance of sustained and productive interactions with the local population to defeat insurgents.
You may not agree with the premises defined in both sets of warfighting styles but the influence of Vietnam on their development is undeniable. What do you think are the lessons to be learned from Vietnam. And yes I may be nuts but you don't have to tell everyone!
I will explain what i meant by that statement. The Weinberger and later the Powell Doctrines were directly developed from lessons learned from Vietnam. The use of overwhelming force not incrementally applied, clear exit strategies, and clearly defined missions explaned to the American people were all hallmarks of these principles. The current field manuals especially the counterinsurgency manual developed by General Patraeus at Fort Leavenworth stress the importance of sustained and productive interactions with the local population to defeat insurgents.
You may not agree with the premises defined in both sets of warfighting styles but the influence of Vietnam on their development is undeniable. What do you think are the lessons to be learned from Vietnam. And yes I may be nuts but you don't have to tell everyone!
I draw just the opposite conclusion from yours. Those "doctrines" learned nothing from Vietnam. They only stated the Army's desire to forget Vietnam and never to fight another such war again. In other words, never to fight a "limited" war or an "asymmetric" war or a "COIN" war.
The statement that if you're going to war, then only use overwhelming force is exactly what the Curtis Lemays of the world said, and what the military said when it complained about fighting with "one hand tied behind its back." These Weingberger and Powell "doctrines" just reaffirmed the Army's belief in big sweeps, search and destroy missions, massive aerial bombardment, and all the other stuff that didn't work in Vietnam, and which won't work in any future conflict where force has to be carefully calibrated, as Petraeus and McChrystal indeed understood.
Vic, I had to tell everyone because Vietnam has taught us to tell the public the truth. {;*))
FG42 is right, the concepts that you cite represent a reaction to and aversion to the Vietnam War - not an understanding. There are positive lessons in rural development which have gone unheeded or ignored.
Piecemeal commitment of forces has long been a sin. Doing all you can to ensure success is essential; especially when you have a wounded officer corps. We have long had ratios for combat. For example, you want to have a 3:1 superiority when the enemy is dug-in on the defense. Of course, that assumes a relatively competent enemy and not an inferior bunch of conscripts who have had the crap bombed out of them. I think that few appreciate the difference that accurate IDF and air power could make.
Our conventional Army leaders still do not understand the delicate balance required in a place like Afghanistan. Moreover, we are again choosing to ignore the requirement for a competent local government partner - just like in RVN. It looks like we are trying to kill as many Taliban as possible before we leave. Thus far, these Taliban casualties appear to be readily replaced. I just saw General Allen give an estimate of the number of Taliban fighting in Afghanistan - 10,000. Sounds like a mighty low figure to me.
Look. Why focus on Westmoreland? He was operating inside an alternative universe. Our strategies--whatever they were--were premised on the assumption that Moscow-Peking were ultimately calling the shots in Vietnam.
This wasn't utterly irrational. They had forced Ho to accept the Geneva accords in 1954. Moscow still had a leash on Castro in the mid-sixties. Etc. Even Nixon-Kissinger, for all their erudition, believed it when they came in, and put all their hopes on "linkage."
They were all wrong. They didn't know it. If they had, what strategy might have been adopted? That recommended by McNamara just before he vamoosed, and that recommended by Clifford when he woke up.
Attrition assumed there was a cost-benefit calculus behind the war. There was for us, but not for them. Period.
"You will kill ten of our men, and we will kill one of yours, and in the end it will be you who will tire of it." Ho Chi Minh
A little factoid I recently came across:
Number of tenured professors specializing in Vietnam in the US in 1970: 0.
Tom,
I had trouble moving past your comment about Clausewitz saying war is simple. I agree that Clausewitz says that the nature of war is simple, but he goes on to explain war is complex and chaotic and that even the simple things in war are difficult thereby adding to the complexity.
I think you should blame Westmorland. He is responsible because he oversimplified the situation and failed to see the complexity of the situation.
It would be nice to hear a response to Colonel Daddis's cogent post by Dr Sorley.
When will Gian Gentile respond?
You were asked to offer one document which shows that General Westmoreland understood the war. You were asked to offer one example where he applied that understanding operationally. You have not done so.
You do not get a free pass. You criticize others and reference uncited "primary documents" but do not offer proof for your assertions. Why should anyone believe you or bother to respond to your or COL Daddis' views.
I've quoted and cited the most recent release (2011) of the "Pentagon Papers" in which documents from COMUSMACV and Washington are quoted. They demonstrate a lack of understanding (send me more troops so I can kill more
) and a lack of control over the conduct of the war by Westmoreland. OSD, State, and the White House dominated the conduct of the war while Westmoreland was essentially "Johnny One Note."
Where are your facts?
RVN SF VET:
back off man, sorry to say I have been busy. Anyway, it doesnt really matter since folks understand the Vietnam War through the prism of religion and faith rather than on critical historical study. Greg in his own excellent piece offered proof through quotes of Westmoreland's understanding of the war, and there are many, many more examples from the primary sources of such and understanding.
