A mistake we must not repeat
Given my readership, this will doubtless be the least popular entry this blog has ever featured. But this is something which I think needs saying- perhaps most of all to the kind of people who read this blog.
This afternoon I watched the 2001 remake of Brian's Song, the story of the friendship between Chicago Bears players Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo.
These men were my heroes. I well remember the day Brian Piccolo died. I knew he had cancer, but the news still shocked me. As a lifelong Bears fan, I'd always admired his ability to get an amazing amount accomplished with considerably less size, speed, and raw talent than one would expect to be required.
I learned of his death when I happened to see a newspaper headline while getting off a bus to take my pre-induction physical. It was 1970, the height of the Vietnam War.
Fortunately, I failed. It turned out I had high blood pressure. General Hershey didn't give up easily, but essentially the result of that exam meant that I wouldn't have to go to Vietnam. If I'd been drafted, I would have gone. But I was glad not to have to face that moment. I was convinced that the war in Vietnam was a mistake. I remain convinced of that to this day.
The thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon is obviously a traumatic event for Americans, especially those of my generation. Sadly, it has also become the occasion for the writing and utterance of a great deal of nonsense. Thomas Lipscomb's article in The New York Post is a case in point.
It is certainly true that the Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the Viet Cong. But it was also a propaganda disaster for the United States- and not only because it was so portrayed by the media. The very fact that the Viet Cong were able to mount such an offensive gave the lie to the entire Johnson Administration argument that the Viet Cong had already been virtually destroyed, and that the war was all but won.
But in any case, the real issue is illuminated by a conversation David Halberstam relates between National Security Advisor Eugene Rostow and an NSC staffer after a military briefing. Rostow had noticed that the young man was rather glum, despite the relentlessly upbeat nature of the briefing. What was wrong?
"Well, Dr. Rostow," the young man explained, "I've been thinking. No matter how thoroughly we defeat the other side on the battlefield, some day we're going to have to go home- and they're still going to be there."
Rostow is said to have sat there for a moment with a blank look on his face, replied, "That's an interesting point-" and then changed the subject.
It wasn't just an "interesting point," though. It was the main point.
Lipscomb's article tries by some bad logic to shore up the weakest part of the case for the war in Vietnam. He points out that neither the United States nor South Vietnam were signatories to the 1954 Geneva Accords, which drew a line between provisional, temporary entities called North Vietnam and South Vietnam, pending a referendum on reunification in 1956.
It was never held- because the United States and South Vietnam both knew that if it had been, Ho Chi Minh would have won.
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy both admitted as much. But contrary to Lipscomb's argument, the fact that the North was more populous than the South didn't mean that the election was "rigged;" it merely meant that the other side was likely to win. True, we were not a signatory to the Geneva Accords. But neither had anyone appointed us arbiters of the matter. And South Vietnam wasn't even a country!
It's true that there had been times, historically, when Vietnam had been split into three parts. But the division into North and South Vietnam had no historical or ethnic basis- and, unless the Vietnamese had themselves so voted in the canceled 1956 election, had never been intended as the creation of two separate countries to begin with!
Yes, Mr. Lipscomb. The war in Vietnam was indeed a civil war between Vietnamese. The division of the country into North and South Vietnam was imposed upon it by the American decision to support the client state we created in the South in refusing to permit the plebiscite envisioned by the Geneva Accords. This was not the invasion of a country called South Vietnam by a country called North Vietnam. It was a war within a single Vietnamese nation whose division was artificial and contrived. Moreover, the "invasion" model ignores the fact that the military burden on the other side was borne overwhelmingly by the Viet Cong- who themselves were South Vietnamese!
But Lipscomb and the other revisionists are right about one thing: we did win the war militarily. The problem was that the junior NSC staffer who had that conversation with Gene Rostow was right, too. In the last analysis, despite 57,000 American deaths and massive military and economic support, the people of South Vietnam as a whole simply didn't want their independence from the North enough to fight for it.
And that is the bottom line.
I do not doubt our noble intentions in the slightest. Nor do I question that the people of South Vietnam would be far better off today had the outcome of the war been different. I certainly don't question that some South Vietnamese paid a heavy price for the cause, and would have been willing to pay a heavier one still. But you just can't win a counterinsurgency war in which the majority of the population either doesn't care all that much about the outcome, or actively sides with the opposition. It really doesn't matter, in the long run, how successful you are militarily!
If we'd allowed that vote in 1956, the outcome would have been the same. But a great many dead contemporaries of mine would still be alive.
The Vietnam War was a geopolitical blunder. Our military success doesn't change the fact that war, as someone once said, is merely diplomacy carried on by other means. It was a war we won on the battlefield, but could not have won politically without an enthusiasm for the cause on the part of the people of South Vietnam they just didn't have.
If there's a lesson to be learned from Vietnam, it's that you pick your fights. You commit troops only when there is good reason to believe that a military victory can be made to stick politically. This was never in the cards in Vietnam. And because it was never in the cards, however painful it might be for us to admit this, we shouldn't have gone to war there.
I wish it had been. But wishing doesn't make it so- and the thing that bothers me about all the revisionist history been written in blogs and newspaper columns this week is that if we don't learn that lesson, we may make the same mistake again.
And we simply cannot let that happen.
Did the war "stablize" Southeast Asia, as Lipscomb claims? I don't know. But if it did, I can't help but think even so that Southeast Asia might have been stablized at a lesser price with a little less hubris and a little more savvy.
This afternoon I watched the 2001 remake of Brian's Song, the story of the friendship between Chicago Bears players Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo.
These men were my heroes. I well remember the day Brian Piccolo died. I knew he had cancer, but the news still shocked me. As a lifelong Bears fan, I'd always admired his ability to get an amazing amount accomplished with considerably less size, speed, and raw talent than one would expect to be required.
I learned of his death when I happened to see a newspaper headline while getting off a bus to take my pre-induction physical. It was 1970, the height of the Vietnam War.
Fortunately, I failed. It turned out I had high blood pressure. General Hershey didn't give up easily, but essentially the result of that exam meant that I wouldn't have to go to Vietnam. If I'd been drafted, I would have gone. But I was glad not to have to face that moment. I was convinced that the war in Vietnam was a mistake. I remain convinced of that to this day.
The thirtieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon is obviously a traumatic event for Americans, especially those of my generation. Sadly, it has also become the occasion for the writing and utterance of a great deal of nonsense. Thomas Lipscomb's article in The New York Post is a case in point.
It is certainly true that the Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the Viet Cong. But it was also a propaganda disaster for the United States- and not only because it was so portrayed by the media. The very fact that the Viet Cong were able to mount such an offensive gave the lie to the entire Johnson Administration argument that the Viet Cong had already been virtually destroyed, and that the war was all but won.
But in any case, the real issue is illuminated by a conversation David Halberstam relates between National Security Advisor Eugene Rostow and an NSC staffer after a military briefing. Rostow had noticed that the young man was rather glum, despite the relentlessly upbeat nature of the briefing. What was wrong?
"Well, Dr. Rostow," the young man explained, "I've been thinking. No matter how thoroughly we defeat the other side on the battlefield, some day we're going to have to go home- and they're still going to be there."
Rostow is said to have sat there for a moment with a blank look on his face, replied, "That's an interesting point-" and then changed the subject.
It wasn't just an "interesting point," though. It was the main point.
Lipscomb's article tries by some bad logic to shore up the weakest part of the case for the war in Vietnam. He points out that neither the United States nor South Vietnam were signatories to the 1954 Geneva Accords, which drew a line between provisional, temporary entities called North Vietnam and South Vietnam, pending a referendum on reunification in 1956.
It was never held- because the United States and South Vietnam both knew that if it had been, Ho Chi Minh would have won.
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy both admitted as much. But contrary to Lipscomb's argument, the fact that the North was more populous than the South didn't mean that the election was "rigged;" it merely meant that the other side was likely to win. True, we were not a signatory to the Geneva Accords. But neither had anyone appointed us arbiters of the matter. And South Vietnam wasn't even a country!
