Issue M004 of 24 November 2000

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Vietnam & the Cold War


From hdiplo@YorkU.CA Thu Jan  2 19:06:06 1997
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 21:08:40 -0500
From: "H-DIPLO [Marcsisin]" 
Reply-To: H-NET List for Diplomatic History 
To: H-DIPLO@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Subject: Vietnam and the Cold War [Serewicz]

From: L.W.Serewicz 

A key point to remember, although I think Prof. Kaiser understands this,
is that the United States *could* have "won" in Vietnam.  The key question
is "At what price?"  I am reminded of Douglas Cater's memos in July 1965
suggesting that the United States must be prepared for a long, ambiguous
war lasting 20 to 30 years. (See Gardner, Pay Any Price, p.253-255.)
Instead the United States fought at a high level for less than *two*
years!. (Full deployment was reached in late 1967 and continued only
through early 1969 when Nixon began to withdraw troops.)  Even in that
limited time, the United States and South Vietnam *almost* succeeded.  By
March 1968, the strategic situation in South Vietnam was as good as it
could become given the circumstances. Had the United States persevered at
that level for five more years, one can only think of what might have
occurred.  While the United States continued to support a large war effort
even after March 1968, it no longer had the military capability to carry
out the necessary actions. My analysis intentionally ignores the domestic
political problems to concentrate on it from a strategic or military
perspective. Ignoring the domestic political problems and looking at it
from a military perspective, can anyone argue the NVA could have used
military force to dislodge the United States from South Vietnam? I am
aware that one cannot ignore the domestic political consequences of having
nearly 600,000 troops in South Vietnam.  However, I am only suggesting
from an abstract point that the NVA, through force of arms, could *not*
dislodge the United States from South Vietnam in the way that North Korea,
with the aid of the Soviet Union and China, almost dislodged it from South
Korea.  This is even more true if the United States had taken steps in
1961 to integrate South Vietnamese troops into its structure in the way
that it did so in Korea.  This would have increased the capacity of the
South Vietnamese to defend themselves even as the United States helped to
suppress the attacks instigated, directed, and supplied by North Vietnam.

The key question to ask, is victory at what price?  De Gaulle suggested as
much to Rusk in a December 1964 meeting, which I would suggest captures
the philosophical alternatives open to the United States.  See Gardner,
_Pay Any Price_, p. 155.  De Gaulle was suggesting, rightly I would argue,
that if the United States wanted to "win" in Vietnam it would have to
undertake unlimited action, that is wage a war for control all of Eurasia.
In part, I think De Gaulle understood that the forces arrayed against the
United States were unlimited in a way that the United States could not
match. Rusk argued to the contrary that the United States could succeed
with limited means because its goals were limited.  Rusk saw the goal as
limited and the means needed to achieve it as limited. In the UN world
order that he was trying to maintain, Rusk understood that unlimited war
by the United States was not feasible.  Instead the United States would be
called upon "to do in cold blood what they would normally only do in hot
blood".  Rusk understood that to create an unlimited goal would create the
danger of exciting demands for an unlimited war.  In this Rusk worried the
price might be creating World War Three if sufficient war fever was
created.  I would argue that the price was the identity of the United
States as a Republic, a government of separate and limited powers.  For
the United States to "win" in Vietnam, it would have had to undergo a
massive transformation of the American regime, (regime understood here in
the classical political philosophical sense), which the American people
were not willing to accept.  As Lloyd Gardner suggests in Pay Any Price
the United States, Johnson, was caught between his domestic dreams and his
foreign policy necessities.  In the end, Johnson was forced to choose his
domestic reforms.

In the same spirit Robert Collins "The Economic Crisis of 1968 and the
Waning of the "American Century""  (AHR April 1996) makes the argument
that because of Vietnam the cost in terms of balance of payments, the
domestic economy, and public opinion, Johnson was forced to move from
expanding the Great Society to maintaining it.  As Collins suggests, that
is when the war effort turned.  Thus it is *not* that the United States
could not achieve victory, but that the price was too high. Would anyone
suggest that the United States defend South Vietnam at the cost of the
principles it was seeking to uphold in South Vietnam?

One could argue that because of the Vietnam war and the question that it
raised, the United States has undertaken a series of reforms within its
military and political system to answer the politico-military questions
that it raised.  I would suggest that the Revolution in Military Affairs
(RMA), the CONUS strategy, the Weinberger Doctrine, the War Powers
legislation, and even the development of NATO's strategic doctrine are
developments that, in part, reflect the United States desire to keep its
commitment and future wars limited in time and space by applying maximum
power to achieve the political result.  These developments do not reflect
the military lessons, but the political lessons.  Neither the United
States, nor any democracy, can fight a slow, politically ambiguous war
that inflicts a constant rate of casualties.  If its opponents seek to bog
it down in this asymmetrical combat, then it will respond asymmetrically
as well.  By asymmetrical, I suggest that the opponent will attempt to
lure the United States into a situation where it takes a constant if low
stream of casualties, where the political situation is ambiguous enough to
create abnormal domestic protests and where success can only be defined as
a denial strategy.  The RMA in particular would counter all of these
characteristics by reducing the casualties, increasing the strategic and
tactical tempo of the warfare, and reducing the reliance on a denial
strategy.  I would even suggest that the real test of the United States
will be in Colombia, where there appear to be more military (i.e.
security) advisers than political advisers, a curious imbalance that
ignores the root political problem and ignores Machiavelli's warnings in
the _Prince_ and _The Discourses_ about the danger to a state's political
legitimacy from outside forces.

Lawrence Serewicz



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