People have different opinions. That's not interesting. What is interesting is when someone looks at the past and sees something entirely different from what I would have thought.After getting the gas face from the nation and own party, President Bush pulled a play from the President 101 handbook and went international. The Chicago Tribune reports that when:
Asked what lessons the war in Vietnam offered for the war in Iraq, Bush's response suggested a need for patience and determination--a nod toward the U.S. decision to abandon Vietnam after a protracted and unsuccessful war there.There were two things that surprised me about the Decider acknowledging the parallel.
"We'll succeed unless we quit," Bush said.
(1) Could we ever have won the Vietnam War?
(2) Even if we could have won, was it worth it?
My personal opinion is that the answer to both of these questions is "no." I'm curious if I am in a minority. I am more than happy to understand how the Vietnam War might have been won. Nuclear? Attack China? Arrest all protestors?
What are your thoughts?
8 comments:
You make many good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armements”
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment,budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Adminisitrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be - Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particulary if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can’t. Therefor he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is ablsolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen unitil it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagon instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
Yeah, I'd go with no and no. And rosecovered glasses makes some great points. My bro has been a DOD consultant for many years on issues I had better not disclose, and he says pretty much what you do, rg.
Eisenhower was right, and let's never forget that.
The American Exceptionalists are just going to have to suck it at some point, but I don't expect that to happen without much kicking and screaming. IMO, it's going to take a couple of generations for the majority of our citizens to snap out of the 'USA! USA!' thing and join the real world. I just hope they don't manage to blow it up before they learn that.
Right - we lost Vietnam because we only let it go on for a mere 20 years. Even though it was the United States' longest war EVER, it clearly was not long enough. Those wussies.
First - to both the servicemen here - thank you for your service. Tokyo (is an active serviceman as well).
Second - Tokyo, I understand and 100% agree the US military (then and now) can beat anyone in a battle. But given a war involves "hearts and minds", the Vietnamese were anti *any* foreign presence (the French ~ 1950's.)
So if the main issue at stake is your presence (like , I beleive, in Iraq) - how do you win?
Another way of twisting this question is *if* the British hung around long enough in the 13 colonies, would they have won? They had superior resources and professional, full time military.
Again, no easy answers with this.
But I think there is something to be asked. In the long term - if current day Vietnam supports Capitalism and eventually human rights (ie. the Chinese plan), did the US win?
I call it "Coca-Cola Diplomacy."
My personal 2cents is that if Clinton had placed a localy owned coca-cola plant in the West Bank (jobs and sugar for kids) - the Middle East would be a different place.
Ultimately, what would "winning" in Vietnam have gotten us?
And that same question needs to be asked about Iraq.
Do we really want to put ourselves in a position of having to play Tito (the former leader of Yugoslavia, not the member of the Jackson 5) to the world?
We cannot win in Iraq. We can win militarily, to be sure, but we cannot win the peace.
Consider this - people in the former Yugoslavia are still ticked off about an incident from the 1300s. The Israel/Palestine conflicts has roots in antiquity. Even a small group of Americans from the South would love to refight the Civil War.
We can win militarily, as we could have in Vietnam, but what would be the point?
WF
I've assumed all along that we've just been lulling them into a false sense of security for the past few decades.
First Clinton and now Bush go in and act all buddy-buddy with 'em, and then, when they least expect it, we come in from the west with "re-deployed" troops from Iraq and the entire Pacific fleet from the East.
It's a classic pincers action...we can lose!
Only if Russia and China had wanted us to win in Vietnam could we have won, for they always held the trump card.
Winning required invading and occupying the north. That was an outcome neither communist giant would tolerate — especially China, any more than China has ever been willing to see North Korea be toppled.
Vietnam, north and south, was a poor, backward Third-World country hard up against China. If we ever had won it, occupation would've required a larger open-ended commitment of money and troops than in Korea. No way would winning it all have ever been worth the cost of getting and staying there.
rosecovered's point is extremely important to keep in mind. Here's one perhaps equally important. I suspect rosecolored will concur.
The U.S. military-industrial complex requires constant support at least in both houses of Congress and better, when possible, from the White House as well.
There's a real possibility that if budgets grow slim and contracts dry up, idled companies will go under or turn to more lucrative activities. Scientists and tech wizards with the knowhow to make ever more deadly — and costly — weapons might turn their talents to making alternative-fuel vehicles, affordable bionic replacement body parts and coffeemakers that never need deliming, or do that obnoxious job on the fly, automatically.
Republicans need an ogoing, open-ended external threat for the U.S. to contend with — a signature issue of theirs. Life wasn't the same without the Cold War. That's why today we're not just trying to track down a bunch of Islamic psychopaths and sociopaths so we can kill or jail them. No, we're in a global conflcit with terrorists and rogue nations rabidly seeking nuclear weapons to use not as a deterrent against U.S. aggression, but as a means of attacking the U.S.
Well, whatcha know? Suddenly, just when things were looking shaky, along comes a replacement for the Cold War — one made to order for Republicans and their ever faithful campaign donors and voters in the MIC!
Is this a small world, or what?
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