There are numerous messages from Westmoreland in 65 and 66 to the Joint Chiefs that show he thought of the war, as Greg mentions, as one war where ultimately the answer was political not military. Do you want me to cite the message dates, box location, etc from the CMH archives? I will if it makes you feel any better.
As for my own arguments on the Vietnam War go read my chapter on Vietnam in the volume "Between War and Peace" that just came out this past January and edited by Colonel Mat Moten with a forward by General Dempsey.
But most importantly you should calm down and take a chil pill.
gentile
Also, don't mess with my meds; it's two pills twice a day.
I just reread COL Daddis' comments and I see what you are talking about, but acknowledging the existence of something is not the same as integrating it into your decision-making and doing something about it. So General Westmoreland might as well have said, "The war will be decided on political grounds, but I'm a military man and I'll keep doing what I'm doing." He acknowledges pacification as essential to success, but in 1966-1967 he relegates that task to ARVN and says so. I never said that he was completely ignorant, I just point out that he never really changed his simplistic approach to his job. He did not ask for 206,000 troops in order to dedicate them to pacification. Rather, he wanted to be able to engage NVA battalions and regiments and decimate them. That was not a path to "victory."
Even a brilliant man like General DePuy said to me (in 1965) "Give me the 101st Airborne and I'll clean out Tay Ninh." That reveals that the MACV J-3 did not understand counter-guerrilla warfare or history at all. I say history because ARVN had done that very thing with 2 divisions several years before and the VC just faded away. Later, when we did make a massive conventional move into Tay Ninh, the VC just melted away - big surprise. During those years, much of Tay Ninh was a "Free Fire Zone" and there weren't many people to pacify.
I looked at the following excerpt from your chapter:
"Unfortunately US political and military strategists failed to perceive the reality and continued to apply irrelevant strategy years beyond that point. ..... The miscalculations that that got the United States into the Vietnam War persisted throughout, even intensifying, and poisoned the process of war termination and the peace that followed."
The esential insight from Vietnam is that the crucial elements in war are not smarter tactics, better generals, or more malleable popular support, but clear-headed thinking about policy and strategy that aligns ways, means, and ends relative to our national interests and the potential of our enemies. In Vietnam, the United States failed that test."
Well, I can only agree in full. In case you have not thought of it, your first quoted sentence above condemns Westmoreland's understanding along with that of everyone else.
Almost everything in the excerpt I was able to read agrees with the things that I've written here to include that we have yet to recover from the damage that war did to our society. Like it or not, we agree on mosts aspects of that war.
I read somewhere that you believe that we should again train and prepare for conventional warfare. If that is so, it would be a great topic for this blog. Your contribution could be as brief as COL Daddis' article. Personally, I cannot envision where such warfare would occur. In fact, I suspect there are some Russian Generals who are glad it never happened.
Rogers
"train and prepare for conventional warfare"
That is the U.S. Army's warm happy place. I'm sure many will look forward to the halcyon days when we can practice the charge of the light brigade across the deserts, or perhaps that last defensive belt along the Fulda Gap.
Sadly, our enemies have watched our floundering in these last two wars...so really what makes you think they will play to our strengths? Such thinking is in keeping with that lie that we tell that our enemies are all stone age dullards incapable of defeating our technological prowess...and yet here we are... sigh.
"train and prepare for conventional warfare"
That is the U.S. Army's warm happy place. I'm sure many will look forward to the halcyon days when we can practice the charge of the light brigade across the deserts, or perhaps that last defensive belt along the Fulda Gap.
Sadly, our enemies have watched our floundering in these last two wars...so really what makes you think they will play to our strengths? Such thinking is in keeping with that lie that we tell that our enemies are all stone age dullards incapable of defeating our technological prowess...and yet here we are... sigh.
These NDs are all Tom Ricks' fault!
It's his blog and he's the commander! I have lost faith in his ability to command. I recommend that he be the 20th relief of the year.
Are we getting impatient because the Submit button takes too long and we pull the trigger again? Is that what's troubling you bunky? Eric, do the SEALs have a cure for this? Do we need a New York City (NYPD) trigger?
I like that, Hunter. May even steal it from you, although with attribution. OTOH, I really don't like it because it highlights the unfortunate reality that the cupboard is pretty bare when it comes to thinking in the upper reaches of the military. It's been like that for many years now, too, as we're seeing with these "who-shot John" discussions of Vietnam.
Westmoreland? Doesn't matter. Wouldn't have mattered. Ol' Westy was just a product of what seems to be more and more a questionable officer education system. The Point, advanced schools, etc., etc. Hate to say, but it seems there are lots more failed generals than successes since WW2. Even in peacetime, lots of them have managed to screw things up. Between the generals and the politicians, this nation is in trouble.
Gian Gentile is of course right. I've said it before, the reincarnation of U.S. Grant and John Pershing together couldn't have won Vietnam. It was not winnable. Hear that, Sorley? It wasn't winnable. The only way it would have been is if we could have traded our guys in the South for their guys in the North and then gotten Ho to lead 'em. Hey, maybe we were on the wrong side.
