“Burying the Ghosts of Vietnam”

“Burying the Ghosts of Vietnam”

By Bob Cassidy, Small Wars Journal Blog.

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The recent spate of posts and editorial pieces that have amplified the emerging debate between counterinsurgency advocates and big conventional war advocates, coupled with Phillip Carter’s 12 May Washington Post Online post, “Vietnam Ghosts,” compelled me to post these links (below) to three studies that were published between 1970 and 1980. These studies testified to why the U.S. Government (USG) and the U.S. military failed to achieve their objectives in Vietnam. Also, because the USG and the U.S. military failed to heed, absorb, and institutionalize the lessons derived in these analyses during the two decades following the last study (BDM), the USG was initially ill prepared to counter the insurgencies it confronted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, the 28 November 2005 Department of Defense Directive (DODD) 3000.05, Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations DODD 3000.05, the extant work by USSOCOM and the USMC on the re-emerging notion of irregular warfare (IW JOC), and the latest version (February 2008) of the U.S. Army’s capstone manual, FM 3-0, Operations, together prescribe an emphasis on irregular warfare, stability operations, and counterinsurgency, equal to that of regular, conventional, war. These documents help provide the requisite philosophical and doctrinal balance for a military that must be able to conduct both counterinsurgency and conventional big wars...

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From the BDM report. These seemed worth discussing.

LESSON

[B]In the absence of a leadership that can command broad popular support, a Western-style democracy is likely to be inappropriate /B] for an emerging agrarian-based society, especially when that society is vulnerable to heavy internal and external pressures; if the major ally of such a country insists on this type of political structure as an inflexible requirement for support, the chances for success decrease sharply.


LESSON

An agrarian-based economy is labor intensive, relatively inflexible, and is acutely sensitive not only to the hazards of nature but also to the demands of large scale warfare; further it is quite vulnerable, to the Mao-Ho concept of "People's War"; a large, protracted,
US presence most likely will contort and eventually "cripple such an economy and will force it to become almost totally dependent on massive and sustained US support

LESSON

The political role of the Armed Forces of a nation is critical; military forces which form the political base of a regime are often susceptible to politicization "whereby the leaders are chosen, promoted, and favored for political loyalty rather than professional skill.
There is a tendency when advising or assisting an emerging nation to organize, equip and train them in one's own image, a pattern which is difficult to alter or reverse if the guiding premises prove to be faulty during a conflict.

This sums up about 40 pages:

OVERALL LESSON -FOR VOLUME TWO

The United States is likely to do itself and its ally more harm than good if it commits its power and prestige to the preservation of a weak and struggling nation without first understanding and interpreting correctly the client state's history, culture, economy,
environment, political dynamics, and potential enemies - both external and especially internal; the United States must understand its own strengths and weaknesses and evaluate their likely impact on a fragile, underdeveloped society and its institutions. This generality, however, does not provide policy makers with a built-in rationale for inaction or vacillation when vital issues or interests are at stake.

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

...This generality, however, does not provide policy makers with a built-in rationale for inaction or vacillation when vital issues or interests are at stake.

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that...

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The United States is likely to do itself and its ally more harm than good if it commits its power and prestige to the preservation of a weak and struggling nation without first understanding and interpreting correctly the client state's history, culture, economy,

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I'd concur - where possible as a friend of mine recently remarked - "you don't want to wake up and find yourself embracing a corpse."

I think SWC member Steve Metz also treats this subject well his SSI publication "Rethinking Insurgency" where he considers the real strategic danger may not be in the passing of one government for another, but in the danger of protracted conflict and the conditions it creates. A better understanding of the environment and potential outcomes of injecting energy into it may convince you that the best current action, might be inaction, at least with regard to the use of military force to achieve/force a hasty desired political outcome.

Best, Rob

have to prove much. The US generally avoids fights for the same reason.

Sometimes little guys try to provoke big guys out of either a sense of outrage and / or jealousy or for other, hidden reasons. Usually the big guy ignores the provocations. So too has the US on many occasions ignored many provocations.

Sometimes the little guys in their pestering go a step too far and get a reaction far stronger than they expected and even if the outcome is not totally predictable for either the little guy or the big one. On many occasions, it has been presumed the US would do nothing. Bad idea, cause of most of our wars over the years; war is always bad for everyone but sometimes restraint is not the answer and 'strategic' concerns are really a small part of the equation in such cases. Perhaps they should always be -- but they are not.

The plus is that each chastened little guy is a bit wiser. Just as the US rarely has to visit twice... :cool:

I see this thread has been idle for a while, but I was reading one of the linked documents (The Unchangeable War) and was struck by an excerpt on page 4:

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GEN Abrams ... has issued directives that have been interpreted as constraints upon our firepower...

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Shades of the ISAF Rules of Engagement blowback!

The other thing I found a prescient statement is the next to last sentence:

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And there is the danger that as we “Vietnamize” the war, our institutional rigidity will cause us to impose our doctrine, our organization, and our technology on the Vietnamese armed forces to the point that they might be rendered incapable of successfully continuing the war after our withdrawal.

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My high school in Singapore had a program where they sent groups of us to help out at a small refugee compound for Viet Namese boat people. When I say "help", usually we just wandered around looking confused while they laughed at us, or maybe with us, I'm not sure. The one blonde guy lost almost all the hair on his forearms from little kids plucking it off.

We did play a lot of soccer with them. They had a simple but effective style where five kids would charge straight into you with their heads down, while another kid would come up behind and scoot off with the ball. It was pretty funny.

Once during the monsoon, a large group of kids and adults were gathered in one of the quonset type sheds while the rain pelted down outside. One of the guys with us had brought his el cheapo guitar with him which he could barely play "Smoke On The Water" on. This diminutive Viet Namese chap with thick spectacles politely asked to play it. He began whipping out all these Classical pieces and then broke into a mournful sounding Viet Namese folk song. It was quite moving.

I guess they were just happy to be alive and headed somewhere better, but if they were bitter about their fate they certainly hid it well.