It's true that there had been times, historically, when Vietnam had been split into three parts. But the division into North and South Vietnam had no historical or ethnic basis- and, unless the Vietnamese had themselves so voted in the canceled 1956 election, had never been intended as the creation of two separate countries to begin with!
Yes, Mr. Lipscomb. The war in Vietnam was indeed a civil war between Vietnamese. The division of the country into North and South Vietnam was imposed upon it by the American decision to support the client state we created in the South in refusing to permit the plebiscite envisioned by the Geneva Accords. This was not the invasion of a country called South Vietnam by a country called North Vietnam. It was a war within a single Vietnamese nation whose division was artificial and contrived. Moreover, the "invasion" model ignores the fact that the military burden on the other side was borne overwhelmingly by the Viet Cong- who themselves were South Vietnamese!
But Lipscomb and the other revisionists are right about one thing: we did win the war militarily. The problem was that the junior NSC staffer who had that conversation with Gene Rostow was right, too. In the last analysis, despite 57,000 American deaths and massive military and economic support, the people of South Vietnam as a whole simply didn't want their independence from the North enough to fight for it.
And that is the bottom line.
I do not doubt our noble intentions in the slightest. Nor do I question that the people of South Vietnam would be far better off today had the outcome of the war been different. I certainly don't question that some South Vietnamese paid a heavy price for the cause, and would have been willing to pay a heavier one still. But you just can't win a counterinsurgency war in which the majority of the population either doesn't care all that much about the outcome, or actively sides with the opposition. It really doesn't matter, in the long run, how successful you are militarily!
If we'd allowed that vote in 1956, the outcome would have been the same. But a great many dead contemporaries of mine would still be alive.
The Vietnam War was a geopolitical blunder. Our military success doesn't change the fact that war, as someone once said, is merely diplomacy carried on by other means. It was a war we won on the battlefield, but could not have won politically without an enthusiasm for the cause on the part of the people of South Vietnam they just didn't have.
If there's a lesson to be learned from Vietnam, it's that you pick your fights. You commit troops only when there is good reason to believe that a military victory can be made to stick politically. This was never in the cards in Vietnam. And because it was never in the cards, however painful it might be for us to admit this, we shouldn't have gone to war there.
I wish it had been. But wishing doesn't make it so- and the thing that bothers me about all the revisionist history been written in blogs and newspaper columns this week is that if we don't learn that lesson, we may make the same mistake again.
And we simply cannot let that happen.
Did the war "stablize" Southeast Asia, as Lipscomb claims? I don't know. But if it did, I can't help but think even so that Southeast Asia might have been stablized at a lesser price with a little less hubris and a little more savvy.
Comments
You don't have an election if the one side is free to vote, and the other is forced to vote. I'm sure the plebicite envisioned by the Geneva Accord did not intend the force servitude of the South because of the despotic rule of the North.
In addition, you seem to assume that the people of North Vietnam would have prefered "freedom and liberty" to what they had. That assumption is very naive; like many foreign policy conservatives (including, mayhap, some currently in office) you overestimate the degree to which the things we as Americans hold dear necessarily are even comprehensible, much less desirable, to those of other cultures. And since the people of South Vietnam were unwilling, at the end of the day, to fight for independence from the North, how can you be so sure that even they would have voted for it? Nationalism, after a long period of French colonialism, would seem to me to have had a far greater attratction than the values of an alien culture to which they were in no position to relate.
Finally, bear in mind that if the issue had been whether Vietnam- or any part of it- were going to be ruled by something like the government in Hanoi or even the best of the series of governments in Saigon, freedom and liberty would not have had a horse in the race, anyway.
I've supported the current war from the outset. Still do. But I'm very much afraid that we are repeating many of the false assumptions which got us into trouble in Vietnam- yours included- and that the Middle East and the whole world are going to pay for it if the current surge doesn't work.
. And you seem to repeat the chronic American mistake of assuming that all people all over the world see the advantages (which, of course, I agree are substantial)