"Hey, maybe we were on the wrong side."
You made that comment tongue-in-cheek. But then one thinks about the fact that Vietnam today is one of the fastest growing market economies in SE Asia, that it is a popular tourist destination for Americans (and folks from other countries), that the US companies are major investors in the Vietnamese economy, that hundreds if not thousands of Vietnamese are attending universities in the US, that we've had military exchanges for years now (including medical teams in the Mekong annually, regular ship visits, long history of collaboration in locating MIA's, reciprocal visits by top brass, etc.).
And now the US and Vietnam are talking about possible formal mil-to-mil relationships (including sending officers to each other's military schools) and more defense cooperation (in view of China acting up). Thousands of US vets have gone back to Vietnam over the years and have mercifully closed a traumatic chapter in their lives...but they all ask "what the f--k were we fighting about?"
What makes you think it was tongue-in-cheek?
It's very enlightening to get into the way-back machine and check out what transpired between Ho and the U.S. Government during and after WW2. And how the U.S. Government became fixated on DeGaulle and the French during and after WW2.
Another fascinating story. But it's one you just won't ever know if you limit yourself to flag-waving and unthinking idolatry of all things American.
@JTINSC: the OSS and Ho Chi Minh
"...check out what transpired between Ho and the U.S. Government during and after WW2."
Sorry for this long post, but FYI, a family friend, Mr. Henry Prunier, of Worcester, Massachusetts, is the sole surviving member of the 7-man OSS "Deer Team" mission that parachuted into northern Vietnam in 1945 to advise and assist the fledgling Viet Minh guerillas against the Japanese. The Viet Minh leaders were a skinny, sick man named Ho Chi Minh and a necktie-wearing school teacher named Vo Nguyen Giap. The OSS worked with very closely with the Viet Minh until after the war in September; Henry Prunier was the interpreter. There was a lot of bull sessions with Ho, who was very interested in American history including the American Revolution. In fact, the opening words of the Vietnamese declaration of independence from French colonial rule were taken from the American Declaration of Independence.
The OSS team in the field sent back reports saying that Ho, although a communist, was primarily a nationalist with the main goal of freeing Vietnam from the French. After the war, Ho is said to have sent at least 2 letters to Truman requesting US support for Vietnam's independence, basing his request on FDR's wartime anti-colonial speeches. Ho's letters and requests were never answered, and the US went on to support the return of French rule (and in fact winding up holding the bag from 1964 to 1972). Historians today disagree over whether the OSS mission and Ho's letters to Truman represented a "lost opportunity" for the US to have avoided the huge tragedy nearly 20 years later.
Henry Prunier, an Army corporal in 1945, got a Bronze Star belatedly this year, just before his 90th birthday. For a video about this, see:
http://www.necn.com/02/23/11/Worcester-man-receives-Bronze-Star-for-s/landing_newengland.html?blockID=416553&feedID=4206
A little more on Ho and the OSS.
Some time prior to the pilot team's insertion, Uncle Ho walked to Thailand to solicit help from the OSS. He said that upon his return to Vietnam, he needed evidence that he met with the OSS and that they would support the Vietnamese resistance. So, the ambivalent OSS mission to Thailand (the King was the chief OSS agent in Thailand) gave Ho two .45 cal. Colt pistols. He prized them and displayed them to the members of his party upon his return.
Yes hindsight is 20/20 and and our support of the colonial French and our failure to continue to support Castro were two of many mistakes we made. But, it was a different time and we had a different more rigid mindset. Of course, I think we are still unimaginative and rigid.
Ho was deep sink man at the Parker House in Boston at one point in his travels. He eventually made it to Paris and tried to get recognized at Versailles to plead the nationalist case for Vietnam. I was just barely too young for Vietnam (graduated HS in 74) but joined immediately to get the GI Bill to afford college. Many guys from our neighborhood in Lynn, MA went over and some have their names on the Wall so I have always tried to understand the War and why we were there. I am still searching for the answers but don't know if anyone will ever be able to give any good explanation for many aspects of the war. I do feel confident that we had no idea what we were getting into and completely missed the boat on the history and how smart Ho was in playing off the Chinese and Soviets. We barely acknowledged that they had fought a centuries long war against China. I work with a guy who got out of there and started crying when I wished him a happy Veterans Day a couple of years ago. He left more there than I can ever begin to understand.
The point of this long rant is that we owe it to the guys (and gals) who are fighting for us now to keep trying to learn lessons from that and other wars. That is why this blog is important because people can say what they think and get feedback that is hard to find these days. We have over thirteen hundred people who work at my workplace and about 100 of them are veterans. The number of people directly impacted or even the number who know someone who is serving is miniscule. That is why it is important to keep this stuff front and center. Thanks for responding.
At the heart of the Westmoreland controversy and many other military studies there seems little examination of when and how commanding generals family blog should offer "No mas", and perhaps a resigned commission, to the nation's civilian leadership. They seem reluctant to do it even today